Long read about ReRAM tech from few years back https://semiengineering.com/what-happened-to-reram/
Sony's ReRAM plans - what can and can't ReRAM bring to a console? *spawn
That was a 2017 article. Sony and Micron parted ways in 2015 but after two years of hiatus, in 2017 Sony started touting and presenting their new and improved ReRAM reaching more than 100gb.
You could also find articles saying that we will see ReRAM in 2020, not particularly saying that it's Sony.
With a 128GB of warm storage at 25.6gb/s though, you can uncompress large amount of data to it and never worry about decompression, or rarely handle decompression if your game is really really big. Just saying.
Rootax
Veteran
Are you talking about reram ?
Yes. I'm just putting out an alternative idea as to how they might have achieved "no loading times" and the seemingly SSD advantage buzz Sony's side is sending.
I mean Sony's SSD has been called many exaggerated things: ultra highspeed, the key to our next-gen, extraordinarily powerful, etc.
So maybe it's ReRAM. Just maybe.
MS are tooting no loading times, instant swap between games, and they definitely aren't using ReRAM. That means NVMe is clearly capable of the job and another tech isn't a necessary enabler.
MS are tooting no loading times, instant swap between games, and they definitely aren't using ReRAM. That means NVMe is clearly capable of the job and another tech isn't a necessary enabler.
Yes. Nand NVMe is clearly capable of "merely seconds of loading times" but not "no loading times".
The differentiator though will be the potential of ReRAM later when devs start to take advantage of it. ;-)
IF ReRAM is indeed employed as a warm storage in the PS5, I don't expect it to be used in any meaningful way except eliminating loading times at least in its first years. It will be an uncharted territory.
MS are tooting no loading times, instant swap between games, and they definitely aren't using ReRAM. That means NVMe is clearly capable of the job and another tech isn't a necessary enabler.
For swap between games, they load save state on the SSD. And MS is advertising "mere seconds of load times" not "no loading time". After I think it is not because of ReRAM...
And Microsoft SSD will probably be customized too. I just think there will be less customization than on Sony one.
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In the next Uncharted game?...
In the next Uncharted game?...
Will there be a new Uncharted game? If stars align and there will be new uncharted and there will be reram in ps5, I expect insane details, 10x more detail, mega textures everywhere, sub millimeter textures everywhere.
I think "merely seconds of loading times" can essentially mean "no loading times" to the average person. 2-3 seconds of "loading" could easily be hidden by clever design. 3 seconds to slowly fade the screen to black and then fade back in and people would say that it had no loading.. literally hidden behind the transition effect.
Then you are of the opinion that there is no perceptible advantage between Sony's and MS's solution. I agree. If Sony's advantage is 2s of loading instead of 4s of loading, then there is no reason for Sony and its developers to tout it as a meaningful advantage. And I think that it could be the case and Sony just sent developers a memo to hype up the SSD whenever possible, which means we'll hear more of that twice as fast loading (2s vs 4s) from more developers. And we'll just tell them stfu.
If it's ReRAM though then they do have an advantage. At least potential advantage. Now Sony and developers can talk the talk before then can walk the walk.
I'm not really saying that... yet, anyways. We don't know what Sony's memory configuration is yet. There's more to it than just "no loading times" that's for sure. Both companies are planning on using storage as virtual RAM so it will be interesting to see who has the more balanced machine.
I don't think you're going to hear much of anything from 3rd party developers between the two of them about load times. Being faster with initial load times is great, but as you said... nobody will care if it's 2 sec PS5 and 4 sec XSX. If Sony's configuration allows for truly never before possible gameplay or visuals to emerge which simply can't be done on MS' machine, then it could get interesting. Sony's first parties will of course maximize that potential. You can bet that if Sony does have a huge I/O advantage, it's because their developers see the potential from it.
Exciting times.
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If both are using nand flash ssd then I really fail to see how PS5 would have a leg up. If there's more to it than just "no loading times" then I'm sure MS's solution has more to it than just "merely seconds of loading times" as well.
I really really doubt that. I am of the opinion that whatever Sony has done with I/O and software stack using nand flash, MS can match that easily unless MS is really unwilling to.
The last time the market leaders tried to Trojan Horse tech adoption we ended up with Cell, Blu-ray and Kinect.
You can't convince me that money for Re-ram isn't better spent on the APU, ram, cooling etc, you know the things that actually makes the console more powerful.
You can't convince me that money for Re-ram isn't better spent on the APU, ram, cooling etc, you know the things that actually makes the console more powerful.
Love_In_Rio
Veteran
Reram at 25 GB/s is at GDDR3 territory, valid as GPU memory.
Couldn't said it better. NVME, as in xsx, is fast enough for what they want to accomplish, and beyond, if optimized software etc. MS is using it in their next gen console, Sony will probably too. And there would be nothing wrong with that.
Love_In_Rio
Veteran
A GPU mem of 128 GB would be a game changer. If fast and used as GPU mem i mean.