KSP For the Playstation 3

[Collin Cutler]

Is it just me or whenever I play minecraft on my PlayStation 3 I always wonder how the Computer version got to the PlayStation version.

If Kerbal Space Program got released on the PlayStation 3 I think it might be really successful.

I think it might work out; having the left analog stick act as the W A S D Controls on the keyboard.

I wonder what your guys's opinion on this is.

I think it's a good idea but it might take a really long time accomplish.

[tygoo7]

This has been suggested lots of times. KSP has too complex controls for a controller. I don't see whats wrong with KSP on the computer.

[technicalfool]

This has been suggested lots of times.

For many different platforms, yes.

KSP has too complex controls for a controller.

[Citation needed.]

I don't see whats wrong with KSP on the computer.

Because why spend another several hundred currency units on a new computer and a heavy duty graphics card when you already have that box under the telly for playing with toys?

Some people are not, and never will be, PC gamers. Some people are young and have parents who will simply not let them install random crap on the "serious stuff" computer when they already have a box under the telly for playing with toys.

Any reason a console version of KSP could not support a USB keyboard+mouse, if you're insistant on not using a control pad?

[austincurr]

For many different platforms, yes.

[Citation needed.]

Because why spend another several hundred currency units on a new computer and a heavy duty graphics card when you already have that box under the telly for playing with toys?

Some people are not, and never will be, PC gamers. Some people are young and have parents who will simply not let them install random crap on the "serious stuff" computer when they already have a box under the telly for playing with toys.

Any reason a console version of KSP could not support a USB keyboard+mouse, if you're insistant on not using a control pad?

Pcmasterrace incoming!!!

reddit.com/r/pcmasterrace

Several hundred? Not if you already have a desktop computer to start from. Besides, I think the main reason it couldn't work is that even if all else was good, the ps3 is much weaker than the cheapest computer available, and KSP's physics can't really be simplified to allow it to work, unlike graphics effects and texture size. The new consoles might just barely be able to do it, but they focus more on graphics power than cpu power, so they won't do very well either. Of course, this is just reasons based on the internal hardware- there are probably others, but I am tired and busy, so I'm sorry for not listing them.

[Dodgey]

I have no idea on how you would implement the construction process into a consol version.

[astropapi1]

I have no idea on how you would implement the construction process into a console version.

That would be like trying to model something useful on a phone.

[technicalfool]

I have no idea on how you would implement the construction process into a consol version.

With a "mouse" pointer controlled by a thumbstick?

It's a tried and tested method that's been used for years, at least ever since the console versions of Lemmings were ported from the Amiga. If done right, with an appropriate response curve and dead zone in the middle, it could possibly be better for fine-grained placement of parts than a mouse.

Hm. I have an old Saitek p2600 pad somewhere with drivers that let you override mouse functions with the right thumbstick. I might just have to try it.

Edited February 27, 2014 by technicalfool

[Capt Snuggler]

I think the main reason it couldn't work is that even if all else was good, the ps3 is much weaker than the cheapest computer available, and KSP's physics can't really be simplified to allow it to work, unlike graphics effects and texture size. The new consoles might just barely be able to do it, but they focus more on graphics power than cpu power, so they won't do very well either.

agree this^^^

@OP:

the PS3 was released in 2006! My old Mid-range PC from 2008 cant run KSP smoothly.

there are people playing KSP on seriously powerful PCs and even they get laggy with high part count.

sorry but I think maybe you just "backed the wrong horse".

[Majorjim!]

agree this^^^

@OP:

the PS3 was released in 2006! My old Mid-range PC from 2008 cant run KSP smoothly.

there are people playing KSP on seriously powerful PCs and even they get laggy with high part count.

sorry but I think maybe you just "backed the wrong horse".

I would say his horse is looking really unwell these days. No point in putting it out to stud. Its the glue factory for this old nag.

MJ

[Sirrobert]

With a "mouse" pointer controlled by a thumbstick?

It's a tried and tested method that's been used for years, at least ever since the console versions of Lemmings were ported from the Amiga. If done right, with an appropriate response curve and dead zone in the middle, it could possibly be better for fine-grained placement of parts than a mouse.

Hm. I have an old Saitek p2600 pad somewhere with drivers that let you override mouse functions with the right thumbstick. I might just have to try it.

Because that always works so well when they try to do RTS on a console.

Some games are simply not meant for a console. Those are the games that you play primarily with a mouse. RTS is a good example, but KSP also relies on the mouse very much. Good luck trying to select the right part to rightclick to get science. Or transfer fuel. Or start an EVA. Or deploy a solar pannel...

[OTehNoes]

agree this^^^

@OP:

the PS3 was released in 2006! My old Mid-range PC from 2008 cant run KSP smoothly.

there are people playing KSP on seriously powerful PCs and even they get laggy with high part count.

sorry but I think maybe you just "backed the wrong horse".

I'd have to argue against that, I reckon a PS3/360 could run KSP just as well as a PC you could build today for £500, and Xbox One and PS4 would have no problem, just saying.

That said, I'd rather see it stay on console. Console ports of PC games are never as good, take Minecraft as an example.

[Jouni]

I'd have to argue against that, I reckon a PS3/360 could run KSP just as well as a PC you could build today for £500, and Xbox One and PS4 would have no problem, just saying.

PS3 is extremely slow by today's standards. I'm not sure if my phone has faster CPU and GPU, but at least it's a close match. Xbox 360 is from the same era, so it's performance should be similar.

Xbox One and PS4 roughly correspond to midrange gaming PCs, but their single-core CPU performance is significantly worse.

[Kasuha]

[Citation needed.]

Let's take a look at a recent console controller - XBOX One

What I can see are:

Four (?) 4-directional sticks and two buttons.

What is needed (bare minimum) to play KSP?

Mouse for looking around - directional control 1

WASDQE - directional control 2

HNIJKL - directional control 3

throttle control - directional control 4

SAS on/off + RCS on/off - rest of direcrional control 4

Staging - button 1

Escape to get menu - button 2

And then we're basically out of luck for:

camera changes

external/IVA view switch

time warp up/down

ship switch forward/back

action keys 1~0

Display changes F1~F4

Key to switch between normal/docking/map

Key to switch between celestial bodies

separate rover controls - not part of standard configuration in KSP, but extremely useful

Most games which are built for consoles are crippled by controller constraints - they cannot use any more keys than what the controller provides. And for PC version it then means most keys are unused and the few that are used have multiple functions each with uncomfortable and counterintuitive ways of selecting which function will be used. And selection menus everywhere.

Now, I am not against porting KSP to a console. But I think that finding a way how to control it would be a major challenge. And I'd hate if that meant keyboard control would follow the same path to keep things "simpler".

[Guest]

PlayStation 3 uses the Cell microprocessor, designed by Sony, Toshiba and IBM, as its CPU, which is made up of one 3.2 GHz PowerPC-based "Power Processing Element" (PPE) and eight Synergistic Processing Elements (SPEs).[81] The eighth SPE is disabled to improve chip yields.[82][83] Only six of the seven SPEs are accessible to developers as the seventh SPE is reserved by the console's operating system.[83] Graphics processing is handled by the NVIDIA RSX 'Reality Synthesizer', which can produce resolutions from 480i/576i SD up to 1080p HD.[75] PlayStation 3 has 256 MB of XDR DRAM main memory and 256 MB of GDDR3 video memory for the RSX.

Could someone explain to me how a 3.2 ghz processor and an 256 MB NVIDIA graphics processor are not capable of running a game that bottlenecks at the CPU? As for controls, is there some kind of unwritten rule that says "me must not plug in keyboard and mouse to console".

[CaptainBlue]

PlayStation 3 uses the Cell microprocessor, designed by Sony, Toshiba and IBM, as its CPU, which is made up of one 3.2 GHz PowerPC-based "Power Processing Element" (PPE) and eight Synergistic Processing Elements (SPEs).[81] The eighth SPE is disabled to improve chip yields.[82][83] Only six of the seven SPEs are accessible to developers as the seventh SPE is reserved by the console's operating system.[83] Graphics processing is handled by the NVIDIA RSX 'Reality Synthesizer', which can produce resolutions from 480i/576i SD up to 1080p HD.[75] PlayStation 3 has 256 MB of XDR DRAM main memory and 256 MB of GDDR3 video memory for the RSX.

Could someone explain to me how a 3.2 ghz processor and an 256 MB NVIDIA graphics processor are not capable of running a game that bottlenecks at the CPU? As for controls, is there some kind of unwritten rule that says "me must not plug in keyboard and mouse to console".

The Sony PS3's GPU is a slightly modified chip of the NVIDIA Geforce 7800 GTX. They didn't disable the Cell proc's eighth SPE to "improve chip yields", more like the chips that are printed out have poor yield so they had to disable one SPE.

Btw, I would wager with a bit of currency that the Cell proc does have enough processing power "to do it"(30-60FPS physics), but first, Unity3d needs a complete rewrite to be able to do it properly though. And perhaps a new physics engine developed from ground up to be able "to do it".

Edited February 27, 2014 by CaptainBlue
Typo and spelling corrections.

[Jouni]

Could someone explain to me how a 3.2 ghz processor and an 256 MB NVIDIA graphics processor are not capable of running a game that bottlenecks at the CPU?

CPU clock rate ceased to be a useful performance indicator more than a decade ago. For example, the single-threaded performance of a Haswell i7 from 2013 is 3-4 times higher than for a 2006 CPU with the same clock rate.

[OTehNoes]

PS3 is extremely slow by today's standards. I'm not sure if my phone has faster CPU and GPU, but at least it's a close match. Xbox 360 is from the same era, so it's performance should be similar.

Xbox One and PS4 roughly correspond to midrange gaming PCs, but their single-core CPU performance is significantly worse.

The Xbox One and PS4 are equivalent to a current approx £6-700 PC. I'd wager that both could easily max KSP without a problem, and PS3/360 could easily run it at medium settings. I have an ancient Alienware with a GeForce 9800M and 2.0gHz dual core with 4gb RAM and it has no problem running KSP at almost max settings, a PS3/360 are much better optimized and could probably run it at least as well as my old laptop.

[Dodgey]

-snip-

As for controls, is there some kind of unwritten rule that says "me must not plug in keyboard and mouse to console".

Because then what's the point of having a console? If you are just going to plug a keyboard and mouse into it you might as well have bought a PC that you can do significantly more with.

And before anyone brings minecraft into this let me just say that the controlls are much more sophisticated in KSP than minecraft, as Kasuha pointed out there simple isn't enough buttons on a standard controller to be able to play KSP with, and if you are just going to plug a keyboard and mouse in why not get a PC?.

[Capt Snuggler]

PS3 specs

CPU: 3.2 GHz Cell Broadband Engine with 1 PPE & 7 SPEs

Memory: 256 MB system and 256 MB video

Graphics: 550 MHz NVIDIA/SCEI RSX 'Reality Synthesizer'

Keep in mind, it's hard to equivocate the two platforms, specially in the CPU department as the architecture is very different and with a game as single-core intensive as KSP, I'm pretty sure this is bad news.

now as for PC specs for £500

*Kingston Technology 120GB Solid State Drive 2.5-inch V300 SATA 3

£52.72

*MSI NVIDIA GTX 750Ti Gaming 1085MHz (Boost 1163MHz) 5400MHz 2GB 128-bit DDR5 DL-DVI-D HDMI PCI-E Graphics Card

£123.05

*Fractal Design Core 1000 Series Micro ATX Case - Black Pearl

£33.01

*Corsair Builder Series CX 500 Watt ATX/EPS 80 PLUS Bronze Power Supply Unit

£42.14

*Corsair CMZ4GX3M1A1600C9 4GB 1600MHz CL9 DDR3 Vengeance Memory Module

£32.00

*Intel 3rd Generation Core i5-3570K CPU 3.40GHz

£164.23

*MSI H61M-P20-G3 Motherboard (Intel H61 Processor, M-ATX, Gigabit LAN, Socket LGA1155)

£29.00

Subtotal (7 items): £476.15

and thats just on amazon. it would be cheaper if you shop around. with that spec you could go to town on pretty much any game, not just KSP AND you could use it to post on this forum AND download mods AND blah blah blah...

...now i want to buy a new PC

Edited February 27, 2014 by Capt Snuggler

[AeroEngy]

Let's take a look at a recent console controller - XBOX One

http://compass.xboxlive.com/assets/69/e3/69e37cdc-000f-460d-b478-2398c03c872e.jpg

What I can see are:

Four (?) 4-directional sticks and two buttons.

What is needed (bare minimum) to play KSP?

Mouse for looking around - directional control 1

WASDQE - directional control 2

HNIJKL - directional control 3

throttle control - directional control 4

SAS on/off + RCS on/off - rest of direcrional control 4

Staging - button 1

Escape to get menu - button 2

And then we're basically out of luck for:

camera changes

external/IVA view switch

time warp up/down

ship switch forward/back

action keys 1~0

Display changes F1~F4

Key to switch between normal/docking/map

Key to switch between celestial bodies

separate rover controls - not part of standard configuration in KSP, but extremely useful

Most games which are built for consoles are crippled by controller constraints - they cannot use any more keys than what the controller provides. And for PC version it then means most keys are unused and the few that are used have multiple functions each with uncomfortable and counterintuitive ways of selecting which function will be used. And selection menus everywhere.

Now, I am not against porting KSP to a console. But I think that finding a way how to control it would be a major challenge. And I'd hate if that meant keyboard control would follow the same path to keep things "simpler".

It could be done and controlled reasonably well ... with some compromises. I think the camera control would be a the hardest part. However, I don't really mess with the camera position that often once I get it where I like it.

WASDQE = Left stick + L1, R1

throttle control = L2, R2

SAS+ RCS = X,B

Staging = A

menu = Start button

Camera = Right Stick (Zooming might be an issue)

external/IVA = Depress Right Stick

time warp = D-Pad left/right

action keys = Selection wheel on D-Pad down.

HNIJKL = Use Y or menu to toggle translation control. Then left stick + R1, R2

normal/docking/map = D-Pad Up

switch between celestial bodies/vessels = menu or alter keys when in map view(x,y bodies &a,b vessels)

[technicalfool]

Because then what's the point of having a console? If you are just going to plug a keyboard and mouse into it you might as well have bought a PC that you can do significantly more with.

Because a console is a locked down toy with significant restrictions on what you can do with it, that is nonetheless vastly cheaper than buying a new PC just to play with toys.

Unless there are API restrictions in the console devkits, there is zero reason you could not plug in a class-compliant HID device and have a compatible game title recognise it. For the price of a cheapo wired or wireless desktop these days, why wouldn't you use a keyboard and mouse for games that work vastly better with that interface?

I think I already mentioned that there may be some younger players for whom access to a "proper" computer for playing with toys, is not a viable option, because if they want to play with toys, they have a box under the telly made by Sony or Microsoft or Nintendo and stop whining you little brat or I won't buy you the latest toy next Christmas. Now be grateful!

Let's not forget that KSP is basically a toy, albeit a rather detailed, impressive and educational one. You'd think that the kiddie market is one that Squad might want to chase.

Plus as I already mentioned, there are some people (actually quite a few people) who are not, never have been and never will be PC gamers. This does not mean they would not like the chance to experience unplanned high altitude disassembly for themselves. A console port, I think, would sell and sell well. The controller issue can be worked around, and might even possibly be used to provide a useful set of optional joystick/gamepad controls for the PC version. Win/win, I say.

(I've also just installed all the driver and profile software for the Saitek p2600. Guess I'll test it with KSP at some point, I'm already moving the mouse around with the right thumbstick and hey, it actually works quite well!)

[Jouni]

The Xbox One and PS4 are equivalent to a current approx £6-700 PC. I'd wager that both could easily max KSP without a problem, and PS3/360 could easily run it at medium settings. I have an ancient Alienware with a GeForce 9800M and 2.0gHz dual core with 4gb RAM and it has no problem running KSP at almost max settings, a PS3/360 are much better optimized and could probably run it at least as well as my old laptop.

Graphics settings are mostly irrelevant, when the bottleneck is in single-threaded CPU speed. Both PS3 and Xbox 360 are based on different CPU architectures than PCs. Compared to PC processors from the same era, they have sacrificed single-core performance for having more CPU cores. Basically that means that either of the consoles would probably run KSP worse than a midrange gaming PC from 2006.

[technicalfool]

*Kingston Technology 120GB Solid State Drive 2.5-inch V300 SATA 3

£52.72

Add another 60 or so quid for a reasonably sized spinning-rust hard drive that won't run out of space within three months of having the computer. How much are flash-cache drives these days?

[Capt Snuggler]

Add another 60 or so quid for a reasonably sized spinning-rust hard drive that won't run out of space within three months of having the computer. How much are flash-cache drives these days?

absolutely. 1tb for around £70 why not. I had part loading time in mind when making that list. also that was close to the equivalent HDD size on a PS3.

[Simon Ross]

It really all comes down to the CPU used. Even in the latest gen consoles, the actual CPU used is in reality a bit underwhelming, consoles generally rely on decent GPU's to carry most of the graphical workload.

Could the PS4 & Xbox run KSP...Just about, but it would be laggy as hell !