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

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Unfortunately, we are not talking about simple upgrade here. We are talking about a global change on the PC market, with total system replacement.
Ryzen are incredibly cheap now, and in two year 8 core zen4 will be almost the baseline.
If in two year you are still running an old 4 core haswell, you will need anyway to upgrade, or you are not interested in high setting/resolution/latest game.
 
On a related note can someone explain why the texture decompression that's being discussed for the new consoles can't be done on the GPU in a PC? As I understand it the decompression hardware in the PS5 sits next to the graphics memory (which happens to be the system memory as well). Could the compressed data (or at least texture data) not just be fed all the way from the SSD to the GPU memory on a PC where it is decompressed there by the GPU (either in software or by dedicated hardware)? Why does it need to take place at an earlier stage?
 
I don't understand why a full system replacement is needed?
It's just the issue with running older gear. Having an older CPU, upgrading it means a newer mobo. A new mobo means new RAM. You're going to want one that supports at least PCIE4, and ideally a PCIE4 SSD. I'm actually eyeing PCIE5 for future proofing. You'll going to want a new video card with DX12U support.
You're right that w don't need those things, but that's what I'm looking at for my new build
 
On a related note can someone explain why the texture decompression that's being discussed for the new consoles can't be done on the GPU in a PC? As I understand it the decompression hardware in the PS5 sits next to the graphics memory (which happens to be the system memory as well). Could the compressed data (or at least texture data) not just be fed all the way from the SSD to the GPU memory on a PC where it is decompressed there by the GPU (either in software or by dedicated hardware)? Why does it need to take place at an earlier stage?
It could. I use decompression on GPU for my work, we do a lot of work with parquet format, and there are multiple ways to compress and decompress. I don't know if you can go from hard drive to GPU directly, I thought you'd need to pass through memory first on the bus but I could be wrong.
 
PC gamers have nothing to complain, finally we get a new generation with a new baseline not holding back with 2012 hardware. Now ypu have to upgrade those ood systems, if you havent already since 2018.
A rtx2070s+/3700x/fast nvme user will likely be fine though.
 
I don't understand why a full system replacement is needed?

It should be simple to scale a game designed for a console SSD down to a slower PC SSD by simply scaling down those easily scalable elements which take a lot of bandwidth. e.g. texture resolution, mip levels, LOD levels, animation complexity etc...

Scaling down to slower GPU's is even easier given the next gen consoles will run everything at 4K. A lowly 1660 GTX should be more than enough to provide an equivalent experience at 1080p.

Probably the most difficult part will be scaling the CPU requirements down from 8 to 4 cores, but 8 core CPU's have been around in the PC market for years now and can be picked up pretty cheaply, so if developers do need to make that the cost of entry into the next gen gaming for PC gamers then I don't think it's a huge ask.

I was talking about having the same game experience. Not uncharted vs Manic Miner. ;)

Ok, I was exagerating... a lot, henehehe

But if that’s the case, why is it so difficult for some to understand that the other way around? With large improvements on the system with the fastest SSD.

Regardless, dealing with PC since I know me, changing CPU and GPU most of the times requires changing motherboard and RAM. Sometimes the PSU, and the case.
There are simple upgrades, yes, but most become basically a new machine.
 
Ryzen are incredibly cheap now, and in two year 8 core zen4 will be almost the baseline.
If in two year you are still running an old 4 core haswell, you will need anyway to upgrade, or you are not interested in high setting/resolution/latest game.

8 core are not enough. How do you decompress games created for a data stream of 9 GB without dedicated extra cores?
 
Direct Storage will probably be another checkbox that you must take into consideration when building a new system.
Being a directx extension it will probably be supported both only on software, and if present on hardware, probably (again) on the gpu.
If you don't have a compatible gpu it will maybe use more cores, if you don't have extra cores run it at lower settings, if you can't run it at lower settings then you don't meet the minimum specs.
Keep in mind too that in 2 year from now a gpu able to run a future top game will have more than 8GB of memory, probably more than 16. This will for sure mitigate the pressure on the ssd cache.

Considering that both consoles have about 10GB or little more for graphic and a handful for the rest, at some point in time the ssd in the console will be the workaround for porting multiplatform games on them.

Anyway, I don't see so many problems.
 
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I believe this explanation by Urian @ Dustruptive Ludens gives a clear explanation of what may be happening with XSX memory http://disruptiveludens.com/ps5-y-xsx-gddr6-y-acceso-a-memoria (google translate as needed).

I'm a bit curious as to what MS has done with the on-chip SRAM as they felt the need to declare how much there was in total (76MB). So far, both MS and Sony have talked up what the have felt to be their strong points so it makes me wonder if MS has done something out of the ordinary with the amounts of SRAM. Anyone care to hazard a guess at what could be possible?
 
I'm a bit curious as to what MS has done with the on-chip SRAM as they felt the need to declare how much there was in total (76MB). So far, both MS and Sony have talked up what the have felt to be their strong points so it makes me wonder if MS has done something out of the ordinary with the amounts of SRAM. Anyone care to hazard a guess at what could be possible?
So far MS has just listed specs and showed demos. They just happen to be stronger than Sony in the most part. I don't see MS cherry picking any of their strong points at all, if anything they been low balling their specs by quoting things like 2x xb1x. The SRAM is just a spec, there isn't significantly more than what you'd expect normally.
 
Really I haven't seen that anywhere? I don't think anyone that can be taken seriously has suggested the SSD can make up for the computational difference between the consoles.
Well ackshually, if we go by technicality, a game could be using a lot of procedural textures to alleviate I/O bottlenecks, so... I guess that is one case where an SSD could free up some GPU?
But generally I agree lmao.
 
Lets see, PS5 best case SSD is 9GB/s right? Whereas PS5 GPU has 448 GB/s BW and Xbox 560GB/s to the 10GB.

To use the exact quote he said that the kraken compression block could accept "over 5GB (likely 5.5GB) per second of compressed raw data" and that would typically equate to 8-9GB/s of output "but the unit itself is capable of outputting as much as 22GB/s if the data compressed particularly well".

So it depends on how well your data compresses into Kraken. The limit is "over 5" GB.

The Road to PS5 - 17:43
 
Hehe. ASICS are the best of course. I’m just saying there are ways PC can get around without having that technology available

With MS investing in delivering direct storage for pc, DX12Ultimate, gamepass, and having basically everything PC/Xbox, i sure hope they know what their doing.
 
I believe this explanation by Urian @ Dustruptive Ludens gives a clear explanation of what may be happening with XSX memory http://disruptiveludens.com/ps5-y-xsx-gddr6-y-acceso-a-memoria (google translate as needed).

I'm a bit curious as to what MS has done with the on-chip SRAM as they felt the need to declare how much there was in total (76MB). So far, both MS and Sony have talked up what the have felt to be their strong points so it makes me wonder if MS has done something out of the ordinary with the amounts of SRAM. Anyone care to hazard a guess at what could be possible?
Does it add up to what we already know from zen2 and rdna2? Any amount missing?
 
It's just the issue with running older gear. Having an older CPU, upgrading it means a newer mobo. A new mobo means new RAM. You're going to want one that supports at least PCIE4, and ideally a PCIE4 SSD. I'm actually eyeing PCIE5 for future proofing. You'll going to want a new video card with DX12U support.
You're right that w don't need those things, but that's what I'm looking at for my new build

Yeah in many cases a whole new system will be required. I was more pointing out that there are lots of existing systems out there that could upgrade to the likely minimum spec for next gen gaming with much less effort. For my part for example I'd be looking at a new SSD which considering I'm already running a Zen2 platform would be one of the new 7GB/s drives that should be available in the required timescale. And that's all I'd need for a pretty comparable next gen experience. I'd be lacking in the GPU department but I'd still more than pass the minimum bar for entry.

It could. I use decompression on GPU for my work, we do a lot of work with parquet format, and there are multiple ways to compress and decompress. I don't know if you can go from hard drive to GPU directly, I thought you'd need to pass through memory first on the bus but I could be wrong.

If you could bypass main memory altogether then that's essentially what the consoles SSG solutions are doing. I'm also not sure how feasible this would be, 3dilletante did indicate in another thread that it might be possible, at least on Zen2 platforms but would obviously need supporting by the software and the SSD. I was thinking more along the lines of GPU vendors including custom decompression hardware on future GPU's, perhaps even as part of the Direct Storage standard. But that all depends whether the decompressed data is needed further up the system, i.e. by the CPU.

I was talking about having the same game experience. Not uncharted vs Manic Miner. ;)

Ok, I was exagerating... a lot, henehehe

But if that’s the case, why is it so difficult for some to understand that the other way around? With large improvements on the system with the fastest SSD.

I thought the discussion point was whether next gen console ports would be possible on the PC (or hold consoles back) because the portion of the PC market that could play them was too small. But my point is that it should be quite easy to scale the games down to a reasonably sized chunk of even the existing PC market, let alone the market 6-9 months from now. Although naturally for a comparable or better experience almost all PC gamers are going to need to upgrade at least one and likely more elements of their systems.

8 core are not enough. How do you decompress games created for a data stream of 9 GB without dedicated extra cores?

Why do you need compression at all? If the typical peak throughput of the XSX SSD with compression is 4.8GB/s then that's already possible with current SSD's without compression. And by the time the new consoles launch near PS5 speeds will be possible without. Obviously compression has other advantages though like install size which is why I was interested in understanding if it can be done on the GPU (where a dedicated decompression block is entirely feasible) rather than the CPU/APU where it's never going to happen.
 
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