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I'm loving this series from ARS, another great one about Crash Bandicoot where apparently they needed extra RAM so selectively overwrote the sony libraries in R

I'm loving this series from ARS, another great one about Crash Bandicoot where apparently they needed extra RAM so selectively overwrote the sony libraries in RAM with their own data, by experimenting which areas were needed on whether it crashed or not. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=izxXGuVL21o https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=izxXGuVL21o

jacobush 7y ago
Wow, that's so crazy and wonderful. And yet very okay, since it wasn't like there would be any other application running. :) If I recall correctly, (original) XBOX games would often go the the next level of whatever game by just loading a new EXE and start over from scratch, rather than bothering with some kind of "level loading and init" code.
- remarkEon 7y ago
  The Command and Conquer episode from last year is also excellent: https://youtu.be/S-VAL7Epn3o https://youtu.be/S-VAL7Epn3o
- Insanity 7y ago
  guess that could make sense in a way. Dump all 'state' to disk, start new exe that begins by reading that state, and go from there.
  - jacobush 7y ago
    And often that state would be minimal. What character am I playing, what is the total score, stuff like that.
  - akx 7y ago
    Reminds me of how Emacs is built, with a `temacs` executable whose state is dumped to generate `emacs` which boots faster... https://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/manual/html_node/elisp/Building-Emacs.html https://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/manual/html_node/elisp/Bu...
  - anoncake 7y ago
    They needed that code anyway for savegames.
  - ascagnel_ 7y ago
    It was fine on consoles, but on PC it'd lead to some weird behavior, like the monitor switching modes as it returned to the desktop and then went back into 3D mode as the newly-launched EXE ran its init code.
- nottorp 7y ago
  The original x-com (the good one from 1994) had separate executables at least for the geoscape and tactical battles. In spite of being a 32 bit application using a dos extender, so not limited to the first 640k ram.
  - dfox 7y ago
    Almost all Microprose PC games from early 90's were structured as small .COM driver that switched between some number of separate .EXEs. IIRC there is notable exception of Civilization that used proper overlays.
- anthk 7y ago
  The Italian Job for PC works like that too.
skocznymroczny 7y ago
So that's why it's called Crash Bandicoot
ansible 7y ago
Crash Bandicoot on the OG Playstation was such a marvel. The graphics looked so much better than many other titles on the same platform, even those coming out years later.
glandium 7y ago
There is an extended version of the interview. https://youtu.be/pSHj5UKSylk https://youtu.be/pSHj5UKSylk
mywittyname 7y ago
I also get a kick out of their technique for constantly loading pages of memory from the disk, resulting in a few thousand seeks per level then come to find out Sony only rated the disk drive for <100k seeks. I wonder how influential the decision was to not tell Sony brass about it.
- maxsilver 7y ago
  This would also explain why early PlayStation's CD drives would die so routinely...

jacobush 7y ago

Wow, that's so crazy and wonderful. And yet very okay, since it wasn't like there would be any other application running. :) If I recall correctly, (original) XBOX games would often go the the next level of whatever game by just loading a new EXE and start over from scratch, rather than bothering with some kind of "level loading and init" code.

remarkEon 7y ago
The Command and Conquer episode from last year is also excellent: https://youtu.be/S-VAL7Epn3o https://youtu.be/S-VAL7Epn3o
Insanity 7y ago
guess that could make sense in a way. Dump all 'state' to disk, start new exe that begins by reading that state, and go from there.
- jacobush 7y ago
  And often that state would be minimal. What character am I playing, what is the total score, stuff like that.
- akx 7y ago
  Reminds me of how Emacs is built, with a `temacs` executable whose state is dumped to generate `emacs` which boots faster... https://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/manual/html_node/elisp/Building-Emacs.html https://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/manual/html_node/elisp/Bu...
- anoncake 7y ago
  They needed that code anyway for savegames.
- ascagnel_ 7y ago
  It was fine on consoles, but on PC it'd lead to some weird behavior, like the monitor switching modes as it returned to the desktop and then went back into 3D mode as the newly-launched EXE ran its init code.
nottorp 7y ago
The original x-com (the good one from 1994) had separate executables at least for the geoscape and tactical battles. In spite of being a 32 bit application using a dos extender, so not limited to the first 640k ram.
- dfox 7y ago
  Almost all Microprose PC games from early 90's were structured as small .COM driver that switched between some number of separate .EXEs. IIRC there is notable exception of Civilization that used proper overlays.
anthk 7y ago
The Italian Job for PC works like that too.

skocznymroczny 7y ago

So that's why it's called Crash Bandicoot

ansible 7y ago

Crash Bandicoot on the OG Playstation was such a marvel. The graphics looked so much better than many other titles on the same platform, even those coming out years later.

glandium 7y ago

There is an extended version of the interview. https://youtu.be/pSHj5UKSylk https://youtu.be/pSHj5UKSylk

mywittyname 7y ago

I also get a kick out of their technique for constantly loading pages of memory from the disk, resulting in a few thousand seeks per level then come to find out Sony only rated the disk drive for <100k seeks. I wonder how influential the decision was to not tell Sony brass about it.

maxsilver 7y ago
This would also explain why early PlayStation's CD drives would die so routinely...