Younger Crayola

The fact that different players are in different games doesn't take up any more memory when you're playing. They're stored on the disc - a disc which has far more storage than even the CD that the PC version comes on.

Creating one large one isn't possible because the PSP doesn't have the memory to store that amount in memory at once.

Marc Vaughan

(apologies if you're tech literate as this is dumbed down somewhat for those who aren't)
The way computers and consoles operate is that there are effectively two sorts of memory on a device.

One is long term/semi-permanent storage - say a hard disk on a PC or the UMD on a PSP. This is like a book for a person you can put it down and get information later by searching for it, but you don't recall it offhand and looking for it takes time.

The other is short term/non-permanent storage - this is 'main memory' on a device, this is like a persons memory its limited but very fast to recollect things from.

(for comparison a fairly average PC these days has 2000+Mb of main memory a PSP has 32Mb)

The reason that the database are 'split' is that there is a huge amount of semi-permanent storage available on a UMD, however like a large book its slow to retrieve data from.

In order to ensure we can run different leagues we split the database up and store the required database for each individual country selection seperately - this means less main memory is required when running the game compared to the PC where one large db is used (making it a viable proposition).

(end of explanation - you can wake up now )

ChangNoi

If we had one of the new PSP Lites would that make any difference.

I know they are basically the same hardware but I am sure I read on Eurogamer that one of the differences was that you could put data from the UMD on to the free space of the memory card.

ChangNoi

OK I was completely wrong here is the information from eurogamer.

UMD Cache Speed Boost


The UMD drive has always been the weakest element of the PSP, even though on paper the cheap-to-produce discs and surfeit of storage space should make it one of the strongest elements of the machine. The drive's slow seek times and poor data throughput have led to some pretty astonishing loading times on key games. Pro Evolution Soccer 2006 and WWE Smackdown vs Raw for example are often cited for clocking up loading times of three minutes or over - astonishing for a portable, pick-up-and-play handheld console.

PSP-2000 offers an intriguing pseudo-solution. The system is equipped with twice the RAM of the original model, offering 64MB of memory. It's a development Sony has clearly had at the back of its mind since day one, as even the first debug units available to developers back in 2004 had this much memory onboard. However, in PSP-2000's case, the memory is used mostly as a cache for the optical drive, increasing performance.

In rare cases this can add an extra second or two to loading times, but for the most part, there's a general improvement in the region of 10 to 15 per cent, depending on the title you're playing. In some cases, extra in-game data is loaded up to twice as quickly. So while the inherent loading time weakness has not been eliminated, it has at least been improved for the most part, sometimes strikingly so. You'd also expect new games to be optimised for the cache, providing real benefits in upcoming software.

However, over and above the performance, the new drive is also a significant improvement over the launch model in terms of noise, being virtually silent compared to the original.

ridley99

i wonder if Tevez's younger brother will be in the Man.Utd squad as he has signed for them in real life!