Top all-time · #599
Rodrigo Copetti
Personal blog · copetti.org/writingshardwaregamessystems
Rodrigo Copetti writes The Copetti site, a personal blog at copetti.org about hardware, games and systems. Since 2020, 100 different Hacker News readers have linked it 145 times, most often “Architecture of Consoles”. The last post was in 2024, but the archive is still widely read.
Sometimes recommended · 13 of 40 sampled comments recommend it?
Why HN links it
HN readers link it for detailed, console-by-console architecture write-ups of game hardware, such as the PlayStation, Xbox 360 and N64.
Summarised by Claude from a sample of 40 HN comments that link here. Each comment is marked recommending, critical or neutral (citing without judging); how this works.
Most-linked posts?
- Architecture of Consoles8 people · 12 mentions · first linked 2021-02-12
- Nintendo 64 Architecture8 people · 8 mentions · first linked 2022-02-08
- Xbox 360 Architecture7 people · 8 mentions · first linked 2022-06-09
- Sony Playstation Portable (PSP) Architecture7 people · 7 mentions · first linked 2021-04-21
- Architecture of the Playstation 26 people · 6 mentions · first linked 2021-02-23
- Sega Saturn Architecture – A practical analysis (2021)6 people · 6 mentions · first linked 2021-04-19
- Dreamcast Architecture: A Practical Analysis5 people · 5 mentions · first linked 2021-02-23
- Architecture of the Nintendo DS5 people · 5 mentions · first linked 2020-08-12
- Architecture of the Playstation4 people · 4 mentions · first linked 2021-06-17
- Wii U Architecture4 people · 4 mentions · first linked 2022-10-27
What Hacker News says?
in case you don't know, some Gameboy games required to have Nintendo logo in the game data as part of copy protection. allegedly that was legal protection against bootlegs. https://www.copetti.org/writings/consoles/game-boy/#anti-pir... Playstation2 used something similar. ( https://github.com/mlafeldt/ps2logo ) I suppose it gave companies in question additional legal leverage - they could not distribute copies of g…
Comment linking /writings/consoles/game-boy/
on “Kawaii – A Keychain-Sized Nintendo Wii”Submitted Playstation 3 Architecture as a story · 401 points
HN discussionLoved your article! I just wanted to expand a bit on your last section. The Game Boy Advance did offer somewhat support for integer division, but it's not hardware-accelerated [1]. I suspect the LUT model was for performance reasons (and rightfully so!). [1] https://www.copetti.org/writings/consoles/game-boy-advance/#...
Comment linking /writings/consoles/game-boy-advance/
on “How video games use lookup tables”Submitted Architecture of the Nintendo DS as a story · 351 points
HN discussion"Never" is a strong word. This article that popped up here recently is one counterexample: https://copetti.org/projects/consoles/nintendo-64/
Comment linking /projects/consoles/nintendo-64/
on “Magic Leap reportedly slashes jobs and steps away from consumer plans”Submitted Playstation Architecture: A Practical Analysis as a story · 342 points
HN discussionDreamcast hardware did this sort of "tiled" rendering if I recall correctly. https://www.copetti.org/writings/consoles/dreamcast/#archite...
Comment linking /writings/consoles/dreamcast/
on “The 100 MHz 6502”Submitted Nintendo 64 Architecture – A Practical Analysis as a story · 330 points
HN discussionThere are some things mentioned in "Supporting readings" from that site. I can't vouch for them, but perhaps they're of interest: https://www.copetti.org/writings/consoles/materials/readings...
Comment linking /writings/consoles/materials/readings/
on “Playstation 3 Architecture”Submitted Sega Saturn Architecture – A practical analysis (2021) as a story · 327 points
HN discussionhttps://www.copetti.org/writings/consoles/ If anyone's interested in more writeups about console architectures from this person.
Comment linking /writings/consoles/
on “Playstation 3 Architecture”Submitted Architecture of the Playstation 2 as a story · 292 points
HN discussion> Essentially, every single PS1 game 'faked' 3D by using the GTE (which was separate from the GPU) to project 3D points and polygons into a 2D rasterizer. While it's true that the PS1 handles perspective projection through the GTE (as the GPU is a primitive rasterizer, after all) I don't think it's fair to call it 'faked 3D' since, in my understanding, 3D projection is another fundamental stage in the graphics pipel…
Comment linking /writings/consoles/playstation
on “Building a PS1 style retro 3D renderer”Submitted Game Boy / Color Architecture as a story · 280 points
HN discussionThere's a wonderful blog post on the PS3 Architecture - https://www.copetti.org/writings/consoles/playstation-3/ that gives a good overview of the Cell processor with linked resources if you want more detail.
Comment linking /writings/consoles/playstation-3/
on “AMD CEO Lisa Su reminisces about designing the PS3's infamous Cell processor”Submitted Wii U Architecture as a story · 280 points
HN discussionNote that this article is one in a series: https://www.copetti.org/projects/consoles/
Comment linking /projects/consoles/
on “Architecture of the Nintendo DS”Submitted Architecture of the Playstation as a story · 280 points
HN discussionYou can do subpixel rendering with fixed-point math https://www.copetti.org/writings/consoles/playstation/#tab-5... I thought the problem was that it only had 12 or 16-bit precision for vertex coords, which is not enough no matter whether you encode it as fixed-point or floating-point. Floats aren't magic.
Comment linking /writings/consoles/playstation/
on “Sega Saturn Architecture – A practical analysis (2021)”Submitted Xbox 360 Architecture as a story · 273 points
HN discussionIf you check the other articles about the PlayStation [1] and the Nintendo 64 [2], you'll see that the design of a 3D-capable console in the 90s was a significant challenge for every company. Thus, each one proposed a different solution (with different pros and cons), yet all very interesting to analyse and compare. That's the reason this article was written. [1] https://www.copetti.org/writings/consoles/playstation…
Comment linking /writings/consoles/nintendo-64/
on “Sega Saturn Architecture – A practical analysis (2021)”Submitted Playstation Vita Architecture (Part 1) as a story · 272 points
HN discussionIf anything n64 RCP was closer to modern GPUs than anything on the market at the time. You can think of RSP as T&L with programmable shader unit. https://copetti.org/projects/consoles/nintendo-64/
Comment linking /projects/consoles/nintendo-64/
on “Nintendo has reportedly suffered a significant legacy console leak”Submitted Sega Master System Architecture: A Practical Analysis as a story · 271 points
HN discussionA little more than just a multiplication instruction (the 68000, used in, say, the Sega Mega Drive, had one of those too). Have a look at https://www.copetti.org/writings/consoles/playstation/ , and in particular, read about the GTE - it offered quite a bit of hardware support for 3D math. Also, even though it didn't handle truly 3D transformations, the rasterizer was built for pumping out texture mapped, Gouraud sh…
Comment linking /writings/consoles/playstation/
on “Super Mario 64 for the PS1”Submitted Architecture of the Game Boy Advance as a story · 261 points
HN discussionAppreciate the detailed reply! > This detailed architectural overview of the 360 discusses the hypervisor: > https://www.copetti.org/writings/consoles/xbox-360/ Yes, the 128KB of key storage and W^X. That's not a hypervisor in the sense that the XB1/HyperV or VMWare have a hypervisor, they shouldn't even share a name it's not the same thing at all. It's like calling the JVM is a virtual machine in the same way QEMU…
Comment linking /writings/consoles/xbox-360/
on “Ask HN: What was being a software developer like about 30 years ago?”Submitted Playstation 2 Architecture as a story · 245 points
HN discussionI don't work in the industry. But just because you "worked on AA games" before doesn't make you correct. This detailed architectural overview of the 360 discusses the hypervisor: https://www.copetti.org/writings/consoles/xbox-360/ This YouTuber, who is an industry vet, and has done several xbox ports claims the XB360 has a hypervisor: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vq1lxeg_gNs And there entries in the CVE database…
Comment linking /writings/consoles/xbox-360/
on “Ask HN: What was being a software developer like about 30 years ago?”Submitted Xbox Architecture as a story · 226 points
HN discussion
