[Ruined]

Originally posted by DVDriven
I wasn't aware that Cap nor Larry insisted on, or at the very least asked for clarification regarding the XBOX's Dolby capability.

And? It's OK to add something to a discussion when relevant.

If you wanted to state that the XBOX offered Dolby 5.1 in all of their games and left it at that, you wouldn't have heard a peep from me. However, the mention of this feature somehow opened a gateway for a remark whose only purpose is to undermine the PS2 in some fashion.

Why would I want to "undermine the PS2". The PS2 is a $200 videogame console, like the XBOX. It's not like I'm running for president and the PS2 is my competition. I think you are a bit too sensitive about videogames - they are just entertainment.

Do you know unequivocally and irrefutably that the use of one of the PS2's vector units is dedicated solely to DTS encoding, thus taking away substantial resources for other duties? If this statement was made by one of Rockstar's programmers / tech leads, I would like to see that article.

Of course Rockstar would not release such a PR, it could be taken as bad publicity for both Rockstar and Sony. Reliable third parties have released such statements, such as Anand Lal Shimpi of AnandTech.com. To quote him:

"Although the PS2 features an integrated toslink optical audio output on the console itself, it is only used for AC-3 and DTS passthrough as the console itself does not support any form of Dolby Digital encoding. With the release of SSX Tricky and NHL 2002 both by EA Sports, the second vector unit of the EE has actually been put to use in generating DTS sound effects for in-game 5.1 audio. This gives you an idea of the power of the VUs and now that EA has done it you can expect game developers to attempt to duplicate EA's success in future titles. The unfortunate downside to this is that it takes a decent amount of power to enable DTS encoding through one of the VUs which is power taken away from physics, AI or a 3D setup engine."

The entire article can be found here.

I have also spoken with an engineer at DTS, who informed me that one of the vector units on the PS2 was dedicated to the task of encoding realtime 5.1, at approximately 500kbps.

True, however there is a time and place for everything. As the phrase goes: Discretion is the better part of valour. Where XBOX purveyors are concerned, nothing's ever black and white.

I enjoy discussing the technical aspects of consoles, electronics, etc. Don't take a technical discussion personally.