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

[DieH@rd]

Sony ticked all the boxes, I'm very glad that SSD is in. And by the looks of it, a very fast one! It will be strange seeing ~4GB/s speeds on PS5 and 550MB/s on my PC. Heck, many of my games are installed to my mass storage spinning drive.

Do we know how BC work when we have digital games ? We will have to download them again, simple as that ?

I expect that upgrade path will be the same as with PS4base>Pro, including the ability to backup things on USB stick [profiles, saves, gallery and game installs] and restore them on a new console [I'm taking PT with me until PlayStation 10!!!].

Audio revelation is interesting, MS went this route with current generation and many of us said it was a waste of resources because unless you have an expensive speaker set up or resign yourself to using headphones you won't notice the difference.

VR demands 3D audio. For PSVR they had it in an external processing box, now they can move it internally [which will reduce the price for PSVR2].

 

[Adonisds]

Since mainstream gpus have a larger die size than high end cpus and they need a big card and a much bigger box, then why are they less expensive?

 

[BRiT]

Since mainstream gpus have a larger die size than high end cpus and they need a big card and a much bigger box, then why are they less expensive?

Economics.

 

[manux]

I wonder if sony will do nvme like drive without controller and memory. Basically have simple flash over pci-e bus, implement controller logic, caching, compression etc. in main cpu or possibly have custom controller implemented as part of the cpu. That would give sony absolute control over how IO works and keep ssd side simple and cheap. I believe some cheap pc drives do this but there is no reason why this approach couldn't be made efficient&fast on closed box with gaming workloads. This would also be significantly cheaper than traditional performance oriented nvme ssd alone is.

I'm very happy about this ps5 news. Unless sony screws up something along the way this seems like day 1 purchase(preorder) for me. I was hoping for higher end gaming machine and sony seems to be delivering exactly that. Might even be good enough that I don't upgrade my pc even though I had planned to do something about that. I have decent gpu(1080ti) but the 5.5 year old haswell cpu starts to show it's age.

edit. Yes, I'm biased. All things being roughly equal I would rather get ps5 than xbox. What I cannot get on playstation I usually can get for pc. This preference is mainly because of sony exclusives which to my taste are amazing(horizon, uncharted, gran turismo, and all the weird stuff like dreams, little big planet etc)

 

[Adonisds]

Economics.

Could you please expand?

 

[BRiT]

Could you please expand?

They charge more for cpus because they can; its what the market will sustain.

 

[temesgen]

Sony ticked all the boxes, I'm very glad that SSD is in. And by the looks of it, a very fast one! It will be strange seeing ~4GB/s speeds on PS5 and 550MB/s on my PC. Heck, many of my games are installed to my mass storage spinning drive.


I expect that upgrade path will be the same as with PS4base>Pro, including the ability to backup things on USB stick [profiles, saves, gallery and game installs] and restore them on a new console [I'm taking PT with me until PlayStation 10!!!].


VR demands 3D audio. For PSVR they had it in an external processing box, now they can move it internally [which will reduce the price for PSVR2].

I agree that VR needs this sort of technology in my original post but I remain skeptical about the broader market adoption of VR. If we see 20% of PS5 owners purchase PSVR I'd be pleasantly surprised.

 

[function]

Hmmm. Thinking about it, Sony are almost certainly expecting BC, Zen 2, SSD - and definitely ray tracing - to be talked about concretely by MS, some time soon.

This wasn't a real reveal or even a preview - no talk of flops or GB or GB/s. It was about moderating some of the conversation they're expecting MS's reveals to spark, perhaps at E3. Smart move, I reckon.

 

[temesgen]

My opinion? Cerny is as far from a PR guru as you can find. He really is a matter of fact kind of guy, as demonstrated at the PS4 reveal where he simply explained what the system had inside, showed off some rather underwhelming demos (compared to what we actually got from some games) and off he went. As opposed to Sony’s older attitudes, which need no further mention.

I’d be very surprised if Wired explicitly asked him whether PS5 supports RT, and at the same time I don’t think Cerny would have mentioned the feature - and with this much effort trying to explain it - if he thinks he can just get away with, ultimately, it not being used in reality.

It follows that he would expect RT being accelerated somehow in the platform and that devs will be using it in some shape or form.

Probably going to get enough resources so developers can push FPS for VR or some sort of RT with checkerboard on standard TV. Dedicated RT isn't likely IMO, nor is it even necessary.

Having sufficient resources so developers can target their specific vision is probably the best outcome one could hope for. And for Sony it's the least risky.

 

[PSman1700]

8k and raytracing you say, sounds like expensive hardware . As others have mentioned, will there be enough room left for a big Tflops increase if you're dedicating silicons for RT, I really do hope it gets above 12 TF. Also with SSD and a possible HBM config this is easily $499 territory which I do adore.

I'm sure it will support RT at least the same way it supports 8k.

I think the notion of 8k is because it will support HDMI2.1, it is not very realistic to expect 8k gaming or anything like that on any platform, even in some years.
The notion of Ray-Tracing could and is most likely in the same way it supports 8k, as anything mid-end could do Ray-Tracing at acceptable speeds, atleast GTX1080 or higher or AMD Vega etc. I assume Cerny wanted to hype things up abit, which is a good thing imo, after all the silence.

That there will be a 8 core Zen2 CPU in there was a given, nothing new, Navi GPU, nothing new either. PS4 BC wasn't a given but expected as they are on the same architecture, a very nice feature, means i don't have to keep my PS4 and perhaps play PS4 games with enhanced performance.

SSD faster then anything out there, sounds promising, doesn't sound cheap. Maybe he means right now? Zen 2 could boost this performance.
Expected release late 2020?
Soon the pc market will get Zen2 and Navi, more then a year before the PS5 arrives one could build a 'PS5' with those components, presumably faster but with downclocks match the PS5's specs. Almost sure Digital Foundry will do something like this and benchmark it, how useful that is is another question, but intresting no doubt.

All in all, nothing really new about the PS5 hardware specs, most predictions here and on other forums where spot on.

Also, on a slide, AMD showed NAVI, and a successor called 'Next-Gen', wouldn't that be for the next generation consoles?

EDIT:

https://pastebin.com/PY9vaTsR

That pastebin leak was spot-on? 8k, RT, ZEN, Navi, BC.

 

[Jay]

People need to be careful about parsing what is said.
RT support may not be a lot better than what Vega can currently do.
It's not about downplaying or thinking it can't be amazing, but that's not what was said.

And trying to link what ms and AMD said in the past which also didn't really amount to much to equate to meaning its getting something great with RT is too much of a stretch.

What would be interesting to hear is what do people expect from an RT accelerated console? What sort of res, amount of rays, hardware denoising etc?

 

[Jay]

This wasn't a real reveal or even a preview - no talk of flops or GB or GB/s. It was about moderating some of the conversation they're expecting MS's reveals to spark, perhaps at E3. Smart move, I reckon.

Did Sony need to even talk now, absolutely not, did they reveal a lot, not really.
But it has had a big impact so yea, smart.

I think the notion of 8k is because it will support HDMI2.1, it is not very realistic to expect 8k gaming or anything like that on any platform, even in some years.

My 8k comment was taking the mick.
Sure it can officially support it, so it's not a lie or misleading, but we all know games aren't going to be supporting it apart from just upscaling on the console.
But just looking at YouTube 8k beast, had expected reaction.

 

[anexanhume]

Naughty Dog lightning artist

https://twitter.com/x/status/1118285369865162752

 

[Shortbread]

It was about moderating some of the conversation they're expecting MS's reveals to spark, perhaps at E3. Smart move, I reckon.

Maybe. I think this has more to do with certain leaks hitting closer to home. Or simply, Cerny was asked by Wired on doing an interview on clearing up some of the rumors, but was offered slightly more than expected.

 

[Jay]

Maybe. I think this has more to do with certain leaks hitting closer to home. Or simply, Cerny was asked by Wired on doing an interview on clearing up some of the rumors, but was offered slightly more than expected.

Get in front of leaks sure, but apart from ssd, BC, 8 cores not much more information, than what we really already knew. Not much details.

But it was enough to get everyone hyped.
Their doing what they've done all gen, keeping foot on ms chest.
Did they need to do exclusivity stuff on control no, gen is done and dusted. But their not letting up.

If MS gives simular details at e3 now, will anyone think that's enough? Where as before people would've probably thought yes.

 

[OCASM]

Naughty Dog lightning artist

https://twitter.com/x/status/1118285369865162752

Now that developers are designing the games with ray tracing in mind not only will they be able to take advantage of the artistic possibilities that it opens up over rasterization but the implementations will be more efficient than current rtrt showcases since they will use other data structures when possible such as sdfs and voxels.

 

[iroboto]

Naughty Dog lightning artist

https://twitter.com/x/status/1118285369865162752

thank you! @London-boy you win!

 

[Dictator]

Naughty Dog lightning artist

https://twitter.com/x/status/1118285369865162752

I want to believe, emotionally, very badly this means something like RT core in Navi because it means the wide spread proliferation of RT in an amazing way. But I want to see it or heard it being said in regard to what it means on the hardware. I say exercise caution till we are given the specific Information of what is in Navi or the PS5 (which sadly the wired article did not help at all with oddly enough).

 

[Tabris]

Three SSD patents filed by Sony Interactive Entertainment on 20151002 and published in 2017.(Japanese)

One for data storage/sorting method
https://www.j-platpat.inpit.go.jp/web/PU/JPA_H29068804/C034C1D601A046A6B06A1242548518F1

The second one is for compress/decompress method
https://www.j-platpat.inpit.go.jp/web/PU/JPA_H29068805/C034C1D601A046A621C026B0940513F2

The last one is for reducing power consumption
https://www.j-platpat.inpit.go.jp/web/PU/JPA_H29068806/C034C1D601A046A63F6B7EFE1B2E6174

 

[Shortbread]

It's quite interesting that Sony is talking about RT and supersampling now, since Polyphony has demonstrated an enhanced GTS at the prior Siggraph and CES show. Sony even demoed the game behind closed doors to developers.

Don't get me wrong, there is no way in hell PS5 is getting an 8K GTS @60fps, with RT enabled. But the possibilities of a good 4K checkerboard solution with some decent RT could make GTS shine.

Polyphony over-specced Gran Turismo Sport for future 8K consoles

During the studio tour, Kazunori Yamauchi took us from desk to desk, showing his staff beavering away on the game and the insane amount of detail the team goes to make the experience authentic. It’s really quite insane. At one particular desk, he zoomed right in on the wheel of a car to show the small-type – like the PSI – was in place and legible. A ridiculous detail given you’ll never notice at 300km/h flying down from the heights of Mount Panorama. Then he said the following: "It takes six months to create a single car. It’s over-specced for PS4 Pro. So we are building for future versions of the console rather than the one we see today".

Gran Turismo Dev Polyphony Digital Are Working on Their Own Real-Time Ray Tracing Tech

Gran Turismo Sport already uses a simplified version of ray tracing that “pre-bakes” the reflections seen on the cars. In other words, the reflections in GT Sport may look like they’re being rendered in real-time, but they’re actually a bit of a cheat. Polyphony’s new tech would allow for legit real-time ray tracing, allowing for even more convincing lighting and reflections.