Next-Generation NVMe SSD and I/O Technology [PC, PS5, XBSX|S]

[Remij]

I think most AAA developers don’t care much about PC TBH judging by the quality of ports we usually get.

Capcom just recently stated in a media interview that they expect PC to become their main platform going forward.

“PC is driving global sales,” Tsujimoto said. “We have recently stated that we will make the PC our main platform. At this year’s Tokyo Game Show, we focused on exhibiting the PC version of Monster Hunter Rise, and I think people will be able to experience the change in our approach.”

Tsujimoto went on to say that while mobile is also a trending platform, he doesn’t feel it has the strength and practicality to overcome the continually growing PC market.

“Smartphones are convenient, but their screens are small, and their touch panels are difficult to operate, so they are not suitable for home working or school classes,” he continued. “I think PCs will be the next big thing after smartphones. The PC can also play high-quality games, so the number of PC users should increase as understanding of the PC increases.”

https://www.shacknews.com/article/126964/capcom-will-mainly-focus-on-pc-software-going-forward

I think the sentiment about PC has changed a lot over the past generation and a half.

Yes, I admit that some ports leave a lot to be desired, and RE8 definitely had some terrible issues that Capcom dropped the ball on and ignored for a couple of months until they finally fixed them (I believe they ignored it because they knew the DRM was the issue and didn't want to have to remove it so soon after launch) but I think developers care about PC overall. It's just that compared to console which are very streamlined and have really high quality dev tools, developing on PC has a lot of issues and caveats that developers don't have to deal with.. so they vent about them on social channels.

PC as a platform though definitely gets the most games, and the higher quality games (IMO) especially these days. If you look at Metacritic for the year:

PS5 = 65 games rated 75 or higher
XSX = 39 games rated 75 or higher
PC = 157 games rated 75 or higher

I know you're talking about AAA specifically.. but nowadays we have both Sony and MS putting their AAA games on PC.. and IMO, both Sony and MS do a good job of putting in features which appeal to PC gamers, like ultrawide support and stuff like that. MS specifically is finding huge success on PC. Their games are consistently in the top 10 best sellers on Steam... and you better believe with games like Starfield and Avowed and plenty of others they are going to be MASSIVE on PC.

I just hope with MS' renewed focus on PC with tech like DirectStorage, improving their app, potential OS level improvements, as well as better tools, they can make the situation better.

 

[techuse]

Capcom just recently stated in a media interview that they expect PC to become their main platform going forward.



I think the sentiment about PC has changed a lot over the past generation and a half.

Yes, I admit that some ports leave a lot to be desired, and RE8 definitely had some terrible issues that Capcom dropped the ball on and ignored for a couple of months until they finally fixed them (I believe they ignored it because they knew the DRM was the issue and didn't want to have to remove it so soon after launch) but I think developers care about PC overall. It's just that compared to console which are very streamlined and have really high quality dev tools, developing on PC has a lot of issues and caveats that developers don't have to deal with.. so they vent about them on social channels.

PC as a platform though definitely gets the most games, and the higher quality games (IMO) especially these days. If you look at Metacritic for the year:

PS5 = 65 games rated 75 or higher
XSX = 39 games rated 75 or higher
PC = 157 games rated 75 or higher

I know you're talking about AAA specifically.. but nowadays we have both Sony and MS putting their AAA games on PC.. and IMO, both Sony and MS do a good job of putting in features which appeal to PC gamers, like ultrawide support and stuff like that. MS specifically is finding huge success on PC. Their games are consistently in the top 10 best sellers on Steam... and you better believe with games like Starfield and Avowed and plenty of others they are going to be MASSIVE on PC.

I just hope with MS' renewed focus on PC with tech like DirectStorage, improving their app, potential OS level improvements, as well as better tools, they can make the situation better.

We have heard that song and dance about PC being important by various companies for over a decade now. If it happens great, but I’ll believe it when I see it. The 2 Sony exclusives both launched in rough states. Microsoft titles fare better these days but their API/OS development is anything but good for gaming. DX12 has been nothing but a disaster, particularly for us Nvidia owners. Windows gets slower and more bloated with every release and I find it very unlikely direct storage delivers what people are hoping for.

IMO the lower standards of quality required by PC gamers is a lot of the reason behind so many higher metacritic scores.

 

[Remij]

We have heard that song and dance about PC being important by various companies for over a decade now. If it happens great, but I’ll believe it when I see it. The 2 Sony exclusives both launched in rough states. Microsoft titles fare better these days but their API/OS development is anything but good for gaming. DX12 has been nothing but a disaster, particularly for us Nvidia owners. Windows gets slower and more bloated with every release and I find it very unlikely direct storage delivers what people are hoping for.

IMO the lower standards of quality required by PC gamers is a lot of the reason behind so many higher metacritic scores.

That's fair, with regards to the song and dance.. However both Sony exclusives have been greatly improved since then, and at least to me that shows a healthy commitment.

And I really have to disagree about lower standards from PC gamers... most of these outlets that review these games are the same ones that review console games / versions of those games. In fact, I find the PC sites to score the games more harshly than the more console oriented sites.

 

[davis.anthony]

What's stopping them using Kraken and/or Ooodle texture (or Kraken + BCPack), and then using SFS? I mean, besides licensing fees. Also, if you were making a game like Rift Apart and your design goals require a 3 second portal transition, wouldn't you just alter those sections so that they load in 3 seconds?

Nothing is stopping them doing that but the absolute hard limit for the Phison E19T SSD controller XSX uses (Which is 3.75Gb/s raw)

We know the compression rates for what XSX has in place (Like BCPack) and it doesn't matter what you go with XSX will always be (on paper at least) substantially slower then PS5 when it comes to transfer rates.

Both of these were consoles were designed around streaming assets, to which can simply stream in more.

It could very well bet the case where PS5 version of mutliplats has the higher quality meshes and textures (Due to the faster streaming) and XSX has the slightly higher resolution and effects due to more compute.

 

[Seanspeed]

We have heard that song and dance about PC being important by various companies for over a decade now. If it happens great, but I’ll believe it when I see it. The 2 Sony exclusives both launched in rough states. Microsoft titles fare better these days but their API/OS development is anything but good for gaming. DX12 has been nothing but a disaster, particularly for us Nvidia owners. Windows gets slower and more bloated with every release and I find it very unlikely direct storage delivers what people are hoping for.

IMO the lower standards of quality required by PC gamers is a lot of the reason behind so many higher metacritic scores.

For one, Days Gone was actually a fantastic port. No idea where you got the idea that it launched in a rough state.

DX12 is not a 'disaster' in any sense of the term. Nvidia having poor async compute support in the early days and whatnot is not the API's fault. And lower level API's are just inherently more difficult to take advantage of when you dont have fixed specs to target.

Windows does not get slower with every release. This is just cynical nonsense.

There is no reason DirectStorage wouldn't be a significant thing. The alternative is for PC games to start being left out with only consoles getting certain AAA games or PC getting far inferior versions of them.

And the idea that PC gamers have lower standards of quality nowadays is nuts. It's very much quite the opposite. PC gamers have never been more spoiled and demanding.

 

[function]

We don't even know how SFS compares to PRT and PRT+ (Things PS5 can do and PS5 should have SF just not SFS as it's RDNA2) in regard to memory efficiency as even Microsoft have flat out avoided making such comparisons.

I'm not sure whether the PS5 has Sampler Feedback, which could make SFS (or PRT+ as it's also called) a no go. PS5 isn't straight RDNA2 - it's a mix of 1 and 2 and a bit of custom stuff.

And even so Kraken+Ooodle texture is 3.16:1 compression ratio, so PS5's raw speed of 5.5Gb/s is 17.3Gb/s with the new compression. Sony's original compressed figure did not use Oodle Texture.

That's 3.6x faster then XSX at peak, there's no way SFS is 3.6x faster and more efficient then the other methods like PRT/PRT+, that again PS5 will have access too.

I'd be a bit cautious with that 3.6x figure - you have to know what you're comparing (e.g. is this comparing RDO vs lossless?). Also, it's worth pointing out that you can use Kraken on Xbox too. Or you could use Oodle + zip (and so presumably zlib hardware).

We've also yet to find out what BCPack really brings to the table. Even the Xbox Texture Compressor (XBTC) is NDA'd.

Hopefully both the PS5 and Series decompression blocks work with texture tiles too, so you can use them for PRTs without needing to load an entire mip level first. Good texture compression combined with optimal loading of texture tiles would probably be the best combination.

Just rumors though, they don't factor in XSX's need to use some of the system RAM as a DRAM cache for the SSD.

I think it's unlikely that the flash translation layer would be stored in the game's 13.5 GB of ram. I think you'd want that in the protected OS reserve to avoid applications being able to mess with things they shouldn't.

 

[davis.anthony]

I'm not sure whether the PS5 has Sampler Feedback, which could make SFS (or PRT+ as it's also called) a no go. PS5 isn't straight RDNA2 - it's a mix of 1 and 2 and a bit of custom stuff.

Do we know what part of the GPU logic in RDNA2 would be responsible? We could take a guess then as to if PS5 supports it or not.

I'd be a bit cautious with that 3.6x figure - you have to know what you're comparing (e.g. is this comparing RDO vs lossless?). Also, it's worth pointing out that you can use Kraken on Xbox too. Or you could use Oodle + zip (and so presumably zlib hardware).

It was in the RADGame Tools blog about Oodle Texture

We've also yet to find out what BCPack really brings to the table. Even the Xbox Texture Compressor (XBTC) is NDA'd.

Haven't they spoken about BCPack being 2:1 ratio?

Hopefully both the PS5 and Series decompression blocks work with texture tiles too, so you can use them for PRTs without needing to load an entire mip level first. Good texture compression combined with optimal loading of texture tiles would probably be the best combination.

Agreed

I think it's unlikely that the flash translation layer would be stored in the game's 13.5 GB of ram. I think you'd want that in the protected OS reserve to avoid applications being able to mess with things they shouldn't.

I didn't say it would be kept separate from the OS reserve, I know it wouldn't be. Maybe my wording wasn't great?

 

[PSman1700]

I think most AAA developers don’t care much about PC TBH judging by the quality of ports we usually get.

Seems to me the AAA developers care more for the PC then the last two generations of consoles. And for good reason.

 

[davis.anthony]

Seems to me the AAA developers care more for the PC then the last two generations of consoles. And for good reason.

How so? The average game doesn't add anything to the PC version to make real use of the extra power.

Seems to be higher resolution alpha effects with the odd bolt on feature, heck a game gets praised now if it has a decent settings menu

Hardly showing love to PC.

 

[function]

Do we know what part of the GPU logic in RDNA2 would be responsible? We could take a guess then as to if PS5 supports it or not.

This is why I'm quite cautious. I don't know, and white papers and press releases only tell you so much. Texture samplers seem to have been modified for RDNA 2 ray tracing (afaik) but there's a huge difference between that and having sampler feedback.

Sampler feedback is also really great for VR, where it's possibly a bigger win than for texture residency (ram vs re-doing work). I think Sony would have been pretty chuffed about SF if they had it.

Though that is by no means conclusive.

It was in the RADGame Tools blog about Oodle Texture

True, and that's where I saw the Oodle+zip number that looked pretty cool. And they were clear that there was no single headline figure, only examples vs other conditions.

When you look into a number for real it normally becomes harder to honestly take it as an absolute. Compression has certainly proved to be such a case.

Haven't they spoken about BCPack being 2:1 ratio?

They've indicated that yes, but .... strict 2:1 indicates something a bit strange IMO, or a suggestion that's still NDA.

Agreed

Absolutely!

I didn't say it would be kept separate from the OS reserve, I know it wouldn't be. Maybe my wording wasn't great?

Words are ten a penny, clarrifactions are priceless! [edit: meaning, it's not always easy to properly get your point across at first when you're both just feeling around this stuff as non-experts, so it's always good to go back and make sure. I see now that you weren't necessarily saying it would be part of the game allocation.]

I just happen to think that from my limited perspective, that access is a sin, and that even the most friendly of OS's have a deeply held fetish to restrict your access.

 

[pjbliverpool]

It was in the RADGame Tools blog about Oodle Texture

No, they say the average compression ratio achieved in games using both Kraken and Oodle texture is 2:1. The 3.x figure you quote was a single texture set example. The blog is very clear what the average ratio is and that it results in an 11GB/s average throughput.

 

[davis.anthony]

No, they say the average compression ratio achieved in games using both Kraken and Oodle texture is 2:1. The 3.x figure you quote was a single texture set example. The blog is very clear what the average ratio is and that it results in an 11GB/s average throughput.

No, they state:

The combination of Oodle Texture and Kraken can give very large gains in compression ratio. For example on a texture set from a recent game :

Kraken + Oodle Texture 3.16 to 1

The blog is very clear, in an actual real life game (Not some demo made to bring the best results possible) they achieved a 3.16:1 compression ratio using Kraken+Oodle texture

 

[function]

No, they say the average compression ratio achieved in games using both Kraken and Oodle texture is 2:1. The 3.x figure you quote was a single texture set example. The blog is very clear what the average ratio is and that it results in an 11GB/s average throughput.

I'm not sure whether the 3.x figure involved Oodle preparing textures for Kraken in a lossy way. I think it might have....?

It might have been largely or totally un-noticeable, but I still don't know how to compare that to the untested BCPack figures that have been talked about.

Relative compression figures vs perceptual impact are not universal, absolute, physical truths for our universe. Lets try not to treat them as such, egos allowing.

 

[function]

No, they state:



The blog is very clear, in an actual real life game they achieved a 3.16:1 compression ratio using Kraken+Oodle texture

But what is the context? Was RDO used? What was its effect?

How does that compare to other solutions?

 

[davis.anthony]

But what is the context? Was RDO used? What was its effect?

How does that compare to other solutions?

Go and ask them, they're very open on the blog about answering questions.

http://cbloomrants.blogspot.com/2020/09/how-oodle-kraken-and-oodle-texture.html

 

[function]

Go and ask them, they're very open on the blog about answering questions.

http://cbloomrants.blogspot.com/2020/09/how-oodle-kraken-and-oodle-texture.html

No, what is the context of your comparison.

I understand what they're saying (ambiguous WRT RDO AFAIKS), but your "3.6x" vs anything Xbox could do is coming from you, and not them.

What is the context of your comparison?

 

[davis.anthony]

No, what is the context of your comparison.

Your "3.6x" vs anything Xbox could do is coming from you, and not them.

What is the context of your comparison?

Have Microsoft reported any compression figures above 4.8Gb/s?

 

[function]

Have Microsoft reported any compression figures above 4.8Gb/s?

They have stated that the decompression block can output more than 6 GB/s. Like you, they are cautious about context.

But Oodle combined with Zip is capable of ~ 2.7 compression. You'd know that if you'd read your own links.

Dude, stop with whatever agenda you have. Just pack it in. You're a smart chap, but you're wasting your intellect on a war that has no winners.

Take a step back and enjoy the fact that this is an awesome time to be a gamer or a developer (no matter how lowly).

 

[davis.anthony]

They have stated that the decompression block can output more than 6 GB/s. Like you, they are cautious about context.

But Oodle combined with Zip is capable of ~ 2.7 compression. You'd know that if you'd read your own links.

Dude, stop with whatever agenda you have. Just pack it in. You're a smart chap, but you're wasting your intellect on a war that has no winners.

Take a step back and enjoy the fact that this is an awesome time to be a gamer or a developer (no matter how lowly).

XSX's hardware decompressor doesn't have support for Kraken, so Oodle+Zip would need to be done on the CPU (or GPU) taking away resources, so will it ever be used? Where as on PS5 it is supported by it's decompression hardware.

There's no agenda at all, just people looking for anything to pick fault with.

 

[BRiT]

so Oodle+Zip would need to be done on the CPU

Oodle plus LZ can be done in hardware. Most folks consider Zip to be LZ. LZ can be done in hardware.

I hope you won't go off into another in the weeds discussion because you're looking to pick fault with common vernacular.