PS3 Firmware Update | Backwards Compatibility Fixed

[MarkMan]

Newest update for the PS3 to firmware 1.50 fixes graphical bc issues...

Games look like they're supposed to now! Wooo..

[jajaja]

Cool that they fixed it :) Now people cant bitch about it anymore.

[PSerge]

At least this goes to show that Sony cares about bc..

Microsoft doesn't seem too worried about it.

This is one of the reasons I want a PS3 someday, but only after a price cut or two.

[Trebuken]

Never mind a price cut; how about a couple of more games....?

[agbulls]

So does this mean that your games will come through fine even with the HDMI cable? I had a friend who claimed his system was having this problem (before the update) only with HDMI, and not component. He claimed that using the component cables fixed the problem. Also, by the way, does the PS2 upscale DVDs with HDMI?

Maybe when it drops to around $300 I'll consider it...hopefully by then these issues will be taken care of.

[Flack]

January 24, 2007 @ 7:52AM - posted by Ben Kuchera
PS3 firmware update fixes PS2 backwards compatibility

When we went back to take a look at how the PS3 has changed and improved since launch, one of the bigger issues was how poorly the system handled backwards compatibility. A Youtube video made the issue clear to everyone and showed off just how bad some PS2 games look when played on a PS3. This morning I woke up to find a software update to my PS3, and so like a good little gamer I found a found a USB cable for my Sixaxis and downloaded it. Read the EULA, installed it, restarted; the standard PS3 procedure. Sony still only shows firmware 1.32 on their official PS3 page as of this post, so we're going in somewhat blind when it comes to figuring out what this update does.

It looks like many of the issues with PS2 games are fixed, and that's great news to people who want to get rid of their old systems when they move to a PS3. I put in Final Fantasy X-2 and it looks great, no jaggies or artifacts. My next stop was Resident Evil 4, and it looks just as good as I remember. This is a big deal, and a large problem with the PS3 has disappeared.

The other things I've noticed are smaller, but still nice to have. The Playstation Store seems to be more responsive, it doesn't feel as sluggish as I move from item to item; pages also seem to load faster. It makes the process a lot zippier.

I'm going to do more poking around to see what I can find about this update, but I'm very happy with what we've seen so far. I'm looking forward to Sony updating their firmware page to tell us everything they've updated.

http://arstechnica.com/journals/thumbs.ars/2007/1/24/6735

[camarotuner]

Someone wanna send a note to Microsoft telling them to fix the damned 360 backwards compatibility problems? It's the main reason I haven't bought one yet.

[RetroYoungen]

I had no idea the games look that badly without this new firmware update... gonna have to tell my customers about this crock. Any word on games like DDR though, backware compatible with the unique controllers (the DDR pads, beatmania controllers, the Taiko Drums)?

[Trebuken]

I downloaded the update and through a few games in. Did not notice anything to exciting. The games play fine thoguh I feel there is still progress to be made. I think PS1 and PS2 games still look better through PS2 component cables. They also cannot seem to fix the widescreen/black bar issues that the PS2 has with widescreen.

I did not check an DVD's but I know the PS3 did not upconvert anything prior to the update.

I should find a 480P ps2 game to check and see what happens also.

[agbulls]

I downloaded the update and through a few games in. Did not notice anything to exciting. The games play fine thoguh I feel there is still progress to be made. I think PS1 and PS2 games still look better through PS2 component cables. They also cannot seem to fix the widescreen/black bar issues that the PS2 has with widescreen.

I did not check an DVD's but I know the PS3 did not upconvert anything prior to the update.

I should find a 480P ps2 game to check and see what happens also.

Are you saying you think that ps2 games look better through component cables on the ps3 compared to hdmi or better on component cables on a ps2?

[ubersaurus]

At least this goes to show that Sony cares about bc..

Microsoft doesn't seem too worried about it.

This is one of the reasons I want a PS3 someday, but only after a price cut or two.

Yes, yes putting out a BC update less than a month ago is totally not caring about backwards compatibility at all.

[TheRedEye]

Someone wanna send a note to Microsoft telling them to fix the damned 360 backwards compatibility problems? It's the main reason I haven't bought one yet.

I just did, they said "OK."

[njiska]

Someone wanna send a note to Microsoft telling them to fix the damned 360 backwards compatibility problems? It's the main reason I haven't bought one yet.

If you don't understand an issue don't comment on it. Original Xbox emulaiton is not the same deal as PS2 emulation.

[youruglyclone]

wasn't it something along the lines that the 360 uses ati gpus while the xbox used nvidia gpus.

and the playstation uses similar architecture or something.

someone verify or disprove this.

[kedawa]

someone verify or disprove this.
I nominate you. ;)

It's true that the xbox and xbox360 use totally different gpu's and a different architecture altogether, and so bc is done through a mix of emulation and API translation.

The PS3s that are in the market today actually have the PS2 logic integrated into the hardware, much like the PS2 had the PS1 logic integrated.

There is a rumor floating around that in future PS3 iterations, PS2 logic will be dropped in favor of emulation.
For now, thogh, the PS3 and 360 have entirely different models for bc.

[njiska]

I nominate you. ;)

It's true that the xbox and xbox360 use totally different gpu's and a different architecture altogether, and so bc is done through a mix of emulation and API translation.

The PS3s that are in the market today actually have the PS2 logic integrated into the hardware, much like the PS2 had the PS1 logic integrated.

There is a rumor floating around that in future PS3 iterations, PS2 logic will be dropped in favor of emulation.
For now, thogh, the PS3 and 360 have entirely different models for bc.

Exactly and that's why PS2 emulation on the PS3 is so easy and Xbox emulation on the 360 is so hard. :) Honestly i'm shocked there were jaggies on the PS2 emulation to begin with.

Also don't forget that Sony owns the chip designs for the PS2 while Microsoft bought the chips for the Xbox but do not own the designs. I'm sure that isn't making anything easier from a legal standpoint.

[jonjandran]

Isn't it already being talked about here :

http://www.digitpress.com/forum/showthread.php?t=95841

[Trebuken]

Are you saying you think that ps2 games look better through component cables on the ps3 compared to hdmi or better on component cables on a ps2?


Better on the PS2.

[PapaStu]

Isn't it already being talked about here :

http://www.digitpress.com/forum/showthread.php?t=95841


Threads merged....

Continue on with the chatting

This makes me a little more willing to ponder a PS3 now that 'look' portion of the Backwards compatibility problems have been fixed, however there still is only one game i'd even like to think about getting for the system and that just isn't enough for me to make the plunge.

[Emuaust]

I love how people bitch the PS3 needs its BC fixed yet also give excuses to why the 360 situation is the way it is.

I would like to know how truthful software BC is as it could be a contributing factor
in if I purchase one come March.

[njiska]

I love how people bitch the PS3 needs its BC fixed yet also give excuses to why the 360 situation is the way it is.

I would like to know how truthful software BC is as it could be a contributing factor
in if I purchase one come March.

We've been down this road before Emuast. It's not our fault you can't get past your own screwjob theories and accept fact.

[jajaja]

What facts?

[jonjandran]

What facts?

The facts that the Xbox360 backwards emulation is much harder to accomplish and will have problems because it is EMULATION. Whereas the PS3 has actual PS2 architecture on the motherboard so it is a lot easier for it to play PS2 and PS1 games.

[TurboGenesis]

Someone wanna send a note to Microsoft telling them to fix the damned 360 backwards compatibility problems? It's the main reason I haven't bought one yet.

Buy a 360 to play 360 games. OR if you want a similar experience just format your hard drive and start every game from scratch since thats what you would have to do when you play Xbox games on 360 - you cant transfer save data. At least with the PS3, Sony offers adapters - for a nominal fee of course, to utilize memory cards and controllers.

[jajaja]

The facts that the Xbox360 backwards emulation is much harder to accomplish and will have problems because it is EMULATION. Whereas the PS3 has actual PS2 architecture on the motherboard so it is a lot easier for it to play PS2 and PS1 games.

How hard is the emulation?

[jonjandran]

How hard is the emulation?

Well think of it this way. Right now with computers as fast as they are, N64 and PS1 emulation is "nearly" full speed and perfect. But on the fastest PC's, Xbox emulation is currently nowhere near full speed and very glitchy.

The fact that Microsoft have done half as good as they have is very impressive. Remember they didn't have to add ANY backwards compatiability

[jajaja]

Ye, i know, but i mean, the Xbox games that do work with the 360 are working ok right? Why dont they just fix the rest?

[jonjandran]

Ye, i know, but i mean, the Xbox games that do work with the 360 are working ok right? Why dont they just fix the rest?

Well you can't "just fix the rest". Each game has to be made backwards compatiable. So it's a game by game fix. Quite a bit of work.

[jajaja]

Thats what i dont understand. Why do they need to adapt every single game? Doesnt the Xbox games follow some standard? Making harware emulation like other emulators does, why dont they do it here, what makes it different? Is it really THAT hard or is it just lazynes/low priority?

[ubersaurus]

Thats what i dont understand. Why do they need to adapt every single game? Doesnt the Xbox games follow some standard? Making harware emulation like other emulators does, why dont they do it here, what makes it different? Is it really THAT hard or is it just lazynes/low priority?

Well, each individual Xbox game needs a specific emulator for it-very few games share the same one. So basically you have to write up an emulator for each game, test it to make sure that it works properly, go back and make any fixes needed, and continue on that path. Considering the amount of hours and staff it takes, I'm not surprised it's kind of slow going.

[camarotuner]

"The fact that Microsoft have done half as good as they have is very impressive. Remember they didn't have to add ANY backwards compatiability"

Yes they did. They stated originally that the 360 was supposed to be fully backwards compatible. Now it's "well sorta" backwards compatible and it doesn't seem like they are in any bit of a hurry to do anything about it. The fact that Sony has not only done it but done it in alot less time than Microsoft has shows Sony's commitment to it's users and not screwing em over on the issue. I don't care WHY Microsofts backwards compatibility sucks I just know they should have done something about it BEFORE sending the system to market with a "we'll fix it later" approach to things. They haven't fixed it, it's annoying, no good reason for it. It's the same crap they do with their software. "Yeah Bill this new Windows is buggy as hell, doesn't do half of what it's supposed to, oh and crashes at random intervals, what should we do?" "I Know, ship it and we'll fix it whenever the hell we feel like it". Same crap, different platform.

[jajaja]

Why is like that? Is it because each game needs to be tweaked induvidialy?

[njiska]

Why is like that? Is it because each game needs to be tweaked induvidialy?

Look at it this way, why do some PS1 and N64 games still not work prefect? It has to do with the code more then the hardware. When you're emulating you're not simply making one chip think it's another, you have to deal with different instructionsets and different internal architecture structure.

You don't just say one instruction is equal to another, you have to basically make that instruction owrk on the different processor using one or more different instructions and lines of code. Depending on what tricks the developers used to get more out of the hardware the original affects how hard it is to make it work.

That's a bit of poor lamens description but it's something. I'm thinking someone like programmingAce could give a better description.

[jonjandran]

"The fact that Microsoft have done half as good as they have is very impressive. Remember they didn't have to add ANY backwards compatiability"

Yes they did. They stated originally that the 360 was supposed to be fully backwards compatible. Now it's "well sorta" backwards compatible and it doesn't seem like they are in any bit of a hurry to do anything about it. The fact that Sony has not only done it but done it in alot less time than Microsoft has shows Sony's commitment to it's users and not screwing em over on the issue. I don't care WHY Microsofts backwards compatibility sucks I just know they should have done something about it BEFORE sending the system to market with a "we'll fix it later" approach to things. They haven't fixed it, it's annoying, no good reason for it. It's the same crap they do with their software. "Yeah Bill this new Windows is buggy as hell, doesn't do half of what it's supposed to, oh and crashes at random intervals, what should we do?" "I Know, ship it and we'll fix it whenever the hell we feel like it". Same crap, different platform.

Yea try going back a little farther. They didn't have to make it backwards compatible to start with. They stated originally that they were going to make it backwards compatible when they were planning on using the same GPU manufacturer and the same CPU manufacturer. When that changed then they had to change their strategy. At least they have tried to make it as backwards compatible as possible despite the fact they could have said "Well things changed so we're not able to do it."

Why does everyone always think that everyone owes them something. They've done the best they can IMO.

[heybtbm]

They stated originally that the 360 was supposed to be fully backwards compatible.

Complete revisionist bullshit. MS never even came close to promising the 360 would be "fully backwards compatible".

[Joker T]

*Delete*

wrong thread, my mistake.

[Mr Mort]

As far as the 360 BC goes, the real issue is with the GPU's.
The Xbox had an Nvidia GPU, but the 360 is using an ATI GPU. Therefore, the code that runs the graphics on the XBOX will not work on an ATI GPU. Since different games are using the XBOX GPU in different ways, you can't just have one emulator that emulates everything perfectly. Each BC game on the 360 is actually running it's own "version" of the emulator to deal with the different commands to the GPU.

For that reason, I suspect there will be some games that will NEVER be backwards compatible on the 360. I suspect Unreal Championship & Unreal Championship 2 will never see the light of day on the 360. Both those games (especially UC1, which is just a port of UT2K3 for the PC) were designed around Nvidia chipsets.

That's my theory, anyways.

[jonjandran]

As far as the 360 BC goes, the real issue is with the GPU's.
The Xbox had an Nvidia GPU, but the 360 is using an ATI GPU. Therefore, the code that runs the graphics on the XBOX will not work on an ATI GPU. Since different games are using the XBOX GPU in different ways, you can't just have one emulator that emulates everything perfectly. Each BC game on the 360 is actually running it's own "version" of the emulator to deal with the different commands to the GPU.

For that reason, I suspect there will be some games that will NEVER be backwards compatible on the 360. I suspect Unreal Championship & Unreal Championship 2 will never see the light of day on the 360. Both those games (especially UC1, which is just a port of UT2K3 for the PC) were designed around Nvidia chipsets.

That's my theory, anyways.

Don't forget the Xbox had an Intel Cpu and the Xbox 360 has IBM PowerPC Cpu's.

[Emuaust]

Njiska, Im sick of hearing this, there are logical reasons for why both of the consoles have BC problems and im sick of hearing the bitching on this forum about one console brand and not the other, but woops I just remembered this is A PRO MS FORUM, no sony lovin here.


And I would like more information on my screwjob theories, you seem to be the
person with all the information.

PM me with your results there is no need to spam the forums.

[jajaja]

Look at it this way, why do some PS1 and N64 games still not work prefect? It has to do with the code more then the hardware. When you're emulating you're not simply making one chip think it's another, you have to deal with different instructionsets and different internal architecture structure.

You don't just say one instruction is equal to another, you have to basically make that instruction owrk on the different processor using one or more different instructions and lines of code. Depending on what tricks the developers used to get more out of the hardware the original affects how hard it is to make it work.

That's a bit of poor lamens description but it's something. I'm thinking someone like programmingAce could give a better description.

Ye, thats what i ment with "some standard" :) The PSX and PS2 games that doesnt work well doesnt follow the TRC (Technical Requirements Checklist). The games that does works fine. Thats why i wondered if Xbox had something simular. If they do, i dont see why they need to "fix" each game induvidualy to make it work. Why not build some master emulator that plays "all" the Xbox games? Remember that an emulator emulates hardware. Maybe the 360 is too slow to have a emulator that emulates the Xbox hardware at full speed.

[Emuaust]

Ye, thats what i ment with "some standard" :) The PSX and PS2 games that doesnt work well doesnt follow the TRC (Technical Requirements Checklist). The games that does works fine. Thats why i wondered if Xbox had something simular. If they do, i dont see why they need to "fix" each game induvidualy to make it work. Why not build some master emulator that plays "all" the Xbox games? Remember that an emulator emulates hardware. Maybe the 360 is too slow to have a emulator that emulates the Xbox hardware at full speed.


Yes this is what the case is.

[meancode]

Ye, thats what i ment with "some standard" :) The PSX and PS2 games that doesnt work well doesnt follow the TRC (Technical Requirements Checklist). The games that does works fine. Thats why i wondered if Xbox had something simular. If they do, i dont see why they need to "fix" each game induvidualy to make it work. Why not build some master emulator that plays "all" the Xbox games? Remember that an emulator emulates hardware. Maybe the 360 is too slow to have a emulator that emulates the Xbox hardware at full speed.

Actually, no, that is not what the case is. And it is not a problem with original Xbox games not having a TRC.

Obviously if they could make one emulator that would work for every Xbox game, you would have the entire library BC just like the PS2 and PSX library on the PS3.

Some Xbox games are quite similar, and that is why they are BC. Remember the Barbie Horse Adventures fiasco? It was similar to other games they wanted to make BC, so it worked on the 360 as well.

BC on the 360 is an entirely different animal than on the PS3. I too would like to hear Programming Ace's input on this, but I think how Njiska described it is accurate.

Why do they have to write BC software for specific game? I don't know, because they all use different engines that were build to run on a different CPU and a different GPU? Just a thought.

The 360 emulates the Xbox down to the original Xbox dashboard, it even upscales games to 720p. I mean look at Forza on the 360. The problem is not the power of the 360, the problem is the software that needs to be written to emulate the Xbox games.

PS2 games look great on the PS3 after the update. Did anyone else notice that the store loads a lot faster too?

[jajaja]

Why do they have to write BC software for specific game? I don't know, because they all use different engines that were build to run on a different CPU and a different GPU? Just a thought.

Ye, but why not emulate the Xbox's CPU and GPU in general, like in a master emulator? Or maybe it would be too slow as mentioned. I wanna know how things work on 360 :)

[meancode]

emulating an x86 chip (Xbox) on a PPC chip (360) would be a feat in itself. But hardware emulation is a lot more complicated than what MS is doing when emulating original Xbox games on the 360.

[njiska]

Ye, thats what i ment with "some standard" :) The PSX and PS2 games that doesnt work well doesnt follow the TRC (Technical Requirements Checklist). The games that does works fine. Thats why i wondered if Xbox had something simular. If they do, i dont see why they need to "fix" each game induvidualy to make it work. Why not build some master emulator that plays "all" the Xbox games? Remember that an emulator emulates hardware. Maybe the 360 is too slow to have a emulator that emulates the Xbox hardware at full speed.

I think it's more a case of time then anything else. Creating an Xbox Emu that ran everything a full speed would be next to impossible in the short amount of time MS has had to it (according to some members of the emu dev team it only started about a year before the system launched, this is because MS hadn't decided to include it until then), but creating and tweaking for certain games is easier.

If you look at the history of any emulator they always take a lot of time to develop. Even professional software like virutal PC took forever to get Windows Emulation up and running on the Mac. Programming is normal software is hard, emulation is worse.

[njiska]

Njiska, Im sick of hearing this, there are logical reasons for why both of the consoles have BC problems and im sick of hearing the bitching on this forum about one console brand and not the other, but woops I just remembered this is A PRO MS FORUM, no sony lovin here.


And I would like more information on my screwjob theories, you seem to be the
person with all the information.

PM me with your results there is no need to spam the forums.

There is no spam. Simply an honest discussion going on. You chose to ignore the facts about BC on the 360 before and now you're calling us apologists for simply understanding how things work. The output issue on the ps3 made no sense. Clearly it wasn't anything hard to fix either as now we have the solution.

[Captain Wrong]

So...about that PS3 firmware update...

[camarotuner]

Revisionist my butt, MS originally stated full backwards compatibility. Then they turned it into "we're hoping for" then "well sorta". If you absolutely can't do it with the hardware they used, put a second set of hardware in. You'd have made it a bit bigger but what's the difference? At this point MS wants you to have an XBox next to your 360 with that handy little HD-DVD drive box next to that. It's starting to look as silly as the Genesis/CD/32X contraption but at least THAT was designed to all fit together. Sony has managed to continue to evolve it's hardware and keep it all working together so you need ONE unit to play EVERY game. With everything CD based anymore, this really isn't too much to ask for. Even nintendo managed to get the Wii backwards compatible with the Game Cube.

Oh and it's not Microsoft owing me anything. It's just a really crappy business practice to say a product will do A B C D and when you ship it it does A B sometimes C and never D.

[jonjandran]

Revisionist my butt, MS originally stated full backwards compatibility. Then they turned it into "we're hoping for" then "well sorta". If you absolutely can't do it with the hardware they used, put a second set of hardware in. You'd have made it a bit bigger but what's the difference? At this point MS wants you to have an XBox next to your 360 with that handy little HD-DVD drive box next to that. It's starting to look as silly as the Genesis/CD/32X contraption but at least THAT was designed to all fit together. Sony has managed to continue to evolve it's hardware and keep it all working together so you need ONE unit to play EVERY game. With everything CD based anymore, this really isn't too much to ask for. Even nintendo managed to get the Wii backwards compatible with the Game Cube.

Oh and it's not Microsoft owing me anything. It's just a really crappy business practice to say a product will do A B C D and when you ship it it does A B sometimes C and never D.

Yea OK. It's a big conspiracy. It's the man keeping you down. :rolleyes:

[njiska]

Yea OK. It's a big conspiracy. It's the man keeping you down. :rolleyes:


1989 the number another summer (get down)
Sound of the funky drummer
Music hittin' your heart cause I know you got sould
(Brothers and sisters, hey)
Listen if you're missin' y'all
Swingin' while I'm singin'
Givin' whatcha gettin'
Knowin' what I know
While the Black bands sweatin'
And the rhythm rhymes rollin'
Got to give us what we want
Gotta give us what we need
Our freedom of speech is freedom or death
We got to fight the powers that be
Lemme hear you say
Fight the power

[camarotuner]

Was at a retailers conference just before the 360 release. The Microsoft rep had a powerpoint presentation on the new system. One of the things he pointed out was to stress to consumers the backwards compatibility issue because that would "instantly give them access to our already large and impressive library of games" (or words to that effect). When he opened the floor for questions I personally asked "So that means from day 1 your expecting 100% backwards compatibility with all Xbox 1 titles?" To which I got told "yes". Over a year later, I'm still waiting.

[njiska]

You know something worth pointing out on this whole debate about BC is how strongly people stress it's importence, yet here we are with lots of Xbox 360s in circulation and the PS3 is sitting on shelves. Looks like BC isn't as big a deal as games and price to a lot of people.

[camarotuner]

I have a feeling when the new Final Fantasy hit, MGS4, GT5, and the rest of the PS3's hard hitting titles you'll see the system sales pick up. Imagine the jump in sales MS will get once Halo 3 hits. If it hits along side the "new and improved" 360, that should be interesting.

[jajaja]

BC isnt really that a big deal to the people in general i think. People primarly buy the new console to play the new game and the BC is just a really sweet bonus, but not a must. When people complained about the BC with PS3 it was most likely just to have something to bitch about, throwing themself on the "i hate Sony" wave and trying to find all dirt on them just to complain. Its the same about the price. Some people who have absolutely no plans on getting one still complains about the price lol, im sure about it :)



I think it's more a case of time then anything else. Creating an Xbox Emu that ran everything a full speed would be next to impossible in the short amount of time MS has had to it (according to some members of the emu dev team it only started about a year before the system launched, this is because MS hadn't decided to include it until then), but creating and tweaking for certain games is easier.

If you look at the history of any emulator they always take a lot of time to develop. Even professional software like virutal PC took forever to get Windows Emulation up and running on the Mac. Programming is normal software is hard, emulation is worse.

Yes and im also sure its almost impossible to 100% mulate the Xbox hardware on a 360. I checked a DC emulator and it required minimum 1.4GHz and 256MB RAM. The DC has a 200MHz CPU and like 16MB RAM. Of course, you cant compare the console and PC hardware side by side, but it shows how much power thats needed.

[FAN8228]

nice. I was getting a bit restless waiting.