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Incredible Ratchet & Clankgameplay demo reveals PS5’s SSD difference

So sony paying the salary of a team of devs they own is somehow a crazy conspiracy theory?

I think what's a conspiracy theory is that the devs are fabricating information just to make the PS5 look good. I'm pretty sure they will have their talks and explain how they made the game.

We know that Sony owns them and pays their salaries, but there's legal implications if they falsely market a product. If Insomniac said the game ran at a Native 4K 120FPs and it doesn't, that could get them sued for misrepresenting the product.
 
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Md Ray

Member
I don't think you took my advice to watch the video again and this time without looking for some bad intent.
I did watch it again. He's still wrong though. In DF's interview, Insomniac's Mike F. said they're filling up all the available memory for each level (which I assume to be around 10-13GB) as Ratchet jumps from one section to another in quick succession.

If you were to do this on PS4, you'd fill 5-6GB of data for each level. At HDD's speed, this wouldn't be instantaneous as it is on PS5 (~2 seconds), you would have a long 20+ seconds of load time (even with background loading) each time for a new section to appear when Ratchet goes from rift to rift.

The simple fact that we went from 30+ seconds load time w/ HDD on PS4 to 2 secs w/ SSD on PS5 in Spider-Man games should tell you that his theory isn't true... This isn't just Insomniac's game loading in 2 seconds, there are countless other native PS5 apps that went from double-digit load time to single digit. Here's final fantasy:
Y5Sq1gK.jpg


If you're going to say some Lego developer knows more about Insomniac's game than Insomniac themselves then you're going to have to explain to me why PS4 doesn't load Spider-Man in 2 seconds w/ HDD like the PS5 does, if SSD isn't needed.
 
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This game looks great and it will be a purchase when I get the PS5. That said I knew it would be possible on previous generation of consoles and its not new tech. The devs were obvious hyping up their game as well as the Sony console (and I don't blame them).

The die hard fanboyism from assurdum assurdum is embarrassing.
 

Guilty_AI

Member
I think what's a conspiracy theory is that the devs are fabricating information just to make the PS5 look good. I'm pretty sure they will have their talks and explain how they made the game.

We know that Sony owns them and pays their salaries, but there's legal implications if they falsely market a product. If Insomniac said the game ran at a Native 4K 120FPs and it doesn't, that could get them sued for misrepresenting the product.
...you do realize corporations have been perfecting the art of misleading without lying for decades right? All for the sake of avoiding said legal implications.

"Our products only use natural ingredients!"
"What!? And this dye here thats harmful for health?"
"Its made from perfectly natural ingredients so we didn't lie!"
 
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Glad Burton demystified the Sony marketing. It started to reek of Blast Processing.

I wouldn't say that since SSDs are going to be extremely important for gaming in general. And with the I/O complex and Velocity Architecture many of those customizations will come to PC so they are a real thing. Like Direct Storage and RTX I/O for example.
 

SlimySnake

Flashless at the Golden Globes

lol this guy. He uses the pocket dimension and the trailer setpiece to show how you can preload the level but fails to mention TWO entire levels built around different levels being loaded in and out of the ssd where you can hit an object to reload an entire level.

And there are several boss fights that teleport you from one level to another during the boss fight. Are they preloading those too?

P.S Whose alt are you?
 
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Gediminas

Banned
world of warcraft legion GIF


Strange when industry veteran tell that XSS is a potential bottleneck, their opinion is somehow dismissed ("b...b...but they have yet to find out how the magical RAM saving features....").

Yet, this guy now "proves" how the SSD is not necessary, by giving his assumptions and with no real proof.

Anyway, that guy should also point out in his video, what the comprimises would be to port the game to last gen(s). It's not like the RAM amount, for example, is the same. Lower assets quality, longer loading times (maybe even midgame...), sub-30 fps, smaller environments, less effects.. etc.
Ah but wait, if he starts to list such compromises, people would start to argue that, indeed, the game is benefitting from an SSD....
(y)
 
...you do realize corporations have been perfecting the art of misleading without lying for decades right? All for the sake of avoiding said legal implications.

"Our products only use natural ingredients!"
"What!? And this dye here thats harmful for health?
"Its made f

Well you do know what happened after Killzone 2. I'm pretty sure Sonys devs are on a tight leash to stop that from happening again.

Saying that the devs have been giving us nothing but BS to hype up the PS5 is the conspiracy theory that I'm talking about.

Also when talking about food in countries like the US there are strict FDA regulations. You can't say whatever you want to sell your product. It all has to fit within the FDA guidelines. It's why you see them use terms like "mechanically separated chicken" or " chicken meal" on their products. And how not everything is labeled as Organic foods.



When he makes statements like this there's very little room for misinterpretation.
 
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Holammer

Member
I wouldn't say that since SSDs are going to be extremely important for gaming in general. And with the I/O complex and Velocity Architecture many of those customizations will come to PC so they are a real thing. Like Direct Storage and RTX I/O for example.
The tech is real, of course, but we have the greasy fingerprints of marketing all over Rift Apart. Blowing it out of proportion.
 

SlimySnake

Flashless at the Golden Globes
The main point in the video is the experience. Ratchet has been marketed as a ps5 only experience. It's not. It's been done and been possible for years. Let's say each Rift in those transitions is 5gb, that's believable. That gives you 8 seconds to load 5gb. That's very reasonable for most any SSD. With smart but time consuming optimization those 6 seconds scenes could have way less memory requirement because you don't need high res for things you actually can't in want way see the detail while playing even if you pause and look around.
This is an insane argument. Ratchet's transitions are what 2 seconds? You are saying an 8 second transition would mean the same experience? They transport you from one world to another a total of 5 times. That's 40 seconds of waiting in transition portals vs 10. How is that even remotely comparable?
 
I wanted a next gen version of the Effect and Cause level in Titanfall 2 where you were warping between dimensions on the hoof leading to potentially new and previously impossible gameplay as old systems couldn't keep up with the constant loading.

I got a tech demo that only let you change worlds when the game wanted you to change worlds.

The few times it lets you use rifts outside of on-rails sections or cutscenes still don't let you change worlds at will but only when you hit the time crystals and those levels have level design so linear that you may as well be going in a straight line.

Whatever tech underlying the game may be impressive but there's no avoiding the fact that this is super basic game design. What's the point in having something previously impossible if it adds nothing to the gameplay and, in fact, limits you to on-rails or super linear level design?

I enjoyed the game and couldn't fault the gunplay as it is super fun but I definitely feel misled by the marketing. They could have done a better game without the rifts drawing on how great the PS5 is at streaming in data with much more creative level design but they went for a gimmick instead.
 
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The tech is real, of course, but we have the greasy fingerprints of marketing all over Rift Apart. Blowing it out of proportion.

Well just pay attention to what Insomniac says during developer talks. You will be able to separate the lies from the truth if there are any.
 

ReBurn

Gold Member
world of warcraft legion GIF


Strange when industry veteran tell that XSS is a potential bottleneck, their opinion is somehow dismissed ("b...b...but they have yet to find out how the magical RAM saving features....").

Yet, this guy now "proves" how the SSD is not necessary, by giving his assumptions and with no real proof.

Anyway, that guy should also point out in his video, what the comprimises would be to port the game to last gen(s). It's not like the RAM amount, for example, is the same. Lower assets quality, longer loading times (maybe even midgame...), sub-30 fps, smaller environments, less effects.. etc.
Ah but wait, if he starts to list such compromises, people would start to argue that, indeed, the game is benefitting from an SSD....
It isn't that hard to believe that a similar effect to the level switching in R&C could be achieved on previous gen consoles. The concept had been around at least since the Genesis/Megadrive days. It just couldn't be achieved the same way on the PS4 as it was on the PS5 because the ability to stream assets in real-time wasn't as easy.

Could R&C run on PS4 like it does on PS5? Of course not, and I don't think anyone expects that this tech would work there. But that doesn't mean there aren't other tricks that could deliver a similar experience within the confines of those systems. A lot of what we see in conversation about it is that there weren't games in the last generation that tried to use a mechanic like this, therefor that mechanic in any form was previously impossible. That part is most likely marketing hype to a degree with a fair amount of correlation equals causation fallacy applied by passionate fans. It's hardly worth arguing about.
 

Unknown?

Member
Are you dense? It's not my opinion, I just happen to think the person who created the video who has had a long and successful career in the industry and is an expert in his field knows what he's talking about.
So are the people in the person you quoted but you believe one over the other? What has this guy done in recent years? He was a great programmer for 16bit tech but what has he done revolutionary in the 3D space in the past 5 years?
 

Guilty_AI

Member
Well you do know what happened after Killzone 2. I'm pretty sure Sonys devs are on a tight leash to stop that from happening again.

Saying that the devs have been giving us nothing but BS to hype up the PS5 is the conspiracy theory that I'm talking about.

Also when talking about food in countries like the US there are strict FDA regulations. You can't say whatever you want to sell your product. It all has to fit within the FDA guidelines. It's why you see them use terms like "mechanically separated chicken" or " chicken meal" on their products. And how not everything is labeled as Organic foods.



When he makes statements like this there's very little room for misinterpretation.

You're pretty sure huh. I'm also pretty sure there was an interview with ex-killzone 2 devs saying that demo they made was never supposed to be shown to the public and that was entirely an arbitrary decision from management.

And well, the dev in the twitter indeed isn't lying. In fact, when going from one level to another in half life games you're also seeing one level being unloaded entirely from memory and another being pulled from the hdd/ssd or whatever storage is there, so yeah, he really isn't lying.
 
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You're pretty sure huh. I'm also pretty sure there was an interview with ex-killzone 2 devs saying that demo they made was never supposed to be shown to the public and that was entirely an arbitrary decision from management.

And well, the dev in the twitter indeed isn't lying. In fact, when going from one level to another in half life games you're also seeing one level being unloaded entirely from memory and another being pulled from the hdd/ssd or whatever storage is there, so yeah, he really isn't lying.

I was talking about Killzone ShadowFall and the lawsuit that followed. Not Killzone 2s CGI trailer.

I don't know why you have an issue with what Mike is saying. They are fully loading and unloading a level that takes up a large amount of memory in ram. Something that isn't possible on a HDD.

I think you're too focused on the act instead of the amount of data.
 

scydrex

Member
All this talk with R&C and according to the devs is not even close to fully utilize the SSD and I/O. 😂
 
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The level design is how I would have gone about designing a game with world switching on a PS4 level machine. You are very tightly controlled as to when and where you can switch worlds in R&C. There isn't one instance that you switch worlds where the developer hasn't planned it. Would it work with this level of fidelity on a PS4 - no, of course not. Would this type of game design be possible on a PS4, yes.

I think the problem was always that they had no clue how fast the I/O would end up being that they played it safe and unfortunately they played it way too safe to the extent that we got very basic level design.

I'm sure whatever they make next will be something that really wouldn't be possible on last gen machines but this game isn't it.
 
Never tried it that way, but I'd imagine it'd be ~1-1.5 second.
Would it be a hassle to confirm?
This is an insane argument. Ratchet's transitions are what 2 seconds? You are saying an 8 second transition would mean the same experience? They transport you from one world to another a total of 5 times. That's 40 seconds of waiting in transition portals vs 10. How is that even remotely comparable?
No it's 2 second transition plus 6 seconds on rails. That's 8 seconds
 

SlimySnake

Flashless at the Golden Globes
I wanted a next gen version of the Effect and Cause level in Titanfall 2 where you were warping between dimensions on the hoof leading to potentially new and previously impossible gameplay as old systems couldn't keep up with the constant loading.

I got a tech demo that only let you change worlds when the game wanted you to change worlds.

The few times it lets you use rifts outside of on-rails sections or cutscenes still don't let you change worlds at will but only when you hit the time crystals and those levels have level design so linear that you may as well be going in a straight line.

Whatever tech underlying the game may be impressive but there's no avoiding the fact that this is super basic game design. What's the point in having something previously impossible if it adds nothing to the gameplay and, in fact, limits you to on-rails or super linear level design?

I enjoyed the game and couldn't fault the gunplay as it is super fun but I definitely feel misled by the marketing. They could have done a better game without the rifts drawing on how great the PS5 is at streaming in data with much more creative level design but they went for a gimmick instead.
I dont understand how you can feel misled by the marketing when they came out and said that those portal sequences will be limited to setpieces. If anything, they were up front about that.

Secondly, the levels where the entire level is changed when you hit those crystals is literally them letting you change worlds at will. You seem to be going out of your way to dismiss the tech by saying its limited to on rails sections or cutscenes and then dismiss the levels that are NOT on-rails because they are your traditional linear levels.

I agree with you that they didnt do enough to make the game feel next gen when it came to level design, shooting and gameplay. It feels very safe in that regard. But to say the marketing was misleading is simply incorrect. You can say you were disappointed at not getting something like TF2, but Insomniac didnt make the game for you and they did not promise a next gen version of the Effect and Cause level in TF2. Your assumptions are not their fault.
 

Schmick

Member
If you're going to say some Lego developer knows more about Insomniac's game than Insomniac themselves then you're going to have to explain to me why PS4 doesn't load Spider-Man in 2 seconds w/ HDD like the PS5 does, if SSD isn't needed.
Firstly, Jon Burton clearly deserves more respect than being referred to as "some Lego developer" and secondly his video is only going through the motions of how he thinks it is possible to do the things that happen in the R&C. He has not claimed he knows how Insomniac did it. That's not the point of the video.
 

ReBurn

Gold Member
I did watch it again. He's still wrong though. In DF's interview, Insomniac's Mike F. said they're filling up all the available memory for each level (which I assume to be around 10-13GB) as Ratchet jumps from one section to another in quick succession.

If you were to do this on PS4, you'd fill 5-6GB of data for each level. At HDD's speed, this wouldn't be instantaneous as it is on PS5 (~2 seconds), you would have a long 20+ seconds of load time (even with background loading) each time for a new section to appear when Ratchet goes from rift to rift.

The simple fact that we went from 30+ seconds load time w/ HDD on PS4 to 2 secs w/ SSD on PS5 in Spider-Man games should tell you that his theory isn't true... This isn't just Insomniac's game loading in 2 seconds, there are countless other native PS5 apps that went from double-digit load time to single digit. Here's final fantasy:
Y5Sq1gK.jpg


If you're going to say some Lego developer knows more about Insomniac's game than Insomniac themselves then you're going to have to explain to me why PS4 doesn't load Spider-Man in 2 seconds w/ HDD like the PS5 does, if SSD isn't needed.
I would wager that some Lego game developer knows more about it than most of us do. What video games have any of us created that give us any leverage to just outright dismiss him? What's your personal experience with game streaming tech? The Lego games stream assets from disk during gameplay so he certainly know more than most of us.
 
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Md Ray

Member
his video is only going through the motions of how he thinks it is possible to do the things that happen in the R&C.
Which is loading of the levels in quick succession by entirely unloading one world from the memory and then another world is pulled in from the SSD from scratch. This isn't just SSD at work, it's a combination of SSD + dedicated HW Kraken decompression unit that allows them to achieve these near-instant loading of the levels. Jon Burton is just making assumptions without proof. And we have proofs directly from the makers of the game...

Again, please explain if Rift Apart's instant level switching/loading was possible with HDD on a PS4, then why do their Spider-Man games takes anywhere from 25 to over 30+ seconds to load on PS4/Pro, but near instantly on PS5 with an SSD? Surely if "no SSD is needed", then PS4 should be able to load Spider-Man and Miles Morales in 2 seconds, right?
 
I would wager that some Lego game developer knows more about it than most of us do. What video games have any of us created that give us any leverage to just outright dismiss him? What's your personal experience with game streaming tech? The Lego games stream assets from disk during gameplay so he certainly know more than most of us.

This is just hilarious.

With that much experience in game development, he most likely would just glance and get some idea of how it could be made.
 

Md Ray

Member
I would wager that some Lego game developer knows more about it than most of us do. What video games have any of us created that give us any leverage to just outright dismiss him? What's your personal experience with game streaming tech? The Lego games stream assets from disk during gameplay so he certainly know more than most of us.
This is just hilarious.

With that much experience in game development, he most likely would just glance and get some idea of how it could be made.
Why are we ignoring the actual dev's tweet and taking the word of some dev who has had no hand in the development of R&C as some gospel? Please explain.

 
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Why are we ignoring the actual dev's tweet and taking the word of some dev who has had no hand in the development of R&C as some gospel? Please explain.



Is it impossible to have two levels in memory, with limited objects and fidelity to fit them?

I don't think so. If a dev wanted, they could definitely make Rift Apart using hdd.

It wouldn't be as good but would work.

That's the whole point of the video.
 

Heisenberg007

Gold Journalism
Is it impossible to have two levels in memory, with limited objects and fidelity to fit them?

I don't think so. If a dev wanted, they could definitely make Rift Apart using hdd.

It wouldn't be as good but would work.

That's the whole point of the video.
Yes, that's the point of this entire current-gen tech.

You keep only one scene/level in the memory, and then fill it with higher graphical assets and fidelity. Then when you move to a different level, you drop everything from the first level and reload everything from the second level -- without compromising on the graphical fidelity.
 

Md Ray

Member
How much data is loaded though? It's completely not confirmed. I would guess around 1gb.
DF John: You're designing these levels where you're switching between dimensions mid-stage, what roughly are we looking at in terms of data size of a typical stage, let's say Blizar Prime, you have both the outer space version and then you have sort of the lived in version, how does that compare?
Mike F: Well, both of those are full quality dense levels each one will take up all of the available memory we have.
DF John: Wow, okay so you're basically filling your memory right away when one of the levels is loaded?
Mike F: Yeah.

How did you come to that 1GB conclusion? PS4/Pro alone reserves 5 to 5.5GB for games.
 
Is it impossible to have two levels in memory, with limited objects and fidelity to fit them?

I don't think so. If a dev wanted, they could definitely make Rift Apart using hdd.

It wouldn't be as good but would work.

That's the whole point of the video.

I remember The Medium did something like that. But unfortunately that came with a performance hit.

I'm guessing the devs wanted to avoid that which is why they are just swapping out assets instead of having two levels loaded at once.
 

Esppiral

Member
Only took a neogaf thread for him to be called a genius coder. Hilarious, some of you must be real crazy people irl.
Have you seen any of his videos? He did amazing programming on the PS2 and Sega Saturn dude some of the most hard to code consoles....

It is even sadder seeing the people who has liked your out of context quote, indeed neogaf....
 
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DF John: You're designing these levels where you're switching between dimensions mid-stage, what roughly are we looking at in terms of data size of a typical stage, let's say Blizar Prime, you have both the outer space version and then you have sort of the lived in version, how does that compare?
Mike F: Well, both of those are full quality dense levels each one will take up all of the available memory we have.
DF John: Wow, okay so you're basically filling your memory right away when one of the levels is loaded?
Mike F: Yeah.

How did you come to that 1GB conclusion? PS4/Pro alone reserves 5 to 5.5GB for games.
The entire stage is not needed immediately after every Rift. Just what you can see at that moment. You have plenty of time to load the rest of it. I'm not arguing how Insomniac does it. I'm arguing like this video, that it's the only way to do it
 
The entire stage is not needed immediately after every Rift. Just what you can see at that moment. You have plenty of time to load the rest of it. I'm not arguing how Insomniac does it. I'm arguing like this video, that it's the only way to do it

Well they mentioned that they are not loading the entire level like in the Ratchet game on the PS4. So even then due to the speed of the I/O there isn't a necessity to load the entire level. Doesn't mean it isn't a lot of data though.
 
I dont understand how you can feel misled by the marketing when they came out and said that those portal sequences will be limited to setpieces. If anything, they were up front about that.

Secondly, the levels where the entire level is changed when you hit those crystals is literally them letting you change worlds at will. You seem to be going out of your way to dismiss the tech by saying its limited to on rails sections or cutscenes and then dismiss the levels that are NOT on-rails because they are your traditional linear levels.

I agree with you that they didnt do enough to make the game feel next gen when it came to level design, shooting and gameplay. It feels very safe in that regard. But to say the marketing was misleading is simply incorrect. You can say you were disappointed at not getting something like TF2, but Insomniac didnt make the game for you and they did not promise a next gen version of the Effect and Cause level in TF2. Your assumptions are not their fault.
With rifts plastered all over literally every trailer and Twitter post I don't think it's unfair to assume that they are going to factor into the gameplay in a huge and game-changing way. The reality is that they are just a fancy tech demo. The Blizon levels were so frustrating to me as you could see that they could have used them creatively to have some neat puzzles but 95% of the puzzles were find the next crystal and hit it. There were also so few Blizon Crystals in the game (there is a trophy for hitting all 30) that you could have used a fade to black load screen and it wouldn't have broken the game.

I'm not dismissing the tech. I know that it has huge potential. I didn't pay £70 for a proof of concept or tech demo though - I bought a game and I got a competent one but one that I felt I had played a dozen times before. There's nothing wrong with a safe game but when it cost at least double what I have paid for anything else this year and was over in a few sessions I don't think it's crazy to feel ripped off when you see Mike Fitzgerald or whoever signing their own praises on Twitter like a modern day Peter Molyneux.

If you are watching from the outside then there's no harm in being excited by the tech but I do feel like I've just robbed blind to finance Insomniac's next game like a Kickstarter with extra steps.
 
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