Playstation 5 [PS5] [Release November 12 2020]

New patent: Variable magnetic field-based position
https://patents.google.com/patent/US10155154B2/en

This could explain why they removed the front tracking led on the DS5. No idea if it will materialize, it's just a patent, but it would be a big improvement: no line of sight required, no cameras, no wire mess, no occlusion of trackers or leds, much better accuracy, and the the field generator can even be in the PS5 itself.

Products using this have existed for quite a while but never really became mainstream, razer hydra was very short range, the sixense STEM looked awesome but did it ever ship?

Range is supposed to be a problem with EM tracking. I don't know if it just needs multiple base stations, or more sensitive sensors, or a more powerul field generator. The above patent seems to take care of the earth's magnetic field deforming the generated field, so maybe that's the solution?

In any case, the DS5 needs to have their chosen tracking tech already integrated when they launch the PS5 even if PSVR2 isn't anywhere near ready.

Passing the FCC radiated emission test is going to be a nightmare.
 
Didn't the heatsink patent have a focus on EMI shielding?

If so, I wonder how that bodes for PSVR2? Might the headset and motion controllers all use this magnetic field tech? Or, would it make more sense for only the controllers to use this tech, while the headset uses camera based inside out tracking?

Presumably, even if the tech is only used in the controllers, the headset would need shielding from them?
 
Range is supposed to be a problem with EM tracking.

That makes me suspect that the ideal setup may be as follows:

  • PSVR2 headset utilises inside out tracking for its own positional data.
  • PSVR2 headset also tracks two motion controllers by way of magnetic fields.
  • A new PS Camera is used to wirelessly transmit the video feed to the headset, wirelessly receive positional data back from the headset (for both itself and the motion controllers,) as well as use optical data to determine the player's skeleton.
Or is range decent enough - say, up to about 12 feet, which I think would cover most living room setups - that it could be simplified to the PS Camera being the transmitter/receiver for the magnetic field tracking tech too?

Edit: clarity
 
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In the video The Road to PS5 we see the statement that modern GPU is not possible above 2GHz with
"fixed frequency" approach. I wonder why it is not possible. But then I really find that PC GPUs won't clock
that high even their price is very high so cooling solution should not be a problem for high-end GPUs.

Is it possible that if GPU clocks very high above 2GHz, the occasional spike of current (due to some very
heavy workload) will cause some damage to the transistor/wire inside the chip? And since they are occasional
events the temperature won't rise too much and GPU can not downclock immediately to prevent chip damage.
So the only way is to set a hard limit from the power supply.
 
This is entirely about power and thermal limits of the PS5 SOC. In order to get the GPU above 2GHz they had to shift other parts of the SOC to lower speeds such as the CPU. The speed limits of the PS5 SOC has no impact on PC Graphics Cards or even other consoles because those chips are different and thus have different properties.
 
The main point is Sony teams think 2GHz looks unreachable with “fixed frequency strategy” .

Let’s say Sony cooling solution is capable of 2.1GHz with very very heavy workload, then why can’t they choose fixed frequency 2.1GHz? I am sure I am not the only one who questions this,

I guesst there is some limitation of their cooling solution or some problems at circuit level therefore they can’t fix GPU at super high frequency,

Smartshift between GPU and CPU only adds a few more pixels as said by Mark Cerny. The main differentiator is fixed (max) power strategy.
 
The patent may be new but magnetometers are centuries old technology and have been used to to assist in position and motion detection for a long time. Gravity is not a constant and relatively highly variable.
And magnetic fields are? Google the notoriously top secret Mark 6 exploder for the MK 14 torpedo, one of the biggest engineering fails of WW2.
 
Even with the SSD I think it's important to maintain cohesive and iconic branding, I expect it'll be on your first startup of the game and will hopefully be skippable or removed thereafter.

I wonder what'll happen with all the different dev/tech idents and splash screens. I suspect they may just put all the logos on a single screen.


The same goes for the console startup, I hope they have a nice iconic startup like the PS1, 2, 3 days etc. But, given the SSD, it should be more brief, it should be there for your first start up and then it should give you the option to disable it afterwards.

A real cool option would be to have a choice between full and abridged versions of all the past startup sounds and 4k remakes of the startup visuals, along with a new one for the PS5 and an option to disable it entirely. Would stir up some nostalgia and I think older fans would love it.

AFAIK unity requires you to use the whole screen exclusively for unity logo if you go with the free tier. Dunno with other engines.

as for console startup... I prefer Nintendo Switch spartan, zero fuss, startup. None of that animation with music like PS2. PS4 startup is also pretty spartan but my god, it took ages to start.

maybe whizz-bang startup animation for OOBE only? Hopefully super short, unlike PS Vita....
 
The main point is Sony teams think 2GHz looks unreachable with “fixed frequency strategy” .

That's an interesting interpretation. The fact is that Microsoft are the company only in 2020 proposing to sell new performance hardware that runs at fixed clock speeds. Everything else - Intel, AMD and ARM/Apple CPUs and AMD, Nvidia and Apple GPUs - all run at the max clock speed for the workload. Sony have followed this trend, Microsoft have not.

You're also ignoring that Mark Cerny strongly implied that the GPU would be running at it's highest clocks the vast majority of the time.

Smartshift between GPU and CPU only adds a few more pixels as said by Mark Cerny. The main differentiator is fixed (max) power strategy.

And it maxes sense. You'll never in a situation where both CPU and GPU are both maxes out, diverting performance to the part that most needs it is logical. It just sounds weird, but actually, it's been for the norm for a while now. Variable clocks rates have been the norm in most performance devices for years.
 
There's a difference between claiming max performance and minimum. Nvidia's are actually advertising lower performance metrics instead of what their gpu's can achieve as max.

MS guarantees their performace metrics, it's the bare minimum performance you can expect. In Sony's case they advertise whats possible at the most. It's an advantage, hence they emphasise it. It's also different to what a RTX gpu does, it has a baseclock, but can boost if the situation allows it. In PS5 it's the other way around.

They couldn't even achieve 2/3Ghz for the GPU and CPU respectiively, now with boost and variable clocks they can maintain 2.23/3.5.
If it never happens (1% of the time, and when it does, it barely downclocks), one can wonder why even bother implementing it or even talking about it.
My guess is the gpu is variable between 9 and 10tf when both cpu and gpu are hammered.
 
They couldn't even achieve 2/3Ghz for the GPU and CPU respectiively, now with boost and variable clocks they can maintain 2.23/3.5.
If it never happens (1% of the time, and when it does, it barely downclocks), one can wonder why even bother implementing it or even talking about it.

Purely marketing. Sony needed to be able to market 10TF

9 vs 12 would make it sound like they got "one upped" by the competition whereas 10 vs 12 makes it sound less consequential and like they made a smarter decision to put more budget into the SSD.
 
Purely marketing. Sony needed to be able to market 10TF

Maybe, dunno about that. It’s effectively still not 10tf if it’s not all the time. That way a 2080Ti could be marketet as around 15tf opposed to 13 (stupid nvidia).
They still didn’t top stadia either in TF, which some speculated they would do. Guess boosting higher then 2.3 wasn’t ideal.

9 vs 12 would make it sound like they got "one upped" by the competition whereas 10 vs 12 makes it sound less consequential and like they made a smarter decision to put more budget into the SSD.

Convincing the average joe that a less powerfull gpu, slower cpu, both variable at that, and over 100gb/s of bandwith less, with 200gb smaller capacity drive opposed to a faster drive(2x) that already is 100x times faster then current gen wont be an easy task. They would have to price it lower. We got rumors of 399 for ps5.

MS doing different then everyone else... seems its sony, going narrow opposed to wide for high end parts, and reversing boost clocks, clock down instead of up from a baseclock.
What we have seen is gpus in the high end of the spectrum going wider, not the orher way around. And it seems that gpu’s are not going to downclock from their baseclocks. Try to sell that in the mid to high end market to pc gamers.

There laptops out there already if im not misstaken, with smartshift, but their APU’s in non-gaming devices. Not sure on it, but i think they even dont have a max rate where they downclock from. Aside from throttling then.
 
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Convincing the average joe that a less powerfull gpu, slower cpu, both variable at that, and over 100gb/s of bandwith less, with 200gb smaller capacity drive opposed to a faster drive(2x) that already is 100x times faster then current gen wont be an easy task.
It's plenty easy - It's PlayStation 5. Show a few incredible exclusives and that's half the Joe Gamer market convinced already. Couple it with a superb OS that's incredibly intuitive, stylish and responsive, and sell the experience, not the spec sheet.

Just to illustrate, imagine if XBSX was stylised like a massive, lumpy box with garish green lights all over, had a 60 second intro video every time you turned it on, a clunky, unnavigable interface that made it take forever to find and launch the stuff you want, zero exclusives...a product without class like the worst concoction of clueless mid-90s teenagers' dream products. MS could throw around the 'moare power' till the cows come home, Joe Public won't bite.

Now of course that's not the case for XBSX and it'll likely be largely comparable in experience, but for the trillionth time, as evidenced in the world of commerce a bazillion times before, you don't have to sell your product on simple specs to be successful. You can have an inferior product and sell it at a higher price as long as you can convince the buying public of the value by just manipulating the brand (such as Beats by Dr. Dre headphones, or pretty much every designer fashion label ever).
 
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Yes wholefully true, besides hardware amd hype about it, you need actual games on the thing also :p
MS and sony need to show something, not only trailers, nice graphics etc but the games need to be fun also. Guess june, thats close.
 
Maybe, dunno about that. It’s effectively still not 10tf if it’s not all the time. That way a 2080Ti could be marketet as around 15tf opposed to 13 (stupid nvidia).
They still didn’t top stadia either in TF, which some speculated they would do. Guess boosting higher then 2.3 wasn’t ideal.



Convincing the average joe that a less powerfull gpu, slower cpu, both variable at that, and over 100gb/s of bandwith less, with 200gb smaller capacity drive opposed to a faster drive(2x) that already is 100x times faster then current gen wont be an easy task. They would have to price it lower. We got rumors of 399 for ps5.

MS doing different then everyone else... seems its sony, going narrow opposed to wide for high end parts, and reversing boost clocks, clock down instead of up from a baseclock.
What we have seen is gpus in the high end of the spectrum going wider, not the orher way around. And it seems that gpu’s are not going to downclock from their baseclocks. Try to sell that in the mid to high end market to pc gamers.

There laptops out there already if im not misstaken, with smartshift, but their APU’s in non-gaming devices. Not sure on it, but i think they even dont have a max rate where they downclock from. Aside from throttling then.

Average joe doesnt even know what cpu is.

Maybe you are american, but on rest of the world xbox is not popular brand at all. They could sell 2x faster console and still lose badly on sales.

So, PS5 dont have to be the power king, just show few games = win win.

It is far from situation where xbox could be serious competitor by having small power edge, let alone get a lead.

They just cant beat 10x more popular brand in one gen, after a disaster of a gen
 
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