VG24/7:Epic rewrite I/O subsystem with PS5 SSD in mind

orzkare · Jun 5, 2020

Doctor Avatar said:
"Lesser CUs" - are you talking about the "44% less RT performance" that someone LITERALLY MADE UP and posted on twitter?

Unless RT performance is somehow decoupled from clock speed, which seems basically impossible, then the XSX will have exactly the same RT advantage as TF advantage - 18%. See the math at the top of page 19.

The sheer volume of FUD circulating around the PS5 is insane - someone can literally just make something up by pulling a figure out of their ass and we have people on here regurgitating it, because it confirms their bias rather than actually being true or even possible.

Everyone that says anything positive about PS5 - even developers, Matt, Cerny etc are liars, but some random twitter user pulling figures out of his ass is to be believed right?

What. A. Shit. Show.

This stuff is a problem for Era. PS5 cannot be discussed without this complete nonsense console warring from the other side. Every single thread is filled with "skeptics", trolls, disingenuous posters and arguments.

Even when a mod who is in the know comes in to set the record straight that doesn't even stop them!

Here is Matt "Hargett" 's tweet
We consumer could'nt judge RT performance based on AMD's unknown new architecture now.

Here's one: at what resolution and frame are can *multi*-bounce RT happen for reflections, shadows, transparency? Can intersection engines calculate bounces across CUs? do higher clocks or more CUs help in certain scenarios?

Matt Hargett on Twitter

“@Dachsjaeger @LiquidTitan @SegmentNext @IGN @GamingBoltTweet @nxtgen8k @MatthwDayton @RedGamingTech Here’s one: at what resolution and frame are can *multi*-bounce RT happen for reflections, shadows, transparency? Can intersection engines calculate bounces across CUs? do higher clocks or more...

twitter.com

jroc74 · Jun 5, 2020

Betamaxbandit said:
I think it goes back to the "power of the cloud" When people are presented with something they havent seen before they are quite rightly sceptical. When MS started rolling that puff piece out on what they can do with this tech, there were posts everywhere calling BS on it. I think thats what we are seeing here as well. As soon as its out in the open and we have real world examples the noise will quickly be forgotten

What im interested in is that prior to reveal of both consoles all everyone was saying was that they were essentially the same and there will be little in the way of difference when it comes to performance. Now that the SSD implementations are out there, the general narritive seems to be that the PS5 will outperform the series x, did you know the full ins and out of Sonys custom SSD when you said that there would be little difference between the machines?

Power of the cloud doesn't fit IMO, because it was never really there day one. The SSD will absolutely be there.

Also, I don't remember alot of devs praising power of the cloud. Most of the praise came from MS. We are still talking about something Sony hasn't really even commented on.

The general narrative that the PS5 will out perform the Series X? I think that's a case of seeing what you want to see. Or maybe where you hang out you see ppl saying that.

Doctor Avatar · Jun 5, 2020

jroc74 said:
Power of the cloud doesn't fit IMO, because it was never really there day one. The SSD will absolutely be there.

Also, I don't remember alot of devs praising power of the cloud. Most of the praise came from MS. We are still talking about something Sony hasn't really even commented on.

The general narrative that the PS5 will out perform the Series X? I think that's a case of seeing what you want to see. Or maybe where you hang out you see ppl saying that.

XSX will outperform PS5 in GPU tasks.

PS5 will outperform XSX in IO tasks, likely have better audio too.

They are both great and they both have their own strengths so neither is "better" than the other.

The issue seems to be there are a lot of Xbox folks who saw the 12.1TF vs 10.3TF number and declared victory, and they don't like the idea that actually XSX isn't necessarily the obviously technically better console.

So they spend their time downplaying SSD, quoting made up facts and conspiracy theories (PS5 overheats, PS5 really is only 9.2tf, they pushed the clocks last minute because MS caught them off guard, PS5 has 44% less RT capability etc) calling developers/mods/cerny some combination of liars/biased/paid-off and generally spreading FUD about PS5. They invade every single thread to tell us how great the GPU of XSX is and how that is the only thing that matters while SSD doesn't matter, how all the people praising PS5 are not being truthful etc etc

It's getting incredibly, incredibly tiresome. It makes any discussion of PS5 descend into a complete shit show, and apparently nothing can stop them even Matt coming into this thread to clear things up and try to put and end to it.

Deleted member 43 · Jun 5, 2020

Betamaxbandit said:
I think it goes back to the "power of the cloud" When people are presented with something they havent seen before they are quite rightly sceptical. When MS started rolling that puff piece out on what they can do with this tech, there were posts everywhere calling BS on it. I think thats what we are seeing here as well. As soon as its out in the open and we have real world examples the noise will quickly be forgotten

What im interested in is that prior to reveal of both consoles all everyone was saying was that they were essentially the same and there will be little in the way of difference when it comes to performance. Now that the SSD implementations are out there, the general narritive seems to be that the PS5 will outperform the series x, did you know the full ins and out of Sonys custom SSD when you said that there would be little difference between the machines?

I don't know who has been giving that "general narrative," but it's nonsense. Both systems have areas they shine in, with the SX being more "powerful" in the traditional sense and the PS5 having a clear IO advantage. Overall these consoles are closer to each other than any two ever have been before.

Raide · Jun 5, 2020

Matt said:
I don't know who has been giving that "general narrative," but it's nonsense. Both systems have areas they shine in, with the SX being more "powerful" in the traditional sense and the PS5 having a clear IO advantage. Overall these consoles are closer to each other than any two ever have been before.

The problem is, some people can only have one system being amazing and the other has to be trash tier. Such is the fanboy wars.

The fact both systems have damn good CPU's, SSD's and next-gen GPU options, means both systems will be damn good. A real jump for everyone. Unfortunately, not everyone will be happy with the idea what PS5 might be better in certain areas than the Series X.

MrKlaw · Jun 5, 2020

TCG276 said:
First Of all, first party studios can use 3rd party engines. Secondly, 3rd party games, that are designed for the PS5 and XSX, are NOT going to use the unique I/O speed of the PS5 to do things, like world streaming, if it's not feasible on the XSX. If the I/O speed of the PS5 is a game changer for game design, you will only see it in first party games period.

Unless sony have a special flag that lets you say 'no no, please don't send the data too quickly' - then 3rd party games will take advantage regardless. They won't design around that speed being fundamental to their game, but there will be potential benefits regardless.

third party devs don't design around 4k being a specific requirement either, but they will get it from certain combinations of CPU/GPU on PC for instance.

There are lots of examples of games this generation where the world has pop-in potentially because of GPU but potentially because its not streaming assets in quickly enough, or texture pop-in where it starts with low res textures until the higher res ones come in. That is stuff that can be improved with faster transfer speeds

Jade1962 · Jun 5, 2020

Issen said:
That's not the only problem (it certainly is a thing though, some people have interesting double standards).

The problem is also that many people jump to conclusions most people "in the know" (Sony, Epic, etc) haven't actually said. Like taking "this is possible on PS5" and turning it into "this is only possible on PS5 and the competition will either not be able to do this at all or not without large downgrades".

To the best of my knowledge, only Matt on here has actually spelled that out, that was yesterday. Correct me if I'm wrong. Even then that doesn't necessarily refer to what's already been demonstrated on the UE5 demo (though I won't have a problem believing Matt or anyone else capable of actually knowing that if they actually say it, but speaking as a computer engineer whose expertise is, admittedly, not graphics rendering, I have reasons to doubt the end-result on a competing platform be it high end PC or XSX would look THAT different and either some technical detail is eluding me, others have different standards as to what is "very" or "a little" different, or a bit of both).

I guess the question is can you quote all the posters saying that the UE5 demo is impossible on XSX/PC. Also say some one does believe this, what is the worry, they purchase a PS5? You know the truth and no dev/company has claimed it's only possible on PS5 so why get caught up with the idea that someone somewhere might get the impression PS5 is better than XSX because they ran across poster XYZ on resetera falsely praising PS5 UE5 demo?

Issen · Jun 5, 2020

Jade1962 said:
I guess the question is can you quote all the posters saying that the UE5 demo is impossible on XSX/PC. Also say some one does believe this, what is the worry, they purchase a PS5? You know the truth and no dev/company has claimed it's only possible on PS5 so why get caught up with the idea that someone somewhere might get the impression PS5 is better than XSX because they ran across poster XYZ on resetera falsely praising PS5 UE5 demo?

I'm not particularly fazed by what impression people may or may not have about that, but I have some reservations about posting a different view on the subject and it being interpreted as ignorantly attacking or "downplaying" the PS5 capabilities, somehow not believing or calling developers "liars" and a myriad other things.

As for fishing for people's quotes, let's seriously not get into this subject again.

Skeff · Jun 5, 2020

Doctor Avatar said:
XSX will outperform PS5 in GPU tasks.

PS5 will outperform XSX in IO tasks, likely have better audio too.

They are both great and they both have their own strengths so neither is "better" than the other.

The issue seems to be there are a lot of Xbox folks who saw the 12.1TF vs 10.3TF number and declared victory, and they don't like the idea that actually XSX isn't necessarily the obviously technically better console.

So they spend their time downplaying SSD, quoting made up facts and conspiracy theories (PS5 overheats, PS5 really is only 9.2tf, they pushed the clocks last minute because MS caught them off guard, PS5 has 44% less RT capability etc) calling developers/mods/cerny some combination of liars/biased/paid-off and generally spreading FUD about PS5. They invade every single thread to tell us how great the GPU of XSX is and how that is the only thing that matters while SSD doesn't matter, how all the people praising PS5 are not being truthful etc etc

It's getting incredibly, incredibly tiresome. It makes any discussion of PS5 descend into a complete shit show, and apparently nothing can stop them even Matt coming into this thread to clear things up and try to put and end to it.

Not to mention we dont know how the other parts of the GPU will perform...

If they are both designed with the same number of SE Then PS5 will have a decent advantage in quite a few GPU tasks.

Raide · Jun 5, 2020

Skeff said:
Not to mention we dont know how the other parts of the GPU will perform...

If they are both designed with the same number of SE Then PS5 will have a decent advantage in quite a few GPU tasks.

Also we have no clear idea what the new Velocity Architecture with do for the Series X either. So many parts of both systems that we don't 100% know how it will perform until we get some games to check out, and then we need some multi-platform games to check it as well.

Skeff · Jun 5, 2020

Raide said:
Also we have no clear idea what the new Velocity Architecture with do for the Series X either. So many parts of both systems that we don't 100% know how it will perform until we get some games to check out, and then we need some multi-platform games to check it as well.

Spot on, I thought we would have a clear winner tech wise going into this new gen but as of right now we just dont know if we do or if there is by how wide the gap will be. Personally I dont think there will be a best console, it will differ for different games.

FF Seraphim · Jun 5, 2020

Doctor Avatar said:
XSX will outperform PS5 in GPU tasks.

PS5 will outperform XSX in IO tasks, likely have better audio too.

They are both great and they both have their own strengths so neither is "better" than the other.

The issue seems to be there are a lot of Xbox folks who saw the 12.1TF vs 10.3TF number and declared victory, and they don't like the idea that actually XSX isn't necessarily the obviously technically better console.

So they spend their time downplaying SSD, quoting made up facts and conspiracy theories (PS5 overheats, PS5 really is only 9.2tf, they pushed the clocks last minute because MS caught them off guard, PS5 has 44% less RT capability etc) calling developers/mods/cerny some combination of liars/biased/paid-off and generally spreading FUD about PS5. They invade every single thread to tell us how great the GPU of XSX is and how that is the only thing that matters while SSD doesn't matter, how all the people praising PS5 are not being truthful etc etc

It's getting incredibly, incredibly tiresome. It makes any discussion of PS5 descend into a complete shit show, and apparently nothing can stop them even Matt coming into this thread to clear things up and try to put and end to it.

Hey mate if it is not Native 4k is it even worth it?! /s

WastedDeer · Jun 5, 2020

Doctor Avatar said:
XSX will outperform PS5 in GPU tasks.

PS5 will outperform XSX in IO tasks, likely have better audio too.

They are both great and they both have their own strengths so neither is "better" than the other.

The issue seems to be there are a lot of Xbox folks who saw the 12.1TF vs 10.3TF number and declared victory, and they don't like the idea that actually XSX isn't necessarily the obviously technically better console.

So they spend their time downplaying SSD, quoting made up facts and conspiracy theories (PS5 overheats, PS5 really is only 9.2tf, they pushed the clocks last minute because MS caught them off guard, PS5 has 44% less RT capability etc) calling developers/mods/cerny some combination of liars/biased/paid-off and generally spreading FUD about PS5. They invade every single thread to tell us how great the GPU of XSX is and how that is the only thing that matters while SSD doesn't matter, how all the people praising PS5 are not being truthful etc etc

It's getting incredibly, incredibly tiresome. It makes any discussion of PS5 descend into a complete shit show, and apparently nothing can stop them even Matt coming into this thread to clear things up and try to put and end to it.

That is a small but annoying minority. But then there are also a small but annoying minority of Playstation fans who seem to take umbrage with anyone questioning what the SSD speeds will mean in real world situations. I don't think its trolling to want to know how something like the UE5 demo will translate to on the XSX and tbf I wish Epic showed a version running on Xbox too.

OneBadMutha · Jun 5, 2020

Consider this: is it possible that impressions from devs will differ depending on what type of game they are trying to make, what role they have on their team, whether they're a multiplat dev who has to compensate for the strengths and weaknesses of both systems, whether they have time or manpower to leverage either system's competitive strengths and what types of tools they're currently using?

I don't develop games. I manage in data and analytics and feel that in working with technologies, there are some high level similarities. It's a balancing act between ease of development, ease of learning new features, manpower I'm working with and what I eventually need to accomplish. If I asked every team member which software they'd prefer, the answers may differ depending on their skills, comfort levels or roles. If I asked everyone what area we needed to focus on to help them do their jobs better, they may respond differently for the same reasons.

I talked to a dev who's on my friends list a couple days ago. No insider info or discussion on anything that hasn't been revealed. What he said is that people in general are talking about the wrong shit. He works as part of a team and also is doing his own project on the side and uses Unreal for both. Says the next gen tools are much more powerful. Quality of his assets went up considerably when Epic added Quixel. Super excited about lumens. Said there's important things that haven't been revealed yet. Indies will be able to put up considerably better graphics as a result. Also talked about design possibilities outside of just SSDs. Like design changes that can be made as a result of more compute...including moving things like AI to cloud compute.

He also mentioned the bottleneck next gen is still at the CPU despite the major improvement there. Ironically both of these systems are very similar in terms of CPU capabilities.

I'm just saying a lot of people here, on Twitter, elsewhere...are reacting emotionally to dev statements and people's interpretations. Maybe it's not marketing or FUD. Maybe people are just viewing the situation from different angles.

My opinion taking in everything I've heard is that next generation's real leap and excitement should be around the tools and feature sets. The importance of the tools and ease of accomplishing big things by smaller teams will dwarf the importance of the deltas of either the compute or I/O speeds. I think it will be interesting once NDA is lifted and devs can talk about the capabilities of the tools they're working with.

If tools or ease of accomplishing big things is similar, then the real delta between the 2 systems will be which ecosystem has the best creative leads making exclusive games for them.

PJV3 · Jun 5, 2020

Skeff said:
Spot on, I thought we would have a clear winner tech wise going into this new gen but as of right now we just dont know if we do or if there is by how wide the gap will be. Personally I dont think there will be a best console, it will differ for different games.

That's how is see it, both great machines with differences that will lead to real choice gameswise later on, if you buy one or both you will be happy.

Tiago Rodrigues · Jun 5, 2020

All this talk will be meaningless once Sony comes out showing us some PS5 games.

jroc74 · Jun 5, 2020

Doctor Avatar said:
XSX will outperform PS5 in GPU tasks.

PS5 will outperform XSX in IO tasks, likely have better audio too.

They are both great and they both have their own strengths so neither is "better" than the other.

The issue seems to be there are a lot of Xbox folks who saw the 12.1TF vs 10.3TF number and declared victory, and they don't like the idea that actually XSX isn't necessarily the obviously technically better console.

So they spend their time downplaying SSD, quoting made up facts and conspiracy theories (PS5 overheats, PS5 really is only 9.2tf, they pushed the clocks last minute because MS caught them off guard, PS5 has 44% less RT capability etc) calling developers/mods/cerny some combination of liars/biased/paid-off and generally spreading FUD about PS5. They invade every single thread to tell us how great the GPU of XSX is and how that is the only thing that matters while SSD doesn't matter, how all the people praising PS5 are not being truthful etc etc

It's getting incredibly, incredibly tiresome. It makes any discussion of PS5 descend into a complete shit show, and apparently nothing can stop them even Matt coming into this thread to clear things up and try to put and end to it.

Believe me, I know. I'm a refugee from the speculation threads from day one. I remember what me, you, everyone in there had to go thru, lol.

Matt and some of the other knowledgeable folks have the patience of angels.

I'm just trying to soak in all the info I can, do alot of reading. And try not to show any biases. Both consoles will be great. Game development should get better? for devs. The future, near future is looking so good for gaming.

Deleted member 1589 · Jun 5, 2020

jroc74 said:
Believe me, I know. I'm a refugee from the speculation threads from day one. I remember what me, you, everyone in there had to go thru, lol.

Matt and some of the other knowledgeable folks have the patience of angels.

I'm just trying to soak in all the info I can, do alot of reading. And try not to show any biases. Both consoles will be great. Game development should get better? for devs. The future, near future is looking so good for gaming.

What's weird is that it went from laughing at people being happy and fascinated by the SSD+IO to angry that people are feeling like that about it..

jroc74 · Jun 5, 2020

Flutta said:
What's weird is that it went from laughing at people being happy and fascinated by the SSD+IO to angry that people are feeling like that about it..

Yeah, thats why I said to the post bringing up ReRam....they just wanna watch the world burn. lol God help us if HBM comes up again.

WastedDeer said:
That is a small but annoying minority. But then there are also a small but annoying minority of Playstation fans who seem to take umbrage with anyone questioning what the SSD speeds will mean in real world situations. I don't think its trolling to want to know how something like the UE5 demo will translate to on the XSX and tbf I wish Epic showed a version running on Xbox too.

Questioning, asking questions is totally different that straight downplaying. C'mon...

"Its not what you say, but how you say it"

Thats the thin line between spirited debates, arguments and trolling IMO.

petermarinus · Jun 5, 2020

Tiago Rodrigues said:
All this talk will be meaningless once Sony comes out showing us some PS5 games.

Why is it always about the games with you guys? You do realise that not everybody plays games? Ever think that people just might to have a little console war in peace? Game of the year this, Japan Studios that. Cut it out! XD
/S

But correct, exclusive games will show the advancements in technology much better than "If you zoom in on this Gears screenshot you will see the Series X has slightly better shadows. Not to mention 60fps" -will. Which is why people NEED to doubt PS5. Like you said it will be over once we see some true next generation games

Jiraiya · Jun 5, 2020

Zooming in on this gears screenshot showing slightly better shadows is part of the advancement in tech.

Issen · Jun 5, 2020

Jiraiya said:
Zooming in on this gears screenshot showing slightly better shadows is part of the advancement in tech.

Incredible breakthroughs in zooming technology.

WastedDeer · Jun 5, 2020

jroc74 said:
Yeah, thats why I said to the post bringing up ReRam....they just wanna watch the world burn. lol God help us if HBM comes up again.

Questioning, asking questions is totally different that straight downplaying. C'mon...

"Its not what you say, but how you say it"

Thats the thin line between spirited debates, arguments and trolling IMO.

Very true. But as I said it's happening on both ends. See below. I just want to see how it all manifests with games at the end of the day.

petermarinus said:
Why is it always about the games with you guys? You do realise that not everybody plays games? Ever think that people just might to have a little console war in peace? Game of the year this, Japan Studios that. Cut it out! XD
/S

But correct, exclusive games will show the advancements in technology much better than "If you zoom in on this Gears screenshot you will see the Series X has slightly better shadows. Not to mention 60fps" -will. Which is why people NEED to doubt PS5. Like you said it will be over once we see some true next generation games

Jiraiya · Jun 5, 2020

Issen said:
Incredible breakthroughs in zooming technology.

And quips.

Fizie · Jun 5, 2020

Doctor Avatar said:
XSX will outperform PS5 in GPU tasks.

PS5 will outperform XSX in IO tasks, likely have better audio too.

They are both great and they both have their own strengths so neither is "better" than the other.

The issue seems to be there are a lot of Playstation folks who saw the 10.3TF vs 12.1TF number and freaked out, they don't like the idea that the XSX is the more powerful console.

So they spend their time downplaying GPU power and devising up all these scenarios that are only possible on Sonys SSD (it's speculation so it's okay guys), quoting twitter and forum poster opinions to try validate their console of choice, and accusing anyone who questions anything about the PS5 as calling Cerny a LIAR! They create hundreds of threads based on tiny shreds of news (if even) to tell us how great the SSD is and how that is the only thing that matters while the GPU and CPU doesn't matter, how the fact there aren't as many people on twitter / forums praising the XSX which means the XSX = bad etc etc

It's getting incredibly, incredibly tiresome. It makes any discussion of next gen consoles descend into a complete shit show, and apparently nothing can stop them due to their confirmation bias.

That was easy

Not trying to troll - just pointing out both sides are as bad as each other. The whole victim complex thing is boring.

OneBadMutha · Jun 5, 2020

What if...

...after both platforms reveal their shit....

....Playstation impresses with the technical possibilities of their hardware...

...and Xbox surprises everyone with the increased quality of their internal studios.

Will all fanboys need to re-write their material?

I think we're headed for the best gen. Yet most people are finding gaming shit to be mad about.

Issen · Jun 5, 2020

OneBadMutha said:
Consider this: is it possible that impressions from devs will differ depending on what type of game they are trying to make, what role they have on their team, whether they're a multiplat dev who has to compensate for the strengths and weaknesses of both systems, whether they have time or manpower to leverage either system's competitive strengths and what types of tools they're currently using?

I don't develop games. I manage in data and analytics and feel that in working with technologies, there are some high level similarities. It's a balancing act between ease of development, ease of learning new features, manpower I'm working with and what I eventually need to accomplish. If I asked every team member which software they'd prefer, the answers may differ depending on their skills, comfort levels or roles. If I asked everyone what area we needed to focus on to help them do their jobs better, they may respond differently for the same reasons.

I talked to a dev who's on my friends list a couple days ago. No insider info or discussion on anything that hasn't been revealed. What he said is that people in general are talking about the wrong shit. He works as part of a team and also is doing his own project on the side and uses Unreal for both. Says the next gen tools are much more powerful. Quality of his assets went up considerably when Epic added Quixel. Super excited about lumens. Said there's important things that haven't been revealed yet. Indies will be able to put up considerably better graphics as a result. Also talked about design possibilities outside of just SSDs. Like design changes that can be made as a result of more compute...including moving things like AI to cloud compute.

He also mentioned the bottleneck next gen is still at the CPU despite the major improvement there. Ironically both of these systems are very similar in terms of CPU capabilities.

I'm just saying a lot of people here, on Twitter, elsewhere...are reacting emotionally to dev statements and people's interpretations. Maybe it's not marketing or FUD. Maybe people are just viewing the situation from different angles.

My opinion taking in everything I've heard is that next generation's real leap and excitement should be around the tools and feature sets. The importance of the tools and ease of accomplishing big things by smaller teams will dwarf the importance of the deltas of either the compute or I/O speeds. I think it will be interesting once NDA is lifted and devs can talk about the capabilities of the tools they're working with.

If tools or ease of accomplishing big things is similar, then the real delta between the 2 systems will be which ecosystem has the best creative leads making exclusive games for them.

Yes to this. It also depends on expertise (usually tied to budget and time constraints, where teams leverage middleware and optimize less extensively or deeply). But even in absolutely ideal conditions (best engineers ever, shitloads of time and money, focused on a singular platform...) their impressions of what's possible (or what will be common) today might change as they try to take their technologies and ideas and translate them to actual finished games.

From whether or not these technologies can be properly leveraged while keeping time and budget in check, whether they actually perform as expected in fully realized games, whether the game design changes the technologies make possible even catch on in the market at all...

I've mentioned this before but absolutely no-one actually knows what game development is going to look like in 2 years, even if some are in the position to make very well informed guesses. And so, nobody knows to what extent each technology will be important relative to others.

According to each developer's informed guesses about the future, they'll be more excited about something or other. But they're still excited about the large leap in capabilities across the board, so we're bound to see amazing progress no matter what.

petermarinus · Jun 5, 2020

People who are looking to invest in Xbox are hoping the PS5 SSD tech will only manifest itself in shorter loading times. People who will get a PS5 are hoping the tech will lead to amazing technology being implemented like for example the UE5 demonstration.

For backwards compatibility in the future I prefer to buy multiplatform games on PC. I have PS4 for exclusives. PS5 probably as well, this is why I hope the developers will push PS5 to the max. The same way other people are hoping developers won't

DiscoThunder · Jun 5, 2020

Tiago Rodrigues said:
All this talk will be meaningless once Sony comes out showing us some PS5 games.

I will find the tech interesting after as well.

ppn7 · Jun 5, 2020

Not hyped. I enjoyed 48h on PS4. Now I don't want to play it anymore. 30fps wasn't bad at all. Now I m waiting for try Sekiro

TCG276 · Jun 5, 2020

MrKlaw said:
Unless sony have a special flag that lets you say 'no no, please don't send the data too quickly' - then 3rd party games will take advantage regardless. They won't design around that speed being fundamental to their game, but there will be potential benefits regardless.

third party devs don't design around 4k being a specific requirement either, but they will get it from certain combinations of CPU/GPU on PC for instance.

There are lots of examples of games this generation where the world has pop-in potentially because of GPU but potentially because its not streaming assets in quickly enough, or texture pop-in where it starts with low res textures until the higher res ones come in. That is stuff that can be improved with faster transfer speeds

I agree but I wouldn't expect there to be any huge differences between XSX and PS5 3rd party games. The speed of the PS5 SSD could prove to be a game changer for first party games though.

MrKlaw · Jun 5, 2020

TCG276 said:
I agree but I wouldn't expect there to be any huge differences between XSX and PS5 3rd party games. The speed of the PS5 SSD could prove to be a game changer for first party games though.

Oh yes that's totally reasonable.

platocplx · Jun 5, 2020

Raide said:
Also we have no clear idea what the new Velocity Architecture with do for the Series X either. So many parts of both systems that we don't 100% know how it will perform until we get some games to check out, and then we need some multi-platform games to check it as well.

I'm going to tell you right now. It's not going to make up for the raw hardware difference when it comes to the SSD+ I/O for the PS5. I hope you all can come to terms to that. The whole velocity architecture is from all that is known is practically the APIs MS created, the Hardware decompression, and optimizations to reduce the overhead on the CPU to less than a tenth of a core. Microsoft took a more traditional approach with a combo of software and hardware to get where they more than likely will have the full Use of 2.4 GBs and the 4.8 GBs. That's it. It's not going to magically exceed those numbers. Just meet them. And both consoles share similar ideas with Id based calls to data etc. It just is what it is when it comes to the I/O performance differences. And that should just be okay for everyone to come to terms with. Just as most of us have come to terms with the GPU difference. The most unknown difference is the memory bandwidth differences and how that translates.
But overall I think these consoles are a wash with them being able to out perform the other depending on specific goals for developers and at least have near parity in most cases.

MrKlaw · Jun 5, 2020

platocplx said:
I'm going to tell you right now. It's not going to make up for the raw hardware difference when it comes to the SSD+ I/O for the PS5. I hope you all can come to terms to that. The whole velocity architecture is from all that is known is practically the APIs MS created, the Hardware decompression, and optimizations to reduce the overhead on the CPU to less than a tenth of a core. Microsoft took a more traditional approach with a combo of software and hardware to get where they more than likely will have the full Use of 2.4 GBs and the 4.8 GBs. That's it. It's not going to magically exceed those numbers. Just meet them. And both consoles share similar ideas with Id based calls to data etc. It just is what it is when it comes to the I/O performance differences. And that should just be okay for everyone to come to terms with. Just as most of us have come to terms with the GPU difference. The most unknown difference is the memory bandwidth differences and how that translates.
But overall I think these consoles are a wash with them being able to out perform the other depending on specific goals for developers and at least have near parity in most cases.

and thats fine. I think its clear MS are taking some different decisions. Their 'platform' is PC + XSX + maybe lockhart. So if XSX is more like a traditional PC - nice fat CPU/GPU, fast RAM and a decent SSD - that works well if all their first party titles will have to cover PC as well. There is no practical point pushing hard in an area that will cause their own dev teams pain (eg SSD) if a PC cannot easily support those same updates.

OneBadMutha · Jun 5, 2020

Issen said:
Yes to this. It also depends on expertise (usually tied to budget and time constraints, where teams leverage middleware and optimize less extensively or deeply). But even in absolutely ideal conditions (best engineers ever, shitloads of time and money, focused on a singular platform...) their impressions of what's possible (or what will be common) today might change as they try to take their technologies and ideas and translate them to actual finished games.

From whether or not these technologies can be properly leveraged while keeping time and budget in check, whether they actually perform as expected in fully realized games, whether the game design changes the technologies make possible even catch on in the market at all...

I've mentioned this before but absolutely no-one actually knows what game development is going to look like in 2 years, even if some are in the position to make very well informed guesses. And so, nobody knows to what extent each technology will be important relative to others.

According to each developer's informed guesses about the future, they'll be more excited about something or other. But they're still excited about the large leap in capabilities across the board, so we're bound to see amazing progress no matter what.

Awesome response. Even in my field, can relate to that. Tools, tech, identified opportunities, identified bottlenecks and strategies are changing so fast. My teams strategies, focuses and what we're doing is vastly different from where it was 3 years ago and I doubt anyone would've predicted it. Working in technology, thats how it is. So while all this talk is fun, nobody should be willing to die on the hill they're making the prediction on.

Issen · Jun 5, 2020

OneBadMutha said:
Awesome response. Even in my field, can relate to that. Tools, tech, identified opportunities, identified bottlenecks and strategies are changing so fast. My teams strategies, focuses and what we're doing is vastly different from where it was 3 years ago and I doubt anyone would've predicted it. Working in technology, thats how it is. So while all this talk is fun, nobody should be willing to die on the hill they're making the prediction on.

Just to be clear, I'm a software engineer but my expertise is not in game development either. Those are just my assumptions based on what I know about it, observation of the field over the years, and parallels drawn from my own areas of engineering expertise.

Development is development is development, I guess. But people whose expertise is specifically game development or modern graphics rendering might have another opinion.

EDIT: Actually I just saw you're working in data and analytics, I'm actually working in realtime/high performance data analysis myself right now, so perhaps our view is biased in exactly the same way, lol.

Sklaary · Jun 5, 2020

RT UE4 hopefully it will look even better with UE5

Timlot · Jun 5, 2020

platocplx said:
It just is what it is when it comes to the I/O performance differences. And that should just be okay for everyone to come to terms with. Just as most of us have come to terms with the GPU difference. The most unknown difference is the memory bandwidth

I think the issue is we really don't know what the I/O performance difference is going to bring. I see examples of higher assets, lod, etc being brought up, but people seem to forget that the XSX SSD is still over 40 times faster than the current hardware. Until we see side by side comparisons any definitive statements about what the I/O performance difference will be is just conjecture.

I question if most have come to terms with GPU difference. At some point all this data from the SSD needs to be processed by the respective apu of each system, and what we do know is more cpu/gpu compute is going to lead better performance.

platocplx · Jun 5, 2020

Timlot said:
I think the issue is we really don't know what the I/O performance difference is going to bring. I see examples of higher assets, lod, etc being brought up, but people seem to forget that the XSX SSD is still over 40 times faster than the current hardware. Until we see side by side comparisons any definitive statements about what the I/O performance difference will be is just conjecture.

I question if most have come to terms with GPU difference. At some point all this data from the SSD needs to be processed by the respective apu of each system, and what we do know is more cpu/gpu compute is going to lead better performance.

Like I know the Xbox, should have better ray tracing, probably be able to hit higher resolution etc. The SSDs are unknown territory and i think anyone either downplaying the higher speed and/or claiming it isnt necessary really makes no sense to me.

The key differences between these systems from all ive read and watched is just the GPU/ SSD Architecture solutions and the memory configurations. The CPUs are near identical and no one really should be counting that as anything but a wash. I'd be shocked if games that are more CPU heavy dont work technically the same. thats what i see it as. The one argument i want to see answered is one cerny made about having more CUs vs higher frequency with his claim that having more CUs you cant always fill them with meaningful work. That is an interesting argument and its something worth seeing how that works.

I think people just wanna say their box has the DEFINITIVE version of respective 3rd party games. but honestly imo id be shocked if there isnt way more parity this gen.

oRuin · Jun 5, 2020

BEA5T
Nice to see innovation over the usual increased capability of just the CPU and GPU. Seems they looked at everything and solved many problems with using a custom I/O.

gundamkyoukai · Jun 5, 2020

platocplx said:
Like I know the Xbox, should have better ray tracing, probably be able to hit higher resolution etc. The SSDs are unknown territory and i think anyone either downplaying the higher speed and/or claiming it isnt necessary really makes no sense to me.

The key differences between these systems from all ive read and watched is just the GPU/ SSD Architecture solutions and the memory configurations. The CPUs are near identical and no one really should be counting that as anything but a wash. I'd be shocked if games that are more CPU heavy dont work technically the same. thats what i see it as. The one argument i want to see answered is one cerny made about having more CUs vs higher frequency with his claim that having more CUs you cant always fill them with meaningful work. That is an interesting argument and its something worth seeing how that works.

I think people just wanna say their box has the DEFINITIVE version of respective 3rd party games. but honestly imo id be shocked if there isnt way more parity this gen.

I expect 3rd party will be better on XSX it extra power will be easier to use for certain things compare to SSD even if the SSD speed help with LOD or textures .
But then the difference will be smaller than this gen so everyone should still be happy .

cooldawn · Jun 5, 2020

Issen said:
I said "take with a grain of salt" which isn't necessarily the same as "bullshitting". Sometimes statements by employees about their own products, even those made by engineers in tech talks, are too optimistic or focus only on the positives. Things can be misleading by omission.

That said, that's just an attitude that I think is healthy to have in general terms. Personally I don't have an issue with anything Cerny stated in Road to Playstation, especially not anything given in concrete measurements (like we have X CUs, reach X clock speeds, SSD has X bandwidth etc.)

Hang on, this is all weird. Your disbelief about the SSD is on the basis Mark Cerny is an employee of the company that makes PlayStation products!?

I got news for you, he isn't a PlayStation employee. He's not even a Sony employee. He's an independent consultant contracted to work with Sony, not for them. He designed the PlayStation 5 but it's not his product.

Does that make a difference?

It reads like you think a product with a nigh-on 200% advantage in one metric can not compare to a product with about a 20% advantage in another metric, which seems bizarre.

Additionally, about the UE5 demo. EPIC confirmed the demo was designed around PS5's SSD (complete I/O re-write) but it's scales to whatever hardware it's running on. Surely it means it's less likely detail will degrade, pop-in remains minimal and LoD is, at worst, subtle compared to other platforms with slower SSD's. In this case it just so happens to mean the other platform may, at speed, lose detail, have more pop-in and maybe worse LoD but it can push out more pixels with more RT and effects.

Outside of that, with an SSD that's nearly twice as fast you could probably encourage extreme gameplay designs that may not be possible elsewhere. I'm sure Sony's showcase will confirm it too.

I also read people seem to think third-party title will have all the answers. Maybe because it's the same game, but I would never expect a third-party developer to show the power of a platform.

Zaki2407 · Jun 5, 2020

This is the way I see next gen consoles.
Good time ahead :)

Hermii · Jun 5, 2020

cooldawn said:
Hang on, this is all weird. Your disbelief about the SSD is on the basis Mark Cerny is an employee of the company that makes PlayStation products!?

I got news for you, he isn't a PlayStation employee. He's not even a Sony employee. He's an independent consultant contracted to work with Sony, not for them. He designed the PlayStation 5 but it's not his product.

Does that make a difference?

It reads like you think a product with a nigh-on 200% advantage in one metric can not compare to a product with about a 20% advantage in another metric, which seems bizarre.

Additionally, about the UE5 demo. EPIC confirmed the demo was designed around PS5's SSD (complete I/O re-write) but it's scales to whatever hardware it's running on. Surely it means it's less likely detail will degrade, pop-in remains minimal and LoD is, at worst, subtle compared to other platforms with slower SSD's. In this case it just so happens to mean the other platform may, at speed, lose detail, have more pop-in and maybe worse LoD but it can push out more pixels with more RT and effects.

Outside of that, with an SSD that's nearly twice as fast you could probably encourage extreme gameplay designs that may not be possible elsewhere. I'm sure Sony's showcase will confirm it too.

I also read people seem to think third-party title will have all the answers. Maybe because it's the same game, but I would never expect a third-party developer to show the power of a platform.

How exactly can Sony confirm their gameplay designs aren't possible on series x? By definition their first party software will only be on ps5, so wether they would have worked on an ssd with half the speed or not is just a theoretical question that never can be confirmed.

Like would a 360 port of last of us run well? We will never know for sure.

Issen · Jun 5, 2020

cooldawn said:
Hang on, this is all weird. Your disbelief about the SSD is on the basis Mark Cerny is an employee of the company that makes PlayStation products!?

I got news for you, he isn't a PlayStation employee. He's not even a Sony employee. He's an independent consultant contracted to work with Sony, not for them. He designed the PlayStation 5 but it's not his product.

Does that make a difference?

It reads like you think a product with a nigh-on 200% advantage in one metric can not compare to a product with about a 20% advantage in another metric, which seems bizarre.

Additionally, about the UE5 demo. EPIC confirmed the demo was designed around PS5's SSD (complete I/O re-write) but it's scales to whatever hardware it's running on. Surely it means it's less likely detail will degrade, pop-in remains minimal and LoD is, at worst, subtle compared to other platforms with slower SSD's. In this case it just so happens to mean the other platform may, at speed, lose detail, have more pop-in and maybe worse LoD but it can push out more pixels with more RT and effects.

Outside of that, with an SSD that's nearly twice as fast you could probably encourage extreme gameplay designs that may not be possible elsewhere. I'm sure Sony's showcase will confirm it too.

I also read people seem to think third-party title will have all the answers. Maybe because it's the same game, but I would never expect a third-party developer to show the power of a platform.

I honestly don't know how many times I need to explain I believe basically everything Cerny said on Road to PS5, including the PS5 specifications. That is not what I was talking about.

And if you don't see how someone speaking about a product the production of which he was involved in, regardless of the specifics of his contractual status, could be reasonably believed to have a conflict of interest, that's on you.

Betamaxbandit · Jun 5, 2020

Zaki2407 said:
This is the way I see next gen consoles.
Good time ahead :)

These comparisons (especially this one) is almost meme level now on here.

Raide · Jun 5, 2020

Betamaxbandit said:
These comparisons (especially this one) is almost meme level now on here.

I was expecting some 'Brute Force' joke meme in there somewhere.

platocplx · Jun 5, 2020

Issen said:
And if you don't see how someone speaking about a product the production of which he was involved in, regardless of the specifics of his contractual status, could be reasonably believed to have a conflict of interest, that's on you.

this is ridiculous. do you even know what conflict of interest means. this isnt the case. and its baffling that when cerny presented there is ZERO gain in lying about the platform and its capabilities to the damn people who would be working on it.

PJV3 · Jun 5, 2020

Zaki2407 said:
This is the way I see next gen consoles.
Good time ahead :)

I think you need to photoshop the PS5 in to a 6 lane motorway.
I like these things to be as silly as possible.

nib95 · Jun 5, 2020

Issen said:
I honestly don't know how many times I need to explain I believe basically everything Cerny said on Road to PS5, including the PS5 specifications. That is not what I was talking about.

And if you don't see how someone speaking about a product the production of which he was involved in, regardless of the specifics of his contractual status, could be reasonably believed to have a conflict of interest, that's on you.

There are legal liability ramifications to lying the way you're implying. Hence generally every piece of PR is designed in such a way as to promote the product as best it can, but also be accurate. This is why we can reasonably take the information provided by both Microsoft and Sony in official press about the PS5/Xbox Series X (eg tangible products and not theoretical ones), as mostly accurate. Anything less would open them up liability wise.

VG24/7:Epic rewrite I/O subsystem with PS5 SSD in mind

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