DF: PS5’s Variable Clocks Will Force Devs to Make Choices; Only 1st Party Will Truly Utilize SSD’s Speed (wccftech)

Calabi · Mar 18, 2020

DavidDesu said:
Huh, I thought Cerny made it clear that even when the power drops they'll only drop about 2% in frequency. So 10.2 flops drops to about 10, and this is offset by the frequency being significantly faster with many elements of the processing working faster than they would on a comparable XSX. I dunno, it sounds like PS5 isn't going to be a vast gulf behind what XSX is capable of pushing. In a world of highly variable resolutions and much more mature techniques to improve lower resolutions on our 4K displays, I can't imagine we're going to be seeing the kinds of 1080p to 900p scenarios we had early on this gen.

I'm still trying to figure out why they are doing it this way. It sounds like temperature must be a factor but it seems like they are able to reach higher clocks intermittently, it wont be all the time, like every few milliseconds maybe. Its basically like built in auto overclocking, which is what Ryzen cpu's kind of do anyway. I doubt the developers, have to even think about it at all. That's just my inexpert opinion.

Bad_Boy · Mar 18, 2020

Firmus_Anguis said:
It's a competent machine, I'm not trying to downplay how insanely fast the SSD is, of course it'll have it's advantages.

But the SSD on the Series X is no slouch either... You're right though, we've yet to see how much of an impact either solution will have. Interesting times ahead!

I mean from what I can tell most are saying a difference of a few seconds on load times.

But Sony is aiming for no load times at all. Instantaneous booting should feel very refreshing.

He also mentioned there should be no limit on how fast a character can move through environments (a matrix game sounds perfect now). Exciting stuff.

Monster Zero · Mar 18, 2020

Rodelero said:
Developers right now spend a massive amount of time building games to work around how slow HDDs are. The classic example in contemporary games is that they'll force you into a confined space where you can't see the area you've just left or the area you're about to enter so that they can get rid of the old and load in the new. The most obvious example of that is the edge-through-tight-gap that you see in God of War, Uncharted, The Last Jedi and so forth. It's not just the annoyance of those low-interactive and repetitive sections that suck, it's also the fact the worlds and levels have to keep sending you through them.

The vision of creative directors is always constrained by hardware. The HDD is one of the biggest constraints to creative vision in current gen games. The massive jump in bandwidth will allow developers to get much, much closer to that vision. This is true for both XSX and PS5... but the PS5 is much better at it and more over because the PS5 will have true exclusives much sooner we'll see the effect of it much sooner on the PS5 than on the XSX.

People should be more excited about the SSD stuff. The XSX GPU is twice as powerful as the X1X GPU. The PS5 disk->RAM bandwidth is more like 50-100x that of the PS4 Pro disk->RAM bandwidth.

When do you expect third party developers that also target PC ports to stop factoring in PC owners with HDDs when designing their game? Do you think we will see it in the lifetime of the PS5 and Series X?

Mass Effect · Mar 18, 2020

Well luckily 90% of the games I'll be playing on PS5 will be exclusive.

headspawn · Mar 18, 2020

Trup1aya said:
I can't imagine either of these consoles having a problem with pop-in or LoDs.

I'm really intrigued to see how Sony's first party takes advantage of its insane SSD speeds beyond pop-in and LoDs... because my feeble brain can't wrap my head around the possibilities.

I'm kinda curious as well, considering we have stuff like Flight Simulator on modern hardware and things like No Man's Sky with ridiculous galaxy sizes.. I guess Star Citizen is a glimpse since its equal parts of both of those games ramped up, but even that is doable with slower SSD.

Guess we'll have to wait and see.

Andalusia · Mar 18, 2020

Xbox could run like a toaster and I'd still buy it if it had amazing games. Same with PS, it could run like utter shite and I'd still spend hundreds on it if the games were incredible.

The difference in specification between the consoles will not be significant enough to manifest itself on any make or break level for multiplatform games. That then leaves other exclusive elements of the consoles as the real deal clincher for the overwhelming majority of people.

For me the lack of power compared to the Xbox was the last thing that concerned me about Sony's announcement today. BC was the biggest thing that concerned me in relation to what MS is offering.

Rodelero · Mar 18, 2020

Monster Zero said:
When do you expect third party developers that also target PC ports to stop factoring in PC owners with HDDs?

Great question... I'd be pretty surprised if SSDs weren't required spec for AAA PC games in three years.

HaloForzaGuy · Mar 18, 2020

It does seem Sony went overboard on the presumably more expensive SSD considering the xbox Series X sdd is said to be more than adequate for gaming, on top of that the xbox has directstorage and a decompression block

TLT GAMING · Mar 18, 2020

strife418 said:
I posted this in another thread, but do people think Microsoft is sort of holding back next gen a bit this time? Weaker lockhart seems to be coming, and a weaker ssd. Also, no real focus towards improving audio from the looks.

Oh yeah for sure...Microsoft is holding back next gen with that slow 5400 RPM HDD....

/s

SoSchwifty · Mar 18, 2020

zombiejames said:
My thinking exactly. Still don't quite understand why MS went with a split memory pool.

To save money. I mean why else do it?

etta · Mar 18, 2020

Pennyfish said:
Obvious from the spec sheet.
Xbox is the base this gen.

Devs: "we want a drive thats 10x faster"
MS: "Okay here is one 50x faster"
Sony "Okay here is one 100x faster, but we compromised on everything else"

Pretty much lmao

Monster Zero · Mar 18, 2020

Rodelero said:
Great question... I'd be pretty surprised if SSDs weren't required spec for AAA PC games in three years.

I'm looking forward to it.

RingRang · Mar 18, 2020

DavidDesu said:
Huh, I thought Cerny made it clear that even when the power drops they'll only drop about 2% in frequency. So 10.2 flops drops to about 10, and this is offset by the frequency being significantly faster with many elements of the processing working faster than they would on a comparable XSX. I dunno, it sounds like PS5 isn't going to be a vast gulf behind what XSX is capable of pushing. In a world of highly variable resolutions and much more mature techniques to improve lower resolutions on our 4K displays, I can't imagine we're going to be seeing the kinds of 1080p to 900p scenarios we had early on this gen.

If it's only dropping 2% why bother even including such a feature?

Pennyfish said:
Obvious from the spec sheet.
Xbox is the base this gen.

Devs: "we want a drive thats 10x faster"
MS: "Okay here is one 50x faster"
Sony "Okay here is one 100x faster, but we compromised on everything else"

This really kind of sums things up perfectly.

Kerotan · Mar 18, 2020

Last gen Sony and MS were equal making it harder for Sony to get 3rd party ps4 exclusives.

Going into next gen Sony have a massive lead over 2:1 which will make it easy to get more 3rd party exclusives. So between those and 1st party there should be plenty of titles to blow us away.

Nostradamus · Mar 18, 2020

Monster Zero said:
Does the forum believe that the PS5 will have an enhanced version of Cyberpunk available at launch like the Series X? I wonder how the variable clocks on the CPU and GPU will affect CD Projekt Red enhancing it.

I really think people are reading too much to this variable frequency thing. Based on what Cerny presented, it appears that all these innovative systems are quite smart and easy to utilize and require minimal effort from developers. We aren't talking about a Cell situation here. Actually, if you pay attention to the presentation it appears that the PS5's GPU will be more capable at certain tasks that XSX so I'm not even convinced games will run worse at all.

Third party developers have proven over this generation that are perfectly capable at utilizing 100% of each console. During the PS3/360 generation things were different because architectures were VASTLY different. I'm pretty sure third parties won't have any issues developing for the full capabilities of the PS5 which does appear to offer certain unprecedented technologies.

Monster Zero · Mar 18, 2020

Nostradamus said:
I really think people are reading too much to this variable frequency thing. Based on what Cerny presented, it appears that all these innovative systems are quite smart and easy to utilize and require minimal effort from developers. We aren't talking about a Cell situation here. Actually, if you pay attention to the presentation it appears that the PS5's GPU will be more capable at certain tasks that XSX so I'm not even convinced games will run worse at all.

Cool. I'm looking forward to that DF comparison Cyberpunk video like a PPV title fight.

Glasfrut · Mar 18, 2020

Hey Please said:
Just to be clear before I get dog piled, I am in no way stating that PS5 is significantly weaker or a sub-10TF console. I hate console warrior BS. Numbers are what they are and they don't take sides even though the real world impact may be actually even less.

And for me, it's also about BC. Sony's messaging has left a lot to be desired pertaining to this matter (given this was a GDC conference, and not exactly meant for mainstream consumers, it's understandable).

I get what you're saying now. My response was centred on wondering what BC with Xbox One games had to do with this. Sorry, wasn't trying to start a dog pile on you. I'm goofy.

Zyae said:
What is goofy about that? He's right. You can pretend the numbers aren't real or don't matter but this is reality. The degree of difference will depend on the game and the developer but the game will also run better on the XSX.

My initial reading was: numbers aside, if someone wanted "BC compatibility with 100% of Xbox One games", that wasn't going to come with the PS5 anyway. I see what he's saying now.

Iron Eddie · Mar 18, 2020

Rodelero said:
Developers right now spend a massive amount of time building games to work around how slow HDDs are. The classic example in contemporary games is that they'll force you into a confined space where you can't see the area you've just left or the area you're about to enter so that they can get rid of the old and load in the new. The most obvious example of that is the edge-through-tight-gap that you see in God of War, Uncharted, The Last Jedi and so forth. It's not just the annoyance of those low-interactive and repetitive sections that suck, it's also the fact the worlds and levels have to keep sending you through them.

The vision of creative directors is always constrained by hardware. The HDD is one of the biggest constraints to creative vision in current gen games. The massive jump in bandwidth will allow developers to get much, much closer to that vision. This is true for both XSX and PS5... but the PS5 is much better at it and more over because the PS5 will have true exclusives much sooner we'll see the effect of it much sooner on the PS5 than on the XSX.

People should be more excited about the SSD stuff. The XSX GPU is twice as powerful as the X1X GPU. The PS5 disk->RAM bandwidth is more like 50-100x that of the PS4 Pro disk->RAM bandwidth.

People should be excited for both systems but instead we have people cherry picking each area and what they think is better for them to continue on with their preferred brand.

Jarmel · Mar 18, 2020

Monster Zero said:
When do you expect third party developers that also target PC ports to stop factoring in PC owners with HDDs when designing their game? Do you think we will see it in the lifetime of the PS5 and Series X?

The crazy part is that your question still doesn't capture the full magnitude of it. Do you expect developers to stop factoring in PC owners who don't have current high end SSDs? Even the XSX SSD is top of the line currently and a Samsung 370 is around $350 on Amazon right now.

Supercrap · Mar 18, 2020

Walken said:
People should be excited for both systems but instead we have people cherry picking each area and what they think is better for them to continue on with their preferred brand.

Yep. The systems are months from release and we don't have any true real world examples of final product.

We should look forward to more info, this stuff happens with every console generation 😂

theAllseeingEYE · Mar 18, 2020

The fast SSD (NVMe) certainly has far more potential than just faster loading. Open word games will see a massive asset streaming improvement, which means keeping framerates stable (60+fps?) while the system is constantly streaming not only exponentially more assets during gameplay, but also significantly higher quality assets.

But fast NVMe needs to be paired with a fast CPU. I wouldn't be surprised if in many cases the PS5s fast NVMe is still bottlenecked by the CPU,which would give the series X the upper hand in many cases, especially when dealing with tons of small files.

Monster Zero · Mar 18, 2020

Jarmel said:
The crazy part is that your question still doesn't capture the full magnitude of it. Do you expect developers to stop factoring in PC owners who don't have current high end SSDs? Even the XSX SSD is top of the line currently and a Samsung 370 is around $350 on Amazon right now.

So I guess we can expect the Witcher 4, From Software games, Capcom games, Namco games, Microsoft games, and Squaresoft games being built around these high flying SSDs no time soon.

Hellshy · Mar 18, 2020

theAllseeingEYE said:
The fast SSD (NVMe) certainly has far more potential than just faster loading. Open word games will see a massive asset streaming improvement, which means keeping framerates stable (60+fps?) while the system is constantly streaming not only exponentially more assets during gameplay, but also significantly higher quality assets.

But fast NVMe needs to be paired with a fast CPU. I wouldn't be surprised if in many cases the PS5s fast NVMe is still bottlenecked by the CPU,which would give the series X the upper hand in many cases, especially when dealing with tons of small files.

well isnt the xsx cpu 3.6 vs 3.5 . Thay doesnt seem like much of a difference. Yes I know they say 3.8 but how many big games are actually going to not utilize smt?

Blaaaarrggghhh · Mar 18, 2020

ObbyDent said:
This is an article written about tweets that aren't official in the slightest

Actual devs are saying its the most exciting thing in 20 years

hmmm

The "article" is a complete waste of time. It's a forum post and a bad one at that.

Zyae · Mar 18, 2020

Nostradamus said:
It's not really throttling though. The system appears to be way more sophisticated than the usual "boost modes" of other devices. Also, according to Cerny increased frequencies provide certain benefits that are independent to raw TF numbers. So I find people's comparisons rather simplistic.

He can say whatever he wants but its down clocking the CPUs speed - throttling

Altair · Mar 18, 2020

TaterTots said:
I think people are blowing the SSD out of proportion. Its not like a game will load 30 seconds faster than the version on Xbox. It's going to end up being pretty small.

It's good for Sony first party titles since devs can design games in more innovative ways because of it, but that's basically it. It won't get much use outside of slightly faster load times for 3rd party games because devs have to design those games to run on platforms other than the PS5. That's why I'm surprised Sony went all in on the SSD over everything else.

Outrun · Mar 18, 2020

It makes perfect sense. The gameplay possibilities of the PS5 SSD will be largely be possible on the X.

TaterTots · Mar 18, 2020

Vengeance said:
devs can design games in more innovative ways

I keep seeing people make this comment, but I'd like to know how. How does having a fast SSD change anything outside of speed for programs? I do not believe its a magic sauce, unless someone can give me an idea.

Trup1aya · Mar 18, 2020

Rodelero said:
Developers right now spend a massive amount of time building games to work around how slow HDDs are. The classic example in contemporary games is that they'll force you into a confined space where you can't see the area you've just left or the area you're about to enter so that they can get rid of the old and load in the new. The most obvious example of that is the edge-through-tight-gap that you see in God of War, Uncharted, The Last Jedi and so forth. It's not just the annoyance of those low-interactive and repetitive sections that suck, it's also the fact the worlds and levels have to keep sending you through them.

The vision of creative directors is always constrained by hardware. The HDD is one of the biggest constraints to creative vision in current gen games. The massive jump in bandwidth will allow developers to get much, much closer to that vision. This is true for both XSX and PS5... but the PS5 is much better at it and more over because the PS5 will have true exclusives much sooner we'll see the effect of it much sooner on the PS5 than on the XSX.

People should be more excited about the SSD stuff. The XSX GPU is twice as powerful as the X1X GPU. The PS5 disk->RAM bandwidth is more like 50-100x that of the PS4 Pro disk->RAM bandwidth.

I get the benefits of SSD over HDD. What I can't wrap my head around is how Sony devs will turn there SSD advantage into practical gains over the competition . Like I know they have a ton of data readily available at all times, but I can't wrap my head around how that will fundamentally change their approach to game design compared to devs working with other SSDs. I've very excited to see what they'll do with, but I have no idea what expect .

I don't really buy that we'll see the true effects of SSD on PS5 sooner just because they are launching with 1st party exclusives. We almost never see the first round software bear fruit in this regard. Sony and MS are surely working on games that will come out in 2021 and beyond next-gen that will be better representations of what SSD is capable of.

Quad Lasers · Mar 18, 2020

The way some people talk about the Xbox hard drive you would think it's a 5400 RPM HDD.

Fisty · Mar 18, 2020

TaterTots said:
I keep seeing people make this comment, but I'd like to know how. How does having a fast SSD change anything outside of speed for programs? I do not believe its a magic sauce, unless someone can give me an idea.

Did you watch the Playstation presentation? Cerny specifically mentioned a problem they ran into during Jak 2 development

TheGhost · Mar 18, 2020

Sir_Bumble_Bee said:
We'll have to see how things play out. I'm in the camp that sees both consoles being just as identical in practice as the PS4 and Xbox One when it comes to multi-platform performance

But they weren't identical.
PS4 was the more beastly console compared to the Xbox one

Even today the base Xbox one is still....dead last.

ResetEraVetVIP · Mar 18, 2020

ivan.k said:
SSD won't make the games look better

They can with more dense assets etc. It's the way its used.

ResetEraVetVIP · Mar 18, 2020

FIREKNIGHT2029 said:
I don't get it either. Both consoles are very impressive in their own ways. I can't wait to see what devs can pull off with this power. When I see some of the games we got this gen from 1.3 and 1.8 Tflop consoles I'm still blown away. Now we are getting consoles that completely blow those older consoles away and some people are still finding ways to complain, smdh.

LOL exactly, they want 100000000000 TFLOPs of powah lmao.

Jiraiya · Mar 18, 2020

Fisty said:
Did you watch the Playstation presentation? Cerny specifically mentioned a problem they ran into during Jak 2 development

That game was made with an hdd in mind.

julian · Mar 18, 2020

Anono said:
Switch has two modes so two different fixed clock speeds.

PS5 is said to have variable clock speeds but the range of variation hasnt been specified, just the maximum.

I'm fairly certain Switch has added more modes since launch and they even patched some games to be able to switch between modes. Zelda and Mario go to the higher modes just for loading screens, for instance.

Switch's 'boost mode' tested: what is it and how does it work?

Let's get straight to the point - Switch is indeed evolving and in select scenarios, Nintendo's hardware is becoming mo…

www.eurogamer.net

Zyae · Mar 18, 2020

ResetEraVetVIP said:
They can with more dense assets etc. It's the way its used.

A larger memory bus with faster speeds accomplishes this too.

Outrun · Mar 18, 2020

Quad Lasers said:
The way some people talk about the Xbox hard drive you would think it's a 5400 RPM HDD.

100 %

People don't want to believe that the XSXs SSD will also open up new gameplay possibilities.

Both machines are great. No one should be unhappy here

Rodelero · Mar 18, 2020

Jiraiya said:
That game was made with an hdd in mind.

;) Actually it was made with a DVD in mind.

Quad Lasers said:
The way some people talk about the Xbox hard drive you would think it's a 5400 RPM HDD.

I must have missed those points.

theAllseeingEYE · Mar 18, 2020

Hellshy said:
well isnt the xsx cpu 3.6 vs 3.5 . Thay doesnt seem like much of a difference. Yes I know they say 3.8 but how many big games are actually going to not utilize smt?

I'm curious if Devs have the ability to turbo up to 3.8 at any time, or if this is a one-time choice made at runtime. It could be very beneficial for the CPU to be able to turbo up or past 3.8 for tasks that are more single-octo core intensive, then slow down and open back up those other 8 threads when needed.

SpaceCrystal · Mar 18, 2020

ivan.k said:
SSD won't make the games look better

Right, it's like saying that most multiplat games would look better on PS3 than on Xbox 360 because of games being on Blu-Ray discs. It's the hardware inside the consoles that matters.

Exodia · Mar 18, 2020

Pennyfish said:
Pcie 4.0 NVME can be faster than the XSX SSD.
PC games are fine with telling you to upgrade.

Actually

"The final component in the triumvirate is an extension to DirectX - DirectStorage - a necessary upgrade bearing in mind that existing file I/O protocols are knocking on for 30 years old, and in their current form would require two Zen CPU cores simply to cover the overhead, which DirectStorage reduces to just one tenth of single core.

"Plus it has other benefits," enthuses Andrew Goossen. "It's less latent and it saves a ton of CPU. With the best competitive solution, we found doing decompression software to match the SSD rate would have consumed three Zen 2 CPU cores. When you add in the IO CPU overhead, that's another two cores. So the resulting workload would have completely consumed five Zen 2 CPU cores when now it only takes a tenth of a CPU core. So in other words, to equal the performance of a Series X at its full IO rate, you would need to build a PC with 13 Zen 2 cores. That's seven cores dedicated for the game: one for Windows and shell and five for the IO and decompression overhead."

Jiraiya · Mar 18, 2020

Rodelero said:
;) Actually it was made with a DVD in mind.

I must have missed those points.

Even worse.

Exodia · Mar 18, 2020

Guymelef said:
You could say the same about Series X RAM setup.

Not the same thing at all.

Etain · Mar 18, 2020

Jarmel said:
PS3 Cell processor

This is definitely what I'm being reminded of even if this sounds like less of an alien clusterfuck. Probably same end result though in that some games do run and look nicer on PS5, but most will be better on Series X.

Just. Maybe not taking until the end of the gen for it to show from third parties.

Fisty · Mar 18, 2020

Jiraiya said:
That game was made with an hdd in mind.

It was made with a DVD in mind, and we are still dealing with the same compromises as back then. Elevators, long empty corridors, twisty canyon walks, climbing sections, shimmying through cracks... these are all ways devs mask asset streaming that affect gameplay instead of throwing down a loading screen. Further gameplay revolutions are yet to be determined because we've never really had a game focus on a spec baseline that included an SSD

Just imagine if the PS2 was able to load an entire DVD into RAM in less than a second

Deleted member 27471 · Mar 18, 2020

TaterTots said:
I keep seeing people make this comment, but I'd like to know how. How does having a fast SSD change anything outside of speed for programs? I do not believe its a magic sauce, unless someone can give me an idea.

Just go watch the video. Or wait for the DF analysis. If you're having to ask, your not listening.

Omnistalgic · Mar 18, 2020

shinobi602 said:
The gloom in here vs the tangible praise and excitement from developers who are actually using the thing couldn't be farther apart 😄

Thanks buddy! Think I'll see you all again in a few weeks. Have enough doom and gloom in real life.

KodiakGTS · Mar 18, 2020

Fisty said:
Did you watch the Playstation presentation? Cerny specifically mentioned a problem they ran into during Jak 2 development

That problem is also solved by the XSX SSD, which is roughly 40x faster than the drive that was in the One X.

The real differentiator would be something like the example he gave of streaming in game assets as the user is turning around. It seems like there can't be that much data to stream in though? Unless people want 200-300 GB games to rapidly fill up these space constrained SSDs and use up data caps.

Like the XSX can stream in 100 GB (a large game by today's standards) worth of compressed data in a little over 20 seconds. Not sure how games will be designed such that you need to stream in a full games worth of data in 11 seconds instead, but I'm not a dev, so maybe I'm missing the bigger picture.

Fisty · Mar 18, 2020

KodiakGTS said:
That problem is also solved by the XSX SSD, which is roughly 40x faster than the drive that was in the One X.

The real differentiator would be something like the example he gave of streaming in game assets as the user is turning around. It seems like there can't be that much data to stream in though? Unless people want 200-300 GB games to rapidly fill up these space constrained SSDs and use up data caps.

Like the XSX can stream in 100 GB (a large game by today's standards) worth of compressed data in a little over 20 seconds. Not sure how games will be designed such that you need to stream in a full games worth of data in 11 seconds instead, but I'm not a dev, so maybe I'm missing the bigger picture.

I would imagine few people would be able to answer that question with regard to PS5's drive specifically, we've never had anything close to this. People seem to think you can cure cancer with an extra 15% GPU power so maybe a 100% faster SSD might tip the scales a bit *shrug*

DF: PS5’s Variable Clocks Will Force Devs to Make Choices; Only 1st Party Will Truly Utilize SSD’s Speed (wccftech)

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