PSP Development Noob Questions

Stellar · Post by **Stellar** » Thu Dec 15, 2005 4:36 am

Hello e1,

Im hoping to get a psp this holiday and I had a few questions as Im really eager to jump on the development bandwagon. Also, ive never done any development outside of pc, so youll have to excuse my ignorance O.o

lotts of questions...
1) how many polys can the psp render while keeping a steady framerate?
2) Im assuming we have to keep models fairly low poly, how many triangles avg do you guys aim for when maxing out detail for a psp model.
3) what is the max texture size that should be used ( im used to 1028x1028, then mip-mapped ) Im guessing I wont be dong that anymore :P
4) does the psp have support for materials and transparency, or does that have to be written
5) the bus speed on this thing is incredible, i thought i read that onboard ram is 32Mb, doesnt that create some big limitations?
6) I'ld like to do a full blown game, is this currently possible with the hacking tools and apis available on the internet? ie. can i do it without the actual psp development system (pc + cable) or whatever the package is?

thanks allot,
-Stellar Developer

Stellar · Post by **Stellar** » Thu Dec 15, 2005 7:02 am

nm, i think i found everything i need to know right
here [ http://wiki.ps2dev.org/start ]

seventoes · Post by **seventoes** » Sat Dec 17, 2005 2:29 pm

1) 23 Mploys/sec T&L
4) Yes, its in the GU.
5) Media Block CPU: 2MB Embedded DRAM
6) If you mean can you program without the psp, yes you can but there will be no way for you to test it. If you mean is it possible with just a PSP and usb cord, yes but you have to use PSPSDK.

It seems to me like your trying to make a real game, since you... said so.. You might wanna contact sony and get some prices for a dev kit.

HaQue · Post by **HaQue** » Sat Dec 17, 2005 2:41 pm

I remember contacting sony when some collegues and myself were dev'ing for the PSX. they would not even discuss it. Though what we had was quite good didnt seem to matter. We got through to the initial Sony customer service and they said someone would call us back(they never did).

It seems that if Sony want you to devel for them, you will be told so.

As for getting a Dev kit.. haha.. Have a look at whats in the homebreww community, as thats what you are going to be using.

Stellar · Post by **Stellar** » Sun Dec 18, 2005 3:43 am

yeah, i was a bit concerned about debugging abilities. Normally I develop on my pc with directx and maya. I thought it might be fun to actually develop for a console, without the hassle of an official development system :/ Thanks for the replies :D

seventoes · Post by **seventoes** » Sun Dec 18, 2005 5:39 am

well the only debugging you will get with PSPSDK is by making your own exception handler.

Fanjita · Post by **Fanjita** » Sun Dec 18, 2005 10:31 am

seventoes wrote:well the only debugging you will get with PSPSDK is by making your own exception handler.

Or the serial or wifi GDB stubs....

Stellar · Post by **Stellar** » Sun Dec 18, 2005 11:20 am

Is that what this [ http://www.psphacks.net/content/view/426/2/ ] cable is for? anyone here built it or used it.

Fanjita -> you can debug wirelessly? im guessing you mean by sending print statements over wifi to a console on anther pc? thats actually a good idea :)

Fanjita · Post by **Fanjita** » Sun Dec 18, 2005 12:08 pm

I haven't used it myself, because I don't develop on v1.5, but there's a stub for full remote debugging using GDB (the GNU debugger).

There are 2 flavours, as far as I know, one that uses the serial port (yes, that's it in your link, although the original site is here). The other uses wifi for the comms.

I think both have been discussed on these forums, a trip to the 'search' button might be in order. :)