GREAT READ:Making developers more productive — the Dolphin development infrastructure

[dogen]

That's what I meant. The GS is inherently a clusterf***, just like almost the rest of the PS2's architecture, so if you'd write about it, you'd invariably have to talk about how it was designed by ancient aliens.

PS2: You are handed a 10-inch thick stack of manuals written by Japanese hardware engineers. The first time you read the stack, nothing makes any sense at all. The second time your read the stack, the 3rd book makes a bit more sense because of what you learned in the 8th book. The machine has 10 different processors (IOP, SPU1&2, MDEC, R5900, VU0&1, GIF, VIF, GS) and 6 different memory spaces (IOP, SPU, CPU, GS, VU0&1) that all work in completely different ways...

Sounds fun

www.reddit.com/r/gamedev/comments/xddlp/describe_what_developing_for_each_console_youve/

[karasuhebi]

I'd love to read an article on GS. There's some old blog posts on the main site about PS2 architecture (clamping and rounding I think it was) that were super interesting.

[Nobbs66]

I'd love to read an article on GS. There's some old blog posts on the main site about PS2 architecture (clamping and rounding I think it was) that were super interesting.

Is this the article you're referring to?

http://pcsx2.net/developer-blog/209-what...ed-it.html

[karasuhebi]

Yep, that one. Very interesting read IMO.

[Ge-Force]

www.reddit.com/r/gamedev/comments/xddlp/describe_what_developing_for_each_console_youve/

PSP: .... Having pretty much the full-speed PS2 rasterizer for a smaller resolution display meant you didn't worry about blending pixels.

If this is true, how much code do you reckon we could take from ppsspp?, plus they have a texture cache to boot.

[Blyss Sarania]

That's what I meant. The GS is inherently a clusterf***, just like almost the rest of the PS2's architecture, so if you'd write about it, you'd invariably have to talk about how it was designed by ancient aliens.

[NarooN]

Rofl^. I turned to that channel one day and it was just an ancient alien marathon.

But yeah, there were quite a few decent articles written on facets of the PS2 or PCSX2 in particular, some of which are buried deep on the forums, lol.

[ssakash]

I tried asking more devs about joining the project but, most the devs didn't have interest in it while, others suggested these following reasons to be implemented to join.

• reason #1: the code should be upgraded to c++ 11 and modern syntax.
  
• reason #2: the code base is a mess and, should be optimized well.
  
• reason #3: the need on removal of a lot of per-game hacks/options to make it easier for an engineer to understand.
  
• reason #4: enthusiasm should be shown to user's and issue reports.
  
• reason #5: it seems that, our staffs were rude to the devs who did already offer to help.
  

I did try my best gathering info about devs. and enlisting the reasons why, they aren't contributing to pcsx2. but, it's our staff's choice if, they are interested in making these changes to attract more devs. and few people also suggested to do monthly posts about something like the features,options, interesting details about the console that, normal people don't know about.

[Akio]

If this is true, how much code do you reckon we could take from ppsspp?, plus they have a texture cache to boot.

I think it's kind of a figure of speech. The hardware are different. I think the amount of code that can be reused is minimal.

[rama]

I tried asking more devs about joining the project but, most the devs didn't have interest in it while, others suggested these following reasons to be implemented to join.

• reason #1: the code should be upgraded to c++ 11 and modern syntax.
  
• reason #2: the code base is a mess and, should be optimized well.
  
• reason #3: the need on removal of a lot of per-game hacks/options to make it easier for an engineer to understand.
  
• reason #4: enthusiasm should be shown to user's and issue reports.
  
• reason #5: it seems that, our staffs were rude to the devs who did already offer to help.
  

C++ 11 (or other code renovations, reasons #1 and #2) are nice, if they fit the project. There's a couple considerations to this, older OS / older compiler compatibility for example. Once that's solved, the conversion needs to be done right and this could turn
out tricky or be relatively straightforward, we don't really know yet.
I don't think this is a blocker but since PCSX2 is huge, it certainly isn't a 2 hour by the side job to try out!

Reason #3 is reasonable
Many options could be condensed better or removed altogether. Game specific hacks are sad but necessary.
We aim to reduce them. Better emulation can solve the problem but that needs to be there first, then the hack
removal.
Where hacks are general and influence all games, there's provisions to disable them or they have to be enabled manually.

Reason #4
This is a large topic.
Generally I feel the forums are working great for users and issues they have.
The Github issues aren't working so well, because *complex reasons* but basically it comes down to "not many devs"
having to work on long lists of things, each being an entire topic. It's overwhelming and there's no fun in it either.
Additionally, sometimes there's disagreements on a topic. And then it gets ugly.
We tried working this way but personally, I don't think that work style (as it happened) is good for PCSX2.
I do hope it changes some day

Reason #5
I'm sorry to those that feel mistreated.
A lot of bad stuff was thrown around and I hope everyone involved has enough of it by now.
We're not here to to battle, we here to work on our hobby project.


Edit:
On the GS article topic: I lack the knowledge on the technicals. They guy that really knows the chip well isn't much of a writer.
It'll be hard to produce a good (valid, no mistakes!) article with just a couple of old IRC logs.