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

[Karamazov]

to be honest for now nothing change in this department, still gameplay graphics are worse than during cutscenes

Not in R&C

 

[Rodéric]

Doesn't everyone agree than less time spent on loading screens is a good thing ? (I want to play games, not watch loading screens...)
With current PCIe NVMe you can load 50Mio/frame @ 60Hz, that's not negligible, and you couldn't do it with previous hardware... (Seek time were bad on HDD, and awful on optical !)

 

[snc]

Not in R&C

tough its one of best if not the best looking game now I clearly see difference between cutscenes and gameplay

 

[Karamazov]

https://www.axios.com/sony-ps5-insomniac-ratchet-clank-1ad70cf8-398f-4adb-aea2-716b03860ad9.html

but they are just the game devs, how would they know what there are doing ?

oh and at no point they are pretending this is something exclusive and that PS5 SSD in the only way, internet forums did that, just that it was impossible on last gen, and that's true.

 

[zed]

I am not sure, although it is slightly out of the ordinary in that it's not about his own development tricks and experience.

For reference Jon is the founder of Travellers Tales and is a battle hardened 16bit Dev who mastered the Saturn and at least worked commercially into the PS3 era.

He knows a huge amount on tricks and exploting known patterns or situation to get more out of a system.

The point being you could make the gameplay with less, the way the Devs do it or claim to do it (PR?) is unlikely to be the only way to achieve it.

I thought it interesting as it's a somewhat counter narrative although on the PR speak not their implementation, by an actual developer rather than a journalist or random e.t.c

I know exactly what he was trying to say but it was just BS, you cant pull that amount of data from a HDD that quickly in past generations (even being on the rails, though you see in his own video, evidence that contradicts the need for being on rails)

why in previous generations were the levels between games not loading in a second, they could of just done a similar trick to what he was suggesting and then players only have to wait a second between level loads.
Is he suggesting all previous developers were lazy developers in past generations

digital foundry done a review of a game I personally think is one of the best of the year, though they said level times esp last gen were horrendous, just to take the piss they are playing a game whilst it loads

(between levels loading is shown later)
these lazy lazy dev's could of just loaded it all in a second if they listened to the Travellers Tales guy (TBH they could prolly improve loading times quite a bit, but no they cant improve it more than what the drive is capable of)

Edit: A bit of speculation, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traveller's_Tales They seem to do mainly lego games which have a cartoonish style like R&C. Perhaps he was pissed off with ppl saying why can't you make your games look as good as R&C
Mate if its so easy then do it, simple (of course nowadays with a SSD it is a lot easier)

 

[JPT]

But was it necessary?

Probably not, not like the world needed another R&C game, nor that the world needed any video games.

 

[goonergaz]

I am not sure, although it is slightly out of the ordinary in that it's not about his own development tricks and experience.

For reference Jon is the founder of Travellers Tales and is a battle hardened 16bit Dev who mastered the Saturn and at least worked commercially into the PS3 era.

He knows a huge amount on tricks and exploting known patterns or situation to get more out of a system.

The point being you could make the gameplay with less, the way the Devs do it or claim to do it (PR?) is unlikely to be the only way to achieve it.

I thought it interesting as it's a somewhat counter narrative although on the PR speak not their implementation, by an actual developer rather than a journalist or random e.t.c

Of course, we have discussed...you have several options;

1) Lower quality of assets so you can fit everything into your game
2) Have a shed-tonne of RAM which the whole game can fit into
3) Have loading screens or cut scenes to hide loading
4) Have ultra fast loading of assets on the fly

Clearly PS5 is option 4 as we have one of the best looking games with no loading and a (relatively) small amount of RAM (certainly not enough to fit the whole game in).

I did missed option 5, which is magic...silly me.

 

[Karamazov]

uncharted 4 resorted to having small FMV sequences between two cutscenes when story was shifting from one place to another, was flagrant when you played the game with a custom outfit, in those small FMVs Nate would wear his default outfit.

 

[trinibwoy]

Probably not, not like the world needed another R&C game, nor that the world needed any video games.

Just finished the PS4 remake. It seemed more geared towards kids. I wouldn’t have really missed out on anything by not playing it. Gameplay was standard 3rd person action adventure with some platforming elements.

Rift Apart presumably is a bit more interesting.

 

[see colon]

some just need to downplay because reasons even if it's in contradiction with what the R&C devs themselves explained and how it would have not been possible on last gen.
hell some would tell you that warping two levels was possible on super nintendo so nothing new ! ignoring how much data is really moving in those warps.

SNES had solid state storage. #NothingNew

too much dismissal without enough evidence. The technology is there for streaming loading etc, sure. But to maintain the fidelity that R&C has is what requires a faster hard drive. If one wants to debate that the 9GB/s after decompression is required, then that shouljd be tested by finding the absolutely slowest NVME gen 4 drive there is and seeing how it performs (and ideally some drives in-between). It's worth while determining when the game drops off a cliff with respect to performance; but just saying is not needed isn't enough for me. I have serious doubts here that a 50MB/s drive is sufficient from all the past titles that we know, but I also doubt a developer would push a game to the maximum throughput of the drive.

I think the point is that if you stay within your IO budget, you could could make any game without loading.

uncharted 4 resorted to having small FMV sequences between two cutscenes when story was shifting from one place to another, was flagrant when you played the game with a custom outfit, in those small FMVs Nate would wear his default outfit.

I can't remember what game it was, but there was a title in the past that used FMV backgrounds and realtime characters to keep the costumes in line with what you were using in game during similar loading screens. It worked pretty well but IIRC if started to show at higher resolutions because the realtime elements were sharper than the prerendered stuff.

 

[SmooTh]

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1434886101890584585

 

[Davros]

"The Sony PS5 SSD controller, which is doing some magic to outperform other storage solutions,"
SSD controllers are on the SSD, so what happens when you put the ssd in something else ?

 

[function]

They're going to be gutted when they find out PS5 can also use PC NVMe drives...

 

[Malo]

"The Sony PS5 SSD controller, which is doing some magic to outperform other storage solutions,"
SSD controllers are on the SSD, so what happens when you put the ssd in something else ?

The PS5 drive isn't a slot-in solution, it's soldered onto the motherboard. You can't exactly throw it in a PC.

 

[Kugai Calo]

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1434886101890584585

Marvell Titania 2. No official document on this one. It appears to have 5 CPU cores? Not sure why one looks different than the rest (if those are indeed CPU cores, that is).

One thing to note is that Marvell does provide custom solution per their website:

Marvell has an established history of delivering customized storage solutions based on differentiating IP integrated with customer and third party IPs, helping our customers create high value products that are first to market. In addition, Marvell offers unique firmware customization options for our customers for enhancing time-to-market and reducing development cost.

Now it all makes sense, Sony couldn't have possibly designed the whole flash controller by themselves.

 

[Rikimaru]

PS4 "chipset" was also made by Marvell.

 

[Deleted member 11852]

SSD controllers are on the SSD, so what happens when you put the ssd in something else ?

I think they mean the I/O block, what would traditionally be referred to us the southbridge. This is on the main PS5 motherboard and needs separate from the on-drive controllers as any NVMe drive has to route I/O through it so that data can be decompressed in realtime just like the internal solid state array.

I have a 2Tb WD SN850 in my PS5.

 

[tuna]

Edit: A bit of speculation, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Traveller's_Tales They seem to do mainly lego games which have a cartoonish style like R&C. Perhaps he was pissed off with ppl saying why can't you make your games look as good as R&C
Mate if its so easy then do it, simple (of course nowadays with a SSD it is a lot easier)

Jon Burton was the lead programmer on games like Sonic R. He has cred.

 

[function]

Jon Burton was the lead programmer on games like Sonic R. He has cred.

Also, he was specifically talking about gameplay. And he's actually quite correct in what he's saying.

 

[see colon]

Jon Burton was the lead programmer on games like Sonic R. He has cred.

Bionicle Heroes also. That's one of the better looking PS2 games and has a gameplay and graphical style that isn't totally unlike a Ratchet game. I remember the wavy water in that game looking great at the time.