Current Generation Hardware Speculation with a Technical Spin [post GDC 2020] [XBSX, PS5]

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To date, we've had to work with huge inefficiencies, storing entire models and textures for rendering a small portion of the screen and preloading content for when it does become visible. The more we move away from that, the less RAM and storage speeds we need.

When you say "storing entire models and textures and preloading content" you mean in to RAM?
When you say "the more we move away from that the less RAM and storage speed we need" Shouldn't this have forced itself in to the development when we have had years with too slow HDD and too little amount of RAM? Now we pursue fast SSD's and more RAM as always.
 
When you say "storing entire models and textures and preloading content" you mean in to RAM?
When you say "the more we move away from that the less RAM and storage speed we need" Shouldn't this have forced itself in to the development when we have had years with too slow HDD and too little amount of RAM? Now we pursue fast SSD's and more RAM as always.

SSD does not means we don't need RAM. From Xbox 360/PS3 it is gone from 512 MB of RAM to 8 GB or RAM x16 more RAM. Herenexr gen consoles only use two times more RAM than current gen console. SSD is not a replacement for RAM if there are a PS6 and Xbox Series X2, they will have faster SSD and more RAM.
 
When you say "storing entire models and textures and preloading content" you mean in to RAM?
Yep.
When you say "the more we move away from that the less RAM and storage speed we need" Shouldn't this have forced itself in to the development when we have had years with too slow HDD and too little amount of RAM?
No, because the storage was too slow to fetch content on demand, so you had to precache all the geometry and texture data into RAM. The hardware was also designed around old ideas of how to address and use the data. Virtual Textures pushed HDD streaming about as far as it could go and showed movements in this direction. Since then we've had tech added to GPUs to make them able to work more efficiently. We also need the tools to enable content authoring that supports streamed content; I don't know how a model can be chopped up into fragments for loading and rendering piecemeal.
 
SSD does not means we don't need RAM. From Xbox 360/PS3 it is gone from 512 MB of RAM to 8 GB or RAM x16 more RAM. Herenexr gen consoles only use two times more RAM than current gen console. SSD is not a replacement for RAM if there are a PS6 and Xbox Series X2, they will have faster SSD and more RAM.

I never meant SSD as a replacement for RAM. And I don't mean RAM will be gone, but regarding Shifty's comment it makes me wonder if going for a really fast less amount of RAM combined with a fast SSD would be preferable
 
Yep.
No, because the storage was too slow to fetch content on demand, so you had to precache all the geometry and texture data into RAM. The hardware was also designed around old ideas of how to address and use the data. Virtual Textures pushed HDD streaming about as far as it could go and showed movements in this direction. Since then we've had tech added to GPUs to make them able to work more efficiently. We also need the tools to enable content authoring that supports streamed content; I don't know how a model can be chopped up into fragments for loading and rendering piecemeal.

Thanks to all your detailed answers. I feel a little bit wiser now:D
 
Reminder, this is the Technical thread, where broad questions on non-existent products that can never be answered do not belong. (IE: Lockhart).

So don't mind the cleanup...
 
I never meant SSD as a replacement for RAM. And I don't mean RAM will be gone, but regarding Shifty's comment it makes me wonder if going for a really fast less amount of RAM combined with a fast SSD would be preferable

It depends. Considering that much of rendering is reading, modifying, storing, reading, modifying, storing, etc. with reusing previously modified and stored "items" there will always be a need for RAM. You don't want game writing to the SSD if at all possible except when saving the game state.

With fast RAM clever programmers might find more ways to utilize RAM for something other than just storing data that may or may not get used at some nebulous time in the future.

Load up textures and data structures from SSD, create the world procedurally and store it in RAM, for example. Then when fast travelling you don't have to procedurally recreate another area of the world, just pull it from RAM. Fast SSDs means that loading the fixed assets from storage incurs a small cost compared to current gen. consoles.

Regards,
SB
 
Yep.
No, because the storage was too slow to fetch content on demand, so you had to precache all the geometry and texture data into RAM. The hardware was also designed around old ideas of how to address and use the data. Virtual Textures pushed HDD streaming about as far as it could go and showed movements in this direction. Since then we've had tech added to GPUs to make them able to work more efficiently. We also need the tools to enable content authoring that supports streamed content; I don't know how a model can be chopped up into fragments for loading and rendering piecemeal.

Does this essentially mean that both next gen machines having SSD tech will give more ram to developers who otherwise would have to lean on keeping cached data in memory at all times essentially losing tons of ram they could use for other things in games at any given time?

Is there a downside to this?

Correct me if im wrong but that sounds like a win win in general for the quality and fidelity of the games we will see on the new consoles
 
You guys are the experts so i thought id ask excuse the tech illiteracy

Ive heard people talking about CPU IPC gains from current gen to next gen(or jaguar to zen architecture) in very weird terms. Like 2x and 3x and so on. What exactly are these kinds of multipliers based on regarding the jump we can see in cpu power and actual performance gains in games?

I know as basics that jaguar for example doesnt have SMT in the current machines...but zen 2 in next gen does with 16 thread utilization....ive heard things like 10 to 15% performance improvement by using SMT as well..

I dont know if im asking this right....like how does IPC gain and things like multithreading combine into a multiplier like that like ive heard around? Like what does that actually mean in practice?

Jaguar issues 2 instructions per clock max, while Zen 2 is 7. It's a much "wider" core with alot more execution units and resources, hence multithreading is very important to fully utilizing it. While the general consensus puts Zen 2 at twice the real world IPC of Jaguar, in reality, it's probably closer to 3x, if not more when SMT is fully utilized. Bring in clock speed bumps of the midgen refresh consoles (2.1 GHz for PS4Pro, 2.3 GHz for XBX) and that's where you get the enlightening but conservative "4x the CPU power of the current generation". The SIMD/FPU resources are expanded to an even greater relative degree. Jaguar cores have single 128 bit MUL and ADD FPU capability, whereas Zen 2 has dual 256 bit wide MUL and ADD units on each core. That's four times the potential SIMD per clock, and should equate to 8x the expected vector performance jump in the new systems when all improvements are considered. That's a big deal when the PS4 took a major step down in GFLOPS from the PS3's Cell (but by inverse a big gain in non-SIMD performance).

Makes me wonder if true GPGPU is essentially dead on consoles (subject for a new thread?), since the new systems will highly relieve the vector bottleneck of Jaguar, and this generation hardly anyone used GPGPU for anything meaningful aside from special effects and particles. Only Horizon comes to mind (and Death Stranding by virtue of using the same engine) with it's ingenious use of GPU based procedural generation. The PS5's Tempest engine built around a graphics compute unit doesn't count by virtue of being customized specifically for audio processing, though what could be gained from it's use might encourage developers to tackle GPGPU in systems that will be no-where near as graphically bound as the PS4 and Xbone really were even at launch.
 
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Is there a downside to this?

Maybe data fragmentation and performance degradation of the SSD over it's lifetime? Not sure how far SSD reliability has come in the past few years, but I still remember when there was a clear concern of how many read/write cycles SSDs were expected to last. If this new generation is expected to once again last 7 years, then consumers should be aware that it may be worth there while to get a bigger SSD for their console if possible while eliminating the likelihood of data loss.
 
No need to worry about data loss on the Xbox side. It has cloud-saves built in ever since the Xbox One. It just happens. No need for users to manage it like a secondary storage device and moving files back and forth and the like. You don't even know it's there or happening. Whenever you save it's already sent to the cloud.

Even the X360 has cloud-saves but it's an after the fact support and it's up to the user to manage what files are stored where.
 
Seems like more space than anyone would ever need tbh. I have 70 games for my ps3 and use cloud saves and have not hit a limit. With ps4 as well. Its pretty cool having hw independent saves

I forget if i enabled it first or it was on by default actually
 
I don't know if auto upload is on by default now, but it definitely wasn't in the past. You do need Playstation Plus, though. Cloud saves are free on Xbox.
 
Isn’t it strange to get excited about a cooling solution? Don’t get me wrong, I would most likely welcome a silent and efficient cooling system ( I have to use my bose QC 35 with anc to play on my first gen ps4)
However, I mean.. this is a graphics enthusiast forum... isn’t it? For the moment the ps5 seems shockingly underwhelming even with the crazy ssd speed.
I do hope Sony has cooked something special in their custom rdna2 specs...they did double the number of ace units in ps4... could they have doubled the ray intersection engine?
I do like the mid range gpu specs to reduce the price ...but I hope they beefed up the raytracing otherwise it will end up with the perfs of the rtx 2080 doing raytracing...without dlss2....which is abysmal in 4k.
 
but I hope they beefed up the raytracing otherwise it will end up with the perfs of the rtx 2080 doing raytracing...without dlss2....which is abysmal in 4k.
Is 2080 RTX really that bad?
I know the first wave of games performance took a huge hit, too the point I probably would except abysmal. What is it like today?

I'm personally not expecting Minecraft path tracing in games, but a selective use of RT.
I'm also not too bothered if it's not at 4k.
DLSS2.0 is very cool though.
 
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