Playstation 5 [PS5] [Release November 12 2020]

[iroboto]

Quick FAQ on PS4 compatibility.

https://blog.playstation.com/2020/0...ns-on-compatible-ps4-peripherals-accessories/

Doesn’t apply to me here but seems unfair by Sony to claim DS4 to work for PS5, only to much later decide for it to work only for PS4 titles.

There is no technical disadvantage here, controller features like haptics are all feeling based, not functionally based. There are a great deal of many people that remap controls, have accessibility problems (disability of all sorts or just plain not strong enough) , and for 3P games we saw no usage for it, for competitive MP everyone shuts off all (Rumble etc) these features anyway.

Then we get into discussion of custom arcade sticks which often leverage a controller board for it to work. Now it must be re-wired for PS5. For those of us with all-console universal fight controllers, those won’t persist at all either.

Can’t help but feel this was an unnecessary move with the end result of many PS4 players having to rebuy accessories for PS5 gen.

 

[Deleted member 13524]

Quick FAQ on PS4 compatibility.

https://blog.playstation.com/2020/0...ns-on-compatible-ps4-peripherals-accessories/

So standard USB audio cards and headsets will work on the PS5. Great move for the PS4, great move for the PS5.

 

[Lalaland]

There is no technical disadvantage here, controller features like haptics are all feeling based, not functionally based. There are a great deal of many people that remap controls, have accessibility problems (disability of all sorts or just plain not strong enough) , and for 3P games we saw no usage for it, for competitive MP everyone shuts off all (Rumble etc) these features anyway.

Then we get into discussion of custom arcade sticks which often leverage a controller board for it to work. Now it must be re-wired for PS5. For those of us with all-console universal fight controllers, those won’t persist at all either.

Three factors I would point the finger at, pushing dev adoption of haptics, saving dev cost by not forcing devs to support two very different vibration methods per vibration effect and the obvious one of selling more DS5 pads.

Dev tends to go towards the lowest common denominator so last gen MS had the very impressive (at least to me in Forza Horizon 4) trigger rumble tech but Sony didn't so multi-platform devs rarely bothered to implement rumble triggers beyond firing them in sympathy with standard rumble. Certainly none of the multi-platform games I've played have seemed to do anything special with the triggers on XB1 or in general on PC with an XB1 pd it was all MS first party dev titles. If Sony wants to avoid that happening they need to essentially force devs to engage by removing the option to just reuse last years vibration effects library. Of course I wouldn't be surprised if there are already tools to just translate "pulse motor at 4hz" to whatever haptics does but Sony is probably hoping dev teams decide to go further seeing as they'll ave to redo the work anyway to some degree.

If Sony decided to mandate PS5 games must support DS5 and DS4 as part of platform standards then devs would almost certainly do nothing with DS5 features if only to get back at Sony for making them do every damn QA test with two controllers. Seriously though this would add serious cost for next to no gain to anybody on the production side.

The sell more DS5 reason is self explanatory but if I think back to the DS3 -> DS4 transition I lost compatibility for my 2 x DS3 and 2 x Dualsense for an LED light and a touchpad I can recall being used by less than half the library as "big button" and maybe a dozen with swipe gestures. Maybe haptics will offer me more of an upgrade than that

 

[BRiT]

Three factors I would point the finger at, pushing dev adoption of haptics, saving dev cost by not forcing devs to support two very different vibration methods per vibration effect and the obvious one of selling more DS5 pads.

Couldn't Sony handle that in their Controller Input API so Devs won't be pestered by controllers not supporting the new haptics on older hardware? At least that how I'd architect that software api, for anything that is output only feature, such as haptics.

The microphone input I'd have a back-compat level abstracted for being used by normal mic input on older controllers.

 

[Lalaland]

They could but that would hurt adoption of the new features in the DS5, if there's a simple DS4 to DS5 shim in the API why bother to spend more than the time necessary to slot that shim in right alongside your existing DS4 controller code. I don't have access to the PS5 SDK maybe there is a shim in there but if Sony are already messaging DS4 will not work in DS5 I would be highly surprised if there was as if they were supporting it there would have to be platform cert tests for all the buttons etc. That being said I would imagine the majority of devs are handing all of that off to their cross platform game engine of choice so I'm not sure how many devs will bother given MS experience with rumble trigger support

Is there anyone on here who has worked with rumble code? AFAIK until now rumble was basically a simple waveform to make the two motors run at various speeds to produce the desired rumble effect does that even translate to a haptic engine?

 

[MrFox]

For those upgrading from a PS4, the choice is either reselling their PS4 with the controller when they upgrade, or they keep it for another room and they still need the controller.

What's the corner case here, those who bought too many controllers and don't want to resell them with their PS4? Wanting to keep a spare?

 

[BRiT]

They could but that would hurt adoption of the new features in the DS5, if there's a simple DS4 to DS5 shim in the API why bother to spend more than the time necessary to slot that shim in right alongside your existing DS4 controller code.

I figure that way devs would have a single API to deal with whenever creating games for PS4 and PS5 that gives an improved experience on PS5 and still functions on PS4. It's about making it easier for devs.

 

[iroboto]

Three factors I would point the finger at, pushing dev adoption of haptics, saving dev cost by not forcing devs to support two very different vibration methods per vibration effect and the obvious one of selling more DS5 pads.

And I am in many ways in agreement here with this but experience has shown otherwise.

Pushing developer adoption with haptics didn't really happen with Xbox, even within exclusives they were limited in use. In 3rd party games never. PC still continues to use xbox 360/PS3 controllers and no matter what, support for that
must exist. So the basic inclination here is that games start off as basic controllers, haptics and others get layered on afterwards.

The dev costs by not forcing devs to support 2 different vibrations, it's not exactly hard to support vibration.
My personal experience in coding for PS3, we have rumble large, and rumble small. When I want a rumble I set variable with a count of how many frames I want the controller to rumble for, subtract 1 each time the game code loops through, using either rumble types or both. It's fairly basic in terms of implementation. Adding the extra feedback you have for both rumble and strength feedback is significantly more work if you think about it. Now you have to do ranges and map virtual motion with physical motion. Regardless, baselining the number of items won't make it any less work. Rumble as the API is, is a straight forward as hitting a button

Yes, selling more DS5 pads is the thing I'm seeing as the big thing. It also means they can't sell a console without a controller. Which, I mean I suspect at times, people if they had a choice may prefer not to.

 

[iroboto]

For those upgrading from a PS4, the choice is either reselling their PS4 with the controller when they upgrade, or they keep it for another room and they still need the controller.

What's the corner case here, those who bought too many controllers and don't want to resell them with their PS4? Wanting to keep a spare?

Those who have special needs type controllers
Those who already have too many controllers as it is to cover their family of 4, now they have to rebuy everything.
Those who built custom arcade sticks which involve breaking down a PS4 controller for it's board and soldering as necessary - the other arcade sticks will work, but theirs won't.
They will need to buy a DS5 for this to work.
Those who have special DS4s that are limited edition ones and they want to keep using them.
3rd party controllers that they like that offer features that the original DS4 didn't have.
If they bought the paddle attachment for DS4, no indication it works on DS5

 

[Lalaland]

I had 4 PS3 controllers and it was handy for those occasions when I had enough folks around for a solid 3 or 4 player game session, always annoying when they do this but at least the DS4 works with PS4 games and we're not in the situation where 360 controllers are useless in 360 back compat titles as on XB1. Don't do that as much any more so it's quite as annoying now as it was for me in 2012

The accessibility argument is definitely more serious, Sony have stated "Specialty peripherals, such as officially licensed racing wheels, arcade sticks, and flight sticks, will work with PS5 games and supported PS4 games." so presumably the PS5 understands the message format of those older devices hopefully self builds will work too. TBH I think Sony should cook up some crow and call up MS to work out a way to get the microsoft accessibility controller officially supported on the Playstation platform.

Thanks for the insight iroboto! With rumble code being that simple it's hard for me to imagine Sony's SDK not having hooks for sending commands that mimic the old rumble model, if they suddenly demanded a whole new complex set of variables for making the pad buzz I would imagine we would have heard the screams by now. That will probably doom the haptics to first party and particularly excited third party devs only then.

 

[iroboto]

I had 4 PS3 controllers and it was handy for those occasions when I had enough folks around for a solid 3 or 4 player game session, always annoying when they do this but at least the DS4 works with PS4 games and we're not in the situation where 360 controllers are useless in 360 back compat titles as on XB1. Don't do that as much any more so it's quite as annoying now as it was for me in 2012

The accessibility argument is definitely more serious, Sony have stated "Specialty peripherals, such as officially licensed racing wheels, arcade sticks, and flight sticks, will work with PS5 games and supported PS4 games." so presumably the PS5 understands the message format of those older devices hopefully self builds will work too. TBH I think Sony should cook up some crow and call up MS to work out a way to get the microsoft accessibility controller officially supported on the Playstation platform.

Thanks for the insight iroboto! With rumble code being that simple it's hard for me to imagine Sony's SDK not having hooks for sending commands that mimic the old rumble model, if they suddenly demanded a whole new complex set of variables for making the pad buzz I would imagine we would have heard the screams by now. That will probably doom the haptics to first party and particularly excited third party devs only then.

It’s no worries. I know it’s the norm for a new generation to require to buy all new accessories. I guess I just feel like they are basically letting people know it would work
Perfectly fine but we want you to buy it anyway.
360 gen controllers were an attack vector for hacking so Xbox closed off all 360 support. They proved they could run it, but at least provided a reason for tossing it.
But here, I just can’t help but think Sony may have as well gone with not supporting the DS4 controller; the results would be nearly the same.

 

[mpg1]

The obvious advantage would be to be able to use/buy a cheap dualshock 4 if your dualsense breaks after warranty. Obviously not everyone would do that but it would be a cheaper option.

 

[Lalaland]

Never knew the 360 controller code was exploited, that is wild and explains perfectly why they went with another connection standard for XB1

 

[iroboto]

Never knew the 360 controller code was exploited, that is wild and explains perfectly why they went with another connection standard for XB1

Yea, it was a big deal for them at start of gen. I have 2 360 fightsticks and it was so painful to see them tossed when they were demoing Killer Instinct with the exact same fightsticks!

There was pretty big backlash from that, and they said that would be the last time because all xbox controllers would have updatable firmware going forward. So that is how they closed the attack vector while giving the hardware the ability to stay functional throughout the years. I have not yet bought another fight stick, lol. I just play fighting games on PC if I really need it.

 

[Deleted member 13524]

If Sony decided to mandate PS5 games must support DS5 and DS4 as part of platform standards then devs would almost certainly do nothing with DS5 features if only to get back at Sony for making them do every damn QA test with two controllers.

IMO Sony should let devs decide if they want their PS5 games to support the DS4 or not, at least for some situations.
For example, in a 4-player couch coop game it would be nice to let gamers save a bunch of money by allowing their friends to use the old controllers that everybody already has.

 

[3dilettante]

I.e. Sony had to know RDO was coming. They weren't going to make a ~24GB/s bus from the IO Complex to the RAM to pass an average 8.5GB/s of effective data using Kraken, just to have Oodle now releasing by surprise a texture pre-processing software that takes full advantage of that bus.

RDO is an established technique for video encoding, and there are mentions of RDO modes for texture compressors going back several years. If Sony were keeping tabs on developer conversations, it seems likely this would have come up.
That aside, Cerny discussed the peak throughput of the decompressor as a somewhat special case. For compression, RDO may make the higher rates more common, but it's not a requirement to sometimes have data that compresses particularly well.

Funny thing is RDO probably boosts the SeriesX's effective I/O throughput by a lot too, without any discernible impact in texture quality, but saying Oodle is bad takes precedence.

I thought I saw speculation that BCPack included some form of RDO back when the first deep dives came out. There could be upsides and downsides to having optimizations for a specific formulation at a platform or hardware level, versus potentially losing out to a future algorithm.

I also don’t understand how the decompressor can correspond to 9 Zen2 cores. If it’s bullshit, then fine. But if it’s true, then HOW?? Is it because it has one operation to do, and nothing else? And it is that fast at that one operation? Have I just answered my own question?

If workload is relatively serial, the parallelism of a large core can go underutilized. Aligning or shifting data can also mean the core needs to burn cycles to match a format that dedicated hardware can just assume as a given. Other design features like the width of the data paths can place some limits on the amount of data the core can move, and there can be overheads related to loading IO data and moving it to the appropriate memory spaces that can lead to overheads for coherent CPU caches.
A more modest processor with custom storage or blocks that exists on the IO side can avoid data movement or system overheads that the main system cores incur.
I'm also unclear if there's some concurrency baked into the workload Cerny described. If the block is meant to handle having multiple resource loads in flight, there could be multiple cores in the decompression block that can decompress multiple independent files or disk blocks in parallel.

 

[orangpelupa]

googling around, people are saying PS4 gamepad actually works on PS3..... i wonder if this trend will continue with PS5 gamepad....

 

[Globalisateur]

googling around, people are saying PS4 gamepad actually works on PS3..... i wonder if this trend will continue with PS5 gamepad....

Yes, most PS3 games work with a DS4. But some don't, like Ico or Jak & Daxter. But the PS Home button is not emulated on DS4, oddly, so you always need a PS3 controller to quit the game.

 

[goonergaz]

I’m not quite sure how they can stop the DS4 working, maybe they are just blanket saying no but the reality will be that they work but with caveats and those being game dependent?

Usually Sony have been good to support last gen controllers - obviously they couldn’t with PS2 to PS3 without some kind of adapter but outside that it’s been helpful not to buy several controllers at launch.

 

[eastmen]

Can you use the new camera with the psvr ?

My biggest gripe with psvr is the tracking using the current camera so it would be great to see an improvement there.