On: Playstation 2 Architecture

[dtx1]

I've heard that the original PS2 Architecture was similar to program for as modern vulkan based rendering. Any truth to that? (I have 0 experience in game/3D programming)

[aappleby → dtx1]

No, not anywhere remotely similar except that some of the terminology like display lists (that predated PS2) are still used.

[snvzz → aappleby]

>display lists (that predated PS2)

Amiga (copperlist). 8-bit Atari before that. Probably even earlier.

[kmeisthax → dtx1]

There are some vague similarities; like VU1 can be used akin to a mesh shader to generate procedural geometry. But the overall architecture is very different and simplified. There's no pixel/fragment shaders, for example; you just get Gouraud shaded triangles and nothing else.

Modern GPU APIs are about as similar to programming the PS2 as OpenGL 1.x is similar to an Nvidia RTX 3080.