New user, aspiring dev

Post by **Ligmark** » August 10th, 2019, 8:58 pm

Hello lads, the gist of is that I would appreciate all the beginner friendly resources I could get in regards to PSX development.

I have been wanting to get into game development for a while but I have been dismayed by the idea of getting lost in the sea of assetflips and other cheap cash grabs in the marketplaces of the modern consoles and computers, as well as the fact that I don't feel as strong of an emotional connection to modern hardware due to the trends in gaming overly focusing on monetization. And I have been amazed what indie devs were able to do on the PSX after watching an old Net Yaruze demo video. The games that I enjoy are heavily of the 5th and 6th console gen, which also made me look into PSX development as I wanted to stay in the era of consoles in which I enjoyed the most. I joined here to make games for the PSX, but after following a few tutorials (thanks Lameguy64 and two people on youtube) for basic stuff like setting up the SDK, putting a primitive on the screen and then connecting the dots regarding that to make Pong, I am basically lost on where to go and how to learn as I like focused and guided way of learning, and those type of resources seem limited with PSX.

Whether you read the first sentence of the stream of consciousness paragraph, thank you for your attention.

Of last note, I would also appreciate all the relevant communities that there are still to see what everyone is working on.

Post by **Yagotzirck** » August 10th, 2019, 11:07 pm

Welcome aboard

Honestly, I see the lack of hand-holding / guided tutorials as a plus... granted, it can feel like you're wandering in the dark without a clear direction, but as frustrating and time-consuming as it can be you'll acquire invaluable problem-solving skills by reading Sony's docs and doing your own research/experimentations, as opposed to having all the solutions already there in tutorials / someone else solving your problem on Stack Overflow in a matter of minutes and blindly applying said solution without bothering to understand how the problem was solved.

It's a bit like coding in C vs. coding in Python: you'll definitely be more productive by coding in Python and getting things done more quickly, but you aren't understanding a whole lot about what's going on under the hood, in contrast with C where all you have is a minimal standard library and you pretty much have to code everything on your own.

Post by **Ligmark** » August 11th, 2019, 4:35 pm

It wasn't until yesterday that I found out that PsyQ came with docs files and examples, very happy about the existence of those files, kinda wish the functions document could be linked with Visual Studio Code on the highlights and all that.

The reason I want some guiding at the start is that I want a strong foundation before I do anything and make sure that I don't make bad habits, or make mistakes that could've been avoided easily. I was doing an UE4 course on Udemy for a bit and they also tried to teach on how to use documentation while teaching beginner concepts, so if a guide did actually also encourage to use the docs along the way that be great.

Other than talking about this non-existent guide, Is there any good resources on learning MIPS assembly for the PS1? I have been learning 6502 assembly as a primer for any assembly, because I could find lots of material on it and thought that working with a more limited instruction set would keep things easier before I wanted to do more.

Edit: Managed to find MIPS books suggested in one of the readmes, I would even appreciate where the docs are at this point because I just constantly stumble on to stuff. Also, where are the 2000.docs or 2500.docs, searching brings nothing?

Post by **Yagotzirck** » August 12th, 2019, 7:02 am

I don't know which psyq version you got, but I have both 2000.DOC and 2500.DOC along with their pdf conversions under the TECHNOTE folder, though unless you got your hands on a DTL-H2000 or a DTL-H2500 they really aren't an essential read.

As for an introduction to MIPS assembly I'd suggest this; it's far from being a full reference, but good enough to give you a general understanding of MIPS assembly/architecture, even more so if you follow along by doing the proposed exercises in qtspim or something similar.

Ligmark wrote: ↑August 11th, 2019, 4:35 pm The reason I want some guiding at the start is that I want a strong foundation before I do anything and make sure that I don't make bad habits, or make mistakes that could've been avoided easily. I was doing an UE4 course on Udemy for a bit and they also tried to teach on how to use documentation while teaching beginner concepts, so if a guide did actually also encourage to use the docs along the way that be great.

Don't be afraid to fail - the worst that could possibly happen is getting a bunch of error messages from the compiler and a variable amount of frustration until you manage to get things right

It's all a matter of experience really, the more you do, the better you'll get; if you want proof, try opening a programming project you haven't touched in months/years, I'm pretty sure you'll find some parts that seemed alright back then, but rather cringeworthy/with a lot of room for improvement in retrospective.