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The Future of PC Gaming and PCIe 5.0

Bo_Hazem

Banned
I've been having good chats here and there with VFXVeteran VFXVeteran but made this thread to avoid unnecessarily derailing other threads like R&C.

He thinks that Horizon II: Forbidden West would run faster and better on high end PC at least (let's say RTX 3090 and 6800-6900XT for having 16-24GB VRAM, doesn't mean the rest won't), and I agree with him due to it being already designed with HDD/PS4 in mind, same goes to Spider-man MM and all crossgen. I would as well agree with Ratchet and Clank: Rift Apart if the developer would code the game to have let's say 7GB/s NVMe m.2 SSD and 16GB RAM to feed the 16-24GB VRAM's quickly and efficiently by predicting the next set of assets sitting around in the traditional RAM that PS5 and consoles lack.

NVIDIA-GeForce-RTX-30-Series-Graphics-Cards_Announcement_GeForce-RTX-3090_RTX-3080_RTX-3070_19.png


These specs are extremely higher than the norm, something less than 1%. Still, with that I won't expect the exact UE5 demo to run smoothly on PC because I'm expecting the assets are just too large and unrealistic for gaming as it was 8K RAW Z-Brush, Cinema-level assets, not even gaming 8K assets. But would you see something undistinguishable from that at a much higher compression and smaller assets? Yes. Same goes to PS5 as well with Oodle Texture as those we're losslessly streamed at an average of 9GB/s, not 17GB/s average (22GB/s max).

With Nvidia deciding to mimic I/O decompression by brute forcing it with its generous TF, I can expect future graphics cards to have Kraken/ZLIB decompression blocks on board as a mandatory. With PCIe 5.0 we're talking about 16GB/s NVMe SSD m.2 speeds, and whether SSD providers will learn from Sony's proprietary SSD controller that has 6 priority levels (6 orders simultatiously) vs only 2 on current NVMe m.2 SSD's, we should expect PC gaming and PS5 to have photorealism comfortably. Sony could make their own NVMe m.2 SSD's as well as they're no stranger to HW and memory cards.

vlcsnap-2020-10-07-16h53m33s380.png


Then creativity will remain the key, but we should as well expect more indies to let go the pathetic 8-bit-like gaming and go head-to-head with some AAA games, offering a wide variety of unique experiences that have AAA feeling. We are already seeing that to some extent with games like Kena, Quantom Error, and many other games that surfaced lately.

My next PC build will be when PCIe 5.0 is available, not necessarily for gaming but gaming-ready. By that time I hope 10TB+ SATA3 SSD's are becoming as expensive as 10TB HDD today because I will not buy HDD's ever and need more TB's for videography. Buying the 8TB Samsung SSD later anyway at $800 for a total of 11TB, and more later if needed:


Ok I don't want this to turn into a wall-of-text. Hope we enjoy the discussions/speculations.
 
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VFXVeteran

Banned
Yea, this sounds plausible. I think along those lines about PCIE 5.0 that it could very well be that full adoption of the PS5 tech may not take place until next-gen for the consoles (i.e. PS6). We might see RTX 4000 series this generation but I don't think Nvidia/AMD are going to be putting out next-gen versions of their boards every 2yrs like before. I think with the slow pace of sales and COVID slowing a lot of production down, we probably won't see another new card for 3-4yrs. That's just a guess.
 

Bo_Hazem

Banned
I think it's gonna be a minute before it'll be necessary, but we are likely to see pretty big improvements for sure. Feels like even PCIE 4.0 is just starting to catch on.

I think PCIe 5.0 is coming pretty soon, something around 2022-2023 to see the first motherboard adoption.

Yea, this sounds plausible. I think along those lines about PCIE 5.0 that it could very well be that full adoption of the PS5 tech may not take place until next-gen for the consoles (i.e. PS6). We might see RTX 4000 series this generation but I don't think Nvidia/AMD are going to be putting out next-gen versions of their boards every 2yrs like before. I think with the slow pace of sales and COVID slowing a lot of production down, we probably won't see another new card for 3-4yrs. That's just a guess.

I think that's already healthy. They're strong enough to last years to come already, if anything I think RDNA3 is needed to close the gap in the RT performance. I'm more than sure that next cards are considering decompressor blocks to directly feed the VRAM instead of the CPU to drastically lower the latency to its minimum. It'll be interesting to observe. Currently with PCIe 3.0, would've jumped to PCIe 4.0 if interested about gaming to get the latest and greatest, be it 3090 or 6900XT.
 

EverydayBeast

thinks Halo Infinite is a new graphical benchmark
PC Gaming’s entire existence is about making it hell for console gamers, I think PS5 is closest to PC gaming in mindset. PC gamers want to know every detail, why am I adding ram, do I trust this GPU.
 

Guilty_AI

Member
Then creativity will remain the key, but we should as well expect more indies to let go the pathetic 8-bit-like gaming and go head-to-head with some AAA games, offering a wide variety of unique experiences that have AAA feeling. We are already seeing that to some extent with games like Kena, Quantom Error, and many other games that surfaced lately.
^^^ on this part, i would just like to point out the reason some of these devs target lower or 2D or 8-16 bit graphics has more to do with development costs than the tech available. Its easier to make good looking 16 bit sprites than it is to make decent looking 3D models.

So yeah, these games will remain. And quite honestly i still find some of these to offer way better experiences than high profile stuff on the AAA market, so i'll gladly accept such a future.
 
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Bo_Hazem

Banned
Do you think with PCIE5 we could get to speeds where Ram is no longer necessary?

RAM will still be necessary for regular PC's without GPU's, at least. But 32GB/s 16GB/s or even a new SSD type saturating even more PCIe lanes than 4x (8GB/s each, but probably 4GB/s for SSD) is gonna be great. Also maybe new designs in motherboards to have all necessary parts very close to each other, something like 2-sided motherboards for gaming?

^^^ on this part, i would just like to point out the reason some of these devs target lower or 2D or 8-16 bit graphics has more to do with development costs than the tech available. Its easier to make good looking 16 bit sprites than it is to make decent looking 3D models.

So yeah, these games will remain. And quite honestly i still find some of these to offer way better experiences than high profile stuff on the AAA market, so i'll gladly accept such a future.

They could co-exist indeed. But with free access to Quixel Megascans on UE5/4, we should expect more to reach higher grounds than previous indies.

DDR5 is targeting 70 GByte/s per DIMM.... SSDs are no competition for RAM.

With DDR4 single channel hitting 25GB/s ceiling, new SSD's will surpass that at least, which is a massive jump.
 
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Dream-Knife

Banned
So..... what is this thread supposed to be about? 32gb/s? It'll be a long time before any game would need that, or there being hardware to take advantage of that. Especially when entire chunks of a game can be stored in VRAM.
 

Bo_Hazem

Banned
So..... what is this thread supposed to be about? 32gb/s? It'll be a long time before any game would need that, or there being hardware to take advantage of that. Especially when entire chunks of a game can be stored in VRAM.

People always look at 32GB/s 16GB/s and don't focus on what does that translate in milliseconds, which is 16MB/ms! That would mean that future phase of games wouldn't need more RAM as it'll most likely feed the VRAM directly like in PS5, and traditional RAM will remain as your car "trunk" to have some assets sitting there to get things in/out of VRAM as you turn around.

More speed is more welcome, it opens the doors of game design wide open and can accelerate game production cycles drastically as well.
 
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Bo_Hazem

Banned
4 lanes of PCI-E 5.0 it''s 16GB/s. Or you look some specific configuration?

It's 8GB/s per lane* with a total of 128GB/s for 16x lanes.

*(it's capable of 8GB/s per lane but our end up being 4GB/s per lane for SSD, I guess, like PCIe 4.0).



How is that relevant? Cross comparing hardware across x gens is pointless......

You're too hard to satisfy then. Not saying it'll replace DDR5, but SSD's coming close to older DDR4 single channel is a great achievement.
 
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rodrigolfp

Haptic Gamepads 4 Life
DDR5 is targeting 70 GByte/s per DIMM.... SSDs are no competition for RAM.
If RAM to VRAM is still faster (as expected), what will be the point of pc version of games being like what they are doing on PS5 (SSD to VRAM)? Just "releasing" more CPU?
 
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Haggard

Banned
If RAM to VRAM is still faster (as expected), what will be the point of pc version of games being like what they are making on PS5 (SSD to VRAM)?
Not sure if I understand your question right, but the PC`s equivalent to the consoles` high-speed I/O will be Microsoft`s Direct Storage API in tandem with Nvidia`s RTX I/O and whatever AMD is preparing in that regard.
 
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Bo_Hazem

Banned
If RAM to VRAM is still faster (as expected), what will be the point of pc version of games being like what they are doing on PS5 (SSD to VRAM)? Just "releasing" more CPU?

Games can be larger than typical average RAM's, so you spend less money on upgrading your RAM as the SSD can feed VRAM fast enough with some assets sitting at the RAM if data can't go fast enough. RAM can't expect all assets and it'll require more work from the devs to code accordingly. With direct VRAM feed from the SSD that's a massive chunk of polishing/production work taken away.
 
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rodrigolfp

Haptic Gamepads 4 Life
Not sure if I understand your question right, but the PC`s equivalent to the consoles` high-speed I/O will be Microsoft`s Direct Storage API in tandem with Nvidia`s RTX I/O and whatever AMD is preparing in that regard.
My point is for PC not rely (so much) on SSD and I/O. For example for people still using pcie 3.0 m.2 SSDs.
 
RAM will still be necessary for regular PC's without GPU's, at least. But 32GB/s or even a new SSD type saturating even more PCIe lanes than 4x (8GB/s each) is gonna be great. Also maybe new designs in motherboards to have all necessary parts very close to each other, something like 2-sided motherboards for gaming?



They could co-exist indeed. But with free access to Quixel Megascans on UE5/4, we should expect more to reach higher grounds than previous indies.



With DDR4 single channel hitting 25GB/s ceiling, new SSD's will surpass that at least, which is a massive jump.
Wait… are you saying that people will use PCIE 5.0 ssds with DDR4 RAM lol

that’s not how it works. Yeah SSDs could beat DDR4 but it won’t matter cause by that time we’ll have DDR5.
 

Haggard

Banned
My point is for PC not rely (so much) on SSD and I/O. For example for people still using pcie 3.0 m.2 SSDs.
All software working with large amounts of data relies on data accessibility and availability.
Hardware either keeps up or is made obsolete and needs replacement.

PCIE3.0 SSDs becoming obsolete will not happen anytime soon, though.
 
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Bo_Hazem

Banned
Wait… are you saying that people will use PCIE 5.0 ssds with DDR4 RAM lol

that’s not how it works. Yeah SSDs could beat DDR4 but it won’t matter cause by that time we’ll have DDR5.

No, not with of course. But imagine having your SSD being close to be DDR4-like to feed whatever needed, be it RAM/VRAM/CPU/GPU cache etc. It's really a wonderful jump in storage speeds, and expecting current SATA3 SSD's to be the new HDD. I'm personally not wasting my time with HDD to move data around my PC. Already working on my 2TB SATA3 SSD feels pretty slow with 512MB/s compared to my main 3.5GB/s 1TB NVMe m.2 SSD. Video editing will have a massive improvement as well as the communication between PC parts gonna be much faster when dealing with heavy 4K-8K files or editing effects/speeding up FPS. Currently fine with pushing 8-bit 4K up to 1200fps with no freezing, but would expect my PC to start choking with my new a7S III footage at 10-bit 4K@120fps, let alone speeding some parts up.
 
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Bo_Hazem

Banned
Isn't 32Gbps = 4GB/s?

32Gbps = 8GB/s. But don't get confused, that's only 1x PCIe 5.0 lane, and NVMe m.2 SSD uses 4x lanes = 8x4 = 32GB/s = 128Gbps.

Now, the new graphics cards in the future will have 128GB/s via 16x lanes (1024Gbps if you wanna use bits instead of Bytes, I'm not sure why they bother with bits though).


Yes, per lane.

May high transfer rate from ssd degrade ssds a lot faster if used as "vram cache"?

Not really, you're not writing anything, you're just feeding the VRAM and once used there it's deleted on the spot, not on the SSD itself.
 
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Dream-Knife

Banned
People always look at 32GB/s and don't focus on what does that translate in milliseconds, which is 32MB/ms! That would mean that future phase of games wouldn't need more RAM as it'll most likely feed the VRAM directly like in PS5, and traditional RAM will remain as your car "trunk" to have some assets sitting there to get things in/out of VRAM as you turn around.

More speed is more welcome, it opens the doors of game design wide open and can accelerate game production cycles drastically as well.
But that's basically what we have now though.

I don't think the speed increases development. If anything, games are getting more complex at a disproportional rate, making games take longer.

You don't want to use your SSD as RAM either. SSDs will never be as fast as RAM, and SSDs have much shorter lives than RAM.
 

CamHostage

Member
Since we're talking technical stuff, I haven't known where to look it up, but when DirectStorage finally does show up, that'll require a format of your drive, right?

It's not just going to be some quick patch and then, hey!, all your data speed lugpoints are gone. DirectStorage seems like major surgery, and I was assuming that would also likely include an overhaul of NTFS, but I'm not sure if the upgrade process has been laid out?
 
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Bo_Hazem

Banned
But that's basically what we have now though.

I don't think the speed increases development. If anything, games are getting more complex at a disproportional rate, making games take longer.

You don't want to use your SSD as RAM either. SSDs will never be as fast as RAM, and SSDs have much shorter lives than RAM.

You're assuming that the RAM access to SSD is instantaneous, which is not. Also don't mix compressed data with uncompressed data. If you're pulling like 5GB from the SSD that could end up being 10-20GB, now how much the main CPU will take to decompress that and how that will effect the FPS while doing so and CPU conflicting with many orders. Then again how can you predict the location of each asset as the very same game could have different assets sitting on different chips/modules, which can add more seek time.

Many different bottlenecks are present now and the best solution for that would be a Threadripper CPU (assuming devs would code for it, which is impossible due to the extremely low adoption for gaming) and big RAM's and VRAM's. The faster the throughput from SSD to VRAM the less RAM/VRAM size is needed for the same game, and games should even get bigger in the future and more demanding.

Also you're not writing/deleting anything by data streaming, not sure why you guys are talking about this.

I'm only upgrading my motherboard when system RAM switches to DDR5.

If your current PC is strong enough, wait until PCIe 5.0 motherboard, that will last for some good time.


Since we're talking technical stuff, I haven't known where to look it up, but when DirectStorage finally does show up, that'll require a format of your drive, right?

It's not just going to be some quick patch and then, hey!, all your data speed lugpoints are gone. DirectStorage seems like major surgery, and I was assuming that would also likely include an overhaul of NTFS, but I'm not sure if the upgrade process has been laid out?

That's interesting, but I don't think a format is needed as the API will be dealing with cold-stored data on either way. It'll just introduce software-based I/O using existing PC parts, AFAIK.
 
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An entire thread for a pissing contest so that you can show off your Sony Boner and have every Sony fan agree with you? PCIe 5 will have 128GB/s transfers over PCIe 4's 64GB/s. Ultimately performance will rely on motherboards taking advantage of new and interesting tech and an SSD geared for PCIe5. Is there an example currently where Sony is demolishing the competition with load times and asset streaming?
 
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Dream-Knife

Banned
You're assuming that the RAM access to SSD is instantaneous, which is not. Also don't mix compressed data with uncompressed data. If you're pulling like 5GB from the SSD that could end up being 10-20GB, now how much the main CPU will take to decompress that and how that will effect the FPS while doing so and CPU conflicting with many orders. Then again how can you predict the location of each asset as the very same game could have different assets sitting on different chips/modules, which can add more seek time.

Many different bottlenecks are present now and the best solution for that would be a Threadripper CPU (assuming devs would code for it, which is impossible due to the extremely low adoption for gaming) and big RAM's and VRAM's. The faster the throughput from SSD to VRAM the less RAM/VRAM size is needed for the same game, and games should even get bigger in the future and more demanding.

Also you're not writing/deleting anything by data streaming, not sure why you guys are talking about this.



If your current PC is strong enough, wait until PCIe 5.0 motherboard, that will last for some good time.




That's interesting, but I don't think a format is needed as the API will be dealing with cold-stored data on either way. It'll just introduce software-based I/O using existing PC parts, AFAIK.
Unless you're using an APU, DDR5 won't really mean anything for gaming.

I don't see a game actually needing what you describe, unless we have another huge performance shift like with Crysis, but even that game predicted future PCs incorrectly.

I really believe that AA gaming is the future, and not EA, Activision, Sony, Microsoft, etc releasing the same games with prettier graphics.

The SSD throughput will matter less and less and VRAM gets even faster and cards have more and more of it. AMDs new cards have 16gb of VRAM. By the time games are made to such standards, cards will have what? 24 minimum? RAM is always faster.
 

Bo_Hazem

Banned
An entire thread for a pissing contest so that you can show off your Sony Boner and have every Sony fan agree with you? PCIe 5 will have 128GB/s transfers over PCIe 4's 64GB/s. Ultimately performance will rely on motherboards taking advantage of new and interesting tech and an SSD geared for PCIe5. Is there an example currently where Sony is demolishing the competition with load times and asset streaming?

You go search for it because you came here unprepared and pissing all over the thread with your pathetic antagonizing mindset.

Unless you're using an APU, DDR5 won't really mean anything for gaming.

I don't see a game actually needing what you describe, unless we have another huge performance shift like with Crysis, but even that game predicted future PCs incorrectly.

I really believe that AA gaming is the future, and not EA, Activision, Sony, Microsoft, etc releasing the same games with prettier graphics.

The SSD throughput will matter less and less and VRAM gets even faster and cards have more and more of it. AMDs new cards have 16gb of VRAM. By the time games are made to such standards, cards will have what? 24 minimum? RAM is always faster.

You're still taking about current phase of multiplats and games, and not putting in mind with UE5 trying to achieve going forward. And yes, APU would be a think at around 5-3nm and think many would go APU instead with as powerful as current PC graphics cards. Traditional graphics card would remain more powerful, but the latency will be superior on APU's.

AMD-APU-diagram-1.png
 
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Dream-Knife

Banned
You go searched for it because you came here unprepared and pissing all over the thread with your pathetic antagonizing mindset.



You're still taking about current phase of multiplats and games, and not putting in mind with UE5 trying to achieve going forward. And yes, APU would be a think at around 5-3nm and think many would go APU instead with as powerful as current PC graphics cards. Traditional graphics card would remain more powerful, but the latency will be superior on APU's.

AMD-APU-diagram-1.png
N64 has lower latency than a PS5. Which has new games on it?

What you assume is that progress will stop at that point and people will say 'that's good enough', which will never happen. But if people do decide that there is a point ion 'good enough', then PC and console gaming will be dead and Nintendo will be the only ones around, along with mobile.

APUs have been around for a very long time. No one games on them (other than consoles) because of performance.
 

Bo_Hazem

Banned
N64 has lower latency than a PS5. Which has new games on it?

What you assume is that progress will stop at that point and people will say 'that's good enough', which will never happen. But if people do decide that there is a point ion 'good enough', then PC and console gaming will be dead and Nintendo will be the only ones around, along with mobile.

APUs have been around for a very long time. No one games on them (other than consoles) because of performance.

According to Epic games, even a 24GB/s RAID SSD's can't run that exact demo on UE5, that's the future I'm talking about. Current graphics with 30TF will feel like 60TF due to high efficacy.
 

Dream-Knife

Banned
According to Epic games, even a 24GB/s RAID SSD's can't run that exact demo on UE5, that's the future I'm talking about. Current graphics with 30TF will feel like 60TF due to high efficacy.
Then Epic did a really poor job with their engine, and it's utilization this generation will be next to zero.
 

Bo_Hazem

Banned
Then Epic did a really poor job with their engine, and it's utilization this generation will be next to zero.

Not really, because from there you can scale easily scale down the polygon frame budget from 20M to something achievable in that platform, down to even a mobile. This will make scaling down games much easier and better and optimizing for full potential of high-end HW more meaningful than now.

There will be no game with RAW 8K cinema assets. But this Rebirth trailer is 5.3x smaller, meaning it's very easy to achieve:









And that's UE4.
 
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DenchDeckard

Moderated wildly
Yea, this sounds plausible. I think along those lines about PCIE 5.0 that it could very well be that full adoption of the PS5 tech may not take place until next-gen for the consoles (i.e. PS6). We might see RTX 4000 series this generation but I don't think Nvidia/AMD are going to be putting out next-gen versions of their boards every 2yrs like before. I think with the slow pace of sales and COVID slowing a lot of production down, we probably won't see another new card for 3-4yrs. That's just a guess.

I think we will see nvidia release a new family of cards next year no matter what. They have earnings and shareholders they need to massage. I think it's pretty evident from the fact that they are willing to release a 3070 Ti and 3080 Ti in the next few weeks. Businesses don't care about their current customer pre orders they care about competition and being better than the competition. Both amd and nvidia will release new products no matter what.
 

Bo_Hazem

Banned
I think we will see nvidia release a new family of cards next year no matter what. They have earnings and shareholders they need to massage. I think it's pretty evident from the fact that they are willing to release a 3070 Ti and 3080 Ti in the next few weeks. Businesses don't care about their current customer pre orders they care about competition and being better than the competition. Both amd and nvidia will release new products no matter what.

It'll probably be reskins like RTX2000's from 1000's with some spices.
 

Fafalada

Fafracer forever
APUs have been around for a very long time. No one games on them (other than consoles) because of performance.
Actually lots of people do. Don't know where numbers are today, but integrated graphics have been a majority market-share even early last decade, when they were just first becoming 'good' with the likes of SandyBridge. If anything - I'd expect that to be bigger now with how far APUs have gotten since, and having dedicated PC gaming handhelds and the likes now, not just laptops.
 
DDR5 and PCIE5 will be great but it will still need years after they release for them to catch on. I do not really expect games using those possibilities for years to come. I wouldn't be surprised if gaming changes completly by then. Especially considering advancements in AI of all sorts.

Once 5G and similar technologies catch on with high enough bandwidth and smaller latency everyone will try to force gamers onto cloudservices. This is where those companys will own everything you need to play and make you pay for it.

So its really hard (for me atleast) to predict the future of gaming for more then 3 years.
 
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Bo_Hazem

Banned
Actually lots of people do. Don't know where numbers are today, but integrated graphics have been a majority market-share even early last decade, when they were just first becoming 'good' with the likes of SandyBridge. If anything - I'd expect that to be bigger now with how far APUs have gotten since, and having dedicated PC gaming handhelds and the likes now, not just laptops.

Glad to have you here, you got so much knowledge to share.

DDR5 and PCIE5 will be great but it will still need years after they release for them to catch on. I do not really expect games using those possibilities for years to come. I wouldn't be surprised if gaming changes completly by then. Especially considering advancements in AI of all sorts.

Once 5G and similar technologies catch on with high enough bandwidth and latency everyone will try to force gamers onto cloudservices. This is where those companys will own everything you need to play and make you pay for it.

So its really hard (for me atleast) to predict the future of gaming for more then 3 years.

Very true, but there will always be room for the games we love to flourish, just like when most of the industry abandoned singleplayer games Sony provided the best SP games ever created. There will always be a healthy market for the games we love.
 
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