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Game Engine Designer (Hazel, Frostbite) breaks down Unreal 5 demo
- Thread starter nib95
- Start date
OP
OP
It is interesting that everyone is breaking down the same tech demo over and over again. I'm sure his perspective is unique in comparison to all of the others, but I find it fascinating how everyone is so stuck on this particular demo.
Have we seen anything quite like this last gen?
Have we seen anything quite like this last gen?
It's a bit too bad the dev says that they're doing raytracing in the demo, which they aren't, unless I misunderstood. Also Alannah seemed to think the whole thing could be done on a PS4, and as we've seen many devs say, just like in this video, there are many things that could not be done. The scene with all the statues I'm sure could be simplified, but the final flight? No, I very very highly doubt it from what I've seen from devs. Digital Foundry explain it too. Also the level of detail is just insane. I am honestly surprised she compared this to the xbox conference and said neither were exciting. Because I was beginning to think what they were saying when I watched the xbox conference, that oh maybe I'd hyped myself up too much. But then I watched this demo and it looks straight up pre-rendered. And here in the OP's video the guy says exactly that.
Like, to me, even games like Uncharted 4 there is this clear massive gulf between that and a movie. There is never a single moment impressive as they are, in any game right now that I have thought whoa this is a movie. Maaaaybe Death Stranding managed it? But not if you look too closely. That wasn't the case with this demo. Some scenes genuinely look like they come out of a movie. And I'm seeing a lot of people agree with that sentiment, again, even professionals. So like, I don't understand how one can agree this looks like a movie but then not be blown away, because like, do people think games right now look like live action movies? I cannot believe that. There is such a massive gulf there.
I did take their point that this fidelity is probably not super possible on most games, and the real innovation here is engine wide. But I am just continually astounded that right now there are people who watch this trailer and go "ehh this looks like uncharted 4." That is insane to me. Like...no it doesn't? It's such a massive difference. I cannot understand being disappointed by this demo. I thought my expectations were high but I was beginning to doubt we'd get stuff that looks this good, and it was better than I had hoped for.
It's a long podcast and they diverge quite Abit throughout to other topics but it's entertaining to listen throughout.
That dev also 'teased' some dual sense feature that's still under NDA in the end.
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It's because there is a lot to analyze. It's also all we have to analyze right now too.
There's lumen, there's nanite, there's the question of how SSDs play into this and what it means for the fundamentally new architecture here.
Like, last gen, I don't feel like anything fundamentally changed. We got CPUs that...were bad but technically better. Way more RAM. Uh better GPUs. That's kind of it. Same 5400rpm drives since forever. We didn't see anything new that everyone was trying to understand the sheer effects of like the SSD. This demo is also interesting in that it isn't just a graphics demo. It was a playable GDC demo actually. So this is also a pitch and presentation to developers. So you've got a ton of developers extremely extremely excited by things like nanite and no more LODs and things, and all the gamers are seeing them be hype and are like "What? What? What does that mean? Why is that exciting?"
He said what Sony does with its hardware. That has nothing to do with the Epic Demo. Not sure where you stand but this seemingly has PC fans pissed off lol.
Sony 1st party will be able to leverage the system to their liking. "Program to the 'metal' "or whatever. With what they have achieved on PS4, Sony fans have a right to be excited.
On topic, thanks for the share OP. I think we need these developer perspectives instead of going off rants that the SSD means nothing and its just a gimmick.
Most people only see visuals from a macro level point of view without considering some of the micro level attention being given. I mean, just look at all the people in a digital foundary thread, complaining when a game is using reconstruction instead of native resolution, only focusing on the 'bigger number, better game, concept. Probably the same type of people that can't tell the difference between bit & byte, integer & float.
Also obviously, the ending flight scene of that demo is something quite impossible for current gen (and even most gaming PC), not with that type of fidelity and speed definitely.
All I know is I'm happy and jealous at the same time, it sounds great.
I just hope PC can adopt a similar method to what Sony is doing. It would probably have to benefit more than games for PC part manufacturers to push for it though. We will still be getting ports from multiplatform that has to work on Xbox Series X so those games won't require PC to get something like Sony's compression and I/O advances unless Microsoft has one too.
This is funny, especially how people are seemingly drooling over DLSS, something that allow people to play at 1080p with a cleaned up 4k output for performance.
Well you say obviously. And it's obviously to me too since my jaw detached from my skull and fell to the floor, my brain subconsciously resetting to oh this is a cutscene and me going uh no this is real time and could be gameplay at some point.
But there are still people who think you could run this on a PS4. Like I said Alannah if I remember right (it's late and I'm tired, but I did just watch the entire thing just now), says she doesn't see anything in there that couldn't run on a PS4 and I was like ehhhhHHHH?? You would have to severely cut that down so much I don't think it would be recognizable.
Last gen we had lots of things to discuss from the beginning. There were trailers and gameplay videos from KZ Shadow Fall, Deep Down(!) and other PS4,X1 games to UE4 demo alongside Square Enix and Quantic Dream demos, but now...
We have almost nothing from PS5, except seconds of gameplay from Godfall. And although we saw some things from XSX, most of them aren't THAT next gen. So people want to talk about this beautiful UE5 demo more than other things. But after releasing more videos from both consoles, we'll have much more things to discuss.
I don't understand some of the narratives resulting from this demo: that Epic created an engine that only one of the new consoles can use properly? Is that really the conclusion some of you are making, then accusing people who say it can be also done on XsX and PCs just as well are engaging in console warring? Holy moly say good bye to logic....
Epic made their money on selling engines as well as cosmetic up-sells on Fortnite. This new engine will function very well on XsX as well as PCs with proper SSDs because Epic are not stupid. The SSD required won't be 9GB/s. It will be more like 2GB/s because that's what's readily available for PC builders without destroying their budget and because again, Epic is not stupid and it wants wide adoption of this engine.
Epic made their money on selling engines as well as cosmetic up-sells on Fortnite. This new engine will function very well on XsX as well as PCs with proper SSDs because Epic are not stupid. The SSD required won't be 9GB/s. It will be more like 2GB/s because that's what's readily available for PC builders without destroying their budget and because again, Epic is not stupid and it wants wide adoption of this engine.
It can be difficult though, with PC being an open platform....unless there's a vendor like msi or gigabyte that can create a special edition motherboard with a custom ssd embedded out of the box and built right next to the northbridge.
Yeah, that's the part that makes me jealous. If pc doesn't get it, but that's the thing, I can always get a taste with the console versions of games. I just wish more Playstation games allowed for gyro options for aiming, and moving the camera.
depends on if you want a lossy or lossless compression, and what type of scheme you want. an RLE VQ based lossy compression? You get like factors of 128:1 or greater.
Alannah is a journalist, not a techie or a dev and even then, she was quickly corrected by the devs.
I guess because devs had been using 'cheats' for the longest time light baked light maps and shadows and smart kid that when they no longer have to do the tricks and render for real, most layman can't tell the difference.
For example, do u still remember when Nvidia first show raytracing, alot of people are still commenting... what's so different from the lighting and reflection that's already on current games?
I don't fault the layman as much because developers had used such good tricks to simulate these effects that it can be hard for most people to wrap their head how much better real time raytracing is vs SSR lightmaps, etc etc....
Well Sony did talk about how mainstream SSDs with like idk 7GB/s would be compatible. Yes they are working with the architecture in general but a big part of the SSDs ability is unique to the SSD, hence aftermarket needing to be much faster to compensate.
Maybe this is just a matter of, newer SSDs need to develop better controllers or whatever it is on their own, or maybe like you say it just starts getting integrated into gaming motherboards. I don't know. I'm sure there is a solution and it won't be impossible. I mean again, most of these games will be on Xbox Series X too, which does not appear to focus on the same areas (although of course they have their own compression tech and everything which is supposed to be good). And like, all consoles tend to have very custom hardware no? And PC always comes out ahead in the end. I'm sure PCs will brute force a lot of this stuff. Or maybe this is what Tim Sweeney was talking about this pushing PC gaming forward I dunno. Maybe it really would require fundamental improvements. Maybe motherboards will start showing up on minimum spec sheets, requiring a "westbridge" or something. I'd love to hear people making this hardware talk about it. Maybe AMD would spearhead that.
I'm kinda stream of consciousing this but damn this is interesting for sure.
I think a lot of it has to do with how much these sort of breakdown and reaction type videos have grown since last gen. We get these types of videos about everything now. Either way, the tech is very impressive and it actually seems like a major breakthrough even outside the realm of a typical generational leap.
They are server architecture with such setup but no pc I know of. However, u can probably do something like configuring a raid0 with 2x nvme ssd? Still, the fact that such setup is not the baseline of PC but rather an outlier config means that it can be difficult for devs to target for.
So the idea of all nextgen games will be target ssd as baseline will be very exciting even for PC gaming.
And like many mention, I can't even fathom how Sony 1st party games will look like when the baseline is using their custom ssd.
I'm a bit confused because I remember kind of hoping one of them would address that point and I didn't feel like they did. Maybe they didn't' do it how I would have. Misinformation stresses me out lol. So when I see a prominent usually pretty confidently spoken and knowledgeable person like Alannah say something that seems ignorant to me, it stresses me out like noooo this is a common misconception that won't be cleared up. Why I care about this I don't know.
And yeah honestly you're probably right. Maybe I'm just kind of an analytical person so for me, like, I like learning how this stuff works, so by now I'm just used to seeing past the tricks. I mean I think it was Austin said though that we always think this is the best it can be and then we never get smarter or whatever. Like, we always think this is the best it can be and then we look back and it definitely was not. And I mean that definitely was true this gen too. Going back to that old UE4 demo with the lava dude and like yeah, I cannot believe I thought that was impressive. A game would honestly get criticized for looking like that today I feel like.
So like, idk, humility, I know that I'm always learning and becoming more aware. But man this one is tough for me. I didn't even know people weren't amazed by the Nvidia RT demo. What? I...how? That is so bizarre to me. Because like I said, anyone will tell you games don't look anything like real life. But then when a game looks more like real life they aren't impressed. That's just tough for me to wrap my head around.
I can definitely see me growing in one area. Right now the GI they showed off is so impressive, like, I don't even feel like I need RT. It looks so good. But I know that eventually we will see RT and I'll look back at this and the difference night and day. And right now I don't really see any failings from lumen. So maybe there's some lighting engineer reading this right now and going "wtf Chettlar you are astounded at those people and yet you don't see how much better RT is than lumen's GI?" or something lol.
But yeah. I guess I'm just surprised by the "diminishing returns" comments. Because I remember we had those comments last time around. And uh...they did not pan out.
I think no one doubts that the demo can be run on XSX or PC. Nor does anyone doubt that the engine is dedicated for all platforms. I think, and let me make an interpretation of the others opinions, that people are excited about what can be done by squeezing the maximum speed of the SSD on the PS5.
Is it difficult though ?
There's already DirectStorage that is being planned. And you can be sure GPU vendors are already adopting things for that.
Being an open platform doesn't mean there's no common APIs or technologies adopted.
Not really.
Just some fanboys stirring the pot. All arguments can be squashed by stating UE5 is a multiplatform engine. Of course XSX and PC will run it. Also yes those platforms with an SSD will for sure for the demo the same or better. I mean xsx has the power benefit and PC is open platform. What is there to argue about that? I guess there are Sony fanboys also going off about only being capable on ps5 but honestly I haven't read those post here on Era. Not saying they don't exist in which case they are wrong.
I'm more excited what Sony 1st party can do with all the improvements. The UE5 demo is great but I'm more excited what Sony's internal teams are capable with their own engines.
The maximum SSD speed of PS5 vs XsX comes down to like 1.4 seconds difference or something like that if you are flushing and replacing entirety of the RAM allocated for game engine. I guess you can get excited about that but that to me is the definition of diminishing returns. Will devs make games that just HAVE to stream 13GB of data every 1.5 seconds constantly? Is that what we are asking for I guess? LOL OK then.
It"s 'difficulty' not because of tech but logistics.
A good amount of gaming PC will still not be adopting such features due to cost, availability.
PC will always be the highest End obviously being open. But PC don't set the narrative as much as they don't set the common baseline. How many gaming PC can actually satisfy star Citizens' minimum spec? Ultimately, most game devs will want to create games for the general mass capable of running their games, not just the 10% (unless you are star citizen).
What features ? DirectStorage is a software API. As for the rest, they already have M.2 drives that can push faster rates than XSX with PCIe3.0 and faster than PS5 with PCIe4.0.
Most of the stuff on the market, storage wise, are already able to outpace the Series X when it comes to raw read speed.
Yes, it is available, but again...how many gaming PC will have it? Nobody is saying console will take the performance crown from PC, an open platform. The matter is not whether such tech are available for PC but rather how many people on PC will adopt to it, enough to set a baseline.
Some of the high-end PC people doesn't seems to understand, you guys are the 10%. Most gaming PC don't have the specs half as yours. You guys are not sizable enough to become the baseline.
Regarding SSD talks, I'm sure PC's SSD is capable enough to run this tech demo. But what about PC with only regular harddrive? I feel like this will be the bottleneck for game design of multiplatform titles at first. Multiplatform titles tend to cater to lowest common denominator to ensure wider market. SSD need to be the new normal first for that (IMO, we're not there yet, especially on developing countries.)
Because they're not designing games around it yet that's why.
I'm sure you know though :)
I just noticed they still have one of those slow crevice crawls in this benchmark. I hope it is more to just make it look like familiar gameplay than a technical necessity. After listening to Cerny's presentation and then playing FFVIIR those situations stick out to me more.
You can assume anything running on unreal engine 5 that can be done on ps5 can also be run on series x and PCs with simmilars ssds.
One thing he touched upon, that I was also interested in, is how large this demos is. They potentially used a ton of instancing l to save performance and memory, but those assets are probably huge. If just that 11 minutes of games takes up 50-100GB plus, then I could see developers having to choose more optimized assets before they go into the game.
Taken from the other forum, suppossely a third party dev:
"It is easy. It is useless to have 12 boxes if they do not fit through the door all together.
You have 12 boxes to fill. So you can't pass all the boxes at once. You must decide which boxes will pass and which will not. That is handled by a coordinator. And the coordinator tells the delivery man which boxes to take.
Mrs. XSX wants to make the move as soon as possible, but it turns out that only 8 boxes can fit on the door at a time. The coordinator is fast, and also uses a box compressor so that 10 boxes can go through instead of 8, but there are several drawbacks. The compressor can only compress the red boxes, and the coordinator also has to coordinate many other things, street traffic, people passing through the door, the space in the room where the boxes are stored, the noise of neighbors who distract the delivery man, search and select what the boxes are filled with, etc. Also, the delivery man is not so fast and is very distracted filling and transporting boxes. So it passes the 10 boxes (not 12) at a certain speed "1x". The lady demands that the boxes arrive, but they do not arrive as quickly as the lady would like, since although she has many boxes, the system is not capable of managing all of them properly.
On the other hand we have Mrs. PS5. You only have 10 boxes to fill. But its door is twice as big, enough for all its boxes to enter at once and there is room for people to also enter and exit through the door. Furthermore, the coordinator has the ability to automatically discard unnecessary boxes, so he doesn't waste time checking boxes that are not going to be used. In addition, anyone in the environment can do the job of the coordinator or the delivery man (even at the same time). The compressor is not that new, but it can compress all boxes, whether they are red or blue. All. And the delivery man is more than twice as fast and manages to pass the boxes at the speed of "2.5x" in the worst case, and "5x" on many occasions. In addition, if someone is left free or without work, they can help to distribute boxes with the delivery man or coordinate work with the coordinator. All this makes this removal company the most efficient ever seen and that the number of boxes available is irrelevant. For that moving system, 12 boxes are not needed, with 10 you can do the same job (and more or better in some cases). Having more boxes would only make the price of the move more expensive without needing any of it.
Of course, having more boxes available always helps to advertise yourself as a top removal company compared to the competition, even if your removal company is normal and ordinary. But it is only that, a smokescreen.
That does not mean that XSX is bad, far from it, it is an extraordinary machine. But PS5 has an efficiency NEVER seen before.
It is true that on PC there are more powerful cards or more powerful systems, but you know that these cards are never used properly, they draw raw power, but they are never used. It is the scourge of PC, an ecosystem that is too varied and unusable. In addition to exorbitant prices.
And I've always been a PCLover, but things as they are, what I've seen on PS5 I only remember something similar when 3DFX and its Glide came out. Its astonishing speed leaves you speechless."
Sure, I don't deny that. But upcoming consoles have SSD, many PC/Laptops are not at the moment. Multiplatform titles will still look better on PC as usual. But I feel like some games that really take advantage of this tech for their actual game design (not just prettier visual) will only possible on consoles (at first), just because pubs/devs refuse to put having fast SSD as the minimum requirement for their games to work.
Anyway, that's just my thought on it.
Even Tim Sweeney said it would run on a current gen system I believe when talking about scalability but also stressed they would have to reduce everything quite a lot.
I never said that. But the thing is, people upgrade over and over. Back in 2013, there were many people with 4gigs of ram. There were people with DX10 GPUs. People upgraded. Point being:
You dont need to make a massive change TODAY to outspec XSX's SSD. When people will need NVME SSDs, most of the motherboards out there will be able to take one that is faster than 2.4GB/s because today's motherboard can already do that.
Yeah, usual hyperbole.
When Xbox 360 came out, it was the first hardware with Unified Shaders architecture. Even before PCs.
When PS4 came out, it had 8GB of GDDR5. We were hearing "Your PC has DDR3 and your GPU is bottlenecked by the PCIe port while PS4 has a big pool of fast unified memory".
As for cards "never being used properly".
Yeah, that's BS. I dont know who that person is but yikes. For the record, your card is always maxed out if you push for more pixels and higher framerates.
Now, could a 2080ti push far better visuals than it actually do ? Yes.
But that'd be at the expense of the framerate and resolution. That'd be because you'd aim for a 1440p or even 1080p/30fps game.
When your 2080ti isn't enough to push for 4k60 across all games, it's already being maxed out.
I hope you realize that this demo is solid proof that SSD speeds will change things up when it comes to making games and you just tried downplaying it with your limited knowledge.
The devs will take and use whatever advantage they can, don't worry for them.
Yes , PC hardware will be always more powerful, you will have this year Ampere and RDNA 2 with 20 tflops and > 800 GB/s.
The interesting thing in the quote is the SSDs analogy and that devs are excited with a closed system that will develop games for the next 7 years.
I don't think it would look even close at very least, and I really do not know how the ending cutscene would even work.
Speaking as a laymen, I just think those people will have ridiculous load times or games will take advantage of PC's significantly larger RAM pool to compensate to get close to console speed.
With the plethora of RAM and the fact that the the fastest available NVME SSD isn't that much slower than what's going to be in the Xbox and Playstation, and on average, a decent one still comes within like 60% of them, the games will probably still be programed to recognize and utilize them.
People still rolling on less than 16GB of RAM are probably going to have a bad time, though. Probably people with DDR3 RAM, too.
Jesus christ... Am I downplaying SSD's importance? Or what the difference between 5GBps and 9GBps buys you in context of diminishing returns?
Also, let me tell you about what devs will use and not use. XBO X has 4GB of RAM advantage vs PS4 Pro, which could be argued a bigger advantage than storage speeds. How many 3rd party games took advantage of that difference? Go ahead. I'll wait.