Current Generation Hardware Speculation with a Technical Spin [post launch 2021] [XBSX, PS5]

[PSman1700]

IC is a power saver aswell.

 

[snc]

The infinity cache is a 2+x bandwidth multiplier according to AMD, and that holds up considering how well the 6900 does with only 512GB/s.

Marketing imho and probably is not that easy as 2x and we have exact number

 

[Proelite]

Marketing imho and probably is not that easy as 2x and we have exact number

What's the exact multiplier?

 

[snc]

What's the exact multiplier?

no idea but looking and techpowerup 6700xt review its ~1.31x faster than 5700xt with 448gb/s bandwidth at 1440p and also 1.31x faster in 4k, you would suspect difference will be bigger at 4k if really real bandwidth of 6700st is 768gb/s (also gefroce 3070 with 448gb/s bandwidth is 1.04x faster in 1440p but 1.11x in 4k)

 

[PSman1700]

Why all the hassle with a 6700xt. He could have went with a 5700XT, perhaps OC it and it would have been a much closer match in performance, architecture and probably watts.

 

[chris1515]

This is an interview in french. The guy is a producer at Ubi Montreal and he speaks about SSD and said current usage of RT is far of what we will have during the generation. He said what we see now is shit on RT part. He laughs about current implementation of RT as non optimised and said there are much better usage of RT in preparation from studios working on PS5, XSX and PC.

He said devs hate cross gen.

He said too they treat SSD nearly like RAM for certain assets or part of the game out of streaming. It seems latency is low enough to load things in the current frame or the next frame. He gives the example of the map and said it can be keep on disk and load when the player see it.

The interviewer talk about other talks he had with more technical devs about this generation and they all said this one is more exciting than PS4/Xbox One. The guy from Ubi confirms it talking with tech guy at Ubi.

From a business perspective he said the Gamepass is exciting and he seems to think there will be an answer from Sony.

 

[snc]

Why all the hassle with a 6700xt. He could have went with a 5700XT, perhaps OC it and it would have been a much closer match in performance, architecture and probably watts.

no, first 5700xt couldn't run at 2200mhz, second power consumption will be much worse as there is big improvement in rdna2 in this aspect, third he did this already tough at much lower clock than ps5 before ps5 release also you are wrong there would be big difference in performance as there is no improvement in performance per teraflop in rdna2

https://www.neogaf.com/threads/simulating-gonzalo-rumoured-nextgen-ps5-leak.1493305/

 

[Jay]

@chris1515 thanks for that.

He said what we see now is shit on RT part. He laughs about current implementation of RT as non optimised and said there are much better usage of RT in preparation from studios working on PS5, XSX and PC.

It's interesting because RT covers a whole lot of different things. Lighting, reflections etc, so hard to know what he means.
It's why I like the Metro approach, easily supported on current gen, big impact on development, art, asset and level modelling.
RT reflections on PC and future R&D on consoles.

He said devs hate cross gen.

No matter how much changes, some things stay the same.

He said too they treat SSD nearly like RAM for certain assets or part of the game out of streaming. It seems latency is low enough to load things in the current frame. He gives the example of the map and said it can be keep on disk and load when the player see it.

We focus so much on textures, forget about things like this.
Don't need to store so many different things in memory compared to previous gen, it really does highlight that the amount of memory isn't a simple one to one comparison with last gen.

From a business perspective he said the Gamepass is exciting and he seems to think there will be an answer from Sony.

Sony have said so themselves. But who knows what it will actually look like.

 

[Allandor]

@chris1515
We focus so much on textures, forget about things like this.
Don't need to store so many different things in memory compared to previous gen, it really does highlight that the amount of memory isn't a simple one to one comparison with last gen.

The same applies to Series S.
But I would still not load something while the frame is rendered. Only if I render a few frames ahead, than the latency of the SSD wouldn't be so bad but requesting something when processing the "current" frame that needs to be outputted in ~16ms is just to late. Maybe the texture data or the shader-code might arrive in that time-window but it must also get processed, effects rely on texture colors, .....

 

[chris1515]

@chris1515 thanks for that.

It's interesting because RT covers a whole lot of different things. Lighting, reflections etc, so hard to know what he means.
It's why I like the Metro approach, easily supported on current gen, big impact on development, art, asset and level modelling.
RT reflections on PC and future R&D on consoles.

No matter how much changes, some things stay the same.

We focus so much on textures, forget about things like this.
Don't need to store so many different things in memory compared to previous gen, it really does highlight that the amount of memory isn't a simple one to one comparison with last gen.
Sony have said so themselves. But who knows what it will actually look like.

He talked about visual, he talked about having a few reflections like in R&C or Spiderman. He did not give any name of a game. This is not what we will have with RT on console.

He said other stuff like consoles aren't PC at all and I think he talked about Horizon Zero Dawn PC port and he said exclusives game exploit the consoles very well and this is the reason the game for reach the same visual needs higher specs on PC. He said too, this is much more difficult than move a few sliders. He said if port on one console was only this, it would be easy. And he said too OS is a huge difference with PC.

The same applies to Series S.
But I would still not load something while the frame is rendered. Only if I render a few frames ahead, than the latency of the SSD wouldn't be so bad but requesting something when processing the "current" frame that needs to be outputted in ~16ms is just to late. Maybe the texture data or the shader-code might arrive in that time-window but it must also get processed, effects rely on texture colors, .....

I think he talks about next frame for example. The latency of SSD are in microseconds.

https://phoenixnap.com/kb/nvme-vs-sata-vs-m-2-comparison

What is NVMe?

NVMe stands for Non-Volatile Memory Express, a host controller interface designed explicitly for PCIe SSDs. It features low latency; of under 250 microseconds. In simple terms, non-volatile memory does not lose its data when it is powered off, and its content is accessed in a particular way. This interface introduced an entirely new way of accessing data, allowing superior command queuing for solid-state drives.

He said too than PS5 SSD is unique like nothing else and XSX SSD is different too than usage on PC.

 

[Karamazov]

But if you plug a PCIe 4 SSD to an OC 5700XT....

 

[chris1515]

But if you plug a PCIe 4 SSD to an OC 5700XT....

No unified memory, not the same OS, API(until Direct Storage arrive on PC), no custom firmware, hardware decompressor, for PS5 no coherency engine or added priorty level compared to standard NVMe...

And not RT with 5700XT and probably other custom stuff.

EDIT: For being precise he said in polite manner what we see with RT is the tip of the iceberg but in reality he said it is garbage because devs did not have enough time and did not do enough R&D around RT technology.

 

[Allandor]

I think he talks about next frame for example. The latency of SSD are in microseconds.

Yes, but microseconds are still a "problem" if you want something fast. Because in that small time-window (e.g. lets just say 16ms) you can't transfer a whole lot. You will also loose some bandwidth just by sending new commands etc (not much, but might be enough to cripple what is possible in that time window). Than you will also want decompressed data. It is nice that the CPU is not needed for this, but it still costs time. Than (at least on PS5) they have their own priority-system on top of the normal. That is why the nvme needs to be a bit faster than the SSD in the system. But it is still some extra time needed. Also the PCIe lanes and the m.2 port might also add some extra latencies. Yes those are really small time-additions but they sum up.
Loading data for a few frames ahead, I don't have a problem with that as most of the data should already have been loaded into memory the frames before. Just the differences must be loaded here.
But talking as we no longer need to buffer something in memory, is just to soon.
E.g. instant camera changes will always need a few more frames (because you just can't load as much data in that time-window). That is why e.g. Ratchet & Clank is fast, but not instant and still need some kind of effect to go over to the next "stage".

Not even MS way with SFS or Mesh-Shading would reduce needed data to a level where an SSD is fast enough to deliver all that stuff in that tiny time-window. Btw (I think I'm repeating myself), the SSD chip in the series x has even lower latencies than the PS5 solution, because all data is just on one chip. So the chip must be clocked much higher to still deliver as much data, while on PS5 6 chips do this in parallel (lower clocks needed, but you have automatically a higher latency). It is only the question if the controller chip is "fast" enough, too, so the lower latency is actually "usable".
In the end though, I still think we will get those loading-screens in form of some transition animation that can go as long as needed. It is much better that what was possible before, but I don't think it will change that much more (other than loading speed and reducing the buffer size in memory).

 

[chris1515]

Yes, but microseconds are still a "problem" if you want something fast. Because in that small time-window (e.g. lets just say 16ms) you can't transfer a whole lot. You will also loose some bandwidth just by sending new commands etc (not much, but might be enough to cripple what is possible in that time window). Than you will also want decompressed data. It is nice that the CPU is not needed for this, but it still costs time. Than (at least on PS5) they have their own priority-system on top of the normal. That is why the nvme needs to be a bit faster than the SSD in the system. But it is still some extra time needed. Also the PCIe lanes and the m.2 port might also add some extra latencies. Yes those are really small time-additions but they sum up.
Loading data for a few frames ahead, I don't have a problem with that as most of the data should already have been loaded into memory the frames before. Just the differences must be loaded here.
But talking as we no longer need to buffer something in memory, is just to soon.
E.g. instant camera changes will always need a few more frames (because you just can't load as much data in that time-window). That is why e.g. Ratchet & Clank is fast, but not instant and still need some kind of effect to go over to the next "stage".

Not even MS way with SFS or Mesh-Shading would reduce needed data to a level where an SSD is fast enough to deliver all that stuff in that tiny time-window. Btw (I think I'm repeating myself), the SSD chip in the series x has even lower latencies than the PS5 solution, because all data is just on one chip. So the chip must be clocked much higher to still deliver as much data, while on PS5 6 chips do this in parallel (lower clocks needed, but you have automatically a higher latency). It is only the question if the controller chip is "fast" enough, too, so the lower latency is actually "usable".
In the end though, I still think we will get those loading-screens in form of some transition animation that can go as long as needed. It is much better that what was possible before, but I don't think it will change that much more (other than loading speed and reducing the buffer size in memory).

He was precise he said without any perceived latency the map. It does not mean this is possible for every asset. He can't give more example because he is under NDA but this is one example he gave. He said there is no visible latency like if the map was in RAM on old gen like PS4 and XB1. Latency is higher than RAM but low enough to be invisible by the end user.

A map is not a huge asset or like in Mark Cerny example an audio sound. On PS5 decompression is made within the 1MB SRAM cache of the I/O complex.

Fabian Giesen from Rad Tools game did a tweet about this and told the chunk of compressed data needs to fit inside the SRAM.

He said the PS5 SSD and I/O system is unique and incredible and he is not a first party dev but a guy from UBi.

And I never said you don't need to buffer something inside RAM if it was the case 16 GB of memory is too much. And he was precise this is not possible for every assets.

250 microseconds is 0,25 miliseconds. Even if at the end latency is 1 or 2 or 5 miliseconds, this is more than enough to use the data next frame. This is maybe why Mark Cerny did this slide.

In theory if average compression with oodle kraken + oddle texture work well it means you can load 11GB/s of data and 183 MB per frame.

And I suppose the latency is low enough on Xbox Series X/S to do the same.

 

[Globalisateur]

This is an interview in french. The guy is a producer at Ubi Montreal and he speaks about SSD and said current usage of RT is far of what we will have during the generation. He said what we see now is shit on RT part. He laughs about current implementation of RT as non optimised and said there are much better usage of RT in preparation from studios working on PS5, XSX and PC.

He said devs hate cross gen.

He said too they treat SSD nearly like RAM for certain assets or part of the game out of streaming. It seems latency is low enough to load things in the current frame or the next frame. He gives the example of the map and said it can be keep on disk and load when the player see it.

The interviewer talk about other talks he had with more technical devs about this generation and they all said this one is more exciting than PS4/Xbox One. The guy from Ubi confirms it talking with tech guy at Ubi.

From a business perspective he said the Gamepass is exciting and he seems to think there will be an answer from Sony.

Everything he said is bullshit IMO and he said those things to make himself interesting with the journalist. Ubisoft are the very definition of least common denominator developer. They'll develop their games on the less powerfull console, here XSS, and they'll raise the resolution for the others versions, I am expecting nothing less, nothing more.

Others devs who really want to optimize a bit for the big console are forced to remove RT from the XSS version, like in Control or Metro, because they want the best from the big consoles so they really optimize that version with notably RT but not only.

Ubisoft Montreal you say? Their last games was Watchdogs Legion (the next gen version). This game was made to "run" on XSS so they compromised everything for that. Mediocre RT + 30fps, the only cross-gen game running at only 30fps on PS5 / XSX, and they raised the res on the big consoles.

By the way using the SSD to load the map is no different than using the SSD to load a level, it will scales well (meaning without optimization required for the dev) on all machines but it's ultimately just a gimmick.

 

[snc]

Everything he said is bullshit IMO and he said those things to make himself interesting with the journalist. Ubisoft are the very definition of least common denominator developer. They'll develop their games on the less powerfull console, here XSS, and they'll raise the resolution for the others versions, I am expecting nothing less, nothing more.

Others devs who really want to optimize a bit for the big console are forced to remove RT from the XSS version, like in Control or Metro, because they want the best from the big consoles so they really optimize that version with notably RT but not only.

Ubisoft Montreal you say? Their last games was Watchdogs Legion (the next gen version). This game was made to "run" on XSS so they compromised everything for that. Mediocre RT + 30fps, the only cross-gen game running at only 30fps on PS5 / XSX, and they raised the res on the big consoles.

By the way using the SSD to load the map is no different than using the SSD to load a level, it will scales well (meaning without optimization required for the dev) on all machines but it's ultimately just a gimmick.

harsh ;d assasin unity was very ambitious for lastgen consoles so kudos for them, also valhalla is one of best looking game now so its not that ubisoft can't make good looking and ambitious technicaly games

 

[chris1515]

Everything he said is bullshit IMO and he said those things to make himself interesting with the journalist. Ubisoft are the very definition of least common denominator developer. They'll develop their games on the less powerfull console, here XSS, and they'll raise the resolution for the others versions, I am expecting nothing less, nothing more.

Others devs who really want to optimize a bit for the big console are forced to remove RT from the XSS version, like in Control or Metro, because they want the best from the big consoles so they really optimize that version with notably RT but not only.

Ubisoft Montreal you say? Their last games was Watchdogs Legion (the next gen version). This game was made to "run" on XSS so they compromised everything for that. Mediocre RT + 30fps, the only cross-gen game running at only 30fps on PS5 / XSX, and they raised the res on the big consoles.

By the way using the SSD to load the map is no different than using the SSD to load a level, it will scales well (meaning without optimization required for the dev) on all machines but it's ultimately just a gimmick.

Why he said bullshit? Maybe you need to take out the glasses of Sony fans. Because you think what we see now is what the consoles are really able to do. We will see much better in the future and he is honest and he said Sony first party push much more the console than third party title because they can work on only one machine.

This is me who talk about Spiderman or R&C because it fits the description he made about RT games. And I am sure in a few years Insomniac will do much better on PS5.

I never talk about GB/s because what he describe about the map has more to do with latency. In the case of loading a level like Ratchet and Clank I hope see my map will not be so slow. If my map take 1 second and a half to appear on screen I will be pissed of.

 

[Jay]

Others devs who really want to optimize a bit for the big console are forced to remove RT from the XSS version, like in Control or Metro, because they want the best from the big consoles so they really optimize that version with notably RT but not only.

Are you sure about that?
From what I remember XSS has RT also. How would it even work when there's no fallback in the next gen upgrade?

One of the reasons I like their approach, but obviously will have to wait to see how it turns out.

 

[chris1515]

Are you sure about that?
From what I remember XSS has RT also. How would it even work when there's no fallback in the next gen upgrade?

One of the reasons I like their approach, but obviously will have to wait to see how it turns out.

No the game run with RT on Xbox Series S too.

https://www.kitguru.net/gaming/matt...-comes-to-xbox-series-x-s-and-ps5-next-month/

It runs at 1080p 60 fps.

 

[Globalisateur]

Are you sure about that?
From what I remember XSS has RT also. How would it even work when there's no fallback in the next gen upgrade?

One of the reasons I like their approach, but obviously will have to wait to see how it turns out.

RT needs plenty of memory. It's I think the main reason it's not on some XSS games.