Emotion chip gone in PS3 80gb

[radagast]

Best buy told me this and I found it also on Wikipedia:

"The Emotion Engine is the name of the Central Processing Unit (CPU) used in Sony PlayStation 2 video game consoles. It was jointly designed by Toshiba and Sony and began mass production in 1999. According to MicroDesign Resources, it is twice the speed of a 733 MHz Pentium III and 15 times the speed of a 400 MHz Celeron at handling tasks like full-motion video (SIMD). [1]

The Emotion Engine's data bus, cache memory as well as all registers are implemented in 128 bit technology, integrated on a single 0.18 micrometer process technology chip (making it the first commercial 128 bit CPU). The Emotion Engine, based on the MIPS R5900, is sort of a combination CPU and DSP processor, whose main function is simulating 3D worlds. It integrated all necessary units on the die: The MIPS III CPU core, 2 vector units, FPU, image processing unit (basically an MPEG2 decoder with some other capabilities), 10-channel DMA controller, graphics interface unit, RDRAM and I/O interfaces, all connected via a shared 128-bit internal bus.

The chip is also used in early PlayStation 3 units to achieve backwards compatibility. PAL PlayStation 3 units do not include an Emotion Engine as a matter of cost-saving, however this means such units must use less reliable software emulation to achieve some level of backwards compatibility. Sony recently announced that a new NTSC 80Gb model of the PS3 will not have the Emotion Engine built in, and will rely on software emulation for backwards compatibility."

I was also told the software emulation is not a good substitute for the Emotion chip.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emotion_Engine

[MrBogey]

This has been known since it was announced. Emulation has an estimated compatibility in the 80-something percentile.

[mattym]

got software BC in my uk ps3, and so far ive not had any major issues...and if i did, ive still got the ps2 i can plug in and fire up