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[Optimistic Gamer]

I love these Dunning-Kruger threads.

 

[Shmunter]

If anybody plays Warzone now and wanders into areas that are replicas of Multiplayer maps..e.g Vacant. The downgrade in Warzone is obvious. It’s not GPU load causing that, obviously much more detail can be rendered as seen in the multiplayer map. it’s the lack of ram and inability to feed the detail. Ram is being used up by the buffer for the much larger warzone arena instead of what’s in front of you.

These sorts of discrepancies should be history with the new ssd memory setups.

Ram limitations on PS5 in particular will be practically removed for all intents and purposes.

 

[Radical_3d]

How people in this thread pretends to know about tech and yet fail to understand the OP amazes me.

These people seem to forget that CPU and GPU are the ones that usually bottleneck when gaming (on PCs with nvme or SSD),

That’s the scenario this generation. Next generation it’ll be the memory in both consoles. I guess you can still bottleneck next gen with effects and definition but more usually than not AAA devs are going to clash with the RAM since they can render 7-8 times the detail rendered in a PS4 with only twice the RAM.

 

[IntentionalPun]

Ram limitations on PS5 in particular will be practically removed for all intents and purposes.

That's a little bold.

 

[VFXVeteran]

How people in this thread pretends to know about tech and yet fail to understand the OP amazes me.


That’s the scenario this generation. Next generation it’ll be the memory in both consoles. I guess you can still bottleneck next gen with effects and definition but more usually than not AAA devs are going to clash with the RAM sine they can render 7-8 times the detail rendered in a PS4 with only twice the RAM.

You can easily bottleneck these new GPUs by turning the resolution up to a true 4k. SSD won't be able to help with that. It's completely GPU-bound.

 

[Shmunter]

That's a little bold.

Obviously confined within 16gb MAX per scene.

 

[VFXVeteran]

Obviously confined within 16gb MAX per scene.

You completely ignore the complexity of shaders. Also, OS will use some of that 16G. A game won't have the entire 16G of space to use.

 

[psorcerer]

No, but what this entire original post is stating is that an SSD effectively unburdens a GPU which is just patently false.

I'm not claiming that.
I'm claiming that on two systems, being equal in everything (including processing power) but one having 2x faster SSD, it will allow to render >1.5x more detailed assets closer to the player.
Obviously if both of the systems can render these details.

 

[Radical_3d]

You can easily bottleneck these new GPUs by turning the resolution up to a true 4k. SSD won't be able to help with that. It's completely GPU-bound.

As I said you can. But both run a modern GPU that lets you scale from lower resolutions with merely identical results. Kind of like checkerboard but better (specially the SX solution since it uses IA will be better). So, why waste the power in raw pixels?

 

[Shmunter]

You completely ignore the complexity of shaders.

Yes, because we’re not talking about shaders or even gpus in this thread. Despite many conflating memory and assets with rendering hardware.

 

[megreotsugua]

Subjective opinion != objective fact.

For sure. Let me take that back then. I was only using FF7 Remake as an example to show a game that is data-bound as opposed to cpu or gpu-bound. Those ugly textures were not the result of 1.8TF GPU.

16GB of RAM for a 10.3TF GPU with geometry engine will be data-bound unless the developers will not go for the next-gen look that gamers are expecting. (or they can opt for procedural rendering)

That faster SSD of the PS5 will show difference if taken advantage of. Whether 3rd party developers take advantage of it is still up in the air.

 

[MCplayer]

How people in this thread pretends to know about tech and yet fail to understand the OP amazes me.


That’s the scenario this generation. Next generation it’ll be the memory in both consoles. I guess you can still bottleneck next gen with effects and definition but more usually than not AAA devs are going to clash with the RAM since they can render 7-8 times the detail rendered in a PS4 with only twice the RAM.

How people in this thread pretends to know about tech and yet fail to understand how games and console hardware evolution work.*

If the system gets 3 or 7 or 10 or 30 times more powerfull, games will also get 3 or 7 or 10 or 30 times more powerfull, fullfilling all the resources the system has available and maximize it, every single generation, this is no exception, it wont be an NVME that will change the future for ever.

 

[psorcerer]

You can easily bottleneck these new GPUs by turning the resolution up to a true 4k. SSD won't be able to help with that. It's completely GPU-bound.

If something is completely GPU bound you don't need textures at all.
Textures and all assets (apart from the actual scene graph) are a way to trade CPU for RAM.
You can always trade CPU for RAM in graphics.

 

[Sota4077]

I’m sure you’d agree 10 different cars on screen looks better than 5 cars duplicated twice. Still 10 cars on screen in both scenarios, still the same load. You still following, or the math is escaping you?

PS5 = 10 different cars, XsX = 5 x 2 cars

The above is bought to you by Cerney SSD spicy sauce. Crying is optional.

That is absolutely not what the SSD makes possible, yo. This is the first post in this thread where I am going to get into anything Xbox Vs PS5 and I am only doing is because you went there. I've done my best to avoid it thus far.

If the GPU of the PS5 has 100MB of memory available to it and the Xbox Series X has 100MB of memory available they absolutely will never load more than that on the screen at one time. It is not possible. I am not a game developer but your analogy does not demonstrate anything tangible. There is no reason why one console would load 10 unique cars and the other 5 cars duplicated twice. The assets still have a file size. If each car is 10MB in size there will only ever be 10 cars on the screen and it doesn't matter if they are 10 of the same or 5 cars duplicated. Your analogy just makes no sense and mine is drastically oversimplified I am sure but it is still based in logic.

What the PS5 will be able to do is have those cars exist then drive through a short tunnel for 3 seconds, come out the other side and have an entirely different scene. The SSD of the of the system lets developers feed assets to RAM faster. It does not let developer show more than the GPU can handle.

 

[VFXVeteran]

As I said you can. But both run a modern GPU that lets you scale from lower resolutions with merely identical results. Kind of like checkerboard but better (specially the SX solution since it uses IA will be better). So, why waste the power in raw pixels?

That's like asking why did we move from 720p to 4k . We need to represent our vision in the best possible light. If I'm making many samples that contribute to a pixel and I'm not getting a good enough approximation, I have to sample more. That's the inherit limitation of rendering as a whole. 4k is not just used for AA of polygons in a scene. All the shaders are dependent on resolution of the buffers as well.

 

[VFXVeteran]

If something is completely GPU bound you don't need textures at all.
Textures and all assets (apart from the actual scene graph) are a way to trade CPU for RAM.
You can always trade CPU for RAM in graphics.

I don't understand this. Can you be a little more clear?

 

[phil_t98]

I think there is gonna be a lot of dissapointment reguarding what people think the SSD’s will do. Yes they are gonna be awesome but they are not gonna change games massivly. We already have massive open world games and yes there is pop in and that will be improved but they are not gonna make CPU’s more powerful as some here are stating. The PS5 is gonna be awesome but don’t expect the SSD to magically bring extra horse power out of the CPU and GPU

 

[Radical_3d]

How people in this thread pretends to know about tech and yet fail to understand how games development work.*

If the system gets 3 or 7 or 10 or 30 times more powerfull, games will also get 3 or 7 or 10 or 30 times more powerfull, fullfilling all the resources the system has available and maximize it, every single generation.

And the will fulfill the RAM first since there is very little of it.
I’ll quote myself:

Yes and no. The bottleneck is not in the SSD speed. The SX arquitecture is quite fantastic. The bottleneck in both consoles is the RAM. With better assets you need bigger RAM amounts. If this generation wanted to keep the graphical jump from 360 to PS4 and it would maintained the the mechanical drives it'd needed 128GB of RAM @ 1TB/s. See? Those PCIe SSDs seem expensive but they are actually way cheaper than the alternative. Since the RAM technology hasn't keep with the needs of processing power these SSDs are here to help with that.

Both systems have dedicated silicon to load asset faster from their drives and that's not because people wants 2 second loads time so bad is worth the investment. It's because without fast asset streaming 16GB of RAM at 448-560 GB/s are ridiculous compared with previous generational jumps. So, everyone and their mother are currently implementing in their engines ways to move assets on the fly according to this new especifications.

So, is it 4.8GB/s a bottleneck for the system? No. But 16GB of RAM are, and they are less a bottleneck in PS5 than in SX. Specially factoring the SX is 18% more powerful but has not more RAM neither more speed in the drive to move assets from and to that pool.

Everyone expecting this to close the gap completely between systems is delusional. Everyone downplaying the RAM problem in this generation has no idea what he’s talking about.

 

[psorcerer]

I don't understand this. Can you be a little more clear?

What's a texture? What does it represent?
It represents a factual or artistic "pre-render" of a particular BRDF (BRDF being actually yet another approximation, but let's not go there).
If you could calculate BRDF in real time for every pixel would you need textures at all?
If you could calculate in real time the internal structure of any physical object would you need meshes?
If you could in real time calculate physical phenomena like "fire" would you need particles?
Each and every asset in rendering pipeline is a smart way to "pre-render" just enough information that it would look believable but yet dynamic.

 

[Shmunter]

That is absolutely not what the SSD makes possible, yo. This is the first post in this thread where I am going to get into anything Xbox Vs PS5 and I am only doing is because you went there. I've done my best to avoid it thus far.

If the GPU of the PS5 has 100MB of memory available to it and the Xbox Series X has 100MB of memory available they absolutely will never load more than that on the screen at one time. It is not possible. I am not a game developer but your analogy does not demonstrate anything tangible. There is no reason why one console would load 10 unique cars and the other 5 cars duplicated twice. The assets still have a file size. If each car is 10MB in size there will only ever be 10 cars on the screen and it doesn't matter if they are 10 of the same or 5 cars duplicated. Your analogy just makes no sense and mine is drastically oversimplified I am sure but it is still based in logic.

What the PS5 will be able to do is have those cars exist then drive through a short tunnel for 3 seconds, come out the other side and have an entirely different scene. The SSD of the of the system lets developers feed assets to RAM faster. It does not let developer show more than the GPU can handle.

The GPU on the PS5 has more ram availability to the scene it’s rendering because it doesn’t need to reserve as much ram for things off screen. So yes more variety of assets in front of you is exactly one of the many possibilities. And the car analogy stands firm.

Hers another hint, look back to the slow days of the internet and trying to stream a video, it needed to buffer a good chunk of time to ensure continuous playback. Now with fast internet the video starts instantly, no need for large buffering because it’s practically real-time. Identical principles at play.

I repeat, a faster ssd directly translates to more ram available for immediate rendering because less buffering is needed for off screen assets. More ram = more assets, whatever they may be.

 

[IntentionalPun]

The GPU on the PS5 has more ram availability to the scene it’s rendering right now because it doesn’t need to reserve as much ram for the back buffer. So yes more variety of assets in front of you is exactly one of the many possibilities. And the car analogy stands firm.

Hers another hint, look back to the slow days of the internet and trying to stream a video, it needed to buffer a good chunk of time to ensure continuous playback. Now with fast internet the video starts instantly, no need for large buffering because it’s practically real-time. Identical principles at play.

The more detail you render the more you need to put in your back buffer though; the improvement isn't linear because of that. (not that you said it was, just adding to the comment)

 

[VFXVeteran]

What's a texture? What does it represent?
It represents a factual or artistic "pre-render" of a particular BRDF (BRDF being actually yet another approximation, but let's not go there).
If you could calculate BRDF in real time for every pixel would you need textures at all?
If you could calculate in real time the internal structure of any physical object would you need meshes?
If you could in real time calculate physical phenomena like "fire" would you need particles?
Each and every asset in rendering pipeline is a smart way to "pre-render" just enough information that it would look believable but yet dynamic.

OK. I get what you are trying to say. You are basically saying you can use procedural functions to represent real world geometry and thereby skipping out on having to load an asset that represents that geometry and saving space. This however is never the case in a game. It also doesn't replace other bandwidth requirements like shadow maps, content, sounds, etc.. in the game.

There is simply no procedural function for every real-world phenomena, so why even go there? If it was, we'd have done it by now.

Also, a texture isn't a BRDF. The texture only represents the albedo in the BRDF for different components of the BRDF (diffuse, spec, emission, etc..).

 

[MCplayer]

And the will fulfill the RAM first since there is very little of it.
I’ll quote myself:

Everyone expecting this to close the gap completely between systems is delusional. Everyone downplaying the RAM problem in this generation has no idea what he’s talking about.

I didnt said RAM was good..., yes it should be at least 20GB to make me feel comfortable on X, and yes SSD isnt the bottleneck

What I said before
"These people seem to forget that CPU and GPU are the ones that usually bottleneck when gaming (on PCs with nvme or SSD), not the storage device, yes ps5 AND XBOX SERIES X have great nvme speeds, still those speeds wont make cpu or gpu faster, they will still bottleneck the CPU and GPU just like before.

Do you know what you will get if you have a slow storage device?
Get Star Wars jedi fallen order and the xbox one | S or PS4 and you will see, game will stop mid gameplay for some seconds to load assets, and then resume, and load textures slower, a faster drive will JUST LOAD ASSETS AND TEXTURES IN TIME so the GPU can continue render and therefore the game continue. PS5 will load faster but wont really make a diference, just in loading screens WHICH WILL STILL EXIST."

CPU and GPU will probably still bottleneck next gen, RAM on Series X being 10 avaiable for games if I'm not wrong will also be a bottleneck possibly but honestly the PS5 wont have a huge advantage in worlds, because of the RAM specs

XBOX SERIES X: 10GB at 560GB/s, 6GB at 335GB/s 320 bus width
PS5: 16GB 448GB/s 256 bus Width (in which some of those GB will be used for OS and etc...)

 

[Keihart]

This is a post from back in MARCH



@Karak handled this on his ACG podcast from day one

The video in the post is timestamped right to the quotes about SSDs

"You CANNOT draw more than the fuckin CPU and GPU can put on the screen."
"You're full of shit...you cannot cheat a fillrate with a SSD."

Isn't fill-rate mostly limiting things like resolution and sometimes frame-rate because of it?
I think it's pretty logical that there is diminishing return in how fast you want to fill the ram or how much ram you can use, but we clearly don't know where is this point next gen since the better looking games are usually the ones with the best streaming tech and aggressive LODs that manage to fool the eye, and games clearly keep getting bottle-necked on the streaming department.

 

[Radical_3d]

That's like asking why did we move from 720p to 4k . We need to represent our vision in the best possible light. If I'm making many samples that contribute to a pixel and I'm not getting a good enough approximation, I have to sample more. That's the inherit limitation of rendering as a whole. 4k is not just used for AA of polygons in a scene. All the shaders are dependent on resolution of the buffers as well.

There are diminishing returns. You can have a 5” 4K phone but very few will notice. Solutions like DLSS 2 are going to be common ground and the SX even has a silicon dedicated to machine learning (that is how DLSS works, but of course it will be an AMD implementation). Only games with a budget to create assets insufficient to charge the GPU (like a cross gen game) will opt to waste resources in 4K rendering. Watch the DF feature about DLSS 2 and see for yourself.

I didnt said RAM was good..., yes it should be at least 20GB to make me feel comfortable on X, and yes SSD isnt the bottleneck

What I said before
"These people seem to forget that CPU and GPU are the ones that usually bottleneck when gaming (on PCs with nvme or SSD), not the storage device, yes ps5 AND XBOX SERIES X have great nvme speeds, still those speeds wont make cpu or gpu faster, they will still bottleneck the CPU and GPU just like before.

Do you know what you will get if you have a slow storage device?
Get Star Wars jedi fallen order and the xbox one | S or PS4 and you will see, game will stop mid gameplay for some seconds to load assets, and then resume, and load textures slower, a faster drive will JUST LOAD ASSETS AND TEXTURES IN TIME so the GPU can continue render and therefore the game continue. PS5 will load faster but wont really make a diference, just in loading screens WHICH WILL STILL EXIST."

CPU and GPU will probably still bottleneck next gen, RAM on Series X being 10 avaiable for games if I'm not wrong will also be a bottleneck possibly.

It’s not a matter of popping or load slow the same assets. Is to load more detail in the front and less in the back. Which implies different assets across the board. In the OP is very well explained (I though).

 

[Insane Metal]

Ah, another SSD thread. I missed those. /s

Jk, seems informative enough.

 

[MCplayer]

There are diminishing returns. You can have a 5” 4K phone but very few will notice. Solutions like DLSS 2 are going to be common ground and the SX even has a silicon dedicated to machine learning (that is how DLSS works, but of course it will be an AMD implementation). Only games with a budget to create assets insufficient to charge the GPU (like a cross gen game) will opt to waste resources in 4K rendering. Watch the DF feature about DLSS 2 and see for yourself.

It’s not a matter of popping or load slow the same assets. Is to load more detail in the front and less in the back. Which implies different assets across the board. In the OP is very well explained (I though).

I edited my response

 

[onQ123]

No, but what this entire original post is stating is that an SSD effectively unburdens a GPU which is just patently false. And SSD allows assets to be loaded faster. That is all. It does nothing more than that. The system is still constrained by the specs of its hardware. The GPU and the CPU. The SSD does not allow MORE to be rendered on the screen at one time. It allows assets to be loaded to the screen faster when they are needed. If a GPU has 1GB of available memory it cannot and will not ever load more than 1GB of assets. Meaning there will never be more than 1GB of assets on screen at any time. The OP of this post is implying otherwise. He is implying that the SSD allows for the system to load more and that is false.

It allows higher level of detail on the screen vs having to use lower detail so that it can fit into RAM.




Right now some one could make a really detailed demo on PS4 that only shows a small section of a game because they could use the full 5.5GB of VRAM for just what is on the screen but they couldn't do that for a game because you will need to be able to move to another section of the game, With PS5 they can do the same trick they did for this highly detailed demo but it can be a full scene that goes beyond the fixed small section of the demo.

 

[Shmunter]

The more detail you render the more you need to put in your back buffer though; the improvement isn't linear because of that. (not that you said it was, just adding to the comment)

What do you mean? Any buffer size scales,

buffer size = quality / stream speed

If comparing PS5 to XsX with the same quality and respective streaming speeds

XsX buffer = quality / 1
PS5 buffer = quality / 2

PS5 buffering reserve is half of XsX. Hence PS5 has more ram available for rendering..

 

[IntentionalPun]

What do you mean? Any buffer size scales,

buffer size = quality / stream speed

If comparing PS5 to XsX with the same quality and respective streaming speeds

XsX buffer = quality / 1
PS5 buffer = quality / 2

PS5 buffering reserve is half of XsX. Hence PS5 has more ram available for rendering..

I'm just saying what I think you just did; it's a factor of your quality and speed not just speed. As you increase detail you increase your buffer size (while still being able to be smaller than a system with a slower SSD.)

 

[Handy Fake]

If anybody plays Warzone now and wanders into areas that are replicas of Multiplayer maps..e.g Vacant. The downgrade in Warzone is obvious. It’s not GPU load causing that, obviously much more detail can be rendered as seen in the multiplayer map. it’s the lack of ram and inability to feed the detail. Ram is being used up by the buffer for the much larger warzone arena instead of what’s in front of you.

These sorts of discrepancies should be history with the new ssd memory setups.

Ram limitations on PS5 in particular will be practically removed for all intents and purposes.

You get an extra point for not saying "all intensive purposes".

 

[Night.Ninja]

Sonys going to ship a SSD and two controllers and call it a day

 

[Optimistic Gamer]

You get an extra point for not saying "all intensive purposes".

He should of.

 

[Handy Fake]

He should of.

 

[Sota4077]

You get an extra point for not saying "all intensive purposes".

Even if he has its no big deal. All just water under the fridge.

 

[Kenpachii]

That's true because the CPU has to decompress the data from the SSD. That takes too much toll on the CPU. Basically, PC CPU cannot stream a lot of data during RUNTIME. (During loadtime it doesn't matter).

PS5 I/O has a decompressor that is equivalent of 9 ZEN2 CORES. That will allow it to stream 9GB/s-22GB/s or data during runtime.

With the geometry engine not rendering what is not visible on-screen as well as the back-facing details, CPU and GPU will be starved with data to render if not for the SSD. Unless of course, it's a fighting game like Tekken and Streetfighter.

You just have to see what the 1.8TF GCN GPU inside the PS4 was already capable of rendering. Order 1886 and FF7 Remake has CGI looking moments, at the cost of not being able to go anywhere because the data can't be streamed 'just in time'.

PC decompresses data on the GPU front mate, it does a fuck ton more on the GPU front which AMD can't do through patents. U need 16 ryzen 2 cores to stream data at a quality level on AMD side while u only need 3% of your Nvidia GPU to get the same result. Then we got v-ram compression techniques etc all with it all done on the GPU side without effort.

PC also doesn't need the decompression the PS5 has because system ram functions on 30-40Gbps at 1000 times faster access speed then SSD's. PS5 at absolute best theoretical level will sit at 22gb's more like 9gb's, and 1000 times slower access speed which is incredible important when slamming data around.

Not to forget PC doesn't have ram limitations. It could double the ram of PS5 and use half of it to swap data in and out for the main ram amounts non stop without any downtime at all. consoles won't be locking half of there memory modules out. That's exactly what cerny was talking about. As devs will push that 16gb limit the same as they pushed 5gb of memory ( bigger than most games ) in the PS4 area or else loading wasn't already a thing in today's age.

CPU and GPU will be starved if harddrives are to slow when data increases indeed, however starving on PC yoru gpu and cpu with even a 0,5Gbps nvme drive isn't a thing even in stuff like star citizen.

You just have to see what the 1.8TF GCN GPU inside the PS4 was already capable of rendering. Order 1886 and FF7 Remake has CGI looking moments, at the cost of not being able to go anywhere because the data can't be streamed 'just in time'.

Yea that's not how any of this works. The reason they can push the visual quality forwards is because everything is boxed in. That CPU would not be even remotely alive the moment they open up that game, and when more people and more npc's need to be rendered the gpu will also shit the brick.

SSD is nothing but a storage device mate.

 

[RaySoft]

Yes, but the problem is that the system can render a much higher detail but the RAM space combined with slow streaming cannot provide the data in time.

FF7 Remake shows that perfectly. Their engine can render multiple characters with CGI like details (the party characters). But there are instances that even if cloud is alone, the characters around him, as well the details in the environment are too poor yet the game can obviously render them in detail. It's because the RAM cannot house all the details. The slow streaming doesn't help.

Now FF7 Remake was made in a 1.8TF of GCN GPU. PS5 is 10.3TF of RDNA2 GPU, but only 16GB of RAM?

If this gen with 1.8TF GPU, we are seeing games that are held back by RAM capacity (5.5GB, more than half used as buffer) and held back by slow streaming, 16GB for 10.3TF of GPU wouldn't cut it.

Also, remember PS5 Geometry Engine. It will only render what is in the current view of the player. I suppose similar to frustum culling but next-gen.

I actually think Guerrilla made Decima with frustum culling because they already knew Sony's plans for PS5 with extreme fetch bandwith.
The thing that will blow our mind is that it's even easier to make this kind of engine when you have higher bandwiths that the SSD provides, compared to the slow spindle. It's actually bonkers that Guerilla achieved the quality they did with so slow fetch bandwith.
Remember that Decima logo on the leaked PS5 devkit gui pic? I get the feeling that all Sony's 1st party games will use the upgraded Decima engine on PS5. There may be some odd-balls out, but the majority probably will.
No engine can be best at everything,ofcourse, but the frustum aspect of it will be key for the PS5 to leverage it's extreme ssd bandwith.

 

[alabtrosMyster]

Isn't the closest data at risk of being seen again very quickly, and thus can't be discarded without risk of pop-in?

Or am I missing something here?

It keeps what is all around you at the highest LoD and discards data as you get further out, like it does now.... but much closer, also, high details data for objects that you may not turn to could be removed from memory (which is what is shown in the presentation).

The more bandwidth you have for the SSD the less you need to keep in active memory.... so you end up either moving faster through the world, or having more variation in details (or more micro details).

 

[oldergamer]

This is forgetting one pretty large factor. The size of the data moved off the drive, impacts the speed at which that data can be transferred. Not all data transfers are optimal. This could dramatically change the over all performance. not only that, but in the case of NVME drives, heat also impacts performance.

 

[MasterCornholio]

Calm down, you are teetering towards the ledge there.

I'm really enjoying this thread.

Can't we just have a good discussion instead of attacking each other like a bunch of immature fan turds?

 

[Hendrick's]

Everything isn't CPU or Compute bound

Especially not when it's on PS5.

 

[Red_Driver85]

PC decompresses data on the GPU front mate, it does a fuck ton more on the GPU front which AMD can't do through patents. U need 16 ryzen 2 cores to stream data at a quality level on AMD side while u only need 3% of your Nvidia GPU to get the same result. Then we got v-ram compression techniques etc all with it all done on the GPU side without effort.

I observe a complete misunderstanding of the technical part. Oranges and potatoes.

 

[Kenpachii]

I observe a complete misunderstanding of the technical part. Oranges and potatoes.

It's a example not a comparison on what PC does differently.

 

[Sota4077]

The GPU on the PS5 has more ram availability to the scene it’s rendering because it doesn’t need to reserve as much ram for things off screen. So yes more variety of assets in front of you is exactly one of the many possibilities. And the car analogy stands firm.

Hers another hint, look back to the slow days of the internet and trying to stream a video, it needed to buffer a good chunk of time to ensure continuous playback. Now with fast internet the video starts instantly, no need for large buffering because it’s practically real-time. Identical principles at play.

I repeat, a faster ssd directly translates to more ram available for immediate rendering because less buffering is needed for off screen assets. More ram = more assets, whatever they may be.

An SSD does not magically lessen the back buffer on a GPU. You keep falsely stating that. For the back buffer to not "need to reserve as much ram for things off screen." would mean that those assets are bypassing the back buffer and they've being loaded directly to the frame on screen--they're not.

A SSD is a fast storage device. That is it. Nothing more. A GPU is pulling assets from the SSD. The SSD is not pushing them to the GPU. The size of that bucket is set. If a 1 gallon bucket represents a frame on your screen filling it faster doesn't mean you have more water in it.

You can certainly fill it faster if you have a larger hose or better water pressure than someone standing next to you doing the same thing. But your bucket never has had more than 1 gallon of water in it. Your GPU does not magically perform better because it can pull information faster to fill however many GB of ram it has to work with.

When the GPU has to wait while assets are loaded from the HD you get loading screens. If it doesn't to wait you do not have loading screens or they're extremely short. That is all. The SSD does not magically unburden the GPU and I have been saying this in almost every post to which each reply has been some shift in the defense of SSD's.

If you are expecting next generation consoles SSD's to do anything except have assets ready for the GPU faster you are going to be very disappointed.

 

[MasterCornholio]

Made another image for you:

What we see here is: what happens if player moves.
So the player position (vertical black dashed line) changed.
The new asset state is in violet.
The left upper blue part is unloaded from RAM. The right upper violet part is loaded into RAM from SSD.
The common part stays the same.

Now on the bottom you have a rectangle. that's the same RAM when there is no streaming.
I.e. level was loaded once and no new data is coming, until we unload the whole level and load a new one.
The height of that red rectangle shows the asset quality for that case.
As you can see it's drastically (4x) lower than the blue LoD.
But it still uses the same amount of RAM (areas of blue and red graphs are the same).
And you don't need to load anything when player moves.

Does it make things clearer?

I understand the theory. But I bet some people are confused because they haven't seen any really good SSD demonstrations yet.

What I don't understand is the misinterpretation that having a super fast SSD will make the system more powerful.

What I understand is that instead of having to account for the next 30 seconds of Gameplay all you need is to load assets for the next 5 seconds of gameplay. When this is done you obviously free up some ram and can use the ram for other assets. This in theory can lead to higher quality assets in the next 5 seconds of Gameplay instead of lower quality assets for the next 30 seconds of Gameplay.

This theory applies to both the XSX and the PS5 btw due to both systems having fast SSDs.

However in the end the power of the system remains the same. Having a super fast SSD just allows you to use that same level of power in a different manner.

 

[Physiognomonics]

What's a texture? What does it represent?
It represents a factual or artistic "pre-render" of a particular BRDF (BRDF being actually yet another approximation, but let's not go there).
If you could calculate BRDF in real time for every pixel would you need textures at all?
If you could calculate in real time the internal structure of any physical object would you need meshes?
If you could in real time calculate physical phenomena like "fire" would you need particles?
Each and every asset in rendering pipeline is a smart way to "pre-render" just enough information that it would look believable but yet dynamic.

What about the geometry engine Cerny was talking about ? Why was it so important in his GDC speech (and not VRS) ? I thought geometry engine was already in RDNA1.

 

[Amey]

I am very eager to see how this decision of cost cutting on memory works out for consoles in multi platform games.

I want to see what works out better... a fast SSD or larger RAM.

A Consoles with 16GB memory pool + superfast SSD and custom decompression chips.
vs
A PC with 8GB+ vRAM, 32GB+ fastest DDR4 but deliberately paired with a slow HDD like 5400rpm.

 

[Radical_3d]

I understand the theory. But I bet some people are confused because they haven't seen any really good SSD demonstrations yet.

What I don't understand is the misinterpretation that having a super fast SSD will make the system more powerful.

What I understand is that instead of having to account for the next 30 seconds of Gameplay all you need is to load assets for the next 5 seconds of gameplay. When this is done you obviously free up some ram and can use the ram for other assets. This in theory can lead to higher quality assets in the next 5 seconds of Gameplay instead of lower quality assets for the next 30 seconds of Gameplay.

This theory applies to both the XSX and the PS5 btw due to both systems having fast SSDs.

However in the end the power of the system remains the same. Having a super fast SSD just allows you to use that same level of power in a different manner.

Correctly! The system is not more powerful, but since it is starving for memory the less RAM is used for cache and more for rendering the better.

 

[Jtibh]

Now i understand.



Nothing

 

[Red_Driver85]

A Consoles with 16GB memory pool + superfast SSD and custom decompression chips.
vs
A PC with 8GB+ vRAM, 32GB+ fastest DDR4 but deliberately paired with a slow HDD like 5400rpm.

Obviously consoles are faster. You need a sata3 ssd at least for PC.