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EPIC forced to "Rewrite" parts of Unreal Engine 5 demo to "Keep up" with PS5's SSD

What gave you that impression?

All of the Yakuza games are coming. Kingdom Hearts came.
PSO ver II came.
FFXIIII is coming.
Nier came.

Plus various comments by MS and Japanese developers. Xbox will also be in a much better position next gen than they were this gen. In Japan, they’re not gonna sell millions, but a higher user base WW should entice more pubs to port games over.

I would expect xCloud and GamePass to be big there as well, assuming it runs ok.
 

SSDfan

Neo Member
Ah another battlefield emerges...

At this rate we'll wish Sony used UE5 for their first party stuff.... and so will Epic!

In fact Epic seem to have really gone out of their way to make PS5 the lead next gen platform now. I guess Sony is growth potential for Epic while MS is a done deal.

Still I'd rather Sony stick with their custom stuff. Those mulitplat engines are one size fits all and suit none.

Nah
I 100% trust in in-house engines trom Sony Studios, they can do It even better.

Unreal Just has more marketing and cool names like luman or whatever because it needs to be sold to other Studios.
 

Vawn

Banned
FFXIIII is coming.

What? You mean XIII on 360 or XIV?

I would expect xCloud and GamePass to be big there as well, assuming it runs ok.

I think you underestimate how poorly Xbox is received in Japan. We aren't talking like 80% PlayStation, 20% Xbox. Each month is comparing thousand or tens of thousands vs literally like 100 total sales nationwide.
 
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SSDfan

Neo Member
How did you come to the conclusion that every PC has a RAM pool larger or even matching that of next consoles? How many gaming PC's we talking..... lets pull numbers out of our behind? 2 million PC's, 3 million? 10 million... Not to mention the bottlenecked IO's etc...

The hec you talking about?

Every pc gamer treat the pc world as If the norm is ultra high end PCs
 
MS f-ed up because they overpowered the GPU when they could have gone for 9-10 TFLOPs and overpowered the SSD instead. PS5 is more balanced. Does anyone believe it doesn't have the ability to push 4K/60fps?
 
Every pc gamer treat the pc world as If the norm is ultra high end PCs

PCs have had an undisputed lead for over a decade now. This is the first time in years that a console has upstaged the PC on some level.

I wonder how this will influence PC development/architectures in the future.
 

Dynomutt

Member
One hell of a title OP....

With that said. I am curious how different devs will implement Unreal 5 to make their games unique.
 

Portugeezer

Member
With most of the talk between TFlops and I/O throughput, do you think Sony/developers will highlight how these apply to the game design/performance during the showcase? Or will it be slow drip for content until console release?
I am kind of hoping they show us a gameplay demo and then show us how it would run (or not run) with an old style mechanical drive. Like the Spiderman leaked tech demo but better.
 

Grinchy

Banned
MS f-ed up because they overpowered the GPU when they could have gone for 9-10 TFLOPs and overpowered the SSD instead. PS5 is more balanced. Does anyone believe it doesn't have the ability to push 4K/60fps?
I don't think it's really a fuck up. Microsoft went in with the "make a powerful system" mentality. They put together what would be seen as a natural progression and what is probably the most you could realistically do for a ~$500 console box.

Sony just went and did something kinda weird and unexpected. That's a territory they are much more comfortable with, I think. It interests me more, personally, but it'll be very interesting to see how this all plays out. In the end, maybe the slight GPU advantage will look like a smart play. It's just hard to say this early in.
 

Lethal01

Member
I don't think it's really a fuck up. Microsoft went in with the "make a powerful system" mentality. They put together what would be seen as a natural progression and what is probably the most you could realistically do for a ~$500 console box.

Sony just went and did something kinda weird and unexpected. That's a territory they are much more comfortable with, I think. It interests me more, personally, but it'll be very interesting to see how this all plays out. In the end, maybe the slight GPU advantage will look like a smart play. It's just hard to say this early in.

Maybe we find out that the architecture are different in important way and the difference aren't so slight, Maybe XsX raytracing is ridiculous compared to PS5
 

GHG

Member
Maybe we find out that the architecture are different in important way and the difference aren't so slight, Maybe XsX raytracing is ridiculous compared to PS5

The problem is that high quality raytracing absolutely tanks performance.

So essentially you'll be looking at current gen games with raytracing enabled to potentially get 4k/30fps or there are alternative techniques that can be applied to allow more headroom to push things forwards in other areas.

Personally I can't wait to see what all the games look like and how the developers go about balancing it all. I think there will be some growing pains early on because there's a lot of new tech involved, both with ray tracing and the SSD's.
 
So why couldn't Unreal 5.0 demo be rewritten to keep up with the processing power of the CPU and GPU to run at least 4k 30fps? :messenger_fire::messenger_fire::messenger_fire::messenger_fire::messenger_fire::messenger_fire::messenger_fire:

Yah I know, demo done less than 8 months, Unreal 5.0 not finished yet, they are targeting 4k, blah blah blah.🔫🔫🔫
 
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Lethal01

Member
So why couldn't Unreal 5.0 demo be rewritten to keep up with the processing power of the CPU and GPU to run at least 4k 30fps? :messenger_fire::messenger_fire::messenger_fire::messenger_fire::messenger_fire::messenger_fire::messenger_fire:

Yah I know, demo done less than 8 months, Unreal 5.0 not finished yet, they are targeting 4k, blah blah blah.🔫🔫🔫

Why would anyone choose a little bump in resolution over real visual improvements though.
 
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Because that's boring. Is 4k/30fps really all that people want with no technological improvements in other areas?

They are touting that it can do 4k at 30fps minimum based on developers preference. So you can see the same demo at 4k 30pfs, fuck why not even do checkerboarding 4k?

Yes I know, I know, they are working on targeting 4k, and its just a demo, and unreal 5 is not finished yet, and blah blah blah
 
Why would anyone choose a little bump in resolution over real visual improvements though.

You invested on a decent 4K UHDTV just to play a game on 1440p, 30fps, but hey you are playing the game for its high quality details,.....in 1440p. If its a little bump, Zen 2 and RDNA 2 can eat it like its nothing.
 
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Lethal01

Member
They are touting that it can do 4k at 30fps minimum based on developers preference. So you can see the same demo at 4k 30pfs, fuck why not even do checkerboarding 4k?

Yes I know, I know, they are working on targeting 4k, and its just a demo, and unreal 5 is not finished yet, and blah blah blah

They are already doing temporal upscaling.
And yes, I know, You just want to make a joke that people constantly say seriously and be bothered when people respond with how dumb it is.

Yes I much rather play games at higher settings than native 4k. I
 
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GHG

Member
They are touting that it can do 4k at 30fps minimum based on developers preference. So you can see the same demo at 4k 30pfs, fuck why not even do checkerboarding 4k?

Yes I know, I know, they are working on targeting 4k, and its just a demo, and unreal 5 is not finished yet, and blah blah blah

The whole purpose of the demo was to show off something new that's we haven't seen before in terms of real time graphics in gaming applications that will be available to consumers.

Dialing back the texture streaming/detail just so they can achieve 4k/30fps defeats the purpose on many levels.
 
The whole purpose of the demo was to show off something new that's we haven't seen before in terms of real time graphics in gaming applications that will be available to consumers.

Dialing back the texture streaming/detail just so they can achieve 4k/30fps defeats the purpose on many levels.

I get it, but the RDNA 2, and Zen 2 is fucking powerful and significant step up from previous gen. I get what they were trying to demonstrate, everything was eye popping and visually lush. I am not sure if they are fully tapping into the Zen 2 CPU and RDNA 2 GPU, considering that any redundant and unnecessary tasks has been completely taken away from the CPU and GPU compared to previous gen, so it can focus exclusively on graphics, on top of that complete overhaul on the microarchitecture, with all kinds of other advancements and integration.
 
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K

Kise Ryota

Unconfirmed Member
What I really would like to know is what was the size of that tech demo (also, the size of the source file of that 33 mil pol statue)
 

GHG

Member
I get it, but the RDNA 2, and Zen 2 is fucking powerful and significant step up from previous gen. I get what they were trying to demonstrate, everything was eye popping and visually lush. I am not sure if they are fully tapping into the Zen 2 CPU and RDNA 2 GPU, considering that any redundant and unnecessary tasks has been completely taken away from the CPU and GPU from previous gen, so it can focus exclusively on graphics.

It will get better as time goes on but it made sense for them to focus on what they did because it's entirely new technology for their engine vs the other elements you mentioned which were already scalable considerations from their UE4 pipeline.

Those other things (CPU and GPU considerations) would most likely have been carried over and iterated on but they won't have been huge undertakings in the same way that implementing an entirely new asset streaming technology would have been.

People tend show off the work that they are most proud of.
 
Rewrite it from what? This is the problem with PR talk. What was the base and what did the rewrite require? Was it originally spec'd to use a SATA mechanical drive and they rewrote it for an M2 drive or was it something more specific. Since Sony boasted about the transfer rates of their SSD (its a known now), why doesn't Epic speak to how much is being utilized during the demo? The exclusion of this speaks volumes to me.
 
Maybe we find out that the architecture are different in important way and the difference aren't so slight, Maybe XsX raytracing is ridiculous compared to PS5

Could also find out that Sony wasn’t the only one who thought of eliminating I/O. Could also find out that RDNA 2 flop differences mean much more than this gen. Could also find out PS5 struggles to maintain those boosted clocks. Of course, we could also find that PS exclusives do look noticeably better than XSX because of the SSD.

I don’t think many here have denied that possibility, it was just hilarious to see such an abrupt and cosmic shift in narrative with that stark a contrast before the reveal and after. Before, it was all about TFLOPS and CU’s and RAM. PS5 according to this place was supposed to have 32GB of memory and 15+ TF. But then the reveal happened and it was like oh hey... none of that stuff we have been so arrogant and condescending about for the last weeks/months matters anymore, now we’ll be arrogant and condescending about SSD! It’s all that matters!

I hope SSD DOES matter. And then I hope the XSX power advantage negates that SSD advantage and were left with very similar machines.
 

SSDfan

Neo Member
PCs have had an undisputed lead for over a decade now. This is the first time in years that a console has upstaged the PC on some level.

I wonder how this will influence PC development/architectures in the future.

Wich ia always good for the whole industry.

For obvious reasons (price and design limitation, diferent market purpose), consoles cant Just outclass PCs in raw Power numbers. But thats the beauty of consoles: The multobilionare companies are both finding ways to provide ounstanding performance for the price, and this gen is special on this particular issue. There are really good hardware inovations and Sony has the lead here (hardware inovations and customization).
 
Wich ia always good for the whole industry.

For obvious reasons (price and design limitation, diferent market purpose), consoles cant Just outclass PCs in raw Power numbers. But thats the beauty of consoles: The multobilionare companies are both finding ways to provide ounstanding performance for the price, and this gen is special on this particular issue. There are really good hardware inovations and Sony has the lead here (hardware inovations and customization).

Yeah. But PCs have caught up one way or another so far. Back in the late 90s we had 3d accelerator cards. Still though, consoles could boast an initial lead thanks to stronger unique tech, or at least the advantage of low OS overhead.

It's only been this last gen Sony and MS fell behind due to them going with already gimpy ultra mobile CPU cores.
 

Kumomeme

Member
I don't think it's really a fuck up. Microsoft went in with the "make a powerful system" mentality. They put together what would be seen as a natural progression and what is probably the most you could realistically do for a ~$500 console box.

Sony just went and did something kinda weird and unexpected. That's a territory they are much more comfortable with, I think. It interests me more, personally, but it'll be very interesting to see how this all plays out. In the end, maybe the slight GPU advantage will look like a smart play. It's just hard to say this early in.
yep from what i see, both company had different approach and idea for their console design and this reflect the final specs differences

ms had focused on performance, where phil even boast of 4k60fps machines, which is illustrate to how the xsx specs end up with..the cpu speed, higher gpu cu, higher tf count etc.

while sony, had focused on ease up developers, and allowing them to 'dream further' thus this reflect on the ps5 design, the ssd speed and I/O, tempest engine and other stuff
 
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longdi

Banned
IIRC tim or epic praised the same things about PS4 back then. Its all about raising the min specs for games 🤷‍♀️
I mean PC already have 2-5gbs nvme drives and probably more.
 

Quantum253

Member
IIRC tim or epic praised the same things about PS4 back then. Its all about raising the min specs for games 🤷‍♀️
I mean PC already have 2-5gbs nvme drives and probably more.
Isn't the issue now, with putting ssds in the current hardware, that it offers a slight improvement but doesn't utilize the full speed due to limitations of the I/O throughout? Looking at Ghost of Tsushima and TLoU:2, I'm excited to see how devs can push th a hardware even with limiting factors
 

Shin

Banned
Well that was unnecessary since no third party devs will take advantage of the faster SSD anyway 😁
There's that, though this is quite the sensationalist piece, the term "forced" is a strong word - no one forced them but themselves.
A more subtle headline would have been more fitting, it's worth noting that for at least 2-3 generations now Epic got the first next-gen demo.
Not belittling the piece or PS5's SSD, but Epic is known to be the first in the PlayStation line so while this reads like BREAKING NEWS!!!!!!!! readers should have all the facts presented.

Most ue5 third party games are not gonna use the major difference in ps5 ssd.
devs are not gonna waste money and time to create 2 different version of the same game.

That is rather tricky IMO as PlayStation brand have more weight and strength than E.g. Xbox.
If it will sell games then I could see the developer making proper* use of the engine, of course they could also say fuck it and call it a day if the game is identical to the other system.
If PS5 is the only system they are releasing on I think there's a good chance the ones that will use UE(5) will do what they can to make their game run best on that system.
 
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longdi

Banned
Isn't the issue now, with putting ssds in the current hardware, that it offers a slight improvement but doesn't utilize the full speed due to limitations of the I/O throughout? Looking at Ghost of Tsushima and TLoU:2, I'm excited to see how devs can push th a hardware even with limiting factors

nah the issue is software and whether publishers dare to have a minimum requirement : ~10GB 2gbs nvme. :goog_hugging_face:
 

Quantum253

Member
I'm going to have to imagine that Fortnite will be running in UE5 eventually (Epic's money maker). I wouldn't believe the stylization will change or if it'd be easy to tell if the Engine changed. I would also think that there'd be no distinguishable differences running on next gen hardware. I really want to see how well the Engine scales based on developer and game genre
 

Psykodad

Banned
You still need it. It would be stupid to use most of the time of 16 ms timeframe (@60fps) to wait for assests to load. Yes you don't need as much data in RAM as on current gen consoles, where more or less the whole level is in memory and just small parts get streamt (because of the bandwidth). The new techniques require that you reduce the time something stays in memory as low as possible. It is not such a big deal how fast your SSD is (not in this dimensions) but how you still reduce the memory footprint. Streaming at high speeds also costs memory bandwidth and you still don't wanna waste that even if it only are a few gigabytes (BTW, memory contention can now also be a problem because if a third high access device, but that is buffered by faster memory and caches for the decompression).
But as we have seen higher res assests do not bring that much on the table. The difference between high and ultra textures is most of the time minimal but memory usage increase is not. So you still want to minimize your memory footprint.
And for really higher asset quality, the disk is to tiny. So you need other techs to increase the image quality. E.g. well done RT can be something but it really depends how good the and solution is.
Didn't Cerny say that with PS5's design, they don't need to load data (for assets and such) into RAM anymore?
 

Lethal01

Member
Could also find out that Sony wasn’t the only one who thought of eliminating I/O. Could also find out that RDNA 2 flop differences mean much more than this gen. Could also find out PS5 struggles to maintain those boosted clocks. Of course, we could also find that PS exclusives do look noticeably better than XSX because of the SSD.

I don’t think many here have denied that possibility, it was just hilarious to see such an abrupt and cosmic shift in narrative with that stark a contrast before the reveal and after. Before, it was all about TFLOPS and CU’s and RAM. PS5 according to this place was supposed to have 32GB of memory and 15+ TF. But then the reveal happened and it was like oh hey... none of that stuff we have been so arrogant and condescending about for the last weeks/months matters anymore, now we’ll be arrogant and condescending about SSD! It’s all that matters!

I hope SSD DOES matter. And then I hope the XSX power advantage negates that SSD advantage and were left with very similar machines.

Well I only joined here to gush over FF7 remake so I wouldn't know how things were before.
I've been saying tflops aren't everything for decades now so I haven't had any recent changes of heart. I also never payed any attention to rumor about spec until like a week or two before the reveal.

I just see it as the consoles evolving in a way people weren't even expecting but now that it has it's obvious that it makes a bigger difference than if they just had 20% stronger GPUS and that stronger GPUs are a lot less needed because of the new tech.

Like, if you found out that Nintendo's new console's gpu was only 1.2X stronger than the Wii but had special hardware that allows it to give higher quality VR than a $30,000 pc, I don't think it would be strange if you started saying the GPU being weak doesn't matter than much.

Or for a something less hypothetical.
It's like how we now have special hardware for raytracing. which makes a 50tflop GPU a lot less needed that it was.
 

Bo_Hazem

Banned
Not sure what to say more, if the CEO and founder of the most famous 3rd party engine is not trustworthy.

43xcul.jpg
 
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Goliathy

Banned
Fresh from the oven...







Good thing is, that the exact same that applies to PS5, applies to XSX. Of course he can't talk about it due to marketing deals etc.

I just see it as the consoles evolving in a way people weren't even expecting but now that it has it's obvious that it makes a bigger difference than if they just had 20% stronger GPUS and that stronger GPUs are a lot less needed because of the new tech.

No, not really.
We should set the right expectations, games like that would be way too big, see here: https://www.neogaf.com/threads/shou...e-ue5-demo-one-dev-says-probably-not.1545423/

Yes, the tech demo was impressive, but will we see games like that? No, absolutely not. There is a reason why only the environment looked great, but the player character model did not, it was not only significantly less detailed than the environment, but also disappeared when they switched to that triangle view at the beginning.
I think the only games we will see with these kind of graphics maybe are just a literal walking simulator, but even then it wouldn't come close due to the size.
 
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Eliciel

Member
Fresh from the oven...







to tell you the truth, this is starting to get very interesting, as the raw numbers of the PS5 were really lacking compared to XSEX.
I am curious to find out whether or not this rather invisible core mechanic (at least for the unused eye) is going to bring unparalleled gaming experiences to the table.
I guess we are in for one of the most exciting generations of gaming since PS2 era and there will be even less excuses for bad games, bad scripts, bad narrative, bad gameplay, bad sound even... you should have all tools you need and you should be able to deliver a AAA game properly this generation as a game creator provided all of the promises are true. Hell, this could even mean that more studios could potentially make the step to AA or AAA and AAA could go Super Blockbuster AAAA and bridge the gap to movies completely.

PS: and just for the people who will start about XSEX being at least as good as this. I do not disagree, I am just saying, that PS5 was lacking on paper and that these numbers are at least telling the full story about how the raw, on-paper difference could be closed potentially. On the other hand, XSEX has to close an on-paper discrepancy in terms of exclusive games and compelling gaming experiences.
 
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Quantum253

Member
Watching the demo, and reading the thread, has reminded me of the Euclideon Unlimited Detail video back in like 12'. Bruce Robert Dell was going to change/revolutionize the way games were made. Billions of atoms would replace polygons and unleash the creative powers of developers by eliminating the need for polygon budgets. Needless to say that was all b.s. I was stoked though thinking gaming was going to change forever.
 

ZywyPL

Banned
So why couldn't Unreal 5.0 demo be rewritten to keep up with the processing power of the CPU and GPU to run at least 4k 30fps? :messenger_fire::messenger_fire::messenger_fire::messenger_fire::messenger_fire::messenger_fire::messenger_fire:

Yah I know, demo done less than 8 months, Unreal 5.0 not finished yet, they are targeting 4k, blah blah blah.🔫🔫🔫

That demo was rendering 20M polygons at 1440p. so 5-6 polys per pixel, so the overhead is clearly there, if they manage do tweak the algorithm to render 1-2 polys/pixel 4K should be achievable, or better yet - 60FPS. And who knows, maybe both? That would be great. But I would take 1440p@60 over 4K30 any day, the gameplay can be only so good at 30FPS, and thet's what ultimately matters the most in video games.
 

Bo_Hazem

Banned
That demo was rendering 20M polygons at 1440p. so 5-6 polys per pixel, so the overhead is clearly there, if they manage do tweak the algorithm to render 1-2 polys/pixel 4K should be achievable, or better yet - 60FPS. And who knows, maybe both? That would be great. But I would take 1440p@60 over 4K30 any day, the gameplay can be only so good at 30FPS, and thet's what ultimately matters the most in video games.

The character model is fully rendered, so it's nearly an overkill as she has no LOD's. Probably they're still working on that and on potentially moving objects like trees and grass. So far it's doing around 40fps to provide solid 30fps and aiming for 60fps (as a demo reference probably) by launch late 2021.
 

bender

What time is it?
Watching the demo, and reading the thread, has reminded me of the Euclideon Unlimited Detail video back in like 12'. Bruce Robert Dell was going to change/revolutionize the way games were made. Billions of atoms would replace polygons and unleash the creative powers of developers by eliminating the need for polygon budgets. Needless to say that was all b.s. I was stoked though thinking gaming was going to change forever.


I'd love a documentary on this.
 

Degree

Banned
XSX will come out ahead for current gen games (made for jaguar and HDD)

For true next gen high asset streaming, made of zen2 and fast SSD games, Ps5 will win comfortably.

absolutely not. Why would any dev build their games around a single ssd?
why would they create assets that will only run on fast ssd?
They will just use PC SSD as the baseline and as the lowest common denominator and call it a day.
then we will see just shorter loading times on PS5 and XSX.
They will not create extra detailed assets just for a single SSD. Not going to happen.

we will see a difference for ray tracing and resolution though. That’s for sure. Because there the devs don’t have to create anything extra for a single platform.
The character model is fully rendered, so it's nearly an overkill as she has no LOD's. Probably they're still working on that and on potentially moving objects like trees and grass. So far it's doing around 40fps to provide solid 30fps and aiming for 60fps (as a demo reference probably) by launch late 2021.

the character model looked pretty bad compared to the environment though
 
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Quantum253

Member
I'd love a documentary on this.
It'd be interesting. The company is still in business. I don't know what exactly they do.
Industry: Graphics Rendering / Information Technology / Holographic Entertainment
they'll wait and come out to say they're Epic's secret sauce.
 
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