Predict: Next gen console tech (9th iteration and 10th iteration edition) [2014 - 2017]

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I get the feeling that mechanical HDD will continue being seen as just about good enough next gen. Fortunately, there's been something of a breakthrough regarding platter density which should translate into higher transfer rates at the same rpm and slightly shorter head seek times for the same dataset.

https://www.anandtech.com/show/1192...ustry-with-mamr-breakthrough-for-nextgen-hdds

If we're going to be stuck without an SSD cache, I'd be happy with a slightly larger case to accommodate a 3.5" 7200 2+TB drive. That would more than double the effective performance of the 1TB 2.5" 5200 drive in Scorpio. Not to mention being far more usable without a tangle of external storage devices.

On PC my games are installed on an ancient 1TB 3.5" drive (OS is on an SSD). Game loading is still very fast and a far cry from the console experience.
 
function said:
That would more than double the effective performance of the 1TB 2.5" 5200 drive in Scorpio. Not to mention being far more usable without a tangle of external storage devices.
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You sure it's 5200 and not a 7200 in the 1x.

One of the reasons that if you want equivalent performance from external drive you need to use a 7200 drive.
 
I'd like to see an upgradeable tiered system to help with load times. So a stock HDD as there is at present, and upgradeable as per the PS3/4. But between that and the system memory, a decently sized M2 SSD, which the user may upgrade in order to leave more games sat in it simultaneously.

There's been lots of talk on here about tiered memory, but I think the above, coupled with 24-48GB of GDDR5x/GDDR6/HBM3/Low Cost HBM may be the most cost effective: all of the game's assets could be stored in the SSD and the likes of background video recording and UI assets could remain bound to the main HDD.

It was reading about AMD's SSG tech that first made me think of this, and considering the difference in the cheapest DDR4 and the cheapest SSDD, I'm really curious if anyone agrees with the above proposition?

Quick prices from ebuyer:

Cheapest, lowest frequency DDR4: Xenta 4GB 2133Mhz.
£26.86/4 = £6.72 per GB

Cheapest M2 SSD with enough capacity to store at least one game: Apacer 120GB AST280.
£50.84/120 = £0.42 per GB.
 
Tkumpathenurpahl said:
It was reading about AMD's SSG tech that first made me think of this, and considering the difference in the cheapest DDR4 and the cheapest SSDD, I'm really curious if anyone agrees with the above proposition?
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Read discussion from here: ;)
https://forum.beyond3d.com/posts/1999321/

Shifty Geezer said:
Just making it bigger because you expect it to get bigger is poor engineering. How much memory will actually be needed, based on time to populate it and how much devs can spend to fill it? That there will give you the RAM requirement. I'd far prefer less RAM and an SSD, and I'm sure devs would too. Far more flexible.
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AlNets said:
There must be some practical limit to what they need for a given scene.

But I mean, when we compare SSD to HDD on current consoles, the data rate doesn't seem to be the issue when compared to the same game on PC, which typically has much more powerful CPUs for decompression in terms of speeding up load times; SSDs help more when random accesses occur with open world titles or potentially loading a saved game.
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I think if we are looking at per scene, I think that any VT system can accommodate infinitely as it's loads and unloads textures based on viewing angle, draw distance, turn speed, run speed, zoom limitations. I think if you're not looking at a VT system, you're bound by bandwidth, and to avoid any sort of HDD access, you basically want to load the whole level into memory; at this point that's sort of where I wonder how much more memory is actually required.

If we use Wolf 2 as example for instance, recommended specs are 16GB system ram, but only 4GB/6GB VRAM required. So it still wants a great deal of textures available for quicker access. But something like titanfall 2 that is super fast paced and filled with all sorts of quick shooting, zooming and vertical movement, I'm unsure if a VT system will be able to supplement the quick pace of a player, so they need the game constantly and fully loaded into memory. I don't know if SSD will solve those issues, and additional RAM seems like a better fit imo, otherwise we're looking at reductions in resolution.
 
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So, considering the need to strike a balance between cost effectiveness and developer ease, would you say a solution consisting of HDD+SSDD+unified memory is the most likely? Or is it still conceivable to end up with HDD+SSDD+small pool of fast memory+large pool of slow memory?
 
I think the SSD would be enough without requiring a large slow-RAM pool, though the second option at more cost would be the faster. That would have been true this and last generation though (stick some RAM between system RAM and HDD) but no-one did it because of the added cost, so seems unlikely next gen.
 
mpg1 said:
Does AMD have anything equivalent to Intel's Optane memory? Reading about it seems like it could the very thing consoles could use where they require ever increasing capacity but need to maintain a certain price point.

https://gizmodo.com/intels-optane-memory-could-make-cheap-computers-fast-ag-1794576969
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Need to wait for Optane to hit the PC market before we can discuss it's feasibility in the console space, at least I think from a price/performance perspective.
 
Isn't that just an add-on that just makes an HDD an SSHD? Probably just simpler to acquire SSHD drives then.

Edit: Ok, it just seems like another form of hybrid, but just faster because intel. And... probably too pricey anyway for the storage amounts.
 
I was thinking, maybe an SSD could be feasible if every game didn't need to be installed anymore, and a smaller HDD was included just for saves and patches. So just a 500gb hdd, and a 128gb SSD that discs would cache to like the og Xbox. And if you prefer digital download downloads you would just buy a bigger hdd yourself.
 
iroboto said:
Need to wait for Optane to hit the PC market before we can discuss it's feasibility in the console space, at least I think from a price/performance perspective.
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It's not a 1-to-1 comparison though. Next gen consoles will probably need 2TB of storage while maintain sub $500 price point. PC makers and PC's users don't have these rigid requirements. For the average PC user they probably only use 100-200GB of space and for gamers/enthusiasts they can spend thousands.
 
DSoup said:
I can't fathom where the bottleneck is in PS4/Pro. GTA V on Pro from a SSD loads slower GTA V running on my PC off a HDD - equivalent textures.

I'm assuming it's CPU and the the way the world is generated. It doesn't appear to be I/O. :???:
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Don't forget that on PS4 the SATA drive is going through a USB interface. That limits the transfer speed compared to full SATA and introduces a bit of overhead. Especially as I think they went that direction as part of the DRM scheme for the PS4.

Regards,
SB
 
AlNets said:
Isn't that just an add-on that just makes an HDD an SSHD? Probably just simpler to acquire SSHD drives then.

Edit: Ok, it just seems like another form of hybrid, but just faster because intel. And... probably too pricey anyway for the storage amounts.
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Actually from what I'm reading it turns a HDD into an SSD essentially.
 
It's a new memory type. Xpoint is phase change ram, or resistive ram. The price is 1/2 the cost of ddr3, 3 times faster than nand, and the advantage is being non-volatile without needing large block write and wear leveling. I see no application in a console, it's literally 10 times too expensive. For games caching, why not simply use more smaller nand in parallel?

Unless optane is currently expoiting their unique novelty for database applications and will drop a lot in price later...
 
mpg1 said:
Actually from what I'm reading it turns a HDD into an SSD essentially.
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It's basically a form of HDD caching similar to an SSHD (albeit with much larger cache) and what Apple has been doing on their Mac hybrid SSD/HDD (albeit much smaller size) storage systems (1 SSD paired with 1 HDD).

You'll get some of the benefits of an SSD and some of the drawbacks of a HDD.

Regards,
SB
 
Silent_Buddha said:
It's basically a form of HDD caching similar to an SSHD (albeit with much larger cache) and what Apple has been doing on their Mac hybrid SSD/HDD (albeit much smaller size) storage systems (1 SSD paired with 1 HDD).

You'll get some of the benefits of an SSD and some of the drawbacks of a HDD.

Regards,
SB
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Yeah I know, but it is superior to nand for caching. This could be useless for PC market but if done right could be beneficial for consoles imo.
 
mpg1 said:
Yeah I know, but it is superior to nand for caching. This could be useless for PC market but if done right could be beneficial for consoles imo.
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The problem WRT consoles is that it's still quite expensive.

The major benefit that it has over NAND is that speed isn't reliant on number of channels, hence a 32 GB caching drive (like the retail Optane unit) doesn't suffer drastically reduced speed as NAND based drives do when compared to much larger capacity drives.

There are certainly benefits for console use, but until the price comes down significantly, it's not really an option.

Regards,
SB
 
Hm....
so here's Raven Ridge @ 210mm^2

40x4iIi.jpg


0SeS0uB.jpg
 
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