General Next Generation Rumors and Discussions [Post GDC 2020]

So according to this dev the SSD is able to store the highest res assets in memory as we have expected. Now if we do the math, PS5 could store in twice as much highest res assets than XSX in theory?
just because you have a SSD that is 100-200x faster than HDD, I don't know hat means you'll throw away your systems suddenly. You'll still want a JIT system where your stuff is arriving just before you need it. It's still ideal. You want the memory freed up for other uses.
The SSD allows them to bring in higher quality assets JIT as opposed to what we see today. They may take the opportunity to look at different optimization techniques now that they have been freed. but I don't see any reason to become inefficient, unless the design paradigm is a bottleneck to game design that needs to change.

world building will change though, level design etc, I don't except to see lots of twists and blockades things that funnel you in a slow section while they load the next section (2 people to open doors are notorious in mind for Gears of War).

I guess there is this large assumption that just because the hardware supports it, developers will be immediately be able to fill it. The issue with higher quality assets just comes down to content creation costs. Unless you had another method of doing it (via procedural) or Machine Learning, but then you're not loading up the hard drive with all these pre-built assets; those are being built by compute.
 
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Maybe for multiplatform games we'll see PS5 version has object detail, LOD, texture res all set to Ultra high and the rest at Very High running at 2050p while XSX version has Shader, lighting, set to Ultra high the rest at Very High running at 2160p? DF is gonna have a field day of comparing them lol.
 
Maybe for multiplatform games we'll see PS5 version has object detail, LOD, texture res all set to Ultra high and the rest at Very High running at 2050p while XSX version has Shader, lighting, set to Ultra high the rest at Very High running at 2160p? DF is gonna have a field day of comparing them lol.
I think it would be a critical mistake to assume that XSX is not capable of what PS5 is just because the raw throughput numbers on SSD isn't as high. If being down on compute and bandwidth means you can reduce resolution. Being down streaming speeds from SSD just means you may need a bit more of a buffer length. So what takes 1-5 frames on PS5 may take 2-10 frames on XSX. This is still light years ahead of today's technology. If you've designed a game that absolutely needs to buffer everything as fast as 1-5 frames, I'd be super curious as to what difference it actually makes to players lives. Most people can't react to changes in the screen in less than 500ms.
 
I think it would be a critical mistake to assume that XSX is not capable of what PS5 is just because the raw throughput numbers on SSD isn't as high. If being down on compute and bandwidth means you can reduce resolution. Being down streaming speeds from SSD just means you may need a bit more of a buffer length. So what takes 1-5 frames on PS5 may take 2-10 frames on XSX. This is still light years ahead of today's technology. If you've designed a game that absolutely needs to buffer everything as fast as 1-5 frames, I'd be super curious as to what difference it actually makes to players lives. Most people can't react to changes in the screen in less than 500ms.
Yes but if you push both SSDs to the absolute maximum so that it starts to feel like current gen in loading speed even on PS5. The amount of highest res assets been loaded would be insane right? But theoretically PS5 would still load up twice as much highest res assets as the XSX correct? Albeit at a possible slightly lower rendering res?
 
Yes but if you push both SSDs to the absolute maximum so that it starts to feel like current gen in loading speed even on PS5. The amount of highest res assets been loaded would be insane right? But theoretically PS5 would still load up twice as much highest res assets as the XSX correct? Albeit at a possible slight rendering res?
The difference between the 2 hard drives are too close ot make a difference. last generation we didn't have hard drives at all required needed for games.

I would hate to say that the PS5 SSD is an over-engineered solution. I frankly don't know.
But as it stands right now.

It is a solution looking for a problem right now. The XSX SSD is already faster than what's on the market on PC space. You're talking about a second leap above that.
 
This is still light years ahead of today's technology.
(actually not disagreeing with much you said)
Don't think it's very relevant to compare to current gen. Need to compare against each other.

GPU enough of same ballpark
CPU same ballpark
SSD biggest discrepancy

Being in same ballpark means that neither machine will compromise the studios vision at all or make porting hard.
SSD, I think they will spend more time optimising and target xbox and just let ps5 brute force it.
It's too soon to say but I think that the Xbox ssd will be fast enough to not limit 3P too much. 1P would say don't know how would cope with slower drive.

IF and that's a big IF, BCPack really allows for loading in sections of textures or something, it may not be secret sauce but may actually make a big difference for Xbox.
 
It would be funny if during the presentation Phil says "We have shown you what Series X is capable of, but what if we up a little the clock a couple of percentage to 14TF? Introducing Xbox Series O, and O stands for overkill".
Total meltdown of era.
 
Or maybe Sony wanted a machine that will price reduce well over time.

That's an interesting perspective. Clocks clearly aren't a bother for Sony, a smaller APU will cost reduce well.

This puts Sony in a tricksy place for next gen. Are they going to go with a clean break? Software emulation? Or BC hardware again? Whereas MS can just roll on through as they're doing, free to pick whatever hardware they want so long as their VMs can map okay. The penalties of abstraction have actually become less than the penalties of hardware BC. Sony's short-term win with PS4 being notably faster than XBO puts them at a disadvantage from PS4P onwards.

PS4 b/c on Pro was a kludge as is PS4/Pro b/c on PS5. Knowing the hassle that both Sony and AMD engineers likely went through, not to mention the many compromises would introduced, Sony would have to be batshit crazy not to have made the PS5 API fatter with a view to abstraction going forward. Playing PS5 games on PlayStation 6 will be paramount, they can probably eject the hardware kludges required for PS4/Pro games in seven-to-eight years, with either have a "deal with it :cool:" moment (no PS4 compatibility), or use conventional software solutions. PS5 isn't sufficiently a leap over PS4 to do this, but PS6 really ought to be.

just because you have a SSD that is 100-200x faster than HDD, I don't know hat means you'll throw away your systems suddenly. You'll still want a JIT system where your stuff is arriving just before you need it. It's still ideal. You want the memory freed up for other uses.
Just-in-Time is where we're heading with SSDs, right now with have more of a what-will-I-need-in-30-seconds-because-the-HDD-is-dog-slow-in-time system ;) Smaller buffers, more RAM for games, less guesswork about what might be required and loading that just in case. So many savings in complexity and therefore testing.
 
Just-in-Time is where we're heading with SSDs, right now with have more of a what-will-I-need-in-30-seconds-because-the-HDD-is-dog-slow-in-time system ;) Smaller buffers, more RAM for games, less guesswork about what might be required and loading that just in case. So many savings in complexity and therefore testing.
Indeed 30 seconds.

I suppose it will be 1-2 seconds on XSX and near JIT for PS5?


Yes but if you push both SSDs to the absolute maximum so that it starts to feel like current gen in loading speed even on PS5. The amount of highest res assets been loaded would be insane right? But theoretically PS5 would still load up twice as much highest res assets as the XSX correct? Albeit at a possible slightly lower rendering res?
Similarly the idea that PS5 can load 2x higher quality textures is in the same vein as resolution imo.
For all the people that write:
a) they can't see the difference between 1080p and 4K
b) 1800p and 4K
c) can't see a difference between 30 fps and 60 fps

they don't have a TV good enough to display 4K with HDR or good enough eyes to see it.
If you can't see detail there, there's no way you'd see a difference in texturing either, it comes with the territory.
4K textures on 1080p makes no bloody difference as the end result. That's why we don't do it.

I don't know what people are expecting with this 2x XSX SSD bit. Any SSD would change the way levels are made. This is already multiple times faster than your standard SSD for both consoles. And PS5 went further to make something that likely won't be on the PC space for a great deal of many years. That's nice future proofing, but I frankly believe we won't get there this generation. Everything else needs to go up with it.
 
It is a solution looking for a problem right now. The XSX SSD is already faster than what's on the market on PC space. You're talking about a second leap above that.
I would say loading times are universally disliked and are generally considered a problem. :yes: Sony went for the let's aim to eliminate this entirely, Microsoft went for let's just make this so much less-worse. We saw State of Decay 2 load on XSX in ~8 seconds so I assume nextgen Xbox gameswill take a little longer - it's difficult to imagine nextgen games will be less demanding on I/O than current gen games.

I'm still cautious regarding PS5. I still find it difficult to believe that loading times will effectively disappear, or just be a 1 second fade in/fade out to/from black. :runaway:
 
I would say loading times are universally disliked and are generally considered a problem. :yes: Sony went for the let's aim to eliminate this entirely, Microsoft went for let's just make this so much less-worse. We saw State of Decay 2 load on XSX in ~8 seconds so I assume nextgen Xbox gameswill take a little longer - it's difficult to imagine nextgen games will be less demanding on I/O than current gen games.

I'm still cautious regarding PS5. I still find it difficult to believe that loading times will effectively disappear, or just be a 1 second fade in/fade out to/from black. :runaway:
The number one use case.
The SSD speed was made this fast (PS5 fast) to attack 1 particular target: loading times.

They are afraid that people don't want to turn on their console to play 15 minutes and put it back down because it takes too long to load.
That's why we put so much emphasis on suspend resume.

That's why MS built the technology to store several games in suspend mode for XSX.

Logically: if games were to be designed around PS5's hard drive speed, it wouldn't make a lot of sense for PSNow. You couldn't stream such high fidelity. But you're going to lock all of your servers to building out these custom SSDs that the performance will never be seen.
 
Doom ethernal loads in a second, or even less on pc with nvme ssd. It takes ages on consoles. See the df video on it. They even mention, virtually no loading at all.
 
The number one use case. The SSD speed was made this fast (PS5 fast) to attack 1 particular target: loading times.

I'd say that was their primary goal, yet the technology they've implemented solves a bunch of other problems as well. It definitely relieves the pressure on RAM and need for complex buffering algorithms.
 
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