News & Rumours: Playstation 4/ Orbis *spin*

[Shifty Geezer]

I think the way the 360 did it there was a portion of the hard drive set aside for games to use as a HDD cache of a fixed size and it would save something like the 3 most recent played games' cache files at one time. It could be like that on PS4 is the game files aren't user managed, and there's certainly room to do more than 3 games at once.

360 didn't support full game installs at launch. It didn't have a large enough HDD to support that either. So MS used a partial cache system. If you have the entire game on HDD, there's no need nor advantage in a partial cache. Ergo it makes no sense, and if Sony's engineers are sensible, they'll just copy the game to HDD in its entirety.

 

[Brad Grenz]

I know, I wasn't implying anything about them using partial installs, I was just addressing how they might manage the game files.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

I know, I wasn't implying anything about them using partial installs, I was just addressing how they might manage the game files.

Still doesn't make sense. The files on on HDD already. Why copy them again? I suppose they could have an outside edge of the HDD reserved for current game functionality, but then if you're copying stuff across the HDD between install and cache, is it really going to be better off?

 

[Brad Grenz]

I'm not saying anything about copying or duplicating files on the drive. I was just saying that, like the 360 would keep the 3 most recent game cache files saved to avoid recreating them, the PS4 could automatically save a certain number of game installs to avoid having to reinstall them. That's only in the situation where the game installs are OS managed and not user managed. I don't actually expect that will be the case, but I was giving an example from this gen to show why novcze should not be too concerned about losing the benefits of the install even if it is.

 

[hesido]

Well, portions of the disc may be "installed" by the developer to make sure they get benefits from HDD speeds earlier for some parts, by maybe tagging those data? Also, video files that may be streamed from the HDD could be tagged as "don't cache" or "cache last" to make sure HDD is busy caching more time-intensive data before it gets to less bandwidth sensitive data. Data portions will have to be arranged by the dev to accomodate for the play-as-you-download feature anyway. The same data "hierarchy" (?) could be used for cache, or they may have a similar approach for the hdd cache.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

There are certainly optimisations that can be made. However, the point is when Yoshi tweets that there aren't installs and games are cached, what he means is the game is copied to HDD without the user having to think about it.

 

[djskribbles]

I hope this gets cleared up soon. I'm gonna hold off buying an HDD until it does.

 

[Grall]

What exactly is it you need cleared up? There's no need to worry about what ends up where, the console handles everything transparently. That's all we need to know really.

 

[Billy Idol]

Maybe he wants to know if a bigger HDD is needed. As already discussed...500gig seems to be a bad joke these days. I heard that KZ has 50gig, COD has 50 and I think BF will not need less space. So, 500gig will be full after a month.

On the other hand if they always use this streaming and silent install tec, every time, thus freeing up the space when you not play...you could live a tad longer with 500gig.

Although I honestly doubt this and fully expect to have standard HDD occupation after whatever install tec is used.

 

[djskribbles]

^Yup. If everything is seamless and is handled by the OS, then I might not even need an HDD. But I will probably get either a 750GB or 1TB depending on how everything is handled. I only buy like 5-10 games a year and I sell the ones that I don't want to keep for the collection. I usually end up with 20-25 games by the end of the console cycle.

 

[MrFox]

I'm worried about a completely automatic cache, because there's no easy criteria for complete pre-caching or deletion, and the system cannot make the correct decision by relying on a crude timestamp, or the latest games I played. Imagine if I just purchased Gran Turismo 7, I will want to let it cache 100% and never delete it, I want it all there immediately, always, even if I haven't played for a week waiting for the next online challenge to go live. OTOH, if it's an adventure game, I'd prefer to delete it right after I finished it or platinumed it (platinum is now a verb). Sometimes I browse and play a dozen games, just finishing some trophies, that would flush ALL my favorites from the cache. I have a higher chance to play a game I haven't played for a while than a game I just finished.

I think the best way to handle this should be to do provide a method for manual delete, and to provide a caching choice per game: persistent cache, session only cache, or automatic cache. (default being obviously automatic)

 

[scf]

According to this thread https://twitter.com/JoshLMusic/status/394220033582174208/photo/1 Knack is 37GB.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

The tweet was in response to a question of if installation was a required step. It says nothing about game management. I fully expect manual control over game installs and removing content to make room for new content, just as we have on PS3. The system cannot know what games you want to preserve and which you don't mind getting rid of to make space, so you'll be told, "Not enough room for this game. Please remove previous games to make room to play," and taken to the "Game Data" menu to select game to uninstall. The back of the box will be labelled with a 'required HDD space' box (as we have now). And this'll be the same for XB1.

Speculation on my part, but this is one of those few predictions in an uncertain world I'd actually wager money on.

 

[Grall]

Maybe he wants to know if a bigger HDD is needed.

It would depend on how many games you play at any one time of course. I'm a digital packrat, I keep virtually my entire steam library (~900GB) installed at all times even though many games I never play at all.

So, 500gig will be full after a month.

Only if you buy digital copies. It has to be assumed that physical discs are being cached only temporarily and when empty room to save fresh data in runs out, older cached data will get deleted automatically.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

Only if you buy digital copies. It has to be assumed that physical discs are being cached only temporarily...

Why must that be assumed?

...older cached data will get deleted automatically.

This takes control of what games the owner has to hand out of the owner's hands, and will impact initial quality of experience as the game deletes old content and installs new content. As there's no need to handle that automatically (people aren't that dumb that they can't choose games/apps to uninstall when running out of room), that strikes me as an over-engineered and less effective solution than the obvious.

 

[Grall]

Why must that be assumed?

Because that would be the natural way to do it. Otherwise you'd quickly run into a situation where you can't save a single god damn thing to your console without it nagging you to delete something because you've filled up the HDD with cached disc titles.

Of course, it's completely possible that sony isn't smart enough to make their resident OS behave in this way, but that's how I'd do it.

This takes control of what games the owner has to hand out of the owner's hands

...Why do you care?

It doesn't matter if you have control or not. The next time you chuck in your disc, your game will be re-cached again. Why do you have to have "control" over what is cached or not? That's just silly.

and will impact initial quality of experience

Look. No matter how you do it, there's gonna be impacts because the HDD isn't infinitely large. Not having to faff with managing data on the HDD which is only ever intended to be throwaway anyway is going to save you time and mental energy. You can't run disc titles without the disc in the console regardless, so why does it matter to you that the temporary cache remains on the drive until you say so?

Is it some PC compulsion of having to be in total control at all times, or something of that sort? Coz... I got news for you... Consoles aren't like PCs... Not even when they're loaded to the brim with x86 CPU cores.

 

[MrFox]

It doesn't matter if you have control or not. The next time you chuck in your disc, your game will be re-cached again. Why do you have to have "control" over what is cached or not? That's just silly

In my previous post, I described the situations where I would prefer control. There's no clever cache mechanism that can know what games I want deleted first. Timestamp method will make the wrong decisions very often.

 

[Brad Grenz]

It is not an all or nothing proposition, though. Like I speculated above, it could automatically delete the game you haven't played in the longest, unless it has been marked as "protected" by the user. And if these files are user managed, that does not have to be an onerous prospect on these modern, multitasking systems. A game can simply pop up a system dialog prompting you to choose something for deletion without having to exit out or navigate a bunch of system menus.

 

[deathindustrial]

And if these files are user managed, that does not have to be an onerous prospect on these modern, multitasking systems.

Supporting user chosen wallpapers / themes on the PS4 is apparently beyond Sony's engineering capabilities so I am not holding my breath on them making a sane choice for game caching.

 

[MrFox]

Supporting user chosen wallpapers / themes on the PS4 is apparently beyond Sony's engineering capabilities so I am not holding my breath on them making a sane chose for game caching.

Changing the background and providing themes are not engineering issues. Design and marketing teams might have decided Brand and UI consistency had priority.

And seriously, ever since the PS4 was announced, developers praised everything Sony have done so far. Is there any doubt about Sony's engineering capabilities?