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硕士原创英语论文 Special architectures: PlayStation 2 EE6442 assignment 3 Fan Zhang University of Limerick MEng. Computer and Communication Systems ID: 0526401 Abstract: I am a video game fan, but not an addict. Since this topic attracted me a lot, I decided to choose this one as my topic for the third assignment of Processor Architecture Module. I started to play video games since I was five. While I was playing games, I found the game console itself just like a mystery, how could they react our actions to the controller then reflects so amazing pictures on TV? Although I have read a lot about it in game magazines, I admit that I didn’t try to find the answer until I found this topic. This is a great chance for me to answer the question myself. At the same time, I want to present you this paper, which should be fun. This paper concerns the differences of architecture between PC and PlayStation 2. Since the purposes of PC and PlayStation 2 are different (or maybe I should say the purposes of PC include that of PlayStation 2), the different objectives decide the different design orientation. I think PlayStation 2 is a good game console for the comparison. First, a lot of documentations about PlayStation 2’s Emotion Engine can be found in the Internet. Second, as far as I know, PlayStation 2’s design has straightforward purposes: 3D games and multimedia, which makes the game console is seemed to be born for these two reasons. Contrasts to PlayStation, current PCs do very well on these two aspects, but the cost is the unstoppable upgrade of hardware. PlayStation 2 is a product born 5 years ago. Today tens of millions of people are still enjoy PlayStation games at home. 5-year-old PCs have been washed out already. Keywords: PC, processor, video card, system controller, bus, Emotion Engine, Vector Unit, Graphics Synthesize. 1. INTRODUCTION 1.1 The evolution of game performance The computer technology has achieved rapid evolution this year. From Figure 1.1 to Figure 1.5 you can see, in almost twenty years, how great changes of game performance are, both PC and game consoles. Figure 1.1: Final Fantasy I (FC) 1987 by SQUARE Figure 1.2: Final Fant本论文由英语论文网 www.51lunwen.org整理提供
asy XII (PlayStation 2) 2006 by SQUARE ENIX Figure 1.3: Prince of Persia (PC) 1989 by Broderbund Figure 1.4 Prince of Persia: The Two Thrones (PC) 2006 by Ubisoft The screenshots above are the evidences of technique developments. In these twenty years, computers are almost 10 times faster than in the 1980’s. The cost of buying a computer is decreasing simultaneously. However, the development orientations of both PC and game consoles didn’t change much during these 20 years. Here I want to say game consoles and PC are different, although they both can be classified to ‘computer’ class, although PC includes all game consoles’ functions (but the software are not compatible each other). The differences include many areas, the architecture, the media, the software producing and selling model, and the customers. 1.2 Why they are different? I would rather to say it is because of the distinct purposes. Of course PC can play games, can do anything that game consoles do, and in the present, PlayStation 2, the most famous game console in the world, can connect to Internet, can print paper, even can run complete Linux operating system, but PC is general purpose, this means PC should care too much things, and be good at almost everything. For instance, PC should be good at text processing, games, p