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[GAF machine]

When the PS5/XSX OT tech thread was still around, I saw some there express a hope that SIE would make PS1, 2, 3 games available on PS Now for download to the existing PS5. Unfortunately there are two issues that will prevent this as I see it:

1) At the start of PS4's gen, Masayasu Ito (SVP of hardware engineering/operations) stated: "Realistically, to support backwards compatibility with PS3, the CELL Broadband Engine would have needed to been part of the new console. Currently, it’s not possible to simulate this via software." Perfectly emulating CELL's finicky 3.2 GHz architecture with a Jaguar CPU clocked at 1.6 GHz was always a non-starter. Even with CELL documentation the RPCS3 team used, emulation on robust CPUs clocked much higher than PS5's Zen 2 still have problems. Comments by RPCS3 team members kd-11 and Nekotekina have convinced me that it's going to take more than a 3.5 Ghz Zen 2 or 2.23 GHz Tempest Engine to muscle perfect 1:1 emulation pass the architectural and ISA disparities between Zen 2 and CELL. Nekotekina's characterization of the SPE's MFC in particular kills any notion I had about playing SPU-heavy PS3 games on PS5 locally without any crashes, glitches, weird visual hiccups.

2) SIEA rep. John Koller made it clear that PS Now "is not the answer to the backwards compatibility". So if PS5's Tempest Engine and PS Now aren't the answers, what is?... There stands a good chance that a compatibility adaptor that never released for PS3 may be the answer. The need to be "cost-effective" drove the adaptor's invention, which was the same motivation that drove SIE to be mindful of how much flash memory it included in PS5. This is evidenced in entries from the adaptor's patent application and Cerny's own words:

[0007]
Many of the users of game devices available on the market with a new-generation graphic processor or multiprocessor expect downward compatibility capable of running game titles for an old model as well as game titles for a new model. New models may be provided with downward compatibility by having at least part of the old-generation processor system installed. This will, however, cause a disadvantage of increasing the product cost. Users who do not use game titles for an old model do not need downward compatibility functions and do not want to be forced to buy expensive products.

[0075]
According to the embodiment, users will enjoy the benefit of cost efficiency because only those users wishing to use a game title for an old model need purchase the compatibility adapter 200 and connect to the new-generation game device 300 via the network.

"The key question for us was is that enough it's tempting to add more but flash certainly doesn't come cheap and we have a responsibility to our gaming audience to be cost effective with regards to what we put in the console." -- Mark Cerny

Though the patent entries point to cost as the primary driver for the adaptor's invention, backwards compatibility usage was a close second. The issue of usage gets at an observation Ryan made some years ago: “When we’ve dabbled with backwards compatibility, I can say it is one of those features that is much requested, but not actually used much,” -- Jim Ryan.

I may be out on a limb here but IMO, difficulties emulating the particulars of CELL's architecture accurately, compounded by SIE's policy of being cost-effective above all else when building consoles, combined with Ryan's view that backwards compatibility is an often requested but seldom used feature, assures that PS5 owners will have to fork over some cash for a compatibility adaptor (or maybe a PS5 with compatibility hardware in-built) in the near future.

Getting back to the patent, it mentions an ASIC onboard the adaptor that does encryption, decryption and networking. Fortunately for SIE, the company wouldn't have to invest in an ASIC since CELL swallows them whole. I'd like to think that savings here would be passed along to purchasers as ASIC workloads like encryption, decryption, network processing, etc. can be accelerated on SPEs. SIE would only need to bump up the PPE/SPE counts on a new CELL variant to ensure that performance doesn't tank when processing those workloads in parallel with running games. The 4 PPE + 32 SPE Quad CELL IBM and Sony had plans for would be a good fit. Other interesting details in the patent also mention using the new-gen console to enhance the visuals of old-gen games, but the details I find most interesting are in the following patent entries:

[0048]
Also built in is a DVD decoder emulator 226, which emulates the DVD decoder 110 of the old-generation game device 100 of FIG. 1 by software.

[0049]
The DVD decoder emulator 226 demodulates the reproduced signal that the new-generation game device 300 reads from the disk 302.

[0051]
Therefore, it is realistic to acquire the reproduced signal that the DVD decoder of the new-generation game device 300 reads from the disk 302 before demodulating the signal and to transmit it to the compatibility adapter 200 via a network. The DVD decoder emulator 226 is built in the compatibility adapter 200 so that the compatibility adapter 200 is configured to demodulate the reproduced signal transmitted from the new-generation game device 300.

Notice that the "new-generation game device" reads a legacy disc then sends a signal containing the information to the compatibility adaptor that uses a software-based emulator to demodulate the signal (i.e. extract the information from the signal) in order to emulate the optical disc drive of the "old generation game device". I think this method answers my question as to why SIE gave PS5's optical drive a CLV mode in addition to a CAV mode (as I posted at the link, all PS1 discs and some PS2 discs spin in CLV mode, some PS2 discs spin in CAV mode and PS3 discs switch between CLV and CAV on the fly).

All things considered, it seems to me like SIE will respond to the chorus of calls demanding backwards compatibility on PS5 by offering a PS3 compatibility adaptor. If so, he's sure to trigger the wraith of and give fodder to the usual suspects. But personally, if it means I get to download PS1, 2, 3 games from PS Now, play pre-owned PS1, 2, 3 digital titles after transfer from PS3 to PS5 and play PS1, 2, 3 game discs without a hitch (possibly with visual upgrades), then I'd be more than happy to spend $100 or so for it. What say you?

 

[Bojanglez]

I'm still convinced something is going on. I remember at launch Killzone 2 was listed on PS5s store as a PS3 game with a buy now price of £7.99. I assumed this would be them allowing people to buy access to cloud versions, but who knows.

If there is a breakout box I'd buy one, I still occasionally hook up my PS3 to play certain things and this would be easier.

 

[ANIMAL1975]

Great reading mate. Answering your question i would prefer a more expensive PS5 model with this adapter/decoder built in. That would be the right move _ no shitty peripherals all the way.

 

[GAF machine]

Great reading mate. Answering your question i would prefer a more expensive PS5 model with this adapter/decoder built in. That would be the right move _ no shitty peripherals all the way.

I'm with you. I'd much prefer that model too, and it would definately be a good move for SIE to offer it. Fingers crossed that SIE has it on the drawing board, and it's out in the next two years.

 

[T-Cake]

The only problem that wouldn't sit still with me is if the PS3 games have to run exactly the same as they did back then. I would want my Resistance/Killzone PS3 games running at least 4K30.

 

[GAF machine]

The only problem that wouldn't sit still with me is if the PS3 games have to run exactly the same as they did back then. I would want my Resistance/Killzone PS3 games running at least 4K30.

I was being conservative when I used "Quad CELL" as an example, and suggested a $100 price tag for the adapter. Cost is first and foremost for SIE now, and the vast majority of consumers too for that matter. We can have 4K30 (or higher) but it's going to cost us more than a C-note.

If Sony/SIE thinks we'd be willing to pay, they have a CELL with 64 SPEs and Toshiba's SPE-specific Super Resolution algorithms which enhance/upscale frames to sell us. Even though SIE has a new policy of being cost-effective above all else, there's still a good chance the more expensive version will be offered. Personally I hope that happens.

If not then we're left with the less expensive version and possibly less attractive alternative of having the compatibility adapter render frames out to PS5 for Oberon to give the 4K treatment before displaying them. The patent entry below says this method isn't optimal because it introduces a time delay that adversely impacts FPS. But to offer a small glimmer of hope, this patent is for a PS2-based adapter that sends rendered frames to a PS3 console. It's not entirely clear to me that the same sub-optimal performance would be the case for a PS3-based adapter that sends rendered frames to a PS5 console:

[0072]
A surplus computing power is created in the new-generation game device 300 by leaving the compatibility process to the compatibility adapter 200. The normal upconverting process is performed using the surplus computing power. However, in order to reduce the delay due to the compatibility process as small as possible, the new-generation game device 300 may output the non-upconverted data for rendered frames, omitting the upconverting process usually performed. An upconverting process is a process whereby the quality of the output image data is improved, the frame rate and/or the spatial resolution is increased in order to adapt to the resolution of the display. An upconverting process increases the time before the image is output. When it takes time for the new-generation game device 300 to process the data received from the compatibility adapter 200, it will become difficult for the new-generation game device 300 to receive the result of arithmetic processing from the compatibility adapter 200 within one frame and to output to the display. By omitting an upconverting process, the arithmetic processing result can be received within one frame and output to the display.

 

[ManaByte]

I'll make this simpler for you.

IBM is no longer making the Cell processor the PS3 used and what Sony uses in the PS Now server blades. Eventually that hardware will die. It's a fact.

Sony either needs to come up with a perfect PS3 emulator, or the PS3 side of PS Now and the revenue that provides Sony will go away.

 

[GAF machine]

I'll make this simpler for you.

IBM is no longer making the Cell processor the PS3 used and what Sony uses in the PS Now server blades. Eventually that hardware will die. It's a fact.

Sony either needs to come up with a perfect PS3 emulator, or the PS3 side of PS Now and the revenue that provides Sony will go away.

I'll make it even simpler. Sony has its own fabs, it doesn't need IBM to supply chips for a compatibility adapter that a majority of PS5's install base isn't going to buy. Yeah, the PS3-based servers will eventually die and that's all the more reason for SIE to build a hardware solution, rather than spend God knows how long racking its collective brains trying to perfectly emulate CELL.

 

[TheThreadsThatBindUs]

This post is the second of three (the first can be read here, the third can be read here) that started off as a reply to a member in the now shuttered PS5/XSX tech thread. Since I couldn't post my reply before the closure, I decided to "thread" the reply and post it at a time of my choosing. Having said that...

Back when the tech thread was still open, K ksdixon expressed his hope that SIE would flood PS Now with PS1, 2, 3 games and make them all available for download as a means to solve PS5's backwards compatibility problem. Unfortunately there are two issues hindering this as I see them:

1) At the start of PS4's gen, Masayasu Ito (SVP of hardware engineering/operations who had a hand in making PS3) stated:



I doubt his view has changed. Perfectly emulating CELL's finicky 3.2 GHz architecture with a Jaguar CPU clocked at 1.6 GHz was always a non-starter. Even with documentation, emulation on robust CPUs clocked much higher than PS5's Zen 2 still leave much to be desired. Comments by kd-11 and Nekotekina (RPCS3 team members) have convinced me that it's going to take more than a 3.5 Ghz Zen 2 or 2.23 GHz Tempest Engine to muscle perfect emulation pass CELL's architectural and ISA disparities. What Nekotekina said about the behavior of CELL's MFC in particular kills any idea I had about downloading SPU-heavy PS3 games from PS Now and playing them without any crashes, glitches, weird visual hiccups on PS5.

2) SIEA rep. John Kohler made it clear that PS Now isn't the solution to the backwards compatibility problem (timestamped).

So if PS5's chips and PS Now aren't the solutions, what is?... I've settled on a patented compatibility adaptor that never released for PS3 but stands an extremely high chance of releasing for PS5, in my estimation. I say extremely high because the primary motivation behind the adaptor's invention is the same as the primary motivation that drove SIE to be mindful of how much flash memory it included in PS5. In both cases, the company's actions were driven by a need to be cost-effective as can be seen in the bolded text of patent entries and quote below:



Though the patent entries point to cost as the primary driver for the adaptor's invention, backwards compatibility usage was a close second. The issue of usage gets at an observation Ryan made some years ago when he said:



I may be out on a limb here but in my opinion, difficulties emulating the particulars of CELL's architecture accurately, compounded by SIE's policy of being cost effective above all else when building consoles, combined with Ryan's view that backwards compatibility is an often requested but seldom used feature, assures that PS5 owners will have to fork over some cash for a compatibility adaptor in the near future... I can draw no other conclusion.

Getting back to the patent, it mentions an ASIC onboard the adaptor that does encryption, decryption and networking (i.e. the adaptor transfers data to the new-gen console via an ethernet cable). Fortunately for SIE, the company wouldn't have to invest in an ASIC since CELL swallows them whole. I'd like to think that savings here would be passed along to prospective buyers since ASIC workloads like encryption, decryption, network processing, etc. can be accelerated on SPEs. SIE would only need to bump up the PPE/SPE counts on a new CELL variant to ensure that performance doesn't tank when processing those workloads in parallel with game code.

The 4 PPE + 32 SPE Quad CELL IBM and Sony had plans for in '08 would do the trick. It would also have enough punch to run PS3 games in native 2K at locked peak fps. The software framework to pull it off already exists. Kaz likely had it stashed somewhere inside PD after it was demoed in '08 and in '12. SIE could give him a holler about it and package it up with a 28nm Quad CELL + butterflied RSX (as was done with PS4 pro's GPU) "APU", then call it a day.

Other interesting details in the patent also mention using the new-gen console to enhance the visuals of old-gen games, but the details I find most interesting are in the following patent entries:



Notice that the "new-generation game device" reads a legacy disc then sends a signal containing the information to the compatibility adaptor that uses a software-based emulator to demodulate the signal (i.e. extract the information from the signal) in order to emulate the optical disc drive of the "old generation game device", even though it's the new-gen console reading the disc.

I think this method answers my question as to why SIE gave PS5's optical drive a CLV mode in addition to a CAV mode (as I posted once before, all PS1 discs and some PS2 discs spin in CLV mode, some PS2 discs spin in CAV mode and PS3 discs switch between CLV and CAV on the fly).

All things considered, it looks to me like Ryan will respond to the chorus of calls demanding backwards compatibility on PS5 with a demand of his own: "Belt out a C-note and I don't mean singing"

If so, he's sure to trigger the wraith of and give fodder to the usual suspects. But personally if complying with the demand means I get to download PS3 games from PS Now, play pre-owned PS1, 2, 3 digital titles after transfer from PS3 to PS5 and play PS1, 2, 3 game discs without a hitch, then I'll be answering 'okay' to it and 'yes' to the question of whether to adapt(or) not.

What say any of you?

These are some interesting thoughts.

I'd buy one.

 

[ksdixon]

I still cant believe sony haven't done something more for BC yet.

You simply cant poo poo BC, Jim, when people have been wanting it back since ps3 v2, and XB is doing so well based on GP which id guess is propped-up mostly by BC.

 

[Captain Toad]

I still cant believe sony haven't done something more for BC yet.

You simply cant poo poo BC, Jim, when people have been wanting it back since ps3 v2, and XB is doing so well based on GP which id guess is propped-up mostly by BC.

GamePass is mostly propped up by Xbox One BC. Very few people are paying for the main purpose of playing 360 and original Xbox games.

PS5 already is fully BC with PS4.

Still, it is odd we don't have PS1 and PS2 libraries available on PS5.

 

[DCharlie]

my main issues with PS Now is , sorry, in comparison to GP has limited nextgen content and, because of the nature of the legacy platform, has PS3 via streaming where as Xbox has its legacy BC with a notable plus alpha.

I nearly soiled myself seeing how HL2 looks on Xbox BC.

Meanwhile there's a ton of games i love on PS3 that i now have to stream on the equivalent service.

Lack of PS1, PS2, etc - even by streaming is weird, and given how many PS1 titles i bought for PSP / PSV ? Sony have all the pieces but can't slot them together. Won't (?)

the fact that , albeit with Dev mode on Xbox i CAN play ps content is Sony once again failing to capitalise on their brand. And when people say "no one wants to play those old games" - i beg to differ. Sony could have pulled this all together and given long term invested sony fans a massive value add. Instead? Naaa....

 

[yurinka]

I think they already remastered or remade for PS4, or included in collections, most of the PS1/PS2/PS3 they thought had commercial potential. They could continue asking Bluepoint or similar to remaster/remake the remaining ones with potential like the MGS remake, remakes of GoW 1&2 or the first Uncharted, I think they will do that because there's business potential there.

I'd love to see PS1, PS2 and PS3 BC and even more if I can put there my original disks even if it's using an external Mega Drive-like compatibility adaptor, but I think they won't do it because I don't see business potential there. If they didin't release it for PS3 I don't see why they would release it now for PS5. People don't even know PS4 and PS5 has PS2 digital game because they don't care about them.

Sony said they plan to include PS5 games on PS Now. But since they usually put there old games, I think they'll wait until they have 'old' PS5 games to start putting them there in order to don't affect game sales with that. I think they may add some extra PS3 game on PS Now but I think they will continue focusing on putting there PS4 and in the future PS5 games plus making remakes/remasters of games with sales potential.

I'll make this simpler for you.

IBM is no longer making the Cell processor the PS3 used and what Sony uses in the PS Now server blades. Eventually that hardware will die. It's a fact.

Sony either needs to come up with a perfect PS3 emulator, or the PS3 side of PS Now and the revenue that provides Sony will go away.

It would be funny to see Sony buying PS3s in the 2nd hand market to be able to build PS3 server blades.

Now being serious, I assume Sony secured enough server blades stuff to run PS Now until there's a powerful enough tech in the market capable of properly emulating PS3.

But if it doesn't happen before Sony runs out of these server, I think Sony will just replace the PS3 games for their remastered or remade versions where available, and those without remake or remaster will simply be removed from PS Now. Looking at their amount of PS Now subscribers, seems that only a small amount of people cares today about streamed PS3 games, so I think that amount will be way smaller in 10 or 20 years from now. So people in Gaf would complain if they remove them in 10 or 20 years from now but in reality almost nobody will really miss them.

 

[ksdixon]

I think they already remastered or remade for PS4, or included in collections, most of the PS1/PS2/PS3 they thought had commercial potential. They could continue asking Bluepoint or similar to remaster/remake the remaining ones with potential like the MGS remake, remakes of GoW 1&2 or the first Uncharted, I think they will do that because there's business potential there.

I'd love to see PS1, PS2 and PS3 BC and even more if I can put there my original disks even if it's using an external Mega Drive-like compatibility adaptor, but I think they won't do it because I don't see business potential there. If they didin't release it for PS3 I don't see why they would release it now for PS5. People don't even know PS4 and PS5 has PS2 digital game because they don't care about them.

Sony said they plan to include PS5 games on PS Now. But since they usually put there old games, I think they'll wait until they have 'old' PS5 games to start putting them there in order to don't affect game sales with that. I think they may add some extra PS3 game on PS Now but I think they will continue focusing on putting there PS4 and in the future PS5 games plus making remakes/remasters of games with sales potential.


It would be funny to see Sony buying PS3s in the 2nd hand market to be able to build PS3 server blades.

Now being serious, I assume Sony secured enough server blades stuff to run PS Now until there's a powerful enough tech in the market capable of properly emulating PS3.

But if it doesn't happen before Sony runs out of these server, I think Sony will just replace the PS3 games for their remastered or remade versions where available, and those without remake or remaster will simply be removed from PS Now. Looking at their amount of PS Now subscribers, seems that only a small amount of people cares today about streamed PS3 games, so I think that amount will be way smaller in 10 or 20 years from now. So people in Gaf would complain if they remove them in 10 or 20 years from now but in reality almost nobody will really miss them.

Part of that is streaming sucks. Mk9 on psnow is the only way to play it on a modern machine, but lag makes it pretty unplayable (for me).

They need to make all games on it downloadable

 

[yurinka]

Part of that is streaming sucks. Mk9 on psnow is the only way to play it on a modern machine, but lag makes it pretty unplayable (for me).

They need to make all games on it downloadable

It would be awesome to have all games downloadble, but sadly it's impossible due to technical reasons.

 

[reksveks]

When is ps5 games coming to PS now?

 

[GAF machine]

GamePass is mostly propped up by Xbox One BC. Very few people are paying for the main purpose of playing 360 and original Xbox games.

PS5 already is fully BC with PS4.

Still, it is odd we don't have PS1 and PS2 libraries available on PS5.

I don't consider it odd. I take the lack of PS1, 2 libraries on PS5 to mean that SIE is looking at a holistic approach to backwards compatibility. So far, nothing has been learned of PS5 that would remove all doubt as to whether it alone can emulate ~99% of PS3's library (disc and digital).

I presume it was decided early on that PS5 wasn't going to be the device for PS1, 2, 3 backwards compatibility, so no effort was put into making PS5 compatible with PS1, 2's library of games.

 

[GAF machine]

my main issues with PS Now is , sorry, in comparison to GP has limited nextgen content and, because of the nature of the legacy platform, has PS3 via streaming where as Xbox has its legacy BC with a notable plus alpha.

I nearly soiled myself seeing how HL2 looks on Xbox BC.

Meanwhile there's a ton of games i love on PS3 that i now have to stream on the equivalent service.

Lack of PS1, PS2, etc - even by streaming is weird, and given how many PS1 titles i bought for PSP / PSV ? Sony have all the pieces but can't slot them together. Won't (?)

the fact that , albeit with Dev mode on Xbox i CAN play ps content is Sony once again failing to capitalise on their brand. And when people say "no one wants to play those old games" - i beg to differ. Sony could have pulled this all together and given long term invested sony fans a massive value add. Instead? Naaa....

Weird?... I don't see it that way. True, SIE has all the pieces but from my perspective it seems the company has decided to fit all the pieces (i.e. ~99% of all legacy discs, legacy digital purchases and every subscription download along with streaming) together first, before its reps start talking.

By the way, XBox has suspended its spotty piecemeal backwards compatibility program at ~4% of the original XBox's library and at ~27% of XBox 360's library citing technical and licensing issues, with no word as of yet when or if it'll resume.

I think SIE's priorty is to avoid such issues by way of an adapter. Resolution scaling, FPS boost, HDR, etc. are secondary concerns that can be addressed in whole or in part by the adapter.

 

[leo-j]

Put ps1 games on ps now. Put PSP games on ps now. Put Ps Vita games on ps now. Honestly they could literally put now on the app store and make millions, and have handheld playstations eberywhere. They were doing it with vita. It’s why I bought a 2nd gen vita to play ps now theough wifi anywhere. I played major ps3 games on a handheld and it was great (preview to what the switch does. ) and they dropped that concept. Bring it back to tablets and smartphones. They have 900 games.

 

[GAF machine]

When is ps5 games coming to PS now?

One or two years after they release on PS5.

 

[T-Cake]

The PS Now blades are going to need PS5 chips so hopefully not until the consoles are readily availble on store shelves globally.

 

[GAF machine]

I think they already remastered or remade for PS4, or included in collections, most of the PS1/PS2/PS3 they thought had commercial potential. They could continue asking Bluepoint or similar to remaster/remake the remaining ones with potential like the MGS remake, remakes of GoW 1&2 or the first Uncharted, I think they will do that because there's business potential there.

I'd love to see PS1, PS2 and PS3 BC and even more if I can put there my original disks even if it's using an external Mega Drive-like compatibility adaptor, but I think they won't do it because I don't see business potential there. If they didin't release it for PS3 I don't see why they would release it now for PS5. People don't even know PS4 and PS5 has PS2 digital game because they don't care about them.

Sony said they plan to include PS5 games on PS Now. But since they usually put there old games, I think they'll wait until they have 'old' PS5 games to start putting them there in order to don't affect game sales with that. I think they may add some extra PS3 game on PS Now but I think they will continue focusing on putting there PS4 and in the future PS5 games plus making remakes/remasters of games with sales potential.

I see plenty of business potential. The inability to download PS3 games from PS Now is a turn off for many. If SIE rectified this shortcoming with an adapter, PS Now subscriptions would see an increase. And if an option to buy featured PS1, 2, 3 titles from PS Now or the Store was given to subscribers/store-goers, the best of those titles would sell comfortably.

I'd wager there's an eye-catching number of gamers who would come to know about and care to explore PS1, 2, 3's library of titles if they knew SIE offered an adapter that immediately enables them to play virtually every disc and download associated with those three consoles in higher fidelity and/or at higher framerates.

IMO, there's potential for SIE to make a pretty penny off adapter sells and the content/service it would enable. Why it wasn't release for PS3, I can't say with certitude. Maybe leadership thought that offering a backwards compatibility adapter for what was still a relatively expensive PS3 during their campaign to rehab PlayStation's/PS3's battered image, would've been a setback to their efforts. So they decided it would be best to drop the adapter idea, laser focus on game creation and further reduce the PS3's initial $1060 production cost.

Whatever the reason though, PS5 is in a different place.

 

[GAF machine]

I'm still convinced something is going on. I remember at launch Killzone 2 was listed on PS5s store as a PS3 game with a buy now price of £7.99. I assumed this would be them allowing people to buy access to cloud versions, but who knows.

If there is a breakout box I'd buy one, I still occasionally hook up my PS3 to play certain things and this would be easier.

I remember your tweet about that, and the OP it sparked. I'm convinced something is going on too. Hopefully we'll get some much needed clarity tomorrow.