Our goal was to determine how much of the PSP was being used to create the advanced graphics, versus how much the rest of the machine's components were putting a drain on the hardware. If those effects, at this resolution, at this framerate, are the ideal of what next-gen consumers will want to see out of this portable system as much as possible, how much juice does it take to create this kind of visual power?
For this test, we aimed to take two key elements out of the picture: the UMD and the WiFi functionality. Everything else about the game was run at maximum setting for the optimal next-gen experience: the brightness of the system's centerpiece screen was turned up to the maximum battery-powered brightness there is one more step of brightness available on the unit when played with the AC Adaptor , and the speakers were used instead of headphones, with the sound blaring at full volume.
We were not able to isolate the UMD entirely, as this particular game still requires the disc to be spinning at a general speed for the music a test may be possible later without the UMD -- Ridge Racers loads the entire game and track data into RAM, and can be played after the disc has been ejected until it requires another stage to load -- but since no game runs entirely without the UMD yet and since music volume was required for the test, these results are effective for what we were aiming for in testing Ridge Racers as a pure visual and aural showcase for PSP.
However, we were able to avoid the heavy loads and intermittent downtime of the graphics engine for load screens. The results are an approximation of how hard a top-performance game, working all by itself in a dedicated gameplay environment, will tax the handheld. This mode takes some of the hardware processing off of the system AI is pre-computed from a set track rather than reactionary AI based on player input , but most of the in-game calculations of the running game are still put to the test here, and with the constantly changing camera moving through the effects-heavy environments, the machine is still being run pedal to the metal we ran another Ridge Racers test utilizing another method, but the graphics engine is not as taxed with this method, as we will explain later.
Initially, we intended to compare the high-performance run of Ridge Racers against one of the less processor-intensive games for the system, using similar criteria. Unfortunately, the current crop of games isn't ideal for this kind of test -- there is no "Attract Mode" that would work in a Mah-Jong game, and the majority of lesser-performance game titles so far do not run the machine in any great capacity without user input, which would also require occasional loading and other irregular testing situations with undetermined variables depending on how hard we played and since we have not yet had the time to set aside multiple hours just to play a Mah-Jong game or not play Ridge Racers at least a little bit, we're pretending that there is scientific criteria behind not completing this test.
However, in searching for a game that would test against the performance levels of Ridge Racers , we did find a mode in one low-intensity game that taxed a key element of the system that we had isolated out of the RR test. That element is the UMD, which puts demands on the portable system that many expected prior to the PSP's release to have significantly impact on the system's battery life. The disc introduces a moving part several, if you include the adjusting laser not usually included in handhelds, and while the UMD offers an enviable large-capacity storage medium in a small package, the downside is how much power it takes to run the disc.
The "Attract Mode", or demo mode with in-engine samples of gameplay, in the 2D fighter Vampire Chronicle: The Chaos Tower aka the Darkstalkers revival seems to avoid this advice. Alternating between the title screen and gameplay every 20 seconds, with a short introduction video sometimes interjected, and always requiring a load in between sequences, this game starts and stops the UMD at a nearly constant rate.
And by the by, why is it that this game can't cache the menu? A version of this same game was crammed into the 2MB of RAM on the original PlayStation with a somewhat negligible loss of animation frames, but with modern audio compression techniques and 16 times the memory, everything still has to be loaded stage by stage?
Man, we'll be glad when we're past the launch period software rushing For this test, we switched to headphones instead of speakers and for the majority of tests from here on out, will use headphones instead of speakers -- the volume will still always be set to blaring, but this will help save some punches in the back of the head from agitated fellow editors and roomates. Brightness was still set at max, and WiFi was not turned on. The game's opening "Attract Mode" was run until the game ran out of juice.
Essentially just a quick nap feature for the PSP while players have to put the unit down, the Sleep mode switches off the UMD, the LCD screen, the audio outputs both speaker and headphone , the WiFi and other hardware accessory components, and the gameplay engine as the unit goes into a hibernation mode. Nintendo included a similar feature with its new DS system -- simply snap the lid shut, and the system is down to just minimum life support both machines also have the ability to completely switch off the system instead of going into sleep mode.
The question with the PlayStation Portable is, how effective is that sleep mode? A hidden sleep mode was included in the GBA for keeping special downloaded files in memory such as the GBA-Link versions of Nintendo Puzzle Collection games , but it proved too unwieldy and unknown for normal use, and although the Nintendo DS features a similar mode, it's usually easier for long periods of down time to just hit the power button.
With the PSP, that sleep mode may come in particularly handy. With the need for the UMD to load the initial code on start-up, avoiding this load would be ideal to get players into the game as fast as possible. As many who have seen inexperienced PS2 players look baffled at the red light still being on until they eventually reach for the power switch on the back, this design of the PSP will lead many players to leave their systems in Sleep mode since they might not know how to fully power down the handheld.
Is this a bad thing, or is this part of the design? Our initial guess here was that Sleep mode was not going to be a good thing for PSP.
When players flip the switch on a PSP in sleep mode, it takes less than a second for the PSP to kick on at full brightness, with the sound pumping, in the middle of gameplay we've even used Sleep mode in the middle of a Ridge Racers run, and when you power back on, you're still running at full speed and in the thick of the pack, with only a second or so of difference since the game engine is running while the screen and input systems are powering up and down.
The UMD spins up as soon as it can, but as far as gameplay goes, once you're out of sleep mode, you're in the game. While I still think the PSP needs to focus on original titles, I have to say, that flight made me a believer. Even more impressive, after three hours of play, the battery indicator was still full.
The battery life has been sold far short in the gaming media. It lasts a lot longer than one would expect. I get hours regularly off a charge. It was a few days before I thought to plug it in and recharge, and a few days after that when I turned it on again…only to find Wipeout paused right in the middle of the race the juice had run dry on. Laptops and many PDAs work in a similar way. Has anyone tried to see how long the PSP will last in sleep mode? Like Tom, I too have started using this feature, if only to get past all the loading screens in Metal Gear Acid and, especially, Wipeout yes, I still want to play the game in English.
The only thing that bothers me about sleep mode is that it allows my wife to keep her game of Lumines running over multiple sessions, making me cry when I just want to blow things up in Twisted Metal and all I see is a screen of funny blocks. I use the sleep mode all the time. I can only play the psp about 30 minutes at a time before my hands start to cramp. Whisper Logic :. Usually there isn't a problem with leaving the psp in sleep mode for hen.
I did it for over four months back on 3. HEN takes like 5 seconds to boot up Whisper said:. Adiuvo Active Member. Standby battery life decreases dramatically the more the battery ages. My original battery, which is around three years old, can barely handle two days on standby, but it used to be able to go for months. However, the actual life of the battery hasn't decreased that much. It's pretty strange. Bulgar Trev New Member. Hmm, I don't use sleep mode that much apart from when i accidently put it into sleep mode but when it is in sleep mode it uses quite a bit.
Seth MD Party Room. I got a good 3 weeks out of sleep mode before when I got a new psp a long time ago. You must log in or register to reply here.
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