"Forward compatible" PS1 games w/ 8MB RAM?

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yaroze
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"Forward compatible" PS1 games w/ 8MB RAM?

Post by yaroze » July 19th, 2016, 1:12 am

Just a random thought – given that the PS1 can technically address up to 8MB of RAM (and the well-documented SCPH-5552 mod proves that it's possible to physically add this memory to an actual PlayStation), wouldn't it have been cool if some later PS1 games (such as Tekken 3) had been made "forward compatible" and used this extra (virtual) RAM whenever the game was played in an emulator? (i.e. the official PS1 emulator within the upcoming PlayStation 2)

I seem to recall that RAM limitations were the main reason why the System 12's 3D backgrounds in Tekken 3 had to be dropped on the PS1, so it would've been a good selling point (and presumably relatively easy to implement) to promise gamers that these would become available on the upcoming PlayStation 2 (which was surely in development by that point anyway ?)

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Shadow
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Post by Shadow » July 19th, 2016, 1:59 am

Actually it was a VRAM limitation. The System 12 boards had 2 MB of VRAM versus the 1 MB on all PSX's.
It's been reported that PSone's have 2 MB of SGRAM on-board, but it's disabled.
Development Console: SCPH-5502 with 8MB RAM, MM3 Modchip, PAL 60 Colour Modification (for NTSC), PSIO Switch Board, DB-9 breakout headers for both RGB and Serial output and an Xplorer with CAETLA 0.34.

PlayStation Development PC: Windows 98 SE, Pentium 3 at 400MHz, 128MB SDRAM, DTL-H2000, DTL-H2010, DTL-H201A, DTL-S2020 (with 4GB SCSI-2 HDD), 21" Sony G420, CD-R burner, 3.25" and 5.25" Floppy Diskette Drives, ZIP 100 Diskette Drive and an IBM Model M keyboard.

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