I don't think they would put everything in just one State Of Play as they would do on a event. And seeing the State Of Plays from last year, I really don't know how they would show OS features and so on. I might be completely wrong tho.
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PlayStation Worldwide Studios |OT Se7en| What's in the box?
- Thread starter JuanLatino
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I don't think they would put everything in just one State Of Play as they would do on a event. And seeing the State Of Plays from last year, I really don't know how they would show OS features and so on. I might be completely wrong tho.
Gamers are disappointed and developers are excited. Weird eh?
So did Mark Cerny went crazy or just forget how to design a console?
No, he just choose a different approach. The most used philosophy in console design is to go all in for the GPU of the system.
I think that is clear that on PlayStation 5 the heart of the system is the SSD and then the APU.
Why? Why developers are so excited for the SSD? OK, SSD storage is new tech for consoles but on PC we have this option for many years now.
Nearly no loading times of fastest streaming of assets is exciting but this is only a fraction of the possibilities from a very fast SSD.
This is why developers are excited and I think that even them they really don't know for sure the possibilities of the SSD as the main storage solution.
We had some case studies from some studios in the past (nearly 10 years ago) for the possibilities that a SSD gives on gaming development.
For anyone that is interested here is a GDC 2011 presentation from Iron Galaxy Studios on this subject. Keep in mind that is an old case study with a regular Intel SATA SSD. Spoiler alert. They blew away from the results.
So why did Sony went all in for the SSD? PCs and Xbox Series X have SSD storage, why Sony's solution is any different?
Unique custom SSD setup:
Xbox Series X has a NVMe SSD with 2.4GB/s, PC NVMe PCI 3.0 can reach 3.5GB/s and PCI 4.0 up to 7.0GB/s.
PlayStation 5 can reach 5.5GB/s. So it is fast but not the fastest. Or is it?
These speeds are from the maximum bandwidth of the SSD but they are not representative of the final actual speed.
On every system (PC or console) there is a lot of overhead and other bottlenecks that affects a lot the real benefit from a fastest storage option:
It can't be so bad. Can be? PC benchmarks shows that the bottleneck issues are very real:
The total custom SSD setup on PlayStation 5 was created to resolve these bottlenecks so the system can take full advantage of the raw SSD speed:
We can't know for sure before real tests but I believe that the storage on PlayStation 5 will be a lot faster even in comparison to expensive NVMe PCI 4.0 SSD.
OK, so maybe PlayStation 5 will have the best loading times or even nearly no loading times as Mark Cerny said. That's it?
No, the advantages are many, many more.
The obvious:
These are some of the advantages that I think Sony is looking to have the best performance with their SSD:
Mark Cerny maths:
Mark Cerny said yesterday, on a scenario that the SSD could be so fast to load necessary data on the fly that, 4GB of compressed data to load for every moment of gameplay seems about right for a next gen game.
They estimated that a player in a game is turning in 0.50 seconds so this is the time target they had for the SSD speed.
PlayStation 5 can load 4GB in 0.54 seconds. In comparison PlayStation 4 would need 80 seconds for the same data to load.
Data management is going to have a revelation with SSD. A former Naughty Dog technical art director tweeted about that yesterday:
The SSD is so fast that PlayStation 5 can store data for the next 1 second of gameplay in the RAM. In comparison PlayStation 4 must store for the next 30 seconds of gameplay. This is going to have a huge impact in the quality of textures, etc.
APU:
OK, the SSD is not so bad. How about the GPU? Something must render and render fast all these data from the SSD.
The frequency of the GPU is absolutely insane for a console or for any known GPU to be honest.
The GPU frequency is capped at 2.23GHz. Not up to 2.23GHz, not overclocked but capped to this max frequency.
Obviously this is nearly at the maximum frequency the RDNA 2 chip can safely operate. Great job from AMD on these chips.
Sony went with a small and fast GPU. Microsoft went with the more conventional big and slow GPU option.
So why Mark Cerny went with this direction? Its unconventional and for sure harder option for a console.
As Mark Cerny said the high frequency has some advantages and the disadvantages are less.
If we aim for a certain TFLOPS target we have two GPU options. Big and slow or small and fast. The percentage difference (X%) in the frequency of the smaller and faster GPU can give the following advantages:
Also important that less CU (compute units) can be fully utilized easier on a GPU.
The faster rasterization probably was the key advantage behind the direction Mark Cerny went with the GPU.
So did Mark Cerny went crazy or just forget how to design a console?
No, he just choose a different approach. The most used philosophy in console design is to go all in for the GPU of the system.
I think that is clear that on PlayStation 5 the heart of the system is the SSD and then the APU.
Why? Why developers are so excited for the SSD? OK, SSD storage is new tech for consoles but on PC we have this option for many years now.
Nearly no loading times of fastest streaming of assets is exciting but this is only a fraction of the possibilities from a very fast SSD.
This is why developers are excited and I think that even them they really don't know for sure the possibilities of the SSD as the main storage solution.
We had some case studies from some studios in the past (nearly 10 years ago) for the possibilities that a SSD gives on gaming development.
For anyone that is interested here is a GDC 2011 presentation from Iron Galaxy Studios on this subject. Keep in mind that is an old case study with a regular Intel SATA SSD. Spoiler alert. They blew away from the results.
So why did Sony went all in for the SSD? PCs and Xbox Series X have SSD storage, why Sony's solution is any different?
Unique custom SSD setup:
Xbox Series X has a NVMe SSD with 2.4GB/s, PC NVMe PCI 3.0 can reach 3.5GB/s and PCI 4.0 up to 7.0GB/s.
PlayStation 5 can reach 5.5GB/s. So it is fast but not the fastest. Or is it?
These speeds are from the maximum bandwidth of the SSD but they are not representative of the final actual speed.
On every system (PC or console) there is a lot of overhead and other bottlenecks that affects a lot the real benefit from a fastest storage option:
It can't be so bad. Can be? PC benchmarks shows that the bottleneck issues are very real:
The total custom SSD setup on PlayStation 5 was created to resolve these bottlenecks so the system can take full advantage of the raw SSD speed:
We can't know for sure before real tests but I believe that the storage on PlayStation 5 will be a lot faster even in comparison to expensive NVMe PCI 4.0 SSD.
OK, so maybe PlayStation 5 will have the best loading times or even nearly no loading times as Mark Cerny said. That's it?
No, the advantages are many, many more.
The obvious:
- Boot times
- Loading times
- Update times
- No duplicate data
- Really fast streaming of assets
These are some of the advantages that I think Sony is looking to have the best performance with their SSD:
- Highest possible resolution textures
- Textures variety
- Assets variety
Mark Cerny maths:
Mark Cerny said yesterday, on a scenario that the SSD could be so fast to load necessary data on the fly that, 4GB of compressed data to load for every moment of gameplay seems about right for a next gen game.
They estimated that a player in a game is turning in 0.50 seconds so this is the time target they had for the SSD speed.
PlayStation 5 can load 4GB in 0.54 seconds. In comparison PlayStation 4 would need 80 seconds for the same data to load.
Data management is going to have a revelation with SSD. A former Naughty Dog technical art director tweeted about that yesterday:
The SSD is so fast that PlayStation 5 can store data for the next 1 second of gameplay in the RAM. In comparison PlayStation 4 must store for the next 30 seconds of gameplay. This is going to have a huge impact in the quality of textures, etc.
APU:
OK, the SSD is not so bad. How about the GPU? Something must render and render fast all these data from the SSD.
The frequency of the GPU is absolutely insane for a console or for any known GPU to be honest.
The GPU frequency is capped at 2.23GHz. Not up to 2.23GHz, not overclocked but capped to this max frequency.
Obviously this is nearly at the maximum frequency the RDNA 2 chip can safely operate. Great job from AMD on these chips.
Sony went with a small and fast GPU. Microsoft went with the more conventional big and slow GPU option.
So why Mark Cerny went with this direction? Its unconventional and for sure harder option for a console.
As Mark Cerny said the high frequency has some advantages and the disadvantages are less.
If we aim for a certain TFLOPS target we have two GPU options. Big and slow or small and fast. The percentage difference (X%) in the frequency of the smaller and faster GPU can give the following advantages:
- Rasterization is X% faster
- Processing of the command buffer (example of command buffer) is X% faster
- L caches on the GPU have X% more bandwidth
Also important that less CU (compute units) can be fully utilized easier on a GPU.
The faster rasterization probably was the key advantage behind the direction Mark Cerny went with the GPU.
The only problem with the SDD is that we're not going to be able to appreciate those Demon's Souls loading screens.
But I can live with it.
But I can live with it.
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So, we expect to see something from Bluepoint, Housemarque and Arrowhead if Sony does another PS5 presentation?
Awesome.
I'll be honest, I never expected Bluepoint to be the one to push a graphical banger, but I suppose SotC did look sexy.
Most of the time is so vague, isn't it? And it really is kinda insane a console GPU hitting those speeds. I'll be waiting to see if doesn't melt before buying a PS5.
Hey, apparently it's Sony fault that this kind of misinformation is going around and not a journalist who had wanted to have this kind of narrative to push for months. Just look at the plonker go.
It's more than a little odd that the best marketing I've seen from Sony in... over a year I guess, is from Shinobi.
Bluepoint - Yes
Housemarque - Maybe
Arrowhead - Nah
I don't think Sony is directly involved with Arrowhead's game. I'm expecting it to be an indie timed console exclusive.
As well as fast travel animations in Spider-Man.The only problem with the SDD is that we're not going to be able to appreciate those Demon's Souls loading screens.
But I can live with it.
Didn't Housemarque said that they're waiting their "partner" to show the game? 🤔
Ha "plonker", that's my go to slag but you don't see it much (or as well used).
So I've probably missed the speculation but when are we going to see some PS5 games? Is the consensus June or is there hope for a bit of blowout in the next month or two?
When Kurt says "still tripping" he has to be talking about still tripping from several months ago, because it's not like Naughty Dog is not first on the list to receive the latest tech from Sony and we know that third-party devs have had access to the kits and SSD for many months. Kleegamefan said that the dev he spoke to was "visibly nervous" when asked about the SSD. It all adds up. Devs will be going nuts over this thing and I can't wait to see more of these impressions.
Great write-up, I agree most people are sleeping on the SSD. My only real nitpick is that it is difficult to describe the XSX as wide and slow. It's at 1.8 GHz, which is a respectable clock, really. Some people did not believe that the PS5 could possibly launch at 2 GHz. RDNA 2 must be really impressive to be able to sustain these clocks. Personally, I think these two consoles are really head to head and we are going to see some great games incoming. Of course Sony first part is legend and will really crank this to 11.Gamers are disappointed and developers are excited. Weird eh?
So did Mark Cerny went crazy or just forget how to design a console?
No, he just choose a different approach. The most used philosophy in console design is to go all in for the GPU of the system.
I think that is clear that on PlayStation 5 the heart of the system is the SSD and then the APU.
Why? Why developers are so excited for the SSD? OK, SSD storage is new tech for consoles but on PC we have this option for many years now.
Nearly no loading times of fastest streaming of assets is exciting but this is only a fraction of the possibilities from a very fast SSD.
This is why developers are excited and I think that even them they really don't know for sure the possibilities of the SSD as the main storage solution.
We had some case studies from some studios in the past (nearly 10 years ago) for the possibilities that a SSD gives on gaming development.
For anyone that is interested here is a GDC 2011 presentation from Iron Galaxy Studios on this subject. Keep in mind that is an old case study with a regular Intel SATA SSD. Spoiler alert. They blew away from the results.
So why did Sony went all in for the SSD? PCs and Xbox Series X have SSD storage, why Sony's solution is any different?
Unique custom SSD setup:
Xbox Series X has a NVMe SSD with 2.4GB/s, PC NVMe PCI 3.0 can reach 3.5GB/s and PCI 4.0 up to 7.0GB/s.
PlayStation 5 can reach 5.5GB/s. So it is fast but not the fastest. Or is it?
These speeds are from the maximum bandwidth of the SSD but they are not representative of the final actual speed.
On every system (PC or console) there is a lot of overhead and other bottlenecks that affects a lot the real benefit from a fastest storage option:
It can't be so bad. Can be? PC benchmarks shows that the bottleneck issues are very real:
The total custom SSD setup on PlayStation 5 was created to resolve these bottlenecks so the system can take full advantage of the raw SSD speed:
We can't know for sure before real tests but I believe that the storage on PlayStation 5 will be a lot faster even in comparison to expensive NVMe PCI 4.0 SSD.
OK, so maybe PlayStation 5 will have the best loading times or even nearly no loading times as Mark Cerny said. That's it?
No, the advantages are many, many more.
The obvious:
- Boot times
- Loading times
- Update times
- No duplicate data
- Really fast streaming of assets
These are some of the advantages that I think Sony is looking to have the best performance with their SSD:
I believe these points are the most interesting for next gen games.
- Highest possible resolution textures
- Textures variety
- Assets variety
Mark Cerny maths:
Mark Cerny said yesterday, on a scenario that the SSD could be so fast to load necessary data on the fly that, 4GB of compressed data to load for every moment of gameplay seems about right for a next gen game.
They estimated that a player in a game is turning in 0.50 seconds so this is the time target they had for the SSD speed.
PlayStation 5 can load 4GB in 0.54 seconds. In comparison PlayStation 4 would need 80 seconds for the same data to load.
Data management is going to have a revelation with SSD. A former Naughty Dog technical art director tweeted about that yesterday:
The SSD is so fast that PlayStation 5 can store data for the next 1 second of gameplay in the RAM. In comparison PlayStation 4 must store for the next 30 seconds of gameplay. This is going to have a huge impact in the quality of textures, etc.
APU:
OK, the SSD is not so bad. How about the GPU? Something must render and render fast all these data from the SSD.
The frequency of the GPU is absolutely insane for a console or for any known GPU to be honest.
The GPU frequency is capped at 2.23GHz. Not up to 2.23GHz, not overclocked but capped to this max frequency.
Obviously this is nearly at the maximum frequency the RDNA 2 chip can safely operate. Great job from AMD on these chips.
Sony went with a small and fast GPU. Microsoft went with the more conventional big and slow GPU option.
So why Mark Cerny went with this direction? Its unconventional and for sure harder option for a console.
As Mark Cerny said the high frequency has some advantages and the disadvantages are less.
If we aim for a certain TFLOPS target we have two GPU options. Big and slow or small and fast. The percentage difference (X%) in the frequency of the smaller and faster GPU can give the following advantages:
- Rasterization is X% faster
- Processing of the command buffer (example of command buffer) is X% faster
- L caches on the GPU have X% more bandwidth
Also important that less CU (compute units) can be fully utilized easier on a GPU.
The faster rasterization probably was the key advantage behind the direction Mark Cerny went with the GPU.
Gamers are disappointed and developers are excited. Weird eh?
So did Mark Cerny went crazy or just forget how to design a console?
No, he just choose a different approach. The most used philosophy in console design is to go all in for the GPU of the system.
I think that is clear that on PlayStation 5 the heart of the system is the SSD and then the APU.
Why? Why developers are so excited for the SSD? OK, SSD storage is new tech for consoles but on PC we have this option for many years now.
Nearly no loading times of fastest streaming of assets is exciting but this is only a fraction of the possibilities from a very fast SSD.
This is why developers are excited and I think that even them they really don't know for sure the possibilities of the SSD as the main storage solution.
We had some case studies from some studios in the past (nearly 10 years ago) for the possibilities that a SSD gives on gaming development.
For anyone that is interested here is a GDC 2011 presentation from Iron Galaxy Studios on this subject. Keep in mind that is an old case study with a regular Intel SATA SSD. Spoiler alert. They blew away from the results.
So why did Sony went all in for the SSD? PCs and Xbox Series X have SSD storage, why Sony's solution is any different?
Unique custom SSD setup:
Xbox Series X has a NVMe SSD with 2.4GB/s, PC NVMe PCI 3.0 can reach 3.5GB/s and PCI 4.0 up to 7.0GB/s.
PlayStation 5 can reach 5.5GB/s. So it is fast but not the fastest. Or is it?
These speeds are from the maximum bandwidth of the SSD but they are not representative of the final actual speed.
On every system (PC or console) there is a lot of overhead and other bottlenecks that affects a lot the real benefit from a fastest storage option:
It can't be so bad. Can be? PC benchmarks shows that the bottleneck issues are very real:
The total custom SSD setup on PlayStation 5 was created to resolve these bottlenecks so the system can take full advantage of the raw SSD speed:
We can't know for sure before real tests but I believe that the storage on PlayStation 5 will be a lot faster even in comparison to expensive NVMe PCI 4.0 SSD.
OK, so maybe PlayStation 5 will have the best loading times or even nearly no loading times as Mark Cerny said. That's it?
No, the advantages are many, many more.
The obvious:
- Boot times
- Loading times
- Update times
- No duplicate data
- Really fast streaming of assets
These are some of the advantages that I think Sony is looking to have the best performance with their SSD:
I believe these points are the most interesting for next gen games.
- Highest possible resolution textures
- Textures variety
- Assets variety
Mark Cerny maths:
Mark Cerny said yesterday, on a scenario that the SSD could be so fast to load necessary data on the fly that, 4GB of compressed data to load for every moment of gameplay seems about right for a next gen game.
They estimated that a player in a game is turning in 0.50 seconds so this is the time target they had for the SSD speed.
PlayStation 5 can load 4GB in 0.54 seconds. In comparison PlayStation 4 would need 80 seconds for the same data to load.
Data management is going to have a revelation with SSD. A former Naughty Dog technical art director tweeted about that yesterday:
The SSD is so fast that PlayStation 5 can store data for the next 1 second of gameplay in the RAM. In comparison PlayStation 4 must store for the next 30 seconds of gameplay. This is going to have a huge impact in the quality of textures, etc.
APU:
OK, the SSD is not so bad. How about the GPU? Something must render and render fast all these data from the SSD.
The frequency of the GPU is absolutely insane for a console or for any known GPU to be honest.
The GPU frequency is capped at 2.23GHz. Not up to 2.23GHz, not overclocked but capped to this max frequency.
Obviously this is nearly at the maximum frequency the RDNA 2 chip can safely operate. Great job from AMD on these chips.
Sony went with a small and fast GPU. Microsoft went with the more conventional big and slow GPU option.
So why Mark Cerny went with this direction? Its unconventional and for sure harder option for a console.
As Mark Cerny said the high frequency has some advantages and the disadvantages are less.
If we aim for a certain TFLOPS target we have two GPU options. Big and slow or small and fast. The percentage difference (X%) in the frequency of the smaller and faster GPU can give the following advantages:
- Rasterization is X% faster
- Processing of the command buffer (example of command buffer) is X% faster
- L caches on the GPU have X% more bandwidth
Also important that less CU (compute units) can be fully utilized easier on a GPU.
The faster rasterization probably was the key advantage behind the direction Mark Cerny went with the GPU.
But what happens when all this effort on this amazing technology gets underplayed by third parties focusing only on the "good enough" Xbox' SSD only? Do people really expect them to put time on to this to make their games load some 5 seconds faster than the X seconds that would take to load with no special effort?
Isn't this a lot of effort on something that will be really be put to good use by first parties only? Wouldn't all that time and R&D be more useful if it were directed to a better GPU?
If Sony continues with the trend of releasing its games on PC, I can see all the grand promises about inovative game design being put to the side: nobody will make a groundbreaking PS5 exclusive game that relies on PS5's crazy fast SSD that can't be ported to PC due to the fact that most out of the shelf SSDs could not handle it.
What I find baffling about the PS5 design goals is that this cames from a guy who made an extremely simple design so sucessful: the PS4 is a gaming machine, and for its time and constraints, focused on the best graphics engine possible. The PS5 seems to be focusing on loading games 2 seconds faster than the 8 seconds its competitor will take and I think that this is not enough.
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Sony's whole PR and messaging around the PS5 is terrible right now. Being silent for over a year isn't helping either. And it's good that gamers and the media are calling them out now. Jim Ryan said "Content is becoming more important than ever before". Time to put your money where your mouth is, Jim. They have to do better. As soon as possible! Clear, short and easy to understand statements. Just take a look at the PS5 BC issue right now. A lot of people have no clue WTF is going on right now.
Just look at what Andrew House, Jack Tretton, Adam Boyes and Shu did in 2013 for the PS4.
👀
Can't wait to see all these next games.
Hope Sony show them soon...
Yeah, I don't really blame you but to be honest even my Asus Strix 1080 Ti (~2GHz boost clock) seems slow now.
I just realized what my dream developer acquisition for Sony would be: Cygames.
Sony would own the Granblue Fantasy franchise and they could make an amazing AAA JRPG series out of it. Cygames is already hard at work on GF:Relink. They'd also have another extremely profitable mobile gacha game. Fits right in with Sony's Fate/Grand Order.
Sony would own the Granblue Fantasy franchise and they could make an amazing AAA JRPG series out of it. Cygames is already hard at work on GF:Relink. They'd also have another extremely profitable mobile gacha game. Fits right in with Sony's Fate/Grand Order.
I'm not at all disappointed in PS5 specs. After all, I never wrote off GitHub. The console is still a beast and the things Cerny discussed in the deep dive have me excited. I'm just very disappointed in the handling of PS4 BC. I've bought a lot of stuff digitally and was planning on selling my Pro to go towards a PS5. I'm hoping that the messaging is just not clear (which is another problem in itself) and that Sony will have the majority of PS4 games able to run on PS5 by launch.
The chance of Arrowhead's game being an indie is slim. If i had to take a guess I would say it's 65% Sony, 33% a 3rd Party Publisher and 2% an indie release.
After all Arrowhead makes co-op games. And their next one is a big 3rd Person multiplayer game, something Sony wanted to invest in more in the future.
Crazy for what turned out to be a TED talk more than a reveal. 8 million is nutty for 24 hours.
Exactly. I have o problem with them designing it around constraints like the need to price it at $399. It really is fine, it's a valid goal and a sucessful strategy.
The problem is when you failed so hard to communicate this to the audience, goes into silence mode only to resume service with a deep tech dive into your machine like a day after your competitor reveals to everyone else what they are offering.
It really is crazy specially with your competitor speaking openly about their product every few weeks or so since December.
Really hoping to see an outstanding first party output on PS5.
Let's see if they can actually do that. Right now a lot of people think it will cost $499, too. Which would be terrible. They have to wake up now. Let's wait and see what will happen in the next few weeks/monhs.
Cygames is a subsidiary of CyberAgent. And CyberAgent has a market cap of ~$5 billion. Sony won't spend that much money to get some JRPGs and mobile gacha games.
I don't think you realize how expensive Cygames would be, this is not happening. They could get Capcom for almost half less.
Right what that much money you could just get Square-Enix lol.
It could end up that high, but I very much doubt it. After the specs, I really think they decided to go with $399 early on.
More expensive than that and the Xbox Series X could look so much more compeling than it already is.
I'll probably go with a PS5 because of the games I already own and the first party output, but I'd seriously consider a Xbox if the pricing go that high.
I said "my dream acquisition", not the most likely, most sensible acquisition. ;)
Was it jim ryan who said they wanted to transition people as quickly to next gen? So what exactly did he mean by that? Cause their backward compatibility strategy doesn't seem like something that would do that.
Maybe price? I'm still betting on a $399 ps5.
Maybe price? I'm still betting on a $399 ps5.
I get it. Cygames overall seems to have some kind of partnership with Sony considering they already are making 3 games as PS console exclusive with Granblue Versus, Relink and that Monster Hunter like game which was obviously next gen.
I think It meant nothing other than want. I don't think people should read too much into what he said.
With all the console warring going on in Twitter and Era threads, I must thank you for posting such informative and thoughtful post.Gamers are disappointed and developers are excited. Weird eh?
So did Mark Cerny went crazy or just forget how to design a console?
No, he just choose a different approach. The most used philosophy in console design is to go all in for the GPU of the system.
I think that is clear that on PlayStation 5 the heart of the system is the SSD and then the APU.
Why? Why developers are so excited for the SSD? OK, SSD storage is new tech for consoles but on PC we have this option for many years now.
Nearly no loading times of fastest streaming of assets is exciting but this is only a fraction of the possibilities from a very fast SSD.
This is why developers are excited and I think that even them they really don't know for sure the possibilities of the SSD as the main storage solution.
We had some case studies from some studios in the past (nearly 10 years ago) for the possibilities that a SSD gives on gaming development.
For anyone that is interested here is a GDC 2011 presentation from Iron Galaxy Studios on this subject. Keep in mind that is an old case study with a regular Intel SATA SSD. Spoiler alert. They blew away from the results.
So why did Sony went all in for the SSD? PCs and Xbox Series X have SSD storage, why Sony's solution is any different?
Unique custom SSD setup:
Xbox Series X has a NVMe SSD with 2.4GB/s, PC NVMe PCI 3.0 can reach 3.5GB/s and PCI 4.0 up to 7.0GB/s.
PlayStation 5 can reach 5.5GB/s. So it is fast but not the fastest. Or is it?
These speeds are from the maximum bandwidth of the SSD but they are not representative of the final actual speed.
On every system (PC or console) there is a lot of overhead and other bottlenecks that affects a lot the real benefit from a fastest storage option:
It can't be so bad. Can be? PC benchmarks shows that the bottleneck issues are very real:
The total custom SSD setup on PlayStation 5 was created to resolve these bottlenecks so the system can take full advantage of the raw SSD speed:
We can't know for sure before real tests but I believe that the storage on PlayStation 5 will be a lot faster even in comparison to expensive NVMe PCI 4.0 SSD.
OK, so maybe PlayStation 5 will have the best loading times or even nearly no loading times as Mark Cerny said. That's it?
No, the advantages are many, many more.
The obvious:
- Boot times
- Loading times
- Update times
- No duplicate data
- Really fast streaming of assets
These are some of the advantages that I think Sony is looking to have the best performance with their SSD:
I believe these points are the most interesting for next gen games.
- Highest possible resolution textures
- Textures variety
- Assets variety
Mark Cerny maths:
Mark Cerny said yesterday, on a scenario that the SSD could be so fast to load necessary data on the fly that, 4GB of compressed data to load for every moment of gameplay seems about right for a next gen game.
They estimated that a player in a game is turning in 0.50 seconds so this is the time target they had for the SSD speed.
PlayStation 5 can load 4GB in 0.54 seconds. In comparison PlayStation 4 would need 80 seconds for the same data to load.
Data management is going to have a revelation with SSD. A former Naughty Dog technical art director tweeted about that yesterday:
The SSD is so fast that PlayStation 5 can store data for the next 1 second of gameplay in the RAM. In comparison PlayStation 4 must store for the next 30 seconds of gameplay. This is going to have a huge impact in the quality of textures, etc.
APU:
OK, the SSD is not so bad. How about the GPU? Something must render and render fast all these data from the SSD.
The frequency of the GPU is absolutely insane for a console or for any known GPU to be honest.
The GPU frequency is capped at 2.23GHz. Not up to 2.23GHz, not overclocked but capped to this max frequency.
Obviously this is nearly at the maximum frequency the RDNA 2 chip can safely operate. Great job from AMD on these chips.
Sony went with a small and fast GPU. Microsoft went with the more conventional big and slow GPU option.
So why Mark Cerny went with this direction? Its unconventional and for sure harder option for a console.
As Mark Cerny said the high frequency has some advantages and the disadvantages are less.
If we aim for a certain TFLOPS target we have two GPU options. Big and slow or small and fast. The percentage difference (X%) in the frequency of the smaller and faster GPU can give the following advantages:
- Rasterization is X% faster
- Processing of the command buffer (example of command buffer) is X% faster
- L caches on the GPU have X% more bandwidth
Also important that less CU (compute units) can be fully utilized easier on a GPU.
The faster rasterization probably was the key advantage behind the direction Mark Cerny went with the GPU.
I was wondering the same thing. $399 price is the most crucial point for sure now that we won't have full PS4 BC at launch. They will probably showcase some first-party games early too, to make players aware what's coming.
It has to be. But we can't rule out the possibility that he didn't know what he was talking about.
I'm sure he's tunnel-visioned in on TLOU2 on PS4, even if some of the engineers at Naughty Dog have been tinkering with the PS5 for a few months, it's possible that he hasn't been as in the loop.
I'm really excited to see what first-party devs can do with the SSD, maybe not as much for third-party but definitely first.
I think he's known about it, this is just the first time he can publicly acknowledge it since Sony spoke about it in specifics rather than in vague terms.
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