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Sony certifying 5.5Gb/s raw SSDs as additional PS5 storage is is worrying - heres how and why

LordOfChaos

Member
ah Yeah so that will be the kingsway anyway. That way they can technicly allow a bit slower drives but cannot be blamed if performance suffers. And offer a solution to the Customer (by installing on the main SSD) . So Devs realy should not be affected by this. They anyway will a im high in regards of SSD SPecs. Perfection.gif

Yeah. Made complete sense as soon as I saw it. Not really a problem, if some future game comes up that really does need that faster drive, you can just shuffle them around in half a minute. Makes sense that they allowed slower drives.
 

Kumomeme

Member
we just around 8 month old since new generation started. not even a year and people already speculate like these new consoles already squeeze everything at 100%.

both Sony and MS also designed the hardware for long term use. the consoles need to last for atleast another next 5 years and they need to make sure the specs held up by that point. right now it might be 'overkill' but in next few years it would be considered slow and like how others users pointed out here, i doubt those game at this earlier start of generation already maximize use of both consoles hardware capabilities. be it SSD, GPU, CPU etc.

rather than scratching head and exhausted too early, better we wait for next few years to see how things play out. more game gonna come out, more actual GDC data reveal. that time we should have more material/data for analysis, comparison and testing than speculation everywhere. i curious about how those test using slower than requirement speed ssd gonna come out in next few years(compared to now) especially when there tons of more demanding game released.
 
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Loope

Member
Are you for real? There are clowns on both sides. The MrXmedia types which state nonsense all the time. Are you actually taking that nonsense seriously?
We were talking about people here,of course there are clowns on every side, sony, ms, pc you name it. The fact is several people talked about the SSD like it would magically make everything better, inclunding the GPU. MrXmedia and other dumbasses like that don't even register in my radar, because i simply don't read anything from them except what people post here.
 
All of their games will be on PC so they won't be maxing out that SSD anyway. Just a guess going by that dev group they bought to port their games.

Indeed, people want Sony games on PC.
And if the minimum system requirement would be a top of the line SSD there would be rage on the internet.
Sony just can't win.
 

Topher

Gold Member
Indeed, people want Sony games on PC.
And if the minimum system requirement would be a top of the line SSD there would be rage on the internet.
Sony just can't win.

This is probably the reason you won't see all PS games on PC. Ratchet and Clank would be a difficult port as the devs have said it is highly dependent on the hardware compression and IO path of PS5. A top of the line SSD isn't going to give you that.

Other games that are not as dependent can probably get away with more loading screens.
 
Rui
I do

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Rui Unas represent!
 

Shane89

Member
all this blah blah, like if you are the one that designed the console architecture.

wait the goddamn loading times comparison, there will be shitload of them very soon, then you will be able to make your choice
 
like it would magically make everything better, inclunding the GPU

Actually I've seen that mostly from Xbox fans.

What I mostly seen from the other side is how it can affect the quality of assets through better memory management. This is also something I've seen some developers comment on.

But the only ones making claims that people are saying that it boosts framerate/resolution are Xbox fans for the most part.

It's what I have observed here anyways. Usually playstation fans tend to quote Mark Cerny or Sony 1st parties for information like that.

I've been both sides make crazy claims BTW.
 

Loope

Member
Actually I've seen that mostly from Xbox fans.

What I mostly seen from the other side is how it can affect the quality of assets through better memory management. This is also something I've seen some developers comment on.

But the only ones making claims that people are saying that it boosts framerate/resolution are Xbox fans for the most part.

It's what I have observed here anyways. Usually playstation fans tend to quote Mark Cerny or Sony 1st parties for information like that.

I've been both sides make crazy claims BTW.
Sorry but no.I'm not going to go through all of that crap, but i remember it pretty well to the point i asked about it and i think it was actually you that replied to me. It's not that important either way.
 
Sorry but no.I'm not going to go through all of that crap, but i remember it pretty well to the point i asked about it and i think it was actually you that replied to me. It's not that important either way.

I never told you that it would increase framerate or resolution. It does however can improve memory management and the assets the GPU has access to.

Like with Ratchet on the PS4 they had to load the entire level into memory while on the PS5 they loaded it in chunks. Something similar was done with Demon Souls. Both have been said by the developers in interviews.

The only Mister X media level of hardware analysis that I've seen comes from Twitter users like blueisviolet. Like when he said Mark was lying about the PS5 having RT hardware for example.

 
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Loope

Member
I never told you that it would increase framerate or resolution. It does however can improve memory management and the assets the GPU has access to.

Like with Ratchet on the PS4 they had to load the entire level into memory while on the PS5 they loaded it in chunks. Something similar was done with Demon Souls. Both have been said by the developers in interviews.

The only Mister X media level of hardware analysis that I've seen comes from Twitter users like blueisviolet. Like when he said Mark was lying about the PS5 having RT hardware for example.


I know, i should have clarified that you gave me a concise and objective answer. Sorry about the confusion. MisterX is a dumbass as far as i know.
 
I know, i should have clarified that you gave me a concise and objective answer. Sorry about the confusion. MisterX is a dumbass as far as i know.

That's ok people accuse me of saying that all the time. I usually prefer to listen to developers and system architects before taking some twitter users word over theirs.

Both systems have their strengths and weaknesses and what ultimately shows it are the games. There are certainly exceptions when a dev really messes up one platform over the other.
 

Loope

Member
That's ok people accuse me of saying that all the time. I usually prefer to listen to developers and system architects before taking some twitter users word over theirs.

Both systems have their strengths and weaknesses and what ultimately shows it are the games. There are certainly exceptions when a dev really messes up one platform over the other.
Nah man, you've always been neutral on those threads and i enjoy reading your posts. I remember the Beavis (or butthead? ) avatar eheh. If people accuse of that, they're just wrong.
 

Kumomeme

Member
Actually I've seen that mostly from Xbox fans.

What I mostly seen from the other side is how it can affect the quality of assets through better memory management. This is also something I've seen some developers comment on.

But the only ones making claims that people are saying that it boosts framerate/resolution are Xbox fans for the most part.

It's what I have observed here anyways. Usually playstation fans tend to quote Mark Cerny or Sony 1st parties for information like that.

I've been both sides make crazy claims BTW.
agree. i even saw certain fans immediately jump on train, take no time bashing here and there like they saw someone leave free food on streets despite it is dumb or not.
 
agree. i even saw certain fans immediately jump on train, take no time bashing here and there like they saw someone leave free food on streets despite it is dumb or not.

I watched the Next gen speculation thread from the beginning and a lot of crazy things were said in it. Both sides have said some pretty nutty things and we even had some pretty crazy individuals participate in that thread.

But thankfully the consoles are finally out and we can discuss results instead of speculating crazy things about the tech.
 

Kumomeme

Member
I watched the Next gen speculation thread from the beginning and a lot of crazy things were said in it. Both sides have said some pretty nutty things and we even had some pretty crazy individuals participate in that thread.

But thankfully the consoles are finally out and we can discuss results instead of speculating crazy things about the tech.
too bad despite both consoles already out, the crazy speculation still not stopped. here is a good example. not to mention another place like twitter and reddit, which is become back and forth source from here to there vice versa. probably might because we still at very beginning of generation. hopefully it toned down in next few years where more game coming out, more data reveal by developers at GDC and stuff.
 
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too bad despite both consoles already out, the crazy speculation still not stopped. here is a good example. not to mention another place like twitter and reddit, which is become back and forth source from here to there vice versa. probably might because we still at very beginning of generation. hopefully it toned down in next few years where more game coming out, more data reveal by developers at GDC and stuff.

Talking about developer stuff I'm very interested in hearing Insomniac talk about the tech in their latest title. I'm really impressed with them as a developer and I can't wait to see what they will do in the future.
 
All of their games will be on PC so they won't be maxing out that SSD anyway. Just a guess going by that dev group they bought to port their games.
Nonsense.

When fully utilized the SSD will be treated like slow RAM - streaming assets just-in-time rather than pre-caching a whole bunch of stuff to memory. The purpose is to work around the (very limited) available memory, so you are not wasting multiple gigabytes caching textures that you may or may not even use.

These games can easily be ported to work on a PC (with standard SSD) because PC is not memory limited. It will be a couple of years before we see games which heavily leverage the PS5 SSD like this. And +1 year for the PC port. By this time (~ 2024), the average gaming PC will have 32GB RAM or more. Using RAM to pre-cache assets is not a problem in this case.
 
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S0ULZB0URNE

Member
Nonsense.

When fully utilized the SSD will be treated like slow RAM - streaming assets just-in-time rather than pre-caching a whole bunch of stuff to memory. The purpose is to work around the (very limited) available memory, so you are not wasting multiple gigabytes caching textures that you may or may not even use.

These games can easily be ported to work on a PC (with standard SSD) because PC is not memory limited. It will be a couple of years before we see games which heavily leverage the PS5 SSD like this. And +1 year for the PC port. By this time (~ 2024), the average gaming PC will have 32GB RAM or more. Using RAM to pre-cache assets is not a problem in this case.
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I still have yet to see any game on PC compete with the SSD speeds in the PS5. Show me a detailed open world like Spider-Man and fast travel to the other side of the map with about a 1 second fade. I'll wait.

Also, even on the fastest PCs, RE:Village still takes like 5 seconds to load whereas it's less than a second on PS5.

Will PCs get faster? Of course they will. They will surpass console speeds very soon, but as of right now, nobody is able to show me a real game that matches or exceeds the SSD speed in the PS5.
 

Connxtion

Member
(42.4GB took 1:16 to transfer, from pressing A to it vanishing from the queue) - This is 1 minute 16 seconds, right? I think that's roughly 600MB/s write speed. Someone who is good at maths can fix my numbers maybe because I suck lol :messenger_grinning_sweat: The read speed is normally faster than the write.
Correct 1 minute and 16 seconds.
Was going to do a video for you by Digital Foundry done it for me in there latest PS5 video.

From my testing it varies like they said, I done it again from external to internal and back again and it took over 2 minutes each. So it seems the speed goes up and down 🤷‍♂️ even though I was getting consistent 1:16/20 each time I moved it.

Either heat or OS doing something that reduces it 🤷‍♂️ who knows.
 

ethomaz

Banned
I seen something about it the other day, and the 3rd party SSD was something like twice as fast at writing, I'll try and find the video.
Edit:

Ratchet and Clank

Ps5 Main SSD:
  • Time to menu 7.51s
  • Time to game 1.79s
  • Time to move 2m33s
Samsung:
  • Time to menu 7.55s
  • Time to game 1.86s
  • Time to move 1m4s
Not sure how big R & C is though, I'll try and find out.
33.6GB(?) If my shit maths is correct, it's 240MB/s writing and 540MB/s for the Samsung(?).
That add my point early in the thread.
Faster SSD (>5.5GB/s) barely will make difference on PS5… DF test let that taste and now this other posted fits the same.

There some speculation why:

- Games on PS5 are not stressing the 5.5GB/s
Or
- There is a limitation in I/O Complex that matches peak 5.5GB/s
 
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Hoddi

Member
Correct 1 minute and 16 seconds.
Was going to do a video for you by Digital Foundry done it for me in there latest PS5 video.

From my testing it varies like they said, I done it again from external to internal and back again and it took over 2 minutes each. So it seems the speed goes up and down 🤷‍♂️ even though I was getting consistent 1:16/20 each time I moved it.

Either heat or OS doing something that reduces it 🤷‍♂️ who knows.
Most consumer SSDs rely on TLC or QLC NAND with a variable size SLC cache. Writing to SLC is much, much faster than writing to TLC/QLC so it's not unusual for writes to drop from high speeds at the beginning to low speeds at the end.

To put this in simpler terms, my 2TB Intel 660p is a QLC drive with a rated speed of 1.8GB/s. When the drive is empty then it has a 280GB SLC cache which means I can write at the full 1.8GB/s until it exceeds 280GB and falls all the way down to just 120MB/s. But once the drive is 75% full then the SLC cache is just 24GB so I can only write that amount before it falls to that same 120MB/s as before.

I don't know how big the SLC cache is on PS5 or if it even has one. But it's very much possible that copying a 100GB game will be faster for the first 50GB than the latter 50GB. If Sony used the exact same formula as Intel then their drive would have a 105GB cache when empty but only 9GB when 75% full. They use TLC NAND (and not QLC like my drive) so it shouldn't drop as low as 120MB/s; but it would still be much slower than when writing to an SLC cache.

There are still probably more factors involved but I would think this is one of them. I can't speak for the PS5 but disk encryption causes my (modded) PS3 to only copy files in the 12-15MB/s range on an SSD.
 

twilo99

Member
We need more people to test 3.5GB/s drives so we can see if there is any meaningful difference and if its worth spending the extra money for a faster drive.
 

Panajev2001a

GAF's Pleasant Genius
Faster SSD (>5.5GB/s) barely will make difference on PS5… DF test let that taste and now this other posted fits the same.

There some speculation why:

- Games on PS5 are not stressing the 5.5GB/s
Or
- There is a limitation in I/O Complex that matches peak 5.5GB/s

I think games are not hitting the limits of the drive yet and the games themselves are bound by limits beyond SSD I/O rate:

 
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twilo99

Member
Maybe we will see a game with a minimum system requirement of 5.5GB/s which simply can not work on a slower drive.
 
Maybe we will see a game with a minimum system requirement of 5.5GB/s which simply can not work on a slower drive.

I have a feeling that people are just going to notice that the game isn't running right and will move it to the soldered drive to fix the issue.
 

sendit

Member
Scenario 1
User: Puts in regular 87 grade gas to save money when their car requires premium

User: Complains to the car technician that their vehicle isn't running poorly.

Scenario 1A
User: Puts in a 3 GB spec SSD in their PS5 when Sony states the minimum is 5.5 GB.

User: TheTechnician creates a thread on Neogaf, and complains that his added SSD drive won't run the latest Sony games.
 
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St0pThatGuy

Neo Member
I think I see the problem here...

Sorry man, but you don't have a clue what you're talking about. I don't have a clue what you're talking about. That rant made zero sense and gave me a headache. Why in the hell would they have to downgrade anything to expand memory? I think they have their programming figured out. I mean they obviously had in mind to expand memory when they built the damn thing, right?? This is pure hysterics and hyperbole. I think you should relax.
 
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