anybody heard of this...or believe it?

[gaelan]

http://geek.com/news/geeknews/2005Mar/bga20050418030068.htm


333MHz PSP processor runs at 222MHz


posted 10:04am EST Mon Apr 18 2005 - submitted by Matthew


BLURB
Speculation is starting to mount that Sony (http://geek.com/news/geeknews/2005Mar/bga20050418030068.htm#) has capped the processing power of its PSP handheld. Apparently the 333MHz RISC chip is currently capped to run at a maximum of two-thirds its speed, or 222MHz. The reasons for the capping are unclear, but the most obvious is thought to be to save battery power. Capping the processing speed would in theory increase the machine's running time, sacrificing the available speed. It is also thought that Sony plans to release an updated PSP in the future that will sport a better battery and have the processor cap removed. Current owners will be able to buy the new battery, and a software update will remove the processor cap. This is all speculation, but it would seem like a simple solution (http://geek.com/news/geeknews/2005Mar/bga20050418030068.htm#) to the battery problem just before the machine's release. People are already messing about with the software on the machine and trying to get applications running on it; how long before someone figures out how to unlock this alleged processor cap? Thanks to GamesRadar.com (http://gamesradar.msn.co.uk/news/default.asp?pagetypeid=2&articleid=35400&subsectionid=1591) for the heads-up.

[Kayden]

Does it really matter? Games are made specifically to run on the PSP. I haven't noticed any slowdown whatso ever. Lifting the cap might lower loading times marginally, but a lot of load time has to do with the fact its on a disk versus a cartidge.

[orntar]

yea, i heard it somewhere, didnt surprize me. its underclocked to save far more battery power than the benfit of full speed would yeild (if that makes any sense)

[Apossum]

yeah, all the reviews and articles on the system have said this.

[Alpha2]

At some point they'll develope a better battery and offer a firmware upgrade that breaks the lock, then the games will start looking better and better. It's nothing that companies having tried before, releasing new dev strategies into the community to get bater games later on in a systems life.

Having someone in the homebrew community breaking the lock will yeild nothing so long as the only real games you can run com from UMDs that only Sony can make.

[orntar]

here's where i read it...

http://hardware.gamespot.com/Story-ST-11721-1480-x-x-x&body_pagenum=3

alluds to it being a software decision... "Software developers tell us that 222MHz is the current magic number for the CPU."

so perhapse they can develope for it now, but choose not to in favor of battery life, which is the largest argument between it and ds i have experienced locally.

[gaelan]

so once they decide to unlock additionaly processing power, will existing games take advantage, or are the games out now designed to up to a max of 222mhz? basically making games released after "upgrade" more powerful for lack of a better word.

[PsyClerk]

Dynasty Warriors on the PSP has some fair slowdown in certain areas, mainly when the camera is facing towards an area that has both a load of soldiers fighting AND a good bit of architecture/buildings. Of course, that happens in the PS2 version of DW4 (which the PSP version is based on) as well.

I would not be surprised if this 'capped' story was true.

[Alpha2]

Games that slowdown would likely not do so with an increase in the cap but you'd have to recode the games themselves probably inorder to take advantage of a higher clock speed.

[epobirs]

Games that slowdown would likely not do so with an increase in the cap but you'd have to recode the games themselves probably inorder to take advantage of a higher clock speed.

That depends on the engine design. 3D games lend themselves well to scaling with system power and do so all the time in PC games. A PSP developer might be inclined to include such functionality if the engine is intended to so use in several games up through the time it becomes feasible to operate at full speed.

This is somewhat like the processor stepdown functions in laptop CPUs that reduce clock speed while running on batteries. A PSP developer could potentially produce a game that has more special effects while running from AC power but Sony would likely frown upon it.

[vherub]

once the cap is lifted, games will run superfast, like those old sierra adventure games when the pentium chips started coming out

you'll be able to squeeze in once last trip to Black's Market so you won't go hungry for the week

[Alpha2]

The main question is: Is the cap in the firmware or is it volentarily done by the came developers at Sony's request? If it's a firmware based cap we'd probably have to wait for Sony or a bored hacker to screwaround with it to "pop the cap" and at such time we'd discover if any of the current games could take advantage of it. If it's from the developer's side then we best hope they dont decide to re-release games with some sort of "NOW WITH BLAST PROCESSING!" sticker on the box.

[epobirs]

The main question is: Is the cap in the firmware or is it volentarily done by the came developers at Sony's request? If it's a firmware based cap we'd probably have to wait for Sony or a bored hacker to screwaround with it to "pop the cap" and at such time we'd discover if any of the current games could take advantage of it. If it's from the developer's side then we best hope they dont decide to re-release games with some sort of "NOW WITH BLAST PROCESSING!" sticker on the box.

I'd be pretty reluctant to have any product containing both a Li-Ion battery and BLAST PROCESSING on my person. Remember the old joke about why the Powerbook 5300 was the preferred portable in 'Misson Impossible.' The battery doubles as a grenade!

[Esperado]

I hear the restriction is made through the development kit. So even when a new battery comes out, your games will still run underclocked.