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[JareBear: Remastered]

PS5's SSD Has Developer Dreaming Big and Thinking of New Frontiers

"My mind was racing"

www.pushsquare.com

The quote in the article sounds great

The PS5 drive and framework/infrastructure around it sound so fast that I just start dreaming of design with zero drive bottlenecks,” he wrote. “Personally, I love it when new hardware can make me dream big and think of new frontiers. I'm personally not as enthused by crazy high resolutions and 15 per cent more powerful GPUs at the moment. I like when hardware and software allows new ways of thinking.

but it’s still something I need to have visually demonstrated

Also, I have to be honest, it honestly kinda reads as-if someone from Sony had a gun to his head

 

[IntentionalPun]

prepare for thunder messager
because the honest reponse to your question cannot be pleaseant for a lot of people.

I mean I’d gladly be wrong; getting PS5.

But just feel like at some point your bottle neck becomes the feasibility of designing around the amount of detail these speeds can swap in and out.

If every time you turn your head in a game hundreds of megabytes of textures are swapped out... how big is that game before it hits hundreds of gigabytes of HD space? (and that’s an actual example I’ve seen a dev claim on Twitter)

Could see maybe some crazy boss battles or something where the rest of a game is more reasonable detail wise but that might feel kinda jarring.

 

[fersnake]

sorry but im not gonna believe it until Horizon 2 comes out.

 

[martino]

I mean I’d gladly be wrong; getting PS5.

But just feel like at some point your bottle neck becomes the feasibility of designing around the amount of detail these speeds can swap in and out.

If every time you turn your head in a game hundreds of megabytes of textures are swapped out... how big is that game before it hits hundreds of gigabytes of HD space? (and that’s an actual example I’ve seen a dev claim on Twitter)

Could see maybe some crazy boss battles or something where the rest of a game is more reasonable detail wise but that might feel kinda jarring.

Ask the apostles here , there are lot of them.
I need receipts...
And if developper are to the point where they are happy they can think in new ways....they won't come before 2-3 years

 

[KlickKlack]

It's especially funny how guys at DF contradicts themselves.

Dictator - the PS5 SSD will not change open worlds games dramatically

Dark1x

oh boy... look at your stupidity

the first one is telling about the graphics = end product= how games looks.
And he is right, you will see little better textures/lod/AI.... normal for new generation

the other one is speaking about "the way" how games are made"



you think that a contradiction?

IQ<50
Stop posting... go sleep the next week's

 

[it_wasn't_me]

oh boy... look at you stupidityb

the first one is telling about the graphics = end product

the other one is speaking about "the way" how games are made

you think that a contradiction?

IQ<50
Stop posting... go sleep the next week's

Accessing data on the fly = textures, lightning, less pop-in etc. In the end different design of these elements and how world will look like. But thanks anyway.

 

[lynux3]

The quote in the article sounds great



but it’s still something I need to have visually demonstrated

Also, I have to be honest, it honestly kinda reads as-if someone from Sony had a gun to his head

Or they're genuinely excited? Everything needs a visual representation because most of us have no clue how these numbers translate into games based on current design or future designs.

 

[martino]

Or they're genuinely excited? Everything needs a visual representation because most of us have no clue how these numbers translate into games based on current design or future designs.

that doesn't mean that after R&D they will change how they do things for multiple reasons we are overlooking or have no clue of.
And R&D is always exciting.

 

[A.Romero]

Thanks for the video.

That looks interesting, thanks.

I went further ahead and searched for this: https://www.guerrilla-games.com/read/gpu-based-procedural-placement-in-horizon-zero-dawn

If I understand correctly a lot of stuff is generated on the fly so if say two players were looking exactly on the same direction at any given point, there would be some differences. The more difference, the more succesful is this tech to avoid loading a big object data base.

I looked for a video that showed two different instances of the game side by side and found this:

Doesn't look that different to me. What do you think?

 

[hyperbertha]

The quote in the article sounds great



but it’s still something I need to have visually demonstrated

Also, I have to be honest, it honestly kinda reads as-if someone from Sony had a gun to his head

he's not from sony.

 

[psorcerer]

Doesn't look that different to me. What do you think?

I think the placement is pre-baked anyway.
Essentially at the design time the props are encoded onto the landscape.
But not fully, only the absolutely needed information for a specific prop.
It's kind of like a compression.
In the end obviously procedural props and static data are both needed.
You cannot use only procedural, as this guy is claiming.

 

[A.Romero]

I think the placement is pre-baked anyway.
Essentially at the design time the props are encoded onto the landscape.
But not fully, only the absolutely needed information for a specific prop.
It's kind of like a compression.
In the end obviously procedural props and static data are both needed.
You cannot use only procedural, as this guy is claiming.

That's what I thought too. It seems similar enough between the two instances as if they were the same so at least for this example and games that we have enjoyed this gen it would seem that faster data streaming could make a difference... Is it worth it? We will see, I guess.

 

[mckmas8808]

He never said he knew their budgets. Just that procedural was the trend already this gen. and that’s driven by costs. It’s the reason why Ninja Theory can develop 3 games at the same time. An SSD doesn’t help with that.

But an SSD will also help with procedurally generated content games too. Does he believe No Man Sky too wouldn't benefit from having an SSD? Plus, why limit all games to just games that are procedurally generated? Seems like a weird thing to limit oneself to you know?

 

[Omega Supreme Holopsicon]

Are you absolutely sure the assets pointed to in the precedural algorithm needs to load to ram? Like absolutely sure? Because if it is the guys post is BS.

Well I can't confirm. But as far as I can see unless it's something like fractal algorithmically generated geometry or textures generated with some mathematical procedure, the base models and base textures used need to be in memory. Also there's a limit to what procedurally can be done, you want something like a particular scar or tattoo or decal, that needs to go in memory, if I'm not mistaken.

 

[dano1]

Well I’ll put my trust in Mark Cerny before anyone that hasn’t even worked with the system yet.

 

[Shmunter]

Most asinine thing I’ve read all night. Congratulations.

Didn’t that DIcktator guy make the Ssd video for that pc space game praising variety due to assets content streaming?

How quick attitudes change. The guys lack of consistency and lack of vision really undermines DF credibility. To be honest, this is the first time such a thought has struck me. Oh well.

 

[mckmas8808]

Most asinine thing I’ve read all night. Congratulations.

Didn’t that DIcktator guy make the Ssd video for that pc space game praising variety due to assets content streaming?

How quick attitudes change. The guys lack of consistency and lack of vision really undermines DF credibility. To be honest, this is the first time such a thought has struck me. Oh well.

The bolded is so true. D dark10x get your guy man. He's making yall look bad due to lack of vision and understanding of video game creation.

 

[TBiddy]

The bolded is so true. D dark10x get your guy man. He's making yall look bad due to lack of vision and understanding of video game creation.

I might be tired, but surely that is sarcasm, right?

 

[JMarcell]

it will change in the sense that more textures and geometry can be loaded faster and it will avoid texture pop-in. Apart from that and faster (almost instant in some games) loading screens, no other benefits that I can think of.

 

[squarealex]

On a related note, Alexander Battaglia also commented

Aaaaah, Alexander Battaglia....

 

[eastwood333]

I'm shocked! Alex is stating the obvious. Now he's a MS chill despite the fact he's a hardcore PC gamer and has zero ties to either console. He points out the obvious and as usual, the same butthurt sony fanboys can't deal with it. Going to be a amusing gen.

 

[magnumpy]

this terrible I hate life now

 

[DForce]

I'm shocked! Alex is stating the obvious. Now he's a MS chill despite the fact he's a hardcore PC gamer and has zero ties to either console. He points out the obvious and as usual, the same butthurt sony fanboys can't deal with it. Going to be a amusing gen.

It's obvious, but whenever devs say it will change the way games are made, you're always like, "we have to wait and see."


There's a great deal to conformation bias. lol

 

[eastwood333]

The bolded is so true. D dark10x get your guy man. He's making yall look bad due to lack of vision and understanding of video game creation.

In summary, Alex's opinion doesn't favor said fanboy's console of choice, therefore he knows nothing and is an embarrassment of DF. Richard ALSO has to been labeled a MS fanboy. Sony fanboys also ran dark10x away.

Now we got armchair devs trying to attempt to explain why Alex is wrong. And they say graphics don't matter!

 

[mckmas8808]

I might be tired, but surely that is sarcasm, right?

No sarcasm. You actually think Alex has good vision when it comes to how SSDs will change game creation next-gen?

 

[eastwood333]

It's obvious, but whenever devs say it will change the way games are made, you're always like, "we have to wait and see."


There's a great deal to conformation bias. lol

What devs? Change in what way? Audio? Is VFXVetern (certified programmer) a MS chill too since he has literally said the same thing.

 

[DForce]

This is like the 100th SSD thread I've seen people make within the past several days. People are trying SO hard to downplay it.

It's crazy.

Guys, he said drastically change, never said it won't change anything.

Also, all games are not open world.

I point to this video again. He talks about fidelity and scope and how SSDs will change that.

There's already devs comments from years ago how they were limited by slow storage speeds and how faster storage could change the way games are made.


@8:00


Stop downplaying it. It's going to change things a lot next gen.

 

[mckmas8808]

In summary, Alex's opinion doesn't favor said fanboy's console of choice, therefore he knows nothing and is an embarrassment of DF. Richard ALSO has to been labeled a MS fanboy. Sony fanboys also ran dark10x away.

Now we got armchair devs trying to attempt to explain why Alex is wrong. And they say graphics don't matter!

No fanboy. The guy is making a statement that he can't possibly know. It's just a stupid statement to make. He's only one person. Are you willing to bet that he's right or that out of 1000s of devs, some teams will find ways to change the way open-world games are made using the SSD?

Plus (final question), do you WANT him to be right? Or are you rooting for him to be wrong?

This is like the 100th SSD thread I've seen people make within the past several days. People are trying SO hard to downplay it.

It's crazy.

Guys, he said drastically change, never said it won't change anything.

Also, all games are not open world.

I point to this video again. He talks about fidelity and scope and how SSDs will change that.

There's already devs comments from years ago how they were limited by slow storage speeds and how faster storage could change the way games are made.


@8:00


Stop downplaying it. It's going to change things a lot next gen.

So how should we define "drastically"? Some of our definition SURELY will be different than his then. Because when he's proven to be wrong, I'm assuming he'll just say "that's not a drastic change, just a normal change".

 

[JareBear: Remastered]

Stop downplaying it. It's going to change things a lot next gen.

Yes, BOTH consoles WILL offer wonderful advantages of ultra-fast SSD storage

 

[tryDEATH]

But XSXs SSD with Velocity will dramatically change open world design, right, DF?

Neither will, that thats whole point. Yet you have a set of people clamoring on that one hope, in that one specific game genre, their certain a gaming revolution will happen, while the rest of the world just sits idle not trying to innovate.

All this PS5 SSD hype is doing is setting people up for disappointment and ridicule later on when it proves insignificant, especially so in the early part of the generation, due to games having been in developemtn for 3 to 4 years.

 

[DForce]

What devs? Change in what way? Audio? Is VFXVetern (certified programmer) a MS chill too since he has literally said the same thing.

Devs weren't speaking about audio when they said worlds would load in an instant.

If high quality detail assets can drop in front of you an in instant, then yes, that changes things a lot.

There's no debating this. This is one of the main purposes of putting SSDs on to next gen consoles.

 

[DForce]

Yes, BOTH consoles WILL offer wonderful advantages of ultra-fast SSD storage

They will.

Point is, PS5's SSD is much faster. That is the point. They can do more with what they have.

 

[DForce]

So how should we define "drastically"? Some of our definition SURELY will be different than his then. Because when he's proven to be wrong, I'm assuming he'll just say "that's not a drastic change, just a normal change".

That's what I believe is going to happen. I just think people are taking his comment as proof that it won't do much or anything at all other than loading into words faster.

 

[mckmas8808]

Neither will, that thats whole point. Yet you have a set of people clamoring on that one hope, in that one specific game genre, their certain a gaming revolution will happen, while the rest of the world just sits idle not trying to innovate.

All this PS5 SSD hype is doing is setting people up for disappointment and ridicule later on when it proves insignificant, especially so in the early part of the generation, due to games having been in developemtn for 3 to 4 years.

Again you guys are WRONG. It's just stupid that you believe the SSD won't have that much of a change in game design when literally devs are saying the opposite. Wake up man!

 

[Omega Supreme Holopsicon]

I'm shocked! Alex is stating the obvious. Now he's a MS chill despite the fact he's a hardcore PC gamer and has zero ties to either console. He points out the obvious and as usual, the same butthurt sony fanboys can't deal with it. Going to be a amusing gen.

In theory a city could have some procedurally generated building interiors, with all buildings being accessible. Why doesn't that happen?

Could be lack of resources, or could be that streaming so many unique assets would be impractical and require significant loading when entering buildings.

Perhaps you have more varied cars and citizens, but you have to limit and copy paste just a few due to hdd streaming constraints.

 

[DForce]

I don't get people saying, "The XSX has an SSD too!" whenever comparing both SSDs on consoles.

That's like me saying, "PS5 has a GPU, too!" If I do that, people are going to say, "But the PS5 is 10 and the XSX is 12."

If you know the differences in power between both, then you know the differences in power between the SSDs.

 

[Paracelsus]

Any SSD will do, not the PS5 SSD.
The talk here is that PS5 will offset the obvious gap in hardware with their blazing fast transfer speed.
It won't happen, because the XBSX won't be bottlenecked by anything. To be bottlenecked by their own ssd, it would require a much beefier piece of hardware.
This reminds me of the PCI-E talk, people scared their 1060 could saturate pcie 3.0 x8 when not even a 2080ti can do it.

I don't get people saying, "The XSX has an SSD too!" whenever comparing both SSDs on consoles.

That's like me saying, "PS5 has a GPU, too!" If I do that, people are going to say, "But the PS5 is 10 and the XSX is 12."

If you know the differences in power between both, then you know the differences in power between the SSDs.

You can't make up for lousy hardware with a fast drive, no matter how many times you repeat it.
If you stuck this nvme into the PS3, it would still be one giant turd of a console and lose hard to the 360 in terms of framerate and image quality.

 

[tryDEATH]

Again you guys are WRONG. It's just stupid that you believe the SSD won't have that much of a change in game design when literally devs are saying the opposite. Wake up man!

I am saying the specific PS5 SSD isn't going to be revolutionary vs. XSX SSD, which everyone here seems to be ignoring and thinking XSX still has a HDD. The difference between those 2 SSD's are not going to be revolutionary repeatedly telling yourself that isn't going to make it a reality.

 

[VanSiriusGabriel]

Well, to be fair:

"their success is due in large part to Sony's deep pockets funding delays rather than skill alone" - so it looks like those first party games will get tons of money, maybe? Let's see how sony will surprise us, hopefully.

Ex Naughty Dog Dev Says Studio Success Is Mostly Due to Sony-Funded Delays Rather Than Skill

Former Naughty Dog animator Jonathan Cooper said the studio's success is mostly due to Sony's deep pockets funding delays, rather than skill.

wccftech.com

Tell that to Anthem.

 

[Bolivar687]

I have no idea what he's talking about but it is going to allow two important things in open world - 1) everything will be viewable when distant and 2) you'll be able to enter towns and houses without a load screen. These are the two defining limitations of the Elder Scrolls games and which the modding community has broken its back trying to solve. The last solution I saw was setting aside a chunk of memory as RamDisk and putting parts of the game on there. That's what the PS5's SSD is going to allow open world developers to do at the base level, but I'm sure there's going to be a lot more it pulls off.

 

[Omega Supreme Holopsicon]

It seems to me that you are saying that being able to quickly provide a lot of input to an algorithm vastly improves the service time of that algorithm or function. I respectfully disagree. You just have to never leave the processor idle. It then comes down to its speed (for simplification, I’m considering that all developers on all consoles are just as smart and use the best possible procedural algorithm and that the only variables are input delivery and CPU/GPU speed). I’m sure the XSX SSD and RAM are more than fast enough to guarantee that the processors won’t sit idle after may be the first 5 seconds of launching the game. We know what happens after that. All those CUs matter the most when it’s all said and done.

I'm not saying it will affect the algorithms, in a procedurally generated game. What I'm saying is that say you have 10GB of video memory. You can potentially use 10GB of base assets to generate your world with just a few second load time. IF you were using an hdd you'd need nearly 2 minutes to load the base assets your algorithm was going to use. Otherwise if your game was going to load in say 20 seconds, you could only load 1GB of data. Of course depending on level design you could stream, so this is hypothetically speaking

 

[DForce]

You can't make up for lousy hardware with a fast drive, no matter how many times you repeat it.
If you stuck this nvme into the PS3, it would still be one giant turd of a console and lose hard to the 360 in terms of framerate and image quality.

No one is talking about reducing a gap or even trying to make it equal

You guys get so defensive whenever someone talks about specs of a console that you want everything to be perfect.

Xbox One had a better CPU and there were several games that ran better because of it.

The system was weaker overall, but still didn't change the fact that it had advantages.


PS5 has an advtange somewhere and it's more than just faster loading times..

 

[mckmas8808]

I am saying the specific PS5 SSD isn't going to be revolutionary vs. XSX SSD, which everyone here seems to be ignoring and thinking XSX still has a HDD. The difference between those 2 SSD's are not going to be revolutionary repeatedly telling yourself that isn't going to make it a reality.

That I agree. It'll just be a better SSD.

 

[Gamerguy84]

I know its going to be crazy expensive when its time to add another one due to stoeage constraints.

Or if you dont have data caps and have gig internet just delete and reinstall games to this beasty drive.

 

[martino]

It's obvious, but whenever devs say it will change the way games are made, you're always like, "we have to wait and see."


There's a great deal to conformation bias. lol

Are you only guillible when cerny or phill (only cerny for you in this case) say something without asking yourself questions ?
where are cry engine 5 , unreal 5 , new engine ?
How will they change how games are made on minor revision of current gen engine ?
Strangely this the first gen this promise is made without new tools.
where are concrete elements behind what is at least for now a hollow promise and enthousiasm ?

will you ignore normal and healthy scepticism over brand love and fall into ad hominen fallacies on more one person ?
and this not even asking myself question on how viable is asset inflation for aaa game. you can have 50 times more assets ....but is it viable ? can someone pay for that and hope to earn a profit ? (outside rockstar)

 

[JareBear: Remastered]

I don't get people saying, "The XSX has an SSD too!" whenever comparing both SSDs on consoles.

That's like me saying, "PS5 has a GPU, too!" If I do that, people are going to say, "But the PS5 is 10 and the XSX is 12."

If you know the differences in power between both, then you know the differences in power between the SSDs.

because many PS5 zealots are trying to paint the XsX SSD and baked in SSD advantageous features as slow, which is categorically untrue

fair is fair

they are both ultra fast storage solutions

 

[DForce]

Are you only guillible when cerny or phill (only cerny for you in this case) say something without asking yourself questions ?
where are cry engine 5 , unreal 5 , new engine ?
How will they change how games are made on minor revision of current gen engine ?
Strangely this the first gen this promise is made without new tools.
where are concrete elements behind what is at least for now a hollow promise and enthousiasm ?

will you ignore normal and healthy scepticism over brand love and fall into ad hominen fallacies on more one person ?
and this not even asking myself question on how viable is asset inflation for aaa game. you can have 50 times more assets ....but is it viable ? can someone pay for that and hope to earn a profit ? (outside rockstar)

I'm only pointing out what people are saying.

That's it.

There are a lot of people who are just saying it's nothing more than just little bit of faster load times.

I excited to see what devs will do with the CPU and SSD. You're moving from a Jaguar CPU to a desktop like CPU. You're moving from a slow storage space to a high speed storage space than that can change how worlds and games are designed.


This goes for BOTH consoles.

But the fact is, PS5 SSD is faster and I believe they can do more.

 

[DForce]

because many PS5 zealots are trying to paint the XsX SSD and bakes in SSD advantageous features as slow, which is categorically untrue

fair is fair

they are both ultra fast storage solutions

Both GPUs are good on both consoles. If people can admit that 12TF is better than 10TF and can do more, then it's ok to admit that PS5's SSD is faster and can do more.


Some people want to control a narrative and any sign of their console being weaker in some areas is not a bad thing.

 

[JareBear: Remastered]

Both GPUs are good on both consoles. If people can admit that 12TF is better than 10TF and can do more, then it's ok to admit that PS5's SSD is faster and can do more.


Some people want to control a narrative and any sign of their console being weaker in some areas is not a bad thing.

I know how graphics/processing power directly translates to the games I play.

I don’t know how being able to completely cycle through the RAM pool in 2 seconds instead of 4 seconds will translate to anything the PS5 can do phenomenally that the XsX literally cannot do at all

 

[vpance]

SSDs are going to make drastic changes in the way devs can make both linear and open worlds.

Current open worlds: can't go in every building. Pop-in. Short draw distance. Poor texture quality up close to objects. Very little world persistence. Slow travel speed. Low NPC and asset variety. And on and on. All will be rectified directly or indirectly due to SSDs streaming speed.