supernihilist said:
walsufnir said:
Seems Nintendo has a tradition with this (I don't know about GC and Wii though):
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nintendo_64_programming_characteristics#Microcode
"The graphics and audio co-processor was programmable through microcode.[7] By altering the microcode run on the device, it could perform different operations, create new effects, and be better tuned for speed or quality; however, Nintendo was unwilling to share the microcode tools with developers[citation needed] until the end of the Nintendo 64's life-cycle. Programming RSP microcode was said to be quite difficult because the Nintendo 64 code tools were very basic, with no debugger and poor documentation. As a result, it was very easy to make mistakes that would be hard to track down, mistakes that could cause seemingly random bugs or glitches. SGI's default microcode for Nintendo 64 is called "Fast3D", which some developers noted was poorly profiled for use in games. Although it allowed more than ~100,000 high accuracy polygons per second, it was optimized more for accuracy than for speed, and performance suffered as a result. Nintendo's own "Turbo3D" microcode allowed 500,000–600,000 normal accuracy polygons per second. However, due to the graphical degradation, Nintendo discouraged its use. Several companies, such as Factor 5,[8] Boss Game Studios and Rare, were able to write custom microcode that ran their software better than SGI's standard microcode." |
The tools and such were developed by Silicon graphics not by Nintendo.
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Completely? Most probably not, especially it was Nintendo's part to share as much documentation as possible. Given that they developed their own microcode it is clear they had this documentation.
Essay Pro
