According to the latest issue of PSM, at a recent PlayStation developers meeting, Sony revealed some research they'd been conducting on the PS2's performance. Sony Europe used what they are calling a "performance analyzer" to examine some of the console's better looking games. They came to the conclusion that most games don't even utilize the PS2's power. In fact, 60% of the games tested only ran at 30 frames per second.
Apparently, the secret (or not so secret) way to unleash the PS2's power is to use its vector units (VUs), which are co-processors designed to aid the much-ballyhooed Emotion Engine with AI or physics for example. Of course, the games that used the VUs fared much better, and the game that scored highest did indeed use the VUs the most. Unfortunately, the title of that game was not disclosed. This unamed title was able to display about twice as many polygons and ran at about 60 fps.
One problem as PSM points out is that "a lot of the games that don't really use vector units are ports from other systems." Now if only Sony can get more and more developers to actually utilize the VUs, PS2 gamers will be a much happier bunch.
http://sony.gamerfeed.com/gf/news/5111/
Most games that are ported are almost ALWAYS ported from the PS2 to other consoles. The last big game that was ported from other consoles to the PS2 was Splinter Cell.
A big game coming out shortly for PS2 is Sonic Hero's. It runs 60fps on 'Cube and 'Box but on PS2 it runs at 30. I know Sega isn't just gonna half ass it to PS2 since I'm about 100% sure they made it on PS2 first then ported it. Did Sony not tell them "Here's how to use the VU's efficiently so that X game can run as fast and as good as the other 2 consoles".
But enough of my opinion. I feel this article is valid, but I want to see some comparisons of games not using VU's with games using the VU's.
PS2 Not Being Taken Advantage Of
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