Current Generation Games Analysis Technical Discussion [2020-2021] [XBSX|S, PS5, PC]

[iroboto]

How long has VRR been on TV's, maybe not at 4K but seems like a while now.
So I wouldn't be surprised that it's relatively common for the hardcore gamer for want of a better term.
Not common for general Joe though.

For the people that have it, it can make a big difference though.

As early as HDMI 2.0 spec IIRC but only some variants or models? Only up to 60Hz which is not as ideal as 120Hz VRR of HDMI 2.1

 

[cwjs]

VRR feels like a monitor play. Those of us who upgraded to 4K TVs for mid-gen refresh are probably not ready to replace the set yet to get one that includes VRR. Which is a bulk of those enthusiasts who were already willing to pay for 4K TVs etc.

It's next to impossible to get a ps5 or xsx, people who also own high end tvs are probably very over-represented in people who can manage to get ahold of a console. And either way, this stuff matters for press, other devs, etc. VRR definitely isn't monitor only anymore, my lg oled is from 2019

 

[Deleted member 13524]

I don't think class action lawsuits are much of a deterrent. Remember when Sony cut linux support on PS3? If you could prove you used it, Sony would compensate you $55. Otherwise you were entitled to $9. And that was a feature provided and removed.

In the case of the PS3's Other OS, I think Sony had already lost a legal battle in trying to get tax exemptions for selling the console as a personal computer. Once they failed at that and the hacking community made it their priority to use the Linux boot to attempt running homebrews with full access to the hardware (to run, you know, homebrews), there was little incentive to keep linux available in the console.

 

[Jay]

As early as HDMI 2.0 spec IIRC but only some variants or models? Only up to 60Hz which is not as ideal as 120Hz VRR of HDMI 2.1

Understand what you mean but, I think it's just as important for 60fps.
It can make non locked 60 play a lot better.

my lg oled is from 2019

Probably does 4K120 VRR.

I agree with the over representation, you phrased it a lot better than me.

 

[rabbit]

Most others third party games were only using the SSD with the BC mode so the results were similar to Xbox Series loadings. But as you can see with Genshin, the custom I/O on PS5 is really that fast. Just get used to those 3x to 5x faster loadings on PS5 because they are going to become the norm when more third party devs will start to use the custom I/O API.

I think it's super obvious that the xbox version of RE8 just doesn't use the xsx I/O functionality

According to David Springate xsx can load 10 gigabytes in 2 sec even without using compression:
34:27
79:32

 

[Globalisateur]

I think it's super obvious that the xbox version of RE8 just doesn't use the xsx I/O functionality

According to David Springate xsx can load 10 gigabytes in 2 sec even without using compression:
34:27
79:32

The first video shows the same loading times as PC with M.2. This is consistent will the others games and a great result on its own. What MS brought on Xbox won't bring you 3x or 4x improvements compared to PC M.2 loadings. Remember that MS use a quite cheap cache-less M.2 SSD, so loading the same as a expensive M.2 SSD with a big cache is already a great result.

 

[Deleted member 11852]

According to David Springate xsx can load 10 gigabytes in 2 sec even without using compression

I think the general consensus was he was misremembering or mangled his words (gigabytes instead of gigabits). His statement directly conflicts with what Andrew Goossen (Xbox Series System Architect) told Digital Foundry.

 

[chris1515]

How can you load 10 GB in 2 secondes without compression when your SSD speed is 2.4 GB/s? The Xbox SSD can load in theory 10 GB in a littble bit more than 4 seconds and the PS5 SSD is able in theory to load 10 GB/s without compression in a little bit less than 2 seconds because the SSD speed is 5.5 GB/s.

 

[chris1515]

The first video shows the same loading times as PC with M.2. This is consistent will the others games and a great result on its own. What MS brought on Xbox won't bring you 3x or 4x improvements compared to PC M.2 loadings. Remember that MS use a quite cheap cache-less M.2 SSD, so loading the same as a expensive M.2 SSD with a big cache is already a great result.

The 970 Pro is 3.5 GB/s and has 512MB LPDDR4 for cache memory. This is a great result.

https://www.pccomponentes.com/samsung-ssd-970-pro-nvme-pci-e-m2-512-gb

And it is not a cheap SSD.

 

[rabbit]

RE8 uses less than 10 gigabytes

The first video shows the same loading times as PC with M.2. This is consistent will the others games and a great result on its own. What MS brought on Xbox won't bring you 3x or 4x improvements compared to PC M.2 loadings. Remember that MS use a quite cheap cache-less M.2 SSD, so loading the same as a expensive M.2 SSD with a big cache is already a great result.

The fact that the load time on xsx matches the load time on PC shows that direct storage, bcpack and probably the decompressor remain unused.
Not to mention sfs.

I think the general consensus was he was misremembering or mangled his words (gigabytes instead of gigabits). His statement directly conflicts with what Andrew Goossen (Xbox Series System Architect) told Digital Foundry.

How can you load 10 GB in 2 secondes without compression when your SSD speed is 2.4 GB/s? The Xbox SSD can load in theory 10 GB in a littble bit more than 4 seconds and the PS5 SSD is able in theory to load 10 GB/s without compression in a little bit less than 2 seconds because the SSD speed is 5.5 GB/s.

I think he meant bcpack and its hw compression/decompression.

 

[Deleted member 86764]

RE8 uses less than 10 gigabytes

I dunno. PCs at max settings use almost exactly 10GB.

...will be interesting to see where the PS5/XSX land on the settings scale.

 

[chris1515]

RE8 uses less than 10 gigabytes

The fact that the load time on xsx matches the load time on PC shows that direct storage, bcpack and probably the decompressor remain unused.
Not to mention sfs.



I think he meant bcpack and its hw compression/decompression.

If it was the case the XSX load time will be slower to PC because the SSD they used is much better than the Xbox SSD 2,4 GB/s no DRAM cache like I said 3.5 GB/s and 512 MB of DRAM cache.

The PS5 SSD is 5.5 GB/s and some SRAM cache use for adress translation and can be use as cache cf. PS5 SSD patent.

edit: typo 512 MB of DRAM not 512 GB.

 

[Deleted member 11852]

I think he meant bcpack and its hw compression/decompression.

His numbers still contradict what Microsoft have said publicly. They went on the record with Digital Foundry and gave an in-depth presentation at Hot Chips. Seriously, what is is more likely; that Microsoft are right and the dev made a mistake, or this dev knows Xbox better than Microsoft? A lot of sourced info has been posted to the 'Velocity Architecture - more than 100GB available for game assets' thread.

 

[rabbit]

If it was the case the XSX load time will be slower to PC because the SSD they used is much better than the Xbox SSD 2,4 GB/s no DRAM cache like I said 3.5 GB/s and 512 MB of DRAM cache.

The PS5 SSD is 5.5 GB/s and some SRAM cache use for adress translation and can be use as cache cf. PS5 SSD patent.

edit: typo 512 MB of DRAM not 512 GB.

Do you think that the ssd on a PC runs at full capacity and loads 19 gigabytes of data in 5.5 seconds?

It seems to me that loading on pc and on xsx is just hindered by old I/O algorithms.

He's numbers still contradict what Microsoft have said publicly.

What are the numbers?
MS always talks about guaranteed figures for developers (2.4 and 4.8 Gb/s)
The maximum the system can deliver in individual tests or scenarios will be higher.

 

[PSman1700]

Well, if the PC versions loads a tad slower then the PS5 version without direct storage/VA......

 

[pjbliverpool]

The first video shows the same loading times as PC with M.2. This is consistent will the others games and a great result on its own. What MS brought on Xbox won't bring you 3x or 4x improvements compared to PC M.2 loadings. Remember that MS use a quite cheap cache-less M.2 SSD, so loading the same as a expensive M.2 SSD with a big cache is already a great result.

The 970 Pro is 3.5 GB/s and has 512MB LPDDR4 for cache memory. This is a great result.

https://www.pccomponentes.com/samsung-ssd-970-pro-nvme-pci-e-m2-512-gb

And it is not a cheap SSD.

If it was the case the XSX load time will be slower to PC because the SSD they used is much better than the Xbox SSD 2,4 GB/s no DRAM cache like I said 3.5 GB/s and 512 MB of DRAM cache.

The PS5 SSD is 5.5 GB/s and some SRAM cache use for adress translation and can be use as cache cf. PS5 SSD patent.

edit: typo 512 MB of DRAM not 512 GB.

The speed of the drive itself is largely irrelevant (past a certain point) when the bottleneck is elsewhere. I think it's pretty obvious in this case that the VA isn't being used to it's full potential or else the XSX should easily be able to exceed the performance of the PC drive which is hobbled by an ancient IO software stack. Things are going to get really interesting once Direct Storage starts getting used on the PC.

 

[snc]

people realy expecting xsx to have same i/o speed as ps5 ? I think its quite clear that ps5 has advantage in this department its like doubting that xsx has advantage in gpu power

 

[Deleted member 86764]

The speed of the drive itself is largely irrelevant (past a certain point) when the bottleneck is elsewhere. I think it's pretty obvious in this case that the VA isn't being used to it's full potential or else the XSX should easily be able to exceed the performance of the PC drive which is hobbled by an ancient IO software stack. Things are going to get really interesting once Direct Storage starts getting used on the PC.

RE8's loading definitely doesn't make sense considering the publically released bandwidth figures, but really, the proof of the pudding is in the eating.

The onus is now on Microsoft's first and third parties to demonstrate the loading capabilities now. Unfortunately we haven't had many (any?) first party games from Microsoft on the platform.

 

[chris1515]

Do you think that the ssd on a PC runs at full capacity and loads 19 gigabytes of data in 5.5 seconds?

It seems to me that loading on pc and on xsx is just hindered by old I/O algorithms.


What are the numbers?
MS always talks about guaranteed figures for developers (2.4 and 4.8 Gb/s)
The maximum the system can deliver in individual tests or scenarios will be higher.

Do you think the PS5 SSD load at full speed normally 10 GB is less than 1 second with compression?

http://cbloomrants.blogspot.com/2020/09/how-oodle-kraken-and-oodle-texture.html

Sony has previously published that the SSD is capable of 5.5 GB/s and expected decompressed bandwidth around 8-9 GB/s, based on measurements of average compression ratios of games around 1.5 to 1. While Kraken is an excellent generic compressor, it struggled to find usable patterns on a crucial type of content : GPU textures, which make up a large fraction of game content. Since then we've made huge progress on improving the compression ratio of GPU textures, with Oodle Texture which encodes them such that subsequent Kraken compression can find patterns it can exploit. The result is that we expect the average compression ratio of games to be much better in the future, closer to 2 to 1.

With compression the PS5 SSD can average 11GB/s using Kraken and oodle texture.

You seems to talk about thing you don't understand. Do you know that loading time is not only load data, the CPU need to setup all the level object, entity and other datastructure. We talk about loading time like it is only loading data. It does much more than this.

And the PC SSD doesn't use direct storage. This is one of the reason PC load as fast as Xbox Series X.

 

[iroboto]

people realy expecting xsx to have same i/o speed as ps5 ? I think its quite clear that ps5 has advantage in this department its like doubting that xsx has advantage in gpu power

No, just expecting it to be faster than PC since it shouldn’t be bothered by the I/O stack. There is sufficient reason to believe the Xbox version is likely crippled.

Just like PS5 requires explicit filesystem setup to take advantage of its speed, I’m sure XSX has to have something somewhat similar as well.

if it was a question of just raw speed alone, PS4
Games would be loading instantly on PS5. So there is both a threading and filesystem requirement that needs addressing.