The 333Mhz Debate

[wraggster]

Just lately we have had some great emulators released at 333mhz or be able to run at 333MHZ and there seems to be a lot of chat about if it will cause damage etc, now before the PSP was released i remember Sony saying that they are encouraging developers to basically program onthe PSP better to conserver battery life which could be translated as saying dont use the full power of the PSP because this does drain battery power, also cast your mind back to all the storys of battery life when the PSP was released and you can understand Sonys point.

But now with the release of External Battery adapters that give up to 3 times the power and the rumoured new battery thats also much more powerful and most likely to be released when Grand Theft Auto is, it seems that newer games will use the full power anyway.

So is runnning at 33mhz good or bad, or is it just down to concerns of the battery being drained much quicker?

thoughts anyone

[J@F]

I think the hackers should be underclocking the PSP. You would think PSP could emulate the PS1 @166Mhz or less. Emulating things like a GB/GBC, and probably everthing up to SNES, should be something PSP can do with minimal resources.

[shadowprophet]

I agree J@F, that source coders should be working on getting the psp to work better useing less power.
I had my doubts that i would ever see a perfect working emu on th e psp, but then i saw doom.
I was very impressed and now have no doubts in my mind.
The day will come when perfect emulation will happen for everything from gb to I truely believe ps1 and even n64,and everything between them on the psp.
But coders need to be focusing on dedicateing cpu useage in other needed directions.
I mean really I could understand choppy preformance years ago playing snex9x on a 333 pc,but also windows and other apps where loaded in the bg.

Truely we have only just opened pandoras box, this is only the beginning.

I cant wait to see what kind of awsome stuff we will be playing six months from now

[matthiti]

Hmmm...a couple of things. First, Doom is a direct port, not an emulation which is why it runs so very well! Second, like any new hardware, it takes time to learn how to utilize the PSP's hardware and programming language. Its truly amazing how quickly programmers have gotten aquainted with the PSP in this respect. As for now, emulators still have to be run at higher speeds to get performance until programmers have adequate proficancy with the hardware.

And just remember, Sony would not have given it a 333 mHz processor if it was only to be run at 244 for the rest of its life. Running your PSP at 333 mHz (its full speed), at the very worst, will only result in quicker battery consumption.

[consoul]

I'm certain there's no harm in it, and I welcome the use of it for emulation.

I take a special interest in this subject, as I wrote an article that woke up the mainstream media to the fact that PSP was underclocked in the first place (Unlocking PSP's Future). Kotaku, GamesRadarUK, ComputerAndVideogames.com, Gizmodo, BluesNews etc. all linked to my article. Gamespot even Rumour Controlled it and agreed that it wasn't bogus. Why no-one is the gaming media had reported it earlier is still beyond me - perhaps Sony wanted to keep it quiet until they were ready to take the next step.

So I'm very pleased that the PSP dev community has unlocked PSP's full clockspeed. I for one am using the emulators at 333MHz whenever necessary and I have no fear of it causing any damage. PSP was built for it.

[ganon]

best thing wait for the cpu to be unlocked officially

[WSOUNitePirate895]

that would mean an update and you know what updates mean for the emulation scene... more AES security cracking (if that is what its called) anyway the point is to have sony "officialy unlock" the 333mzh, we are all going to have to update. Which leads to reason why people are going to be buying 2 psp's. It's rumoured that by the time GTA comes to PSP you will need thier latest update to run those new games, my guess the CPU will be jumped up from it 222mhz underclocking. We need to start cracking 1.5+ before sony even get a chance at releasing it or we will never be able to play the newer psp titles.

[consoul]

The firmware won't need to be updated to run at 333Mhz. There's no restriction in the firmware on the clockspeed. Sony are enforcing the clockspeed cap at the development level. No commercial games can run on PSP at higher than 222Mhz because Sony's development libraries are capped at that speed. Any that used hacked libararies to get around this would be rejected at the TRC stage.
Commercial games that run at 333MHz will only start to appear after Sony send owners of the official devkits updated libraries. The firmware allows 333MHz right now (which is why emulators can utilize it).

Of course Sony will unneccessarily force upgrades upon us with all commercial games from here on in anyway.

[ditto]

consoul, nice to see my initial thoughts backed up in your blog. Very nice read. I too have been running my emus(those that support it) @ 333.. This all reminds me of the good ol Turbo button on my old puters, it was there for those old dos progs that couldnt handle the blazing speeds when it was initiated.

[Cross]

please tell me GRan Turismo is not going to update my PSP beyond 1.50... or I am not buying it lol.