Why is PlayStation the best-selling system on the planet? We could go on for days, but then we start to sound kind of nuts after awhile, so we'll just cut to the chase -- we know you'd rather be playing.   CD-Quality Sound    Our games look just like audio CDs, so we ought to sound as good as one. The same technology that gives your CD player the ability to make your hair stand up on end and your landlady to pound on your ceiling with a broomhandle? It's at work here as well, making us the only gaming console that can offer CD-quality sound.   Full Motion Video    We're also one of the first to offer full motion video (FMV to the gaming elite), giving you a full, immersive experience. And it looks dang good, too.   Unbelievable Storage    Most cartridges max out at about 96 MB. of information. Compare this to the 650 MB. of maximum storage on a CD. In other words, more than six times the storage. Not into numbers? Nibble on this: The code for about five entire Final Fantasy VI games (previously released on cartridge) can fit into space that holds the opening video of the Final Fantasy VII CD for PlayStation.   If it's specifics you're looking for, a closer look under the hood follows. Choose from the short list and the full story.

 
 
          THE SHORT LIST:
          

• Multiple independent custom processors with a 32-bit RISC CPU
• CD-ROM drive
• Renders up to 360,000 polygons per second
• Full-frame video at 30 frames per second
• 360-degree camera movement
• CD-quality sound
• Digital lighting and texture mapping capabilities
• Displays 16.8 million colors simultaneously

THE FULL STORY:


 CPU


• R3000A
• 32 bit RISC processor
• Clock- 33.8688MHz
• Operating performance - 30 MIPS
• Instruction Cache - 4 KB
• Data Cache - 1 KB
• BUS - 132 MB/sec.
CD ROM DRIVE

• Data Transfer Rate (DMA TO RAM)

150 KB/sec. (Normal)
300 KB/sec. (Double speed)
• Maximum Capacity - 660 Megabytes
• Features

Audio CD play
XA Interactive Audio
GRAPHICAL CAPABILITIES


NTSC Display Resolution

 

MODE			Resolution (H x V)
(non-interlaced)
0  1  2  3  4			256x480   320x480   384x480   512x480   640x480
(non-interlaced)
5  6  7  8  9			256x480   320x480   384x480   512x480   640x480

Color Depth

MODE			COLORS
4  8  15  24			16  256  32,768  16,777,216

All calculations are performed to 24 bit accuracy
Texture mapping color mode

• 4 bit CLUT (16 Colors)
• 8 bit CLUT (256 Colors)
• 15 bit direct (32768 Colors)
2D GRAPHICAL CAPABILITIES

Sprite display capability
Size:1X1 pixels to 256X256 pixels

SPRITE SIZE				BIT DEPTH
				4 bit	8 bit	16 bit
8X8  16X16				280K  110K	280K  70K	160K  40K

Rectangles per second

 GEOMETRY ENGINE (GTE)


• Operating performance: 66 MIPS
• 3D polygon transformation:
 

Type	Per second
Flat shaded	1.5 M
Gouraud, textured and light sourced	500 K

GTE performs high speed matrix multiplies

DATA DECOMPRESSION ENGINE (MDEC)


• Operating performance - 80 MIPS
• Directly connected to CPU bus
• Motion JPEG-like Hardware Decompression Engine
HARDWARE RENDERED POLYGONS (GPU)

• Rendered in hardware

Up to 360K polygon/sec.
• Texture mapping
• Flat or Gouraud shading
I/O SYSTEM OVERVIEW

• Control Pad

Two control pad connectors
Expandable with multitap connector
• Backup RAM

Two removable cards
128 KB Flash Memory
OS support for File Save, Retrieve and Remove
• Serial Port I/O

Link Cable Connectivity
MEMORY CONFIGURATION

• Main RAM: 2 Megabytes
• Video RAM: 1 Megabyte
• Sound RAM: 512 Kilobytes
• CD ROM buffer: 32 Kilobytes
• OS ROM: 512 Kilobytes
SOUND PROCESSOR

• 24 Channels
• 44.1KHz sample rate
• PCM audio source
• Digital effects include:

Envelope
Looping
Digital Reverb
• Load up to 512K of sampled waveforms

Supports MIDI Instruments
SPRITE AND BACKGROUND GRAPHICS

Virtually Unlimited:
• size (up to 256 x 256)
• number of sprites on a line
• number of sprite images
• number of CLUTs
SPRITE SPECIAL EFFECTS

• Rotation
• Scaling up/down
• Warping
• Transparency
• Fading
• Priority
• Vertical and horizontal line scroll