Overclocked PSP: Sony Handheld To Get Better Graphics & Burn More Battery
by Josh Pankratz on December 13, 2007 at 1:44 am
Chris Kohler over at Wired reported today that Sony has allowed developers to overclock the PSP to run at 333mhz, instead of the current 222mhz. In addition, the people over at 1up put a video together illustrating the extent of the changes being made.
Using next year’s God of War: Chains of Olympus the graphical overhaul can be easily seen. What’s unclear is just how portable, or rather un-portable, this overclocking will make the PSP.
An enhanced CPU on board will do nothing to help Sony fans that are already attached at the hip to their power cord. In addition, there is no mention of heat dispersal. If you increase the amount of processing a CPU has to do, you also increase the amount of ambient energy expended around the core.
PC gamers are no strangers to overclocking, and any one of them can tell you if you speed up the core, you better have a damn good heatsync or your motherboard will fry. This calls into question the PSP’s future platform stability, in addition to general comfort of holding a hotter console. I think Chris Kohler hit the nail on the head when he said, “But now, with PSP being eviscerated by the DS, they need to do whatever they can to make it appealing.”
This move may make the PSP more appealing in the short term. However, with an increase in ambient heat and an even skimpier battery life, Sony needs to think long and hard before making this a staple for PSP development moving forward.
UPDATE: After contacting Sony PR with regards to Syphon Filter and other games running at 333mhz, we can comfirm that God of War is not the first to use this clock rate. A list is being compiled for us pertaining to which games have run 333, but in the mean time I would like to thank Tom Simpson for pointing out this flaw in my piece. While not actually saying that God of War was the first title to use 333mhz I feel like it was implied in my article. Sorry for any confusion, and thanks for visiting Ripten.
Via Wired, and GameVideos
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on December 13, 2007 3:03 am
The PSP was designed with a 333 MHz processor. It was locked at 222 MHz for reasons beyond my understanding although some speculate that Sony was waiting for 65 nm chips that consume less power before they unlock the CPU speed. So in theory, a normal PSP running at the default speed of 222 MHz is actually underclocked. Using custom firmwares and homebrew apps, I actually unlocked mine and I haven’t noticed that much difference in ambient heat (I have both the fat and the slim PSP).
The bus speed and the GPU speed is also currently locked at 111 MHz but unlocking the CPU should boost it to 166 MHz which explains the awesome shadows and dynamic lighting in the GoW comparison video. When it is released, I’ll try playing it on my fat PSP and see if it explodes on my face. Although I really wouldn’t be able to tell if it’s due to overheating or due to Kratos.
on December 13, 2007 3:04 am
Homebrews and backup games been running stably on PSP since DAY 1! The only downside is the loss of battery time. You need to do more research next time before you post!
on December 13, 2007 3:44 am
I’ve been running my psp at 333 since about a month after launch, i now have a slim psp which alos runs at 333 with no overheating issues….
on December 13, 2007 8:41 am
I thought the psp was clocked at 333mhz on its release with the 1.0 firmware.
on December 13, 2007 9:48 am
this journalist is a complete idiot. the fact that the psp was designed for 333mhz but limited to 222 has been well publicised. it’s not overclocking at all, and his mentioning of heat dispersion and thermal stress is pathetic. he’s right about the potential for increased battery draw, although so far the 333mhz games that i’ve played (namely tomb raider and syphon filter) have demonstrated no excess drainage on battery. this guy should get his facts right, and this article should be amended.
also, the methods used for compiling UMDs have progressed in the last few years. in order to minimise the need for UMD spinning developers have started burning data onto UMD so that all the data necessary for a specific level or whatever is continuous across, rather than fragmented across the disk. for instance, instead of having all the geometry on one sector of the UMD and texture on another sector, developers now burn the UMDs so that the geometry and textures for SPECIFIC levels are burned to specific sectors. grand theft auto: lcs was the first to use this technique (quite a while ago now), but it’s become much more common practice now. this technique also explains why load times have gotten vastly better over the PSPs lifecycle.
there are other tricks that developers have been employing to maximise battery life. if this guy followed development at all he’d have been a bit more careful with this crapheap of an article.
the quote from Chris Kohler demonstrates a similar level of ignorance. from day one sony had been promising that developers would eventually be able to access 333 (if anything it’s annoying that it’s taken so long). the claim that this is a “desperate move” by sony is ridiculous. although they’re getting hammered by the DS, the psp has still been profitable for sony (unlike the ps3, which has been a disaster with regards to both hardware sales and attach rate), and it’s wrong to think that that this move signals any desperation on their part. also, the psp has been doing better now than it has ever done (check the sales figures), thanks largely to the slim n lite, so it’s a little odd to suggest that they’re in particularly dire straits right this very moment.
on December 13, 2007 5:43 pm
Dear Trak Rek,
“this journalist is a complete idiot. the fact that the psp was designed for 333mhz but limited to 222 has been well publicised. it’s not overclocking at all”
You are arguing semantics man, the PSP shipped with 222mhz, now development is utilizing 333mhz. For lack of a better term it’s an overclock.
In addition, what hasn’t been well documented is what happens to the graphics when you set your firmware to run at 333mhz. That’s chiefly because there’s no change at all. This article is about developers pushing the PSP and developing with 333mhz in mind. If they are telling the PSP to draw more processing power, then heat could be a huge factor. Using your PSP firmware overclocks as a benchmark for what will happen is foolish and asinine.
Read the article, and please stop being a raging zealot for a manufacturer. I realize that you want to defend your purchase, but to do so blindly is ignorance.
on December 13, 2007 6:53 pm
Trak Rek,
First, thanks for the comment. I spoke to several individuals that I know who work in the consumer product industry on the tech side (meaning they don’t sell stuffed animals).
What I asked them was this — if a product contained a processor which (according to its own specs) could run faster than it was being allowed to run in said product, what would the term be if an individual altered that processors speed?
Each of them said the same thing, stating that it would a) violate the warranty of said product, and b) would be considered “overclocking” the processor based on that products predetermined specs.
It doesn’t matter what the processor could or would do if placed in another product, simply because this instance involves the combination of many parts working as one (i.e the battery, etc).
Thanks,
Chad-
on December 13, 2007 7:03 pm
And if Sony always expected to up the clock speed, and was always in their original design plans - but held back for unknown reasons?
I’m sure they’ve tested all these things - they are the best hardware makers around, with the least amount of hardware failures of nearly every product they make…
on December 13, 2007 7:48 pm
The PSP ships at 222mhz because 333mhz is too hard on the battery. It has nothing to do with heat or stress on the hardware. People have been running their PSP at 333mhz since 2005. The editor did not do his homework.
on December 13, 2007 10:34 pm
I don’t think that “overclocking” is as big as a problem as using the wireless. The WiFi heats up your left hand LOTS more than the CPU running at 333 can do (as people points out, we have been running the PSP at 333 for long with no big differences). The battery goes down like crazy when using the WiFi too.
IMHO, you are exagerating about heat and battery. The CPU is barely responsible of it (ei, no “Intel inside” ;p not all CPUs are so power-hungry as those from Intel ;p)
on December 13, 2007 11:04 pm
josh and chad,
josh, overclocking is defined as running a processor at a higher frequency than what it was designed. this is clearly not what is happening with the psp. it was DESIGNED for 333. overclocking carries with it the risk of thermal stress and electron migration (which is actually the bigger problem with overclocking, although i doubt you’d know that). i say again, the psp was designed and tested to withstand 333 without electron flooding or overheating. what is happening with the psp is not an overclock, and it’s a bit rich for you to accuse me of playing the semantics game and then say that because this is overclocking sony are taking risks with their consumer’s console. they’re simply not overclocking. if you really do “lack a better term” then you’re probably in the wrong game. misinformed AND expressively challenged? get a new job mate. it’s just a shame that you’re not writing for a serious publication that’d be obliged to print a retraction of this borderline libelous rubbish.
josh, you are also a bit dim for saying that “Using your PSP firmware overclocks as a benchmark for what will happen is foolish and asinine.” I was ***NOT*** talking about firmware overclocks. several games have been released that already use 333 - syphon filter logan’s shadow, the new star wars battlefront renegade squadron (in single player; downshifted to 222 in multiplayer to conserve battery - like i said, battery life is still a concern, and 333 does indeed use more battery), the european version of tomb raider anniversary (supposedly not the US, although i can’t confirm this), and wipeout pulse which came out just yesterday (on our side of the pond at least). there are others besides. all of this is well known. 333 mhz has been available since firmware revision (that is, OFFICIAL firmware revision) 3.5 (which has been out for quite a while now), and developers have been developing with this spec in mind since last year. You are bloody useless for not knowing this.
and which purchase of mine am i defending? yes, i own a psp, but i’m primarily a pc gamer. i’m getting myself a wii for christmas, i’ve already got access to a 360 and i think the 360 has probably had a better year this year than just about any console has ever had. please don’t accuse me of being a biased corporate fanboy just because i have an interest in the facts. i’d already mentioned the disaster of the ps3, and i’d be just as pissed off if someone had denied that, say, the 360 falcon chipset was a 65nm board, which it most certainly is.
chad, ask a SINGLE psp developer if the move to 333 represents overclocking. it doesn’t, for the reasons stipulated above.
and josh, do some more research at least. you accused me of not reading your article closely. well, i think i did, and besides i’m just a humble poster; you’re the journalist who appears to know nothing about the topic he’s writing on.
-t
on December 13, 2007 11:39 pm
Thanks for your thoughts trak. I will reach out to a few developers who have worked on PSP titles and see what they have to say about the matter.
Chad-
on December 14, 2007 8:07 am
Overclock? Did people buy a system that in order to get great power of it you would have to overclock it by doing that you put the system in halflife mode in other words you payed money so the cpu can fry and you would have to buy a new one for more money only to find out its already set to fry. Thats just plain stupid!