Next Generation Hardware Speculation with a Technical Spin [pre E3 2019]

Couldn't find the "1600 cycles" on the article, and would like to see who in the industry acctually present those metrics anywhere.

Granularity is relevant to the "cache" approach, not necessarily the "nvme" solution.

 

Phison E16 ?? That's really high end. And pci-e 4 support.

 

If it's a fake its a very good one. Nothing here is out of the realm of possibility (assuming that the final console has 16GB of ram and not 32). RAM and it's BW would be in the ballpark as would the die size (closer to 300mm is way more realistic than 400mm). The SSD/NAND setup is certainly different and potentially would be the differentiation to deliver the "zero load times".

 

Early preview of Phision E16 https://www.legitreviews.com/phison-ps5016-e16-pcie-gen4-x4-demo-at-ces-2019_210110

Phison plans on releasing the PS5016-E16 controller in Q3 2019, but hopes to bring that in to around the Computex time frame if all goes well. PCI Express 4.0 will likely start appearing on motherboards at that time as well since new platforms are on the way. We also found out from Phison that there will not be a enterprise version of this controller as the E16 SSD controller is solely aimed at enthusiasts and gamers.

 

Hard to believe on a monolithic die.

 

Funny enough the name starts with PS5 PS5016-E16

 

It's 1660, and it's in the table with model overview (256/512/1024GB).

Why ? They could just choose to cache 256KB chunks at a time.

Though, I don't think they'll operate the onboard flash as a cache, but rather the top tier in a tiered storage system. Active games will always be moved to the fast flash. That way you can add cheap and cheerful storage using USB 3 and still reap the benefits of the high end storage solution.

Cheers

 

Which one should be better for games: optane-like SSD with granular access or regular nvme SSD with 4GB DDR4 caching? Let's say both have raw speed of 4GB/s read.

 

This maybe legit. Monolithic Power Systems supplies parts/chips for both Sony PS4 and Microsoft Xbox-One.

 

Per Expy at Era

• Next-gen Console: "Immersive" experience created by dramatically increased graphics rendering speeds
• Further improved computational power and a customized ultra-fast, broadband SSD.
• Evolution of "Remote Play" and "PlayStation Now", provide a seamless game experience anytime, anywhere
  • Remote Play: Turns PS4 into streaming game server
  • PlayStation Now: Provides experiences regardless they own a PS4 at all
• Continue "Best Place to Play"
  • Collaborate with MS on certain fronts for cloud solutions, and streaming
• Also, at 94M MAU..

 

From Sony investor meeting

 

So all we have is potato footage of an "official" pre-recorded PR "video" embedded in a PowerPoint slide aimed at investors. Nothing Burger.. Tasty.

 

The video is simply showing a decoupled camera panning through New York on PS4 Pro and a PS5 SDK. Pro showing stuttering, LoD popping in/out, and breakup of immersion during it's panning. While the PSS 5 SDK is showing none of these issues, even at a faster pan-rate.

Am I missing something other than that?

 

Big thing in the SSD space right now is computational storage. First gen has been SDDs powered by FPGAs which would be far fetched for a console. But companies like NGD have replaced fpgas with asics specifically a 4 core arm processor. These companies have dump the normally vendor supplied SSD controllers to make SSDs programmable. Applications can now have more explicit control over the SSD. Thereby driving up bandwidth while driving down latency and power consumption. Encryption (DRM), compression and decompression can be handled on the SSD itself.

Take account that the PS4 has an arm processor meant to handle things like background loading, it not far fetched for Sony to have expanded on its solution to speed up a SSD on its next gen console.

 

Except that ARM processor can't even do background downloads.

 

I'm not really sure I care if the video footage is real or representative of the types of loading speed difference between PS4 and PS5. If Sony is able to speed loading up as seen in that example I'll be very happy about it.

 

Sapphire also confirmed that AMD's Navi does not have specialized ray-tracing hardware on the silicon, but such technology will debut with "next year's new architecture".
https://www.techpowerup.com/255768/sapphire-reps-leak-juicy-details-on-amd-radeon-navi

This would make the PlayStation and Microsofts solution either from the next architecture, or each having custom implementation. It also means at this point Microsoft may not have it at all as we have not got official word on that.

 

Or using Power VR solution, they propose license for te raytracing technology now. This is public since a few days but:

https://www.imgtec.com/powervr-ray-tracing/