Specifications[edit]
The specifications of the PlayStation 2 console are as follows, with hardware revisions:
An SCPH-10000 motherboard
An SCPH-30001 motherboard
Graphics Synthesizer as found in SCPH-390xx
Older EE+GS that does not incorporate system memory as found in SCPH-700xx
ASIC that incorporates the EE, GS, and system memory as found in SCPH-7900x and later
CPU: 128-bit[3][4] "Emotion Engine" clocked at 294.912 MHz (299 MHz on newer versions), 10.5 million transistors
System memory: 32 MB Direct Rambus or RDRAM
Memory bus Bandwidth: 3.2 gigabytes per second
Main processor: MIPS R5900 CPU core, 64-bit, little endian (mipsel).
Coprocessor: FPU (Floating Point Multiply Accumulator × 1, Floating Point Divider × 1)
Vector Units: VU0 and VU1 (Floating Point Multiply Accumulator × 9, Floating Point Divider × 1), 32-bit, at 147.456 MHz.
VU0 typically used for polygon transformations optionally (under parallel or serial connection), physics and other gameplay based things
VU1 typically used for polygon transformations, lighting and other visual based calculations (Texture matrix able for 2 coordinates (UV/ST)[25])
Parallel: Results of VU0/FPU sent as another display list via MFIFO (E.G. complex characters/vehicles/etc.)
Serial: Results of VU0/FPU sent to VU1 (via 3 methods) and can act as an optional geometry pre-processor that does all base work to update the scene every frame (E.G. camera, perspective, boning and laws of movement such as animations or physics)[26]
Floating Point Performance: 6.2 GFLOPS (single precision 32-bit floating point)
FPU 0.64 GFLOPS
VU0 2.44 GFLOPS
VU1 3.08 GFLOPS (with Internal 0.64 GFLOPS EFU)
Tri-Strip Geometric transformation (VU0+VU1): 150 million polygons per second[27]
3D CG Geometric transformation with raw 3D perspective operations (VU0+VU1): 66-80+ million polygons per second[25]
3D CG Geometric transformations at peak bones/movements/effects (textures)/lights (VU0+VU1, parallel or series): 15–20 million polygons per second[27]
Actual real-world polygons (per frame):500-650k at 30fps, 250-325k at 60fps
Compressed Image Decoder: MPEG-2
I/O Processor interconnection: Remote Procedure Call over a serial link, DMA controller for bulk transfer
Cache memory: Instruction: 16 KB, Data: 8 KB + 16 KB (ScrP)
Graphics processing unit: "Graphics Synthesizer" clocked at 147.456 MHz
Pixel pipelines: 16
Video output resolution: variable from 256×224 to 1920×1080 pixels
4 MB Embedded DRAM video memory bandwidth at 48 gigabytes per second (main system 32 MB can be dedicated into VRAM for off-screen materials)
Texture buffer bandwidth: 9.6 &GB/s
Frame buffer bandwidth: 38.4 GB/s
DRAM Bus width: 2560-bit (composed of three independent buses: 1024-bit write, 1024-bit read, 512-bit read/write)
Pixel configuration: RGB: Alpha:Z Buffer (24:8, 15:1 for RGB, 16, 24, or 32-bit Z buffer)
Dedicated connection to: Main CPU and VU1
Overall pixel fillrate: 16×147 = 2.352 Gpixel/s (rounded to 2.4 Gpixel/s)
Pixel fillrate: with no texture, flat shaded 2.4 (75,000,000 32pixel raster triangles)
Pixel fillrate: with 1 full texture (Diffuse Map), Gouraud shaded 1.2 (37,750,000 32-bit pixel raster triangles)
Pixel fillrate: with 2 full textures (Diffuse map + specular or alpha or other), Gouraud shaded 0.6 (18,750,000 32-bit pixel raster triangles)
GS effects: AAx2 (poly sorting required),[25] Bilinear, Trilinear, Multi-pass, Palletizing (4-bit = 6:1 ratio, 8-bit = 3:1)
Multi-pass rendering ability
Four passes = 300 Mpixel/s (300 Mpixels/s divided by 32 pixels = 9,375,000 triangles/s lost every four passes)[28]
Audio: "SPU1+SPU2" (SPU1 is actually the CPU clocked at 8 MHz)
Sound Memory: 2 MB
Number of voices: 48 hardware channels of ADPCM on SPU2 plus software-mixed channels
Sampling Frequency: 44.1 kHz or 48 kHz (selectable)
Output: Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround sound, DTS (Full motion video only), later games achieved analog 5.1 surround during gameplay through Dolby Pro Logic II
I/O Processor
I/O Memory: 2 MB
CPU Core: Original PlayStation CPU (MIPS R3000A clocked at 33.8688 MHz or 37.5 MHz)
Automatically underclocked to 33.8688 MHz to achieve hardware backwards compatibility with original PlayStation format games.
Sub Bus: 32-bit
Connection to: SPU and CD/DVD controller.
Connectivity:
2 proprietary PlayStation controller ports (250 kHz clock for PS1 and 500 kHz for PS2 controllers)
2 proprietary Memory Card slots using MagicGate encryption (250 kHz for PS1 cards, up to 2 MHz for PS2 cards)
2 USB 1.1 ports with an OHCI-compatible controller
AV Multi Out (Composite video, S-Video, RGsB (SCART and VGA connector†
, YPBPR(component), and D-Terminal)
RFU DC Out
S/PDIF Digital Out
Expansion Bay for 3.5" HDD (Network Adaptor required, SCPH-10000 to 500xx only)
Ethernet port (Slim only)
PCMCIA for PCMCIA Network Adaptor and External Hard Disk Drive (early models only)
i.LINK (SCPH-10000 to 3000x only)
Infrared remote control port (SCPH-500xx and newer)
^† VGA connector is only available for progressive-scan supporting games and Linux for PlayStation 2 and requires a monitor that supports RGsB, or "sync on green," signals.
Disc Drive type: proprietary interface through a custom micro-controller + DSP chip. 24x speed CD-ROM, 4x speed DVD-ROM — Region-locked with anti-copy protection. Can't read Gold Discs.
Supported Disc Media: PlayStation 2 format CD-ROM, PlayStation format CD-ROM, CD-DA, PlayStation 2 format DVD-ROM, DVD Video. DVD5 (Single-layer, 4.7 GB) and DVD9 (Dual-layer, 8.5 GB) supported. Later models starting with SCPH-500xx are DVD+RW and DVD-RW compatible.
