The technologically savvy may want to take an interest in a presentation recently displayed by Sony Computer Entertainment Europe, which was used to promote development for Sony's upcoming PSP handheld at the AGDC 2003 developer conference in Australia late last month. While the presentation mainly runs down the already-released specifications for the system, it also contains a few more interesting illustrations of the system's capabilities.

In particular, SCEE's illustrations explain the "surface tessellation" feature supported in hardware by the PSP's graphics chip. The technique allows developers to render smooth curved surfaces while expending less modeling effort, as illustrated by the image to the above left.

Sony also outlined a brief description of the PC hardware necessary to run the PSP development emulator, which is roughly comparable to a high-end gaming PC. The PSP development tools run under Microsoft Windows XP, requiring a Pentium 4 processor with 3Ghz or more, 512MB of RAM, and a GeForce FX 5900 Ultra 256MB or ATI Radeon 9800 128MB graphics card.

To check out the full document, with images of the PSP emulator and a few bits of sample code, check out the SCEE Technology Site.

Copyright © 2003 Ziff Davis Media Inc. All Rights Reserved. Originally appearing in 1UP.