Why are PS2 games so much larger?

[Pke300]

So I've been playing N64 Games for awhile and it's awesome because I can go download a game in 5 seconds, but PS2 on the other hand, has 2 GB games that take hours to download. Why is that? PS2 console/games are obviously more complex than N64, but is it really that big of a difference to have an extra 2 gigs? Just wondering. =P

Also, how can I make my download speed increase? Seems like the places I'm downloading the games from have pretty bad hosting compared to when I download a 2 GB file somewhere else. Thanks dudes.

Trying to get the Sly Cooper series and Star Wars Battlefront. =P

PS: Sorry for my little knowledge. New to this whole "emulation" stuff. =D

[Elin]

Why is that? PS2 console/games are obviously more complex than N64, but is it really that big of a difference to have an extra 2 gigs?

Yes. Putting aside the technological gap between the N64 and the PS2 and the fact that PS2 assets are going to be substantially larger on their own, PS2 games also often have very large amounts of pre-rendered sequences, voice acting and music / sound effects that are streaming as opposed to chip generated. These take up a lot of space, and are difficult to fit onto a cartridge, especially back in the days of the N64 when audio and video compression was less advanced than it is now, so they're largely absent from N64 games, which is probably the biggest reason for the size discrepancy being as big as it is. It's also the main reason that even PS1 games tend to be so much larger than N64 games, even though the N64 was the more powerful console of the two in that case.

[Zorlon]

Adding to above developers are given a lot more space on the media to work with (one reason that back in the day Square Soft moved from Nintendo to Sony due to lack of space on the N64 carts)

Max space a PS2 dever could use is around 9GB for Dual Layer DVD's and 4.7GB for standard DVD's even CD games are up to around 800MB, N64 carts only go up to apx. 65MB of game data storage

There are even PSX and PS2 games that are multi disc so multi CD games like Final Fantasy VII to IX for PSX and PS2 Multi Disc games like Xenosaga and Some of the Grandia games that are big games to start with

The N64 bottled out for devers because of the lack of space the carts could hold and the price to make them, so the console sadly lost out due to this and eventually lost out to consumers as well because of the lack of games

The N64 was a good console but due to it's limitations it lost out, to PSX mostly... Saturn as well but they lost out to PSX as well poor Nintendo and Sega

Today we have BlueRay to use that range from 25GB for a single layer disc to a 4 layer disc storing a massive 128GB (I know the math doesn't work but the figures are correct :/) most PS3 games are just on Single Layer though, I am unaware of any games that are on dual layer BD-Roms or higher

There is also a middle range media that came between CD and DVD called GD-Rom used both in the arcades for Naomi arcade machines and the Sega Dreamcast that stored 1GB of game data (the track wasn't too far from dvd but it wasn't dvd) and a further 200MB of normal CD disc space for CDDA tracks or for PC file extra's (like icons and wallpapers)

[gezegond]

There is also a middle range media that came between CD and DVD called GD-Rom used both in the arcades for Naomi arcade machines and the Sega Dreamcast that stored 1GB of game data (the track wasn't too far from dvd but it wasn't dvd) and a further 200MB of normal CD disc space for CDDA tracks or for PC file extra's (like icons and wallpapers)

Physically, GD-Rom and CD-Rom are identical, the only difference is the burn method. I wouldn't call it a separate media.

EDIT: (I understand that I'm getting off topic here so 'll just stfu )

[ZuNinja]

Zorlon, I think Metal Gear Solid 4 used more than a single layer as well as Final Fantasy 13 on the PS3

[Zorlon]

Physically, GD-Rom and CD-Rom are identical, the only difference is the burn method. I wouldn't call it a separate media.

EDIT: (I understand that I'm getting off topic here so 'll just stfu )

And you are completely wrong as well as off topic, no CD by any imagination can store 1.2GB of data GD-Rom only have 200MB of normal CD data you can only see that on a PC drive that might be what makes you think they are normal CD's but there is another 1GB of data in the middle of the disc, if you flip one of the GD-Rom's over you can see that there is 2 different types of tracks 1 being the GD part the outer part being Normal CD the part is read in a PC drive often just had CDDA tracks and a couple of small info files, some games held images in there like wallpapers for PC and other bonus material but no actual game data is ever there because it is in the GD part.

P.S. there is no way to burn a GD-Rom with any PC CD drive DVD and BD drives will not cut it either.

Sounds like you think Cdi image are images of GD-Rom's, they are not (Mil-CD was officially used for a few Jap Music Vids apx 6 of them)

Because you are clueless about GD-Rom just read http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GD-ROM

Zorlon, I think Metal Gear Solid 4 used more than a single layer as well as Final Fantasy 13 on the PS3

Maybe

[gezegond]

A CD is made from 1.2 millimetres (0.047 in) thick, polycarbonate plastic and weighs 15–20 grams. [...] A thin layer of aluminium or, more rarely, gold is applied to the surface making it reflective.

[...]

Recordable Compact Discs, CD-Rs, are injection molded with a "blank" data spiral. A photosensitive dye is then applied, after which the discs are metalized and lacquer-coated. The write laser of the CD recorder changes the color of the dye to allow the read laser of a standard CD player to see the data, just as it would with a standard stamped disc. The resulting discs can be read by most CD-ROM drives and played in most audio CD players. CD-Rs follow the Orange Book standard.

Sega achieved the higher density by decreasing the speed of the disc to half and by letting the standard CD-ROM components read at the normal rate thus nearly doubling the disc's data density.

I am fairly certain that I can write dreamcast games on normal CD-ROMs. CDs are just a piece of plastic protecting a photosensitive dye (for recordable CDs, manufactured are a bit different, see above), which the recorder paints the dots on to represent data. Based on the speed of burning, you can pack your "colored dots" closer to achieve higher storage capacity, which is what sega did (and was pretty awesome). However the change in speed meant that the disc drive made a lot of noise (which dreamcast is famous for)

Source: Compact Disc, GD-ROM

EDIT: That's my interpretation. I'm no optical disc inventor, so you can tell me if I've misunderstood something here.

EDIT 2: Zorlon, I've read your edits. I understand that GD-ROM and CD-ROM are different pretty well. What I'm talking about here is the physical disc. As in, the physical materials used to manufacture them in factories are the same. Tracks and readability on PCs do not define the physical disc as the computer must have the software to be able to interpret the data on disc, but if I'm not mistaken both the discs and laser heads are physically identical.

EDIT 3:

P.S. there is no way to burn a GD-Rom with any PC CD drive DVD and BD drives will not cut it either.

Sounds like you think Cdi image are images of GD-Rom's, they are not (Mil-CD was officially used for a few Jap Music Vids apx 6 of them)

I am not very well informed about the process that involves dumping the GD-ROM and then writing it on a recordable CD-ROM. Can you elaborate a bit more about the cdi images? I understand that when Dreamcast first came out there was no way to dump the games using normal PC cd-rom drives, but now I can write dreamcast games using Nero.

[Zorlon]

You have misunderstood something here

It is similar to the standard CD-ROM except that the pits on the disc are packed more closely together, resulting in a higher storage capacity: around 1.2 gigabytes

It is different format to CD. CD-R discs can't have this done to them no mater what burning method they use

Blank GD-R's (they existed just for Dreamcast Dev machines) have pre set GD data and CD data area's

Look at the image on the right of the GD-Rom wiki page (that disc is full but you will notice there is a darker track inside of the main track, the main track is normal CD data read by any standard CD-Rom drive but that darker section is the 1GB section that has super tight pits)

CD's and DVD's have these pits or dots DVD's like GD's pack these closely together it's just how data is pressed onto the discs, you might as well tell me you can make a DVD fit on a CD

Pressing discs is not the same as burning them

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedi...D_HDDVD_BD.svg <- I like that example it gives you a good idea between CD DVD and BD, they all use the pits

[gezegond]

Thank you zorlon for your reply. I have modified my previous post, and also:

With modified firmware that looks for a second TOC in the high-density region it is possible to read data from the high-density region even on a normal CD-reader.

[Zorlon]

You can rip apart a PC CD/DVD drive mod it so it acts like GD Rom drive, I am aware of this, but this can not be achieved without modding the drive and it only reads

Nero though I wouldn't use it myself will burn a CD rip but it will not burn a GD-Rom image that comes with a GDI file a track01.bin (normal CD data) a track03.raw (normal CD audio track) and a track03.bin the high density track, this is the minimal they come with, sometimes there will be extra tracks for games that use CDDA, those can not be burned using any method at all, they can used with emulators or used as base files to create a CD rip

You could in thoery burn a DVD onto a CD by doing what you are saying making DVD a CD (BD on CD would be pushing it though)

But in general a normal CD drive is incapable of reading GD-Rom's, modding a CD-Rom drive is something else, you could even mod a CD-Rom drive to read DVD's but it would then only read DVD's the same would happen modding it to read the high density part of a GD it will only read the high density part as it would need a second laser setting to read normal desity tracks, a bit like CD/DVD drives have 2 sepperate laser settings, I suppose that could be possible via firmware modding on a DVD drive if you don't mind it not reading DVD's

even after modding a drive burning will still not work though...

a blank CD-R is not "empty"; the pregroove has a wobble (the ATIP), which helps the writing laser to stay on track and to write the data to the disc at a constant rate. Maintaining a constant rate is essential to ensure proper size and spacing of the pits and lands burned into the dye layer.

For this reason GD-R's are no different except the pregroove is tighter for the GB part of the GD-R and a normal pregroove for the Normal CD part

P.S. took some digging but found an image of a black GD http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/RARE-Blank...-/170599487913

He has a photo from the front and back but you can see the die is darker for the low CD density track, GD-R burners are not standard CD burners (I guess they kind of use a mix between standard CD and DVD in a mixed mode burning to both forms in one session) but the GD-R is clearly not a standard CD-R

Just realised I said it the wrong way round the inner track is normal CD data/ the lighter outer track is the 1GB data

GD-Rom's on the other hand are in essence Normal CD's pressed by modified hardware but this is different to burning a CD-R or GD-R

GD-R's also miss out a band that GD-Roms have, that is just a blank band with the text "Produced by or under license from Sega Enterprises LTD Trademark Sega", a lil like retail CD's and DVD's have a very small band just before the clear plastic center with text on em

[gezegond]

a blank CD-R is not "empty"; the pregroove has a wobble (the ATIP), which helps the writing laser to stay on track and to write the data to the disc at a constant rate. Maintaining a constant rate is essential to ensure proper size and spacing of the pits and lands burned into the dye layer.

For this reason GD-R's are no different except the pregroove is tighter for the GB part of the GD-R and a normal pregroove for the Normal CD part

[...] but the GD-R is clearly not a standard CD-R

Thank you Zorlon, I can understand the physical difference now. I was misunderstanding because I didn't know about the ATIP. Useful information.

[Zorlon]

Heh took some digging though :/ and some convincing and finding good shots of blank GD-R media was harder than I thought, lots of old sites have gone now

I can see how that can be confusing though, specially as there was a firmware mod around a few years back that let you mod a drive to read a GD-Rom's high density track, funny though even then there wasn't a lot of new dump made (it just wasn't a good method to work with due to corrupt reads ect.. and it still does not show files you can only do a raw dump)

Pressing a CD vs. Burning a CD has plenty of differences to start with, but I will not get into that, think I went into that too much anyway

P.S. I wouldn't bother hot swapping either as the TOC of the tighter band of data is much higher than any CD TOC so you can only get a partial raw dump that way.