PS3 backward compatible with PS2 - eh no!

Lord Nikon

How disappointed I was to find out that my PS2 games would not work with my new console, without the patch. A patch that i had to go look for, but was easily excessible for people connected to the web with their PS3. Then when I do patch it to 1.6, it still doesn't play some of the games.

Black - won't work
Gran Turismo 4 - won't work, even though Sony themselves produced it.
Bully - won't work
Battlefield - won't work

I stopped there cause that's all I really play. GTA:SA works after the patch but the graphics are rubbish, and the slowdown is distracting and annoying.

I bought the console with Resistance : Fall of Man and Motorstorm, highly enjoyable games, but one can get bored of them as I did. i just want to play some of the old stuff too.

Rant over.

Slippin Jimmy

neuromancer wrote:

How disappointed I was to find out that my PS2 games would not work with my new console, without the patch. A patch that i had to go look for, but was easily excessible for people connected to the web with their PS3. Then when I do patch it to 1.6, it still doesn't play some of the games.

Black - won't work
Gran Turismo 4 - won't work, even though Sony themselves produced it.
Bully - won't work
Battlefield - won't work

I stopped there cause that's all I really play. GTA:SA works after the patch but the graphics are rubbish, and the slowdown is distracting and annoying.

I bought the console with Resistance : Fall of Man and Motorstorm, highly enjoyable games, but one can get bored of them as I did. i just want to play some of the old stuff too.

Rant over.

I have to say also, that it is a bit of a disapointment. But I think it is time to move on into the next gen of gaming and leave the ole one behind. I know that we all spent our cash buying games for the PS2, but I think we should just move on. It is a pity though.

trixter

neuromancer wrote:

How disappointed I was to find out that my PS2 games would not work with my new console, without the patch. A patch that i had to go look for, but was easily excessible for people connected to the web with their PS3. Then when I do patch it to 1.6, it still doesn't play some of the games.

The EU and AU versions have a software emulator for ps1/2 games. The US version has a hardware emulator (which will be phased out and replaced with the software emulator eventually if it hasnt happened already). I do not know about the JP version.

The hardware one is better in that it allows more games to properly work, however its more limited in that it cant be upgraded. Sony has stated on their site that they are working to increase the ability for games to properly work, although my guess is that they have some popularity ranking for games. It may be that they have a way for you to request a game be put into a higher order in the queue. I am unsure if sony is doing all the work of if some of it is done by the game developers themselves (which was implied in what I read but I didnt see it clearly stated). IIRC playstation.com has this information along with a list of known working games.

Unfortunately this means that you will have to wait a little while, which sucks, but there is the potential for hope. Alternatively you could load linux on your ps3 and use something like http://www.pcsx2.net/ (first hit in google dunno if its any good) to emulate a ps2 and probably play the game. Keep in mind that wifi does not work currently in linux and the video hardware doesnt have hardware acceleration and opengl may not work properly either (I just ordered my ps3 last night so everything I say is based on 1-2 days of reading and nothing else - I cant guarantee that what I read is accurate).

If that works for ya, great, and you can even toss on a SNES, gameboy and other emulators make it an ultimate gaming system. Of course how you will get the games onto your ps3 is not covered by this post for obvious reasons.

Blowfish

trixter wrote:

Unfortunately this means that you will have to wait a little while, which sucks, but there is the potential for hope. Alternatively you could load linux on your ps3 and use something like http://www.pcsx2.net/ (first hit in google dunno if its any good) to emulate a ps2 and probably play the game.

pcsx2 is fantastic. It won't work on the ps3 at all thought. For a start the binaries are for 32bit x86 arch. You could download and compile from source, but that won't work either as Sony have gimped Linux so that it can't use the gfx.

If you have a good PC though, pcsx2 is great, and improving very very quickly, it's by far the best ps2 emulator out there.

steviec

trixter wrote:

The EU and AU versions have a software emulator for ps1/2 games. The US version has a hardware emulator (which will be phased out and replaced with the software emulator eventually if it hasnt happened already). I do not know about the JP version.

The hardware one is better in that it allows more games to properly work, however its more limited in that it cant be upgraded. Sony has stated on their site that they are working to increase the ability for games to properly work, although my guess is that they have some popularity ranking for games. It may be that they have a way for you to request a game be put into a higher order in the queue. I am unsure if sony is doing all the work of if some of it is done by the game developers themselves (which was implied in what I read but I didnt see it clearly stated). IIRC playstation.com has this information along with a list of known working games.

Unfortunately this means that you will have to wait a little while, which sucks, but there is the potential for hope. Alternatively you could load linux on your ps3 and use something like http://www.pcsx2.net/ (first hit in google dunno if its any good) to emulate a ps2 and probably play the game. Keep in mind that wifi does not work currently in linux and the video hardware doesnt have hardware acceleration and opengl may not work properly either (I just ordered my ps3 last night so everything I say is based on 1-2 days of reading and nothing else - I cant guarantee that what I read is accurate).

If that works for ya, great, and you can even toss on a SNES, gameboy and other emulators make it an ultimate gaming system. Of course how you will get the games onto your ps3 is not covered by this post for obvious reasons.

Trust me, no chance in hell you'll get any PS2 games running through a linux PS2 emulator on PS3. These emulators don't particularly work to begin with, and compiling it for PS3 where you can't even access access the GPU, no chance.

Sony's emulation in built emulation is as good as you'll get, and hopefully it will improve with future firmware. Rather than the most popular games though, it's just the ones that are technically feasible. A lot of PS2 games used very clever tricks and were very intimate with the hardware, it can be difficult to emulate that well but hopefully they will.

I'm keeping my PS2 though, simple solution. I've already butchered the disc tray with a swap disc so I could play US games, so it's not like its in a fit state to sell anyway.

trixter

Blowfish wrote:

pcsx2 is fantastic. It won't work on the ps3 at all thought. For a start the binaries are for 32bit x86 arch. You could download and compile from source, but that won't work either as Sony have gimped Linux so that it can't use the gfx.

If you have a good PC though, pcsx2 is great, and improving very very quickly, it's by far the best ps2 emulator out there.

Its not so much that sony did that, its that drivers arent yet written for it. This is being addressed. There is framebuffer access though, and you can do grfx on the ps3 in linux, I just dont think opengl works at this time (I may be wrong though) and I know that hardware acceleration doesnt work at this time. Opengl appeared to be required by pcsx2 (I only spent 30 seconds reading the main page to make sure it was what was wanted).

Ciaran500

The RSX is blocked by the hypervisor, so unless an exploit is found that completely opens up the console we will never have access to it.

trixter

Ciaran500 wrote:

The RSX is blocked by the hypervisor, so unless an exploit is found that completely opens up the console we will never have access to it.

That isnt entirely true, the driver required is binary only from nvidia. They only have a x86 variant, where they need a ppc (perferably one that was compiled for the cell incase there are any special instructions it can take advantage of). That missing driver for linux makes it impossible to interface with short of a standard framebuffer style interface.

http://www.petitiononline.com/nvppclin/petition.html an online petition (poorly worded, I think becuase english isnt the primary language of the author) with over 2500 signatures. While that isnt much in the grand scheme of things, and I dont know if nvidia has even bothered to look at it, it can be used when trying to contact them.

I am getting a ps3 probably next week (ordered it last night) and I intend on doing a bit of linux work with it. While the only linux drivers I have written were ethernet related, I may decide at some point to look at this and see what is what. My initial requirements however do not involve video so it may be pushed aside.

Blowfish

No, it is Sony's fault. Like Ciaran said, Sony has forced Linux to access the hardware through their hypervisor layer. If Sony doesn't allow Linux full access to the gpu, there is absolutely nothing nvidia can do about it.

[edit] Linux only has virtual framebuffer access, not full framebuffer access.

trixter

Blowfish wrote:

No, it is Sony's fault. Like Ciaran said, Sony has forced Linux to access the hardware through their hypervisor layer. If Sony doesn't allow Linux full access to the gpu, there is absolutely nothing nvidia can do about it.

[edit] Linux only has virtual framebuffer access, not full framebuffer access.

ok, well as I said earlier in this thread (my initial post iirc) I dont yet have my ps3 so I havent been able to look at it. I was just going on what some people have said who are working to get the open source nvidia driver to work (with some success), which led me to believe it was the lack of a ppc driver that was a bigger stumbling block than lack of hardware access (since they did seem to get such access).

kensutz

Someone didn't do their homework before they went out and bought one

Lord Nikon

kensutz wrote:

Someone didn't do their homework before they went out and bought one

Before it hit the shelves, we were told it was compatible, they were wrong.

Ciaran500

neuromancer wrote:

Before it hit the shelves, we were told it was compatible, they were wrong.

I don't think he was talking to you but we were given a list of games that work before the console launched, none of the games you listed are marked as working.