Games read from disk the whole time, not just during loading screen.
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DF Direct: PS5: The full technical specification
- Thread starter Thiago
- Start date
Wow, lol. How can you write something like this with a straight face?
I might have inferred this wrong but Isn't it only comparable to those Jaguar cores when handling audio and it can be used outside of that for only some specific things?
What I'm saying is that the difference is most likely going to be more than just a single second of difference in load times. And I will stand by that. I think there will be bigger differences that will become apparent when it comes to LoD and assets streaming in.
It's tiring to see people downplay such a big difference in speed by stating that it won't amount to anything more than a single second.
Frankly I don't think they know what they are talking about.
for the moment it seems to be the easiest way to compare stuff. It is not acurate, and can be really missleading...but people want to be able to compare hardware, just natural. There is a whole field in academics about measuring performance of different systems. Its just not that easy, but people want SOMETHING.
We started this conversation talking about the potential effect, or lackthereof, of the SSD speed on onscreen asset quality. You suggested the GPU would bring that down below XSX anyway - I pointed out that the parts of the GPU dealing with geometry drawing may be faster on PS5, and that texture sampling rates and resolution were orthogonal.
This isn't to say XSX won't typically have higher resolutions or framerates. Nobody's arguing that. But I don't think anyone should argue that, for whatever it is worth, PS5 may not have different advantages also. That's numbers too. It's not spin. It's just a more complicated picture than one or other being better than the other at everything. That's not the situation we have, even if a lot of people crave the simplicity of a situation like that.
The XB1/PS4 analog isn't quite the same by the way, as relates to 'on screen asset quality' or data density or whatnot - the differential between clock and compute are far more even than the ~6% to ~40% clock to compute difference of those machines (10-20% higher clocks vs 16-30% higher compute). But the bigger difference, again, may be in the memory capacity for onscreen assets, if the PS5 ssd allows significantly more aggressive streaming, and that's not necessarily going to be bound by the GPU where resolution is already going to be lower because of its lower compute. We didn't have an analogous difference there last gen on the memory/io side.
Again, I'm not arguing XSX isn't more powerful in the headline dimensions most people look at. It is. But I think there might also be scope for PS5 to carry a different performance/technical profile in its games, along other dimensions where it has advantages. And even in multiplat games - asset streaming or LoD scaling is not quixotic tech anymore. Not saying for sure, but from the spec the potential is perhaps there.
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You are probably right on that, that is a custom designed chip for audio, but i am pretty sure that cerny said that it could be used for additional computations beyond audio, this sounds like one of those things that developers will realize how to squeeze some additional performance out of later in the gen; in general a lot of the stuff Cerny mentioned seemed to me like this console is similar to the PS3 in design (in a good way and without the headache for developers) as developers will find ways to get some extra capabilities of the machine and to more efficiently use each cycle as the generation goes on and as developers master all the tricks of the hardware.
Shure, developers need to show what they are capable to do with them befor we prais them to the moon and back, but still, the difference is huse.
The speed with wich we can load assets into the ram makes a unbelivable difference for developers. a lot of current compute power is just used for managing the assets, wo be able tohave worlds bigger than the ram can hold. with the speed of the ssd, the new memory controller just for that, and the 6 levels of priority i bet you the overhead for managing the the memory and loading will be greatly reduced compared to current gen, so resources wil be freed for other stuff (and development resources are less needed for this tedious work and can be used on other areas).
Even if a developer doesnt use it to its full potential, just think of Indie games in the current generation: the 2d pixel games could have been made since the 90ties, and jet still they neew gigabytes of data and a huge amount of power for what they are: the brute force of the hardware compensated for lack of funds/teamsize to develop more efficiently. With the change in ssd/ram behavior, we could see a simular effect for mid sized projekt this gen, whenre the asset management is not a burden to the team and enables bid sized open world games.
It's important to keep in mind that the XSX has a significantly higher memory bandwidth. While PS5 will be able to get stuff to memory faster, XSX will be able to hold more in memory at a time. I think ultimately it's going to largely balance out.
Bandwidth to cpu/gpu has nothing to do with how much is held in memory at one time. Bandwidth from IO may - at least, in how much that is actively in use can be held in memory at one time vs 'idled' data.
XSX's bandwidth advantage is good for higher resolutions.
Please to god no. Id just killed off their variant of it and described how it dramatically increased their productivity by not having it.
Please no more static solutions.
I think it's the opposite that is more interesting, I.e how much data can we move in and out of ram, gpu, cpu in say under 16ms (for 60fps). That is where meaningful differences if any will show. Traditional load times are just a bonus.
I kinda doubt RT will get significant use next gen. Especially if it's worse on PS5 many devs might not even opt to implement it into their engine. Would be interesting if some turned it on on the X but left it off on the PS5. Isn't RT so expensive it would easily bridge the power gap in that case? E.g. games running and looking identical except one has RT on and the other doesn't.
Interesting times. At least theoretically the high I/O performance on PS5 could lead to some interesting things beyond just the marginal graphic differences we have seen until now like between the X and PS4 Pro
Interesting times. At least theoretically the high I/O performance on PS5 could lead to some interesting things beyond just the marginal graphic differences we have seen until now like between the X and PS4 Pro
Yes, albeit surely impossible next gen as RAM is only 16gb in these machines, with a good chunk of that likely reserved for OS functions.
With the speed of these of these SSD drives, even in a worst case scenario it would only take a few seconds to fill the RAM.
Ps5: good specs, super fast loading, audio enhancements, backward compatible with ps4 (even if not 100% at first) naughty dog, santa monica, insomniac, guerilla, bend, japanese 3rd parties...
XSX: better specs, ssd, friendlier microsoft, halo, forza, gears of war, more japanese support, great backward compatibility.
No matter the features and specs, people know what they want and what they need to play, and price will be a huge factor.
This war of specs is too much.
XSX: better specs, ssd, friendlier microsoft, halo, forza, gears of war, more japanese support, great backward compatibility.
No matter the features and specs, people know what they want and what they need to play, and price will be a huge factor.
This war of specs is too much.
Ps5's CU being 62% bigger than ps4's CU do make any difference? Cerny said it was equivalent to 54 ps4's CU.
I will also add one thing, both consoles are very exciting and everyone should be very, very happy (with caveat of pricing which is the last key info we don't have). It's also great that consoles are not just carbon copies of each other with some linear differences, I'm hoping we will hear and see more from developers soon, it is their opinion that matters the most and I imagine they are itching to start sharing.
edit: spelling
edit: spelling
These console warriors will not give until they convince the whole world 15% diff in gpu is big and 0.1ghz more is a lot for more fps.
Reality will come to then when benchmarks show up.
Diff is kind of Xbox one original to S.
I'm so confused. There are so many different specs that seem to be in a different context in terms of how you gauge real world performance.
I think overall the specs appear to be solid and I believe Sony when they say their flops are different than one would expect in the traditional sense, DF has also said it's just one metric and not the be all end all of measuring its power. The console appears to be quite robust.
My biggest gripe thus far is that the SSD isn't even 1TB... after being formatted and when the OS etc. is on there we may be looking at less than 750GB of of storage; given the size of next gen games likely being 100GB or more, this kind of sucks. I mean, let's be honest. It REALLY sucks in terms of capacity. Being able to add an M2 SSD is nice but the requirements are strict and until older ones disappear from the market, expanding storage will likely be very confusing to the average PS5 user.
I think overall the specs appear to be solid and I believe Sony when they say their flops are different than one would expect in the traditional sense, DF has also said it's just one metric and not the be all end all of measuring its power. The console appears to be quite robust.
My biggest gripe thus far is that the SSD isn't even 1TB... after being formatted and when the OS etc. is on there we may be looking at less than 750GB of of storage; given the size of next gen games likely being 100GB or more, this kind of sucks. I mean, let's be honest. It REALLY sucks in terms of capacity. Being able to add an M2 SSD is nice but the requirements are strict and until older ones disappear from the market, expanding storage will likely be very confusing to the average PS5 user.
Eh, I'm dumb.
Anyways, I don't think the fact that the SSD can supply data twice as fast will result tons more things on screen for the PS5 compared to XSX simply because all of that stuff still needs to be rendered by the GPU. In particular I think Mesh Shaders and Sony's equivalent are going to make this whole thing moot anyways.
No, both machines basically use the same architecture, so the XSX CUs are also the same size
All I stated was that whatever you were streaming, had to be drawn or rendered by the GPU and as such, what we see on screen is far more dependent on GPU than it is on SSD. You would have to pair that with a CPU that is capable enough for it to hold better frame rates. Series X has the advantage in bandwidth, CPU and GPU.......all things that have a direct effect on what you see on screen and the quality of what you see on screen.
Lightning fast streaming has its advantage in that whatever is needed is accessible in record time, but it will not lead to better asset quality if the GPU or the bandwidth is not there. You will maybe see pop in if the Series X is not configured well enough, but that would be the only difference you will be able to notice because that is a function that is directly tied to SSD speed and custom features at that level.
Having better clocked GPU and CPU did not help Microsoft this generation in view of the design decisions that Sony were able to accomplish.
In the land of the sinking pound i will appreciate any attempt to be frugal where possible, the fact i'm not facing being limited to Sony storage is a big relief as well, Cerny seemed to highlight the cost for a reason in that decision, along with talking about noise, so i'm hopeful it's going to be a cheaper, quieter machine.
I always expected next gen RT to be "RT lite". Everything else is just not feasible for the price their aiming for. Which doesn't mean it's going to be bad - I'm convinced that they'll find smart ways to implement RT effects more efficiently than we did so far. We will see a huge improvement in lighting. And high-end PC owners will also profit from it.
It will allow more aggressive streaming (barring some unforseen difference that is not aparent on a spec sheet) but the question of whether that implies superior assets on camera is presumably hinging on whether or not the assets can be sufficiently fed on the Xbox. They both can only fill the same 16GB of memory so if both games are "still" there would be no differences in principle, and even in motion it would depend on how fast the game permitted you to "traverse the assets" (for lack of a better term) as to how much of a perceptual difference in LOD aggressiveness we might see. Both platforms should be dramatic improvements over current gen systems.
The CPU and GPU performance deficits are not vast and I overall believe this is going to be the tightest grouped generation so far, barring aforementioned differences that are not clear from spec sheets alone. One thing is clear though, this is not going to be a repeat of last gen where one console managed to be better in effectively every way while also being cheaper.
If you're price sensitive you're not going to be expanding storage in either case - even the priciest SSDs on the current market are not going to be fast enough to qualify for PS5 drives, and your only cost effective solution in both cases (at least anywhere near launch) is going to be using a conventional external HDD for cold storage to swap out games you're not using (but which you can't actually run until you transfer to internal storage).
Just to be clear, I think that PS5 IS very well balanced and will provide
- great first party experiences
- very solid third party games, especially after awhile
- great value proposition if the price will be balanced in comparison to the hw and to the competition (so if, for example, we'll see a 399$ console VS a 499$ console)
But I think that saying that PS5 is a very nicely-structured console is different than saying that it won't have any shortcoming compared to the competition
The Xbox One X is markedly more powerful than the PS4 Pro, and indeed many games run at higher resolutions on the X, but there are still many games that perform better overall on the Pro. It's never been a wash either way.
It will all come down to developers' decisions, and Microsoft and Sony's support.
Y'all can try to draw conclusions from the numbers, but they won't get you anywhere. We won't know how any game will look or perform on either machine until we see them. You can bet that third party AAAs will be split: some playing better on PS5 and some playing better on XSX.
I'm really excited about both machines. I'll likely end up getting both in time.
It will all come down to developers' decisions, and Microsoft and Sony's support.
Y'all can try to draw conclusions from the numbers, but they won't get you anywhere. We won't know how any game will look or perform on either machine until we see them. You can bet that third party AAAs will be split: some playing better on PS5 and some playing better on XSX.
I'm really excited about both machines. I'll likely end up getting both in time.
Hopefully things in the world get back to normal by the time i need to think of increasing storage anyway.
Not enterily true, Series X has 10GB of faster memory and 6 of slower memory.
When the only advantage you have is a slight difference in ssd speeds- suddenly this difference is the most important thing of the entire gen
Huh
Huh
Fast for GPU, slower for CPU. That is the idea. It solves some DDR6 controller craziness.
Though it seems like to get a similar level of performance to a next gen console, people can't use their existing NVME SSDs. Might need a new SSD and a new motherboard too with PCIE 4.0 support. Are most devs going to bother setting that kind of restriction? I don't think so. SATA SSD speeds are probably going to be the baseline everyone works with that isn't a first party developer.
So PS5 has faster CPU RAM, it's nice seeing how CPU has been always the bottleneck.
And, what I'm saying is, I think they are there at least as much as they're there on XSX, if not moreso in some respects. With regard to geometry, geometry setup and rasterisation is not CU bound, and may be higher on PS5 than XSX if the front end config is the same. Increased texture resolution is not bandwidth dependent - increased sampling would be, but that's a different matter. Finally, I think we're granting that PS5 games may run at lower resolutions accounting for much of the cu/bandwidth difference - such that on the input side, there may be as much bandwidth per pixel available on PS5 as XSX. If the bandwidth difference is gobbled up by resolution differences, bandwidth left for input may be the same. If not, XSX may have a sampling advantage, as opposed to a base asset quality advantage.
So I think simply saying 'the faster GPU/bandwidth closes off the advantage PS5 might have on asset input' is a bit simplistic, if it turns out that per pixel, PS5 has as much bandwidth, to a larger pool of memory (the choice of the full 13/14GB, or whatever, vs 10GB on XSX) with whatever utilisation boost the SSD speed adds on top for on-screen (or near-screen) assets.
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I actually agree, my last few posts were exactly about that. The post you are quoting was just an observation of the way a 100% difference gets downplayed.
I personally think the differences will be apparent in assets streaming and lod etc.
I also felt this, especially with how bloated games got this gen.
However Cerny did say that for older HDDs, devs would have to have multiple copies of the same assets so that their streaming engine could seek it out faster. Like the mailbox in Spiderman being copied and saved into the files 400 times.
If the SSD allows for way better streaming and no seeking then maybe devs won't have to include 400 copies of a single asset thus removing unneeded game size.
Maybe this will allow for smaller game sizes.
Then again, maybe it'll just allow devs to cram even more stuff in now that they don't have to copy everything multiple times. I guess we'll find out in a few months lol
Yeah, it's not just about what the end user sees. Megatexture was also a problem for the artists building assets for the game not to mention all the issues with file size bloat, noisy compression and the like. Glad it's gone!
Correct. If the SSD on Xbox is sufficient in the first place to go full throttle with what assets are onscreen at a given time, then you're not IO/memory bound. In cases where you are, PS5's setup may have advantages. We'll have to see how 'big' games go here when stretched to the top of their LoD chain.
XBX also comes with two speeds and different sizes , so devs that want to use the full bandwith of ram will be limited to 10GB vs potentially more on PS5 even if slower. I wonder how much memory is needed to feed GPU whith HQ assets and resolution and hig framerates. WIll those 10Gb be enough?
100% difference in ssd speeds is slight? While 15% difference in gpu power is big? That's how it is right?
Potentially... XSX *could* use the faster ram for CPU, but, according to DF, that is not really the idea. Then again, maybe some devs might do that in certain situations.
PCIe 3.0 can deliver the Xbox SSD speed of 2.4 GB/s. Sure with hardware decompression its 4.4 GB/s but that is also pretty close to what PCIe 3.0 can deliver at maximum. I don't think devs will have an issue to adapt to lower NVMe speeds, since even lower speeds like 1.5 GB/s is still plenty for a steady data stream, plus on PC you can also store a lot of data in the RAM, which any modern PC should have atleast 16 GB of.
I don't know about SATA SSDs though. Could be fine, could be not. We will see.
Regarding PS5, I'm having a really tough time picturing how gameplay is going to affected positively by the SSD. Yes, I saw the wireframe examples by Cerny, and yes, this is something I've also thought about before, myself. Not needing corridors and such should be liberating to devs.
But as someone who is not a dev, what types of games are actually now made more possible by having this? That's what I'm struggling to understand. I'd love to hear a developer's perspective (or just someone smarter than me ^_^).
The only thing I can think of is that games with fast moving vehicles like F-Zero or Wipeout or something, can feel a LOT faster since there can be so many unique assets flying by without any repetition.
Or games can have a lot more assets loaded into a scene at once like an extremely cluttered room with tons of assets that can be changed on the fly.
But what else?
But as someone who is not a dev, what types of games are actually now made more possible by having this? That's what I'm struggling to understand. I'd love to hear a developer's perspective (or just someone smarter than me ^_^).
The only thing I can think of is that games with fast moving vehicles like F-Zero or Wipeout or something, can feel a LOT faster since there can be so many unique assets flying by without any repetition.
Or games can have a lot more assets loaded into a scene at once like an extremely cluttered room with tons of assets that can be changed on the fly.
But what else?