Playstation 2

See also: PS2

The PlayStation 2 (also called PS2 ) is the video Game console of Sony which succeeded the PlayStation. It was launched on March 4th 2000 with the Japan (on October 26th, 2000 to North America, on November 24th, 2000 to Europe), and was an immediate success as of its exit (980  000 specimens sold in 48 hours). Its game library includes/understands many titles, of which certain known licenses which made its fame: Kingdom Hearts II Tekken 5 , Gran Turismo 4 , Final Fantasy X , Final Fantasy XII , Pro Evolution Soccer 6 , Large Theft Car: San Andreas or Metal GEAR Solid 3: Snake Eater .

From the official exit of Playstation 2 in March 2000, more than 118 million units were sold in the world (45 million in Europe, 25 million in Japan, and 48 million in the United States), which is the absolute records of sale of console of living room, exceeding even the portable console Game Boy (118 million). For the birthday of the console in the USA, Sony Computer Entertainment stated to have crossed the bar of the 120 million.

Processors

The great number of processors of PlayStation 2 (EE, CONSIDERING, GS, IOP, SPU, DMAC…) in fact a console rather difficult to program. It is essential to use these various processors in parallel to draw the maximum performances from the console.

  • Emotion Engine (EE), the name of the main frame of the console.

  • Vector Units (CONSIDERING), a vectorial calculating unit presents in double: VU0 and VU1.
  • Floating Point Links (FPU), the Unité of floating-point calculation.
  • Graphic Synthesizer (GS), the graphics processor which deals with the creation of images (starting from primitives).
  • I/O Processor (IOP), which manages the inputs/outputs.
  • Sound Processor Links (SPU), the sound processor of the console.
  • DMA To control (DMAC), the processor which controls the data flow in DMA.

The EE, VU0, VU1 and the IOP are programmable, on two levels (microcodes and macrocode) for the vectorial units. The FPU and the VU0 and VU1 make it possible the console to reach 6,2 GFLOPS. The PS2 is able to calculate 66 million Polygone S a second and to post 75 million of them a second.

Plays

See also: List of plays PlayStation 2

The three plays most sold on PlayStation 2 are Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas , Gran Turismo 3 A-spec and Large Theft Car: Defect City . Each one of them ran out with more than 14 million units. The record in term of cumulated sales of softwares is allocated to the editor Square Enix responsible for the series Final Fantasy , Kingdom Hearts and Dragon Quest .

The console is rétrocompatible with the catalog of plays PlayStation, while its own logithèque is partially playable on its successor, the PlayStation 3.

The plays PlayStation 2 are engraved with the choice of the editor on a CD or a DVD.

The versions “editor” of the plays, reserved to the professionals and in particular intended for the demonstrations in store, are commonly called blue disc .

On the whole, it is more than 1,869 billion plays which were sold on PlayStation 2 throughout the world, it is absolute records and never yet equalized.

Similar to a computer?

Sony launched a kit which makes it possible to install Linux on this console. The kit includes/understands a Hard drive of 20 Go, a mouse, a keyboard, an Ethernet chart and two DVD, including a Linux distribution.

American academics (“ National Center for Supercomputing Applications At the University off Illinois ”) made a feasibility study besides to create a bunch of 70 machines PlayStation 2 to use this rough design power.

Peripherals

The EyeToy is the Caméra developed by Sony for PlayStation 2. It is connected on the port USB of Playstation 2 and makes it possible to play plays like Eye Toy Play . People found the means of making it function on a PC by modifying the drivers of the webcam D-Link DSB-C310 version 1.10 rev. B1.

For more the handymen, it is possible to assemble an hard drive manually there to store its safeguards or files audios, vidéos, photographs.

PSTwo

Available since December 2004, the PSTwo is an altered version of PlayStation 2 original. The changes brought are relatively minors and concern:
  • modification of the design to obtain a more compact machine and definitely finer. Dimensions 230 X 28 X 152 mm, volume were tiny room from approximately 75% and its weight passes of more than 2 kg to 900 grams.
  • the addition of a port Ethernet for the network game (the original model asking for the addition of an extension).
  • removal of bay of extension 3.5" who allowed inter alia adding an hard drive. To mitigate this absence, it is possible to connect an external hard drive using a rack USB and of an application software or (still under development) to succeed in reimplanting the disc by modifying BIOS and the hardware of the console, to even carry out the same assembly as the disc in USB, but this time in FireWire (Also called: IEEE 1394 or I-Link.)
  • removal of the button ON/OFF located behind the machine; this one thus remains constantly takes care of it if it is not disconnected.

Sony definitively stopped the manufacture of the old model.

PS2 SCPH-90000

Sony leaves to Japan for Christmas a 2007 new version the PS2, even lighter (720 grams), with the electric transformer which is integrated. It leaves to Japan on November 22nd, 2007 for 16000 Yens (96€) and is envisaged in the United States at the beginning of 2008 per $99. It will be available three colors: ceramic white, charcoal black and satin silver. It is envisaged on the territories STAKE running March 2008.

Technical specifications

  • principal Processor: (128-bit Emotion Engine )
    • Frequency of the clock - 294,912  MHz
    • Memory - 32  Mo
    Video
  • : (Graphic Synthesizer)
    • Frequency of the clock - 147,456  MHz
    • Memory VRAM Mask - 4 Mo
  • Its (in ADPCM 44100Hz - SPU2):
    • Many voices - 48 channels
    • Memory of sound - 2  Mo
  • IOP: (Processor of input/output)
    • CPU Core - PlayStation CPU+ (R3000A)
    • Frequency of the clock - 33,8688  MHz or 36,864  MHz (sélectionnable)
  • Disk player: (DVD-ROM)
    • Speed - 24X in reading CD, 4X as a reader DVD

Network game

PlayStation 2 has an adapter network which one connects by the means of a Ethernet cable, that makes it possible to share other feelings as on Battlefied 2 Modern Combat, one of the plays most popular on PS 2 to date (40€ on average) It is not manufactured more by Sony since 2006.

The model PS Two is already integrated with the console.

See too

  • List of plays to the launching of video game consoles
  • List of plays PlayStation 2

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