PS Vita CPU clockspeed finally unearthed and it's slower than we all expected

It turns out that the PS Vita's CPU is clocked slower than we all expected (something in the ballpark of 800MHz).

However, Sony made the right decision here -- it's in everyone's interests that the Vita sustains that maximum performance over lengthy play sessions, offering great battery life to boot. This should be applauded.

[TWB]

Wow, wasnt it originaly reported that Vita was supposed to have like, 1.2-1.6GHz clockspeed?

I mean, its all right if developers find the 800MHz speed sufficient but its still kind of interesting.

Does Vita have PS2 classics? Like emulated classics and not the remastered ones?

[donwel]

I'm sure the Vitas 800MHz CPU was already common knowledge, I'm sure I read it through an article on here a year or 2 ago. Well I suppose it's nice to have it reiterated.
To answer your question, no the Vita doesn't get emulated PS2 classics.
It does have a few remasters like the Jak and Daxter trilogy and the Sly collection.

[Eidolon]

It's not 800, it's 44-444mhz. pretty sad

[dantesparda]

Next we are going to find out that the PS4 isn't even 1.6GHz, but something slower. Same thing with it the GDDR5 which is supposed to be 5500Mhz, bet you we'll find out that slower too. This is so typical of Sony.

[gaffyh]

What about the GPU?

[WitWolfy]

Well If I'm not mistaken, wasnt the Vita like unlocked recently? By that I mean, didnt Sony take off limitations for future devs to get more out of the device anyways?

[Yodagamer]

They let the devs start using more memory, but it takes away some multitasking for apps.

[Yui_Suzumiya]

MGS HD Collection.. Zone of the Enders and Silent Hill HD Collections were cancelled for Vita.

[Hold_It]

MGS HD Collection came out though? I have the physical cartridge.

[kaixxi]

#F*ckonami

[Revengeance]

MGS HD Collection is already on Vita.

ZoE Collection was cancelled for Vita.

[nodim]

There never was a SH HD Collection for Vita.

[Eidolon]

@novurdim
Because it was cancelled?

[rawshack]

Silent hill 2 on vita would have been cool

[DarXyde]

You're telling me the HD collection cartridge that's in my Vita isn't really there?

Years before Metal Gear Solid V is released and I'm seeing phantoms, apparently.

[UKmilitia]

i think if im not mistaken they reduced the clock speed to make the battery last longer.

[disgaeapuchi]

Sadly, Eidolon is right, Vita's CPU operates between 44-444mhz (click through to the article), which is the surprising part as we all expected 800MHz or abouts.

My bad for mentioning 800mhz as the speed we expected in the description, rather than the actual speed of the CPU (333MHz at default with dynamic scaling of 44-444MHz. The 800MHz is what most people "in the know" thought Sony would have chosen as its max clock speed, so I thought it was worth mentioning.

It actually makes a lot of sense that Sony went for something like 400mhz as they are carrying double the cores of the iPhone 4s which was released at the same time with its Cortex A9 cores at 800MHz. (Vita, as you know, is a quad core CPU). The article explains things a lot better mind, and it's definitely a smart decision on Sony's front

[3-4-5]

444mhz.

[Valvat0rez]

Say wha!!!

[Activemessiah]

Considering this revelation, I'm amazed how Killzone looks and plays on it.

[WitWolfy]

Uncharted Golden Abyss too..

[Vegamyster]

Framerate is a bit iffy on it.

[swice]

Compared to what?

[Vegamyster]

@swice

A game that can hold a solid 30 fps?

Performance is iffy regardless of the people disagreeing with me, if you play something like Gravity Rush which is also a very pretty game you'll see the difference, it still drops but not nearly as much. https://youtu.be/ybdEvKmi1C...

[Forum_Pirate]

It drops playing Dragons Crown too. I love my vita, and you guys can hurl all the disagrees you want but if you think more demanding games don't run into slowdown you're straight up wrong.

[PhucSeeker]

Thinking back, Killzone merc was so great with its tight gameplay and top-notch graphics but it sold so poorly that it ended up being one of many biggest reasons why Sony doesn't make 1st party games anymore. Such a goddamn shame!

[meatnormous]

I loved Killzone on it. I thought it was a better game than shadow fall.

[Pillsbury1]

I still play it to this day, it's great for 1 or 2 quick matches on the go.

[Harryseveruspotter]

Uncharted golden abyss.....toooooooo

[freshslicepizza]

why does it take hackers for this information to come out?

[Hold_It]

Because the only "support" Sony has for the Vita are the controversial "System Software Stability" updates which patch all the things hackers try to do with the system.

Of course some people will label this type of information as a conspiracy, but the information is out there if you look for it and know where to look.

The next hack coming out will allow those who don't update to the new firmware to remove save protection so you can use saves from other accounts, free trophies, make all Vita games on the PSTV compatible, switch accounts on the Vita without having to erase everything, and a lot more.

[AHall88]

This is true.
Sony is determined to keep the Vita from becoming PSP 2.0 for hackers.
Sadly that seems to go hand-in-hand with taking focus off AAA games too though.

[Eidolon]

PSP was so hackable, maybe the Vita wouldn't be "dead" if they just let it happen, to an extent.

[jebabcock]

Soo.. I don't get it... why are people trying to trash Sony for this. The games were good. The battery on the vita lasts forever. Knowing the cpu speed now means nothing other than there are obviously more important factors to handheld gaming performance than high cpu speed.

[Echo419]

Pretty sure this was widespread knowledge years ago...

No surprise here folks.

[Harryseveruspotter]

Really no surprise.....

[hiawa23]

At this point with very few games like Uncharted, COD, being released, basically anything other Indies or phone like games it really doesn't matter what the clock speed is.

[Viper7]

Games like that don't really do well on handhelds and by that I mean any handheld.

3DS game budgets don't come even close to those of Uncharted Golden Abyss and such.

[Harryseveruspotter]

.....konami shit

[ChronoJoe]

This was public knowledge two years ago. :/

[disgaeapuchi]

Sorry about the confusing article description. The 800MHz is the speed we all expected it to be based on factors like what Apple went for with its equivalent CPU at the time, whereas hackers recently discovered that Vita's CPU is actually clocked at between 44MHz and 444MHz, with 333MHz being the default.

[ChronoJoe]

It wasn't confusing, no need to apologise. I just thought anyone with an SDK had explicit information about the hardware they were working on?

So, didn't people know this already? Maybe not hackers, but people working in the industry?

[Segata]

I thought everyone knew this since day 1 :S

[LastcenuryRob]

Curious how when Sony delivers something a bit slower or less powerful than expected it is "the right thing to do" and "applauded" yet when other companies do the same thing to various degrees they are chastised for it. Hypocrites suck ass!

[TheLoCoRaven]

Who cares! At this point everyone is well aware of what the vita is and isn't capable of. It's capable of games like Killzone Mercenary although we won't get any more games like that. So does it really matter? I love my Vita for what it is, but of course I wish they'd make more first party AAA titles.

[hiawa23]

I agree 100%

[joinsideke]

If anything, this makes me like the Vita more.

This thing is so frigin powerful and chugs like a champ. Good for Sony!

[mikel1015]

Why is less powerful hardware a good thing?

[joinsideke]

because it's not like it just launched and we're all basing decisions on stupid specs. The platform has excelled with the right talent developing behind it.

If out of the gate someone debuted this stat, then everyone would have written the system off for an arbitrary numerical reason, rather than putting one in their hands, feeling a title come to life, and not bitching about a number.

[disgaeapuchi]

Do have a read of the article as it explains things in detail, but basically if it were higher than 444mhz it wouldn't be able to keep that speed for long as the heat it generates would cause problems (lower battery life, a hot handheld, unstable performance).

It is a shame that Sony felt the need to sell it on big, infeasible numbers like 2.0GHz, as they could have just let the games speak for themselves.

[Moneyman100]

This must be the reason why majority of vita games run at sub native resolution & terrible frame rates, this is disappointing 333mhz for an a9 Cortex processor that's considerably worse than ever the iPhone 3GS. Sony mislead thousands of people and we all fell for it I'm selling my vita now

[Eidolon]

It's a quad-core Cortex-A9 arch. at 333mhz-444mhz on a lower level API, much more to do than with even a iPhone 4S. And really, sell your Vita, are you trolling? There has been amazing looking games on the device and you were fine with it until you found out it had a lower clock-speed?

[disgaeapuchi]

This. That Vita's CPU was clocked fairly low for Cortex-A9 is testament to the top tier developers' talent.

Of course, it does explain why a lot of the console-level ports weren't CPU-heavy, but I'm still pretty darn impressed with what they got out of the hardware. It's only really starting to show its age now, with ports like Geometry Wars 3 being quite pared back.

[joinsideke]

Yes ^ and Yes ^^.

You feel duped now? Years after owning one and playing games on it? Whats the point?

It's like if someone told me a fact about my N64, something completely irrelevant like 'it only registers 4 commands per millisecond'…. Great. How does that change my experience with it? Does it make me reevaluate the great games and memories and shared moments with it?

No. It doesn't.

[disgaeapuchi]

Yeah, I don't think it was wise of Sony to state that 2GHz was the speed of the Cortex-A9, when that's the maximum feasible speed Cortex-A9 can run at, and probably something that would only be possible in a big console-like form factor.

[Soldierone]

Doesn't really matter to me.

On one side I loved games like Need For Speed on it. I wasn't asking for high end visual experiences, just something fun.

On the other side if it is too weak, who cares, we are not getting support anymore anyways. You don't really need a lot of clock speed for all the side scrolling 2D indie games we get. (and a lot of the JRPG's are not too tasking either)

Plus look at phones with more power now.... still nothing amazing released on them.

[lifeordeath617]

one day Sony will understand that i want to add emulators to my Vita.

[hiawa23]

I agree, if they are not going to make the games we want, they should just open the platform up to emulators.

[OpenGL]

Not really a big deal, it's still a lot more powerful than its closest competitor. I don't think Sony ever said anything about the Vita's clockspeed, people just wrongly assumed it ran at 1GHz because that's what smart phones often ran at when it launched.

The difference between a smart phone though and a dedicated gaming machine is smart phones usually don't run at their peak clock speed for extended periods of time. If you try to run your HTC One M9 at 100% load at its maximum clock speed it will get very hot and will start to throttle. The Vita is probably meant to run at it's maximum speed indefinitely.

[Revengeance]

Vita is tied with the DS as my favorite handheld of all time. So underrated and so many games or it.

[Tonykid]

I wonder if people who are reading this, know what they are reader.

Hur durr numbas not are high enough!

[Moneyman100]

I think this is purely the reason why the ps2 ports are sub -par & don't run natively. Tbh now I don't think the ps vita could run San Andrea's which the iPhone 4s can do. With a maximum of 444mhz it greatly limits the device I just don't get why they couldn't dynamically scale the processor to 1ghz when the resources get more intense. I remember having the 4s it never got hot when playing San Andrés and is way thinner than the ps vita