Recently I've just purchase a Playstation 2. Fixed up to my Sony 29" TV and blam! it looks... it looks... it looks pale in comparison. I was really getting disappointed. I've checked the settings; found that I used a composite video. Checked with original seller and he told me to use S-Video output. I went back home to check my TV and damn, it doesn't even have a S-Video input!

Not giving up, I checked all around the TV and found that I have a RGB (Y, Pb/Cb, Pr/Cr) connector at the back. Got to the gameshop, got the cable (a whooping of RM 35) and plug it in the very same night. And the picture came out was crisp and clear. Just as I expected from a powerful running Playstation 2!

Here's something I have found that is quite an interesting read:

Sony Playstation 2 vs. PC Technical Summary

Source: http://arstechnica.com

Many people are still wondering how the PS2 are a comparable game machine against the powerful PC. PS2 may have a slower clock cycle but somehow it is able to render better graphics against its PC counter part. How was it able to do so? Here’s a short summary from the website listed above:

Imagine a zoo with an auto water feeding machine. The pipe is connected directly to a bucket which flushes down automatically. With a small pipeline and a small pail, you can be sure that the cow will be fed continuously. What if with the same setup you need serve an elephant? You have two choices: you can either make the pipeline or the bucket bigger. Let’s say you choose the former. You know eventually the elephant will gulp down the water instantly before your pipeline can refill the bucket. However, if you have the other setup, you know the elephant will get its constant water source despite of the small bucket.

System - Relation to Zoo
PS2 - Small bucket & big pipeline
PC - Big bucket & small pipeline

The same idea has been plaguing game developer of Playstation 2 before its launch. A team of game developer with PC games development experience was scratching their heads when the code that they wrote simply didn’t pump out enough polygon count on the output. Playstation 2 has simply too small cache and memory to hold their data together. Finally they decided to forsake their codes and coded the program to stream the data directly from the sources. This has eliminated their problem once and for all.

Some news huh? This is the first time I've heard about a hardware designed in 'reverse' compared to the PC...