Sony's latest PS5 details: the Digital Foundry analysis
"There's welcome confirmation of hardware-accelerated ray tracing features in the PS5 graphics core, along with an example from EA chief studio officer Laura Miele of how the technique may be deployed - specifically in calculating more realistic ambient occlusion and ray-traced shadows. We've seen these features in some of the Nvidia RTX-supported titles on PC and as a first step into real-time hardware ray tracing, it may not match up to what we're seeing in PC games like Control, but as with any console, expect to see developers get more from the technology as the generation progresses. In the meantime, a look at Nixxes' RTX implementation for Shadow of the Tomb Raider may give some idea of the kind of effect Miele is referring to."
"In truth, the shift to solid-state storage is hugely important, not just in terms of access times and loading speeds but because it brings mass storage - and a colossus increase in data - much closer to the CPU and GPU than we've ever seen before. In its Scarlett trailer, Microsoft even refers to their SSD as 'virtual RAM' - and the implications here in leveraging the processor in ways we've never seen before becomes a little clearer. More detail and more variety resulting in richer and more compelling worlds. The sky's the limit."
"There are some further takeaways from the Wired article that I enjoyed - specifically, the confirmation that the bizarre Brazilian patent for a new console-like (if rather extraordinarily shaped) design is indeed a PlayStation 5 development kit. Sony's designs for development hardware always make a statement, but rarely reflect the look of final consoles. However, with that said, doubling down on cooling does seem to be a key aspect of the dev kit design - more so than anything we've seen before."
