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[Thirty7ven]

Epic Games has used RAD’s technology before, specifically the compression technology. This has allowed the developer to improve the load time of Fortnite, which is currently one of the most popular games in the world. The post further explains that as games become more “photorealistic and powerful, developers need best-in-class compression software that can manage increased data requirements without compromising quality.”

In short, the plan is for RAD’s team and technology to work with the rendering, animation, insights, and audio teams for Unreal Engine to improve the systems and infrastructure that game developers use. While Epic now owns RAD, RAD will continue its existing work with game industry, television, and film partners, including those who do not use Unreal Engine in their work.

*insert Mark Cerny gif*

 

[Reizo Ryuu]

RAD, as in bink player lol?

 

[rofif]

Lol. Bink format ?! Who wants that

 

[TintoConCasera]

That's rad! (sorry)

I wonder if this compression technology would help future games not being 100GBs or larger, would help a lot specially on consoles imo.

 

[driqe]

RAD will not be exclusive to Unreal Engine btw.

Also, could someone tell me how Mark Cerny is related to any of this? Only one Sony first-party uses UE to my knowledge.

 

[Entroyp]

RAD will not be exclusive to Unreal Engine btw.

Also, could someone tell me how Mark Cerny is related to any of this? Only one Sony first-party uses UE to my knowledge.

Not directly related, but isn’t RAD the owner of oodle/Kraken? That’s a fundamental piece of tech inside the PS5.

 

[too much eslim]

RAD will not be exclusive to Unreal Engine btw.

Also, could someone tell me how Mark Cerny is related to any of this? Only one Sony first-party uses UE to my knowledge.

It's funny when you think about it. Most of MS studios use UE.

 

[driqe]

It's funny when you think about it. Most of MS studios use UE.

I don't think any other Major publisher uses UE more than MS

 

[BrentonB]

Sony/Epic/RAD are now all intertwined. Excited to see what they can do in the future together.

 

[driqe]

Not directly related, but isn’t RAD the owner of oodle/Kraken? That’s a fundamental piece of tech inside the PS5.

IIRC Kraken is already on the last-gen consoles. Does the Xbox Series have its own decompression tech or will it also use oodle/kraken?

 

[Soodanim]

 

[Salty Popsicle]

It's funny when you think about it. Most of MS studios use UE.

Not Really. The only Microsoft IP's that I can think of that uses UE is Gears of War and Sea of Thieves. Halo and Forza use their own proprietary game engines. However, Microsoft's future releases are very UE heavy with Hellblade 2, InXile's unannounced new game, and I believe Perfect Dark all being confirmed as UE5 games.

 

[driqe]

how do u delete stuff

just ignore this

 

[driqe]

Not Really. The only Microsoft IP's that I can think of that uses UE is Gears of War and Sea of Thieves. Halo and Forza use their own proprietary game engines. However, Microsoft's future releases are very UE heavy with Hellblade 2, InXile's unannounced new game, and I believe Perfect Dark all being confirmed as UE5 games.

Mojang, Ninja Theory, Undead Labs, Compulsion Games, Obsidian, Inxile, Coalition, Double Fine, Rare, The initiative, Worlds Edge all use Unreal Engine. Bethesda Studios use different variations of iD tech i.e Tango uses STEM engine.

 

[IbizaPocholo]

*insert

Gaming Software Pioneer RAD Game Tools Now Part of Epic Games

We are excited to share that Epic Games has acquired the technology and business of RAD Game Tools, a video game software development company whose products and technology appear in close to 25,000 games and are leveraged by the world’s leading gaming companies, including Epic. Together, Epic...

www.neogaf.com

 

[vpance]

UE5 games on PS5

Hard to see any other engines competing this gen. Even first party ones.

 

[mckmas8808]

Not directly related, but isn’t RAD the owner of oodle/Kraken? That’s a fundamental piece of tech inside the PS5.

I believe so. This is coming full circle for Sony now. This is RAD. This will help all parties at play here (Epic, Sony, and RAD).

 

[ksdixon]

I believe so. This is coming full circle for Sony now. This is RAD. This will help all parties at play here (Epic, Sony, and RAD).

It's also gonna help MS/anyone who uses UE5 though, right?

 

[mckmas8808]

It's also gonna help MS/anyone who uses UE5 though, right?

To some degree yes. 100%. But Sony and Epic have a VERY close relationship. So close that Sony partically owns EPIC now. I think Sony paid like $250 Million to be a part owner of Epic. So, that relationship of course will always benefit Sony more.

 

[ksdixon]

From what I remember it was a lot of money for small amount of Epic... "The investment gives Sony a 1.4 percent stake in Epic", apparently

 

[MasterCornholio]

IIRC Kraken is already on the last-gen consoles. Does the Xbox Series have its own decompression tech or will it also use oodle/kraken?

The Xbox Series does have its own decompression hardware in it. However not all decompressors are the same. This is what Mark said about the decompressor in the PS5 in relation to Kraken.

By the way in terms of performance that custom decompressor equates to nine of our Zen2 cores that's what it would take to decompress the Kraken stream with a conventional CPU.

So apparently if the decompressor is powerful enough it won't have any issues with Kraken. With that said I have no idea how capable the XSX/XSS decompressor is.

Maybe someone here knows the answer?

 

[kyliethicc]

RAD will not be exclusive to Unreal Engine btw.

Also, could someone tell me how Mark Cerny is related to any of this? Only one Sony first-party uses UE to my knowledge.

Only the PS5 supports Oodle Texture & Kraken decompression, both RAD tools tech. Cerny mentioned supporting RAD Kraken on PS5 in his March talk.

And then we go UE5 demo on PS5, then Sony bought a share of Epic, etc.

IIRC Kraken is already on the last-gen consoles. Does the Xbox Series have its own decompression tech or will it also use oodle/kraken?

No the PS4 / XOne do not support Kraken. Neither does XSX.

 

[Entroyp]

IIRC Kraken is already on the last-gen consoles. Does the Xbox Series have its own decompression tech or will it also use oodle/kraken?

Yes, but what I meant is Kraken is baked into the hardware on PS5.

Xbox has its own decompression tech with DX but nothing stops a dev for using RAD tools I guess. Everyone wins if it’s embedded with UE V

 

[driqe]

Only the PS5 supports Oodle Texture & Kraken decompression, both RAD tools tech. Cerny mentioned supporting RAD Kraken on PS5 in his March talk.

And then we go UE5 demo on PS5, then Sony bought a share of Epic, etc.



No the PS4 / XOne do not support Kraken. Neither does XSX.

"Kraken is designed to run at blazing speeds on modern CPUs. It's great on the AMD Jaguar chip in the PS4 and Xbox One, which is a platform most compressors struggle on."

Oodle Kraken

RAD Game Tools' web page. RAD makes Bink Video, the Telemetry Performance Visualization System, and Oodle Data Compression - all popular video game middleware.

www.radgametools.com

 

[kyliethicc]

"Kraken is designed to run at blazing speeds on modern CPUs. It's great on the AMD Jaguar chip in the PS4 and Xbox One, which is a platform most compressors struggle on."

Oodle Kraken

RAD Game Tools' web page. RAD makes Bink Video, the Telemetry Performance Visualization System, and Oodle Data Compression - all popular video game middleware.

www.radgametools.com

IDK, the point is only the PS5 supports Kraken. Cerny himself said the PS4 only uses Zlib.

XSX has their own stuff, but its not RAD tools tech.

 

[driqe]

Cerny himself said the PS4 only uses Zlib.

So Cerny lied?

 

[skit_data]

It probably is being used but the older consoles does not have dedicated hardware capable of offloading the CPU, whereas the PS5 does.
I guess its being used, but takes a lot of unpacking to be able to be used ingame. In the PS5 this unpacking will be done seamlessly, making it able to reach that 17 GB/s compressed data transfer rate.

Tldr; its being used, but in the PS5 you can stream it, instead of watching a loadscreen

 

[kyliethicc]

So Cerny lied?

I highly doubt it. Idk, maybe I'm mistaken about something.

 

[The Hamburglar]

If they’re buying up all the tools, they will be none left for phil

 

[Shmunter]

Every UE game sold on Xbox bolsters Sony gaming!

 

[Knitted Knight]

Multiplats are a wrap now more than they were already. Jeeeesus.

 

[King_A_Acumen]

The Xbox Series does have its own decompression hardware in it. However not all decompressors are the same. This is what Mark said about the decompressor in the PS5 in relation to Kraken.



So apparently if the decompressor is powerful enough it won't have any issues with Kraken. With that said I have no idea how capable the XSX/XSS decompressor is.

Maybe someone here knows the answer?

XSX/S uses Zlib + BCpack for 2.4GB/s raw, 4.8GB/s compressed and 6GB/s max.
PS5 use Kraken + Oodle Textures for 5.5GB/s raw, (8-9GB/s with only Kraken, 17+GB/s with Kraken + Oodle Textures) and 22 GB/s max.

The XSX decompressor is about 5 Zen2 cores and the PS5 decompressor is about 9 Zen2 cores but the PS5 has other SSD I/O hardware that's also more Zen2 cores.

 

[King_A_Acumen]

XSX/S uses Zlib + BCpack for 2.4GB/s raw, 4.8GB/s compressed and 6GB/s max.
PS5 use Kraken + Oodle Textures for 5.5GB/s raw, (8-9GB/s with only Kraken, 17+GB/s with Kraken + Oodle Textures) and 22 GB/s max.

The XSX decompressor is about 5 Zen2 cores and the PS5 decompressor is about 9 Zen2 cores but the PS5 has other SSD I/O hardware that's also more Zen2 cores.

I'll add this as well.

Now Epic/Sony/RAD are all very close, with UE5 having been tailored a lot more for PS5 especially with Nanite, Epic started consultations with Cerny and Sony ICE about 3-4 years ago and the collaboration is much longer running than with Xbox. Which is why UE5 mainly with Nanite seems so in tune with the PS5 and it's SSD I/O + Geometry Engine and pretty much snubs Xbox's work with custom SFS.

 

[MasterCornholio]

So Cerny lied?

This is what he said.

PlayStation 4 used "Zlib" as its compression format we decided to use it again on PlayStation 5 but on my 2017 tour of developers I learned about a new format called "Kraken" from Rad Game Tools.

And then he said this.

By the way in terms of performance that custom decompressor equates to nine of our Zen2 cores that's what it would take to decompress the Kraken stream with a conventional CPU.

This is just my guess though.

I think he mentioned the stats for the decompressor because you need something like that to decompress data that quickly on tbe PS5. You can definitely use Jaguar Cores to decompress Kraken but I'm guessing it would be a lot slower.

That's how I understand that claim.

 

[x@3f*oo_e!]

Every UE game sold on Xbox bolsters Sony gaming!

Every PS5 game sold bolsters EPIC.

Fixed that for you. Sony don't own EPIC yet.

Tencent nearly does though.. maybe they will buy XBOX

 

[driqe]

XSX/S uses Zlib + BCpack for 2.4GB/s raw, 4.8GB/s compressed and 6GB/s max.
PS5 use Kraken + Oodle Textures for 5.5GB/s raw, (8-9GB/s with only Kraken, 17+GB/s with Kraken + Oodle Textures) and 22 GB/s max.

The XSX decompressor is about 5 Zen2 cores and the PS5 decompressor is about 9 Zen2 cores but the PS5 has other SSD I/O hardware that's also more Zen2 cores.

source?

 

[MasterCornholio]

XSX/S uses Zlib + BCpack for 2.4GB/s raw, 4.8GB/s compressed and 6GB/s max.
PS5 use Kraken + Oodle Textures for 5.5GB/s raw, (8-9GB/s with only Kraken, 17+GB/s with Kraken + Oodle Textures) and 22 GB/s max.

The XSX decompressor is about 5 Zen2 cores and the PS5 decompressor is about 9 Zen2 cores but the PS5 has other SSD I/O hardware that's also more Zen2 cores.

Cerny really wanted to eliminate the CPU when it came to the I/O. That's probably the reason why the I/O eats up 1/10 of a core on the XSX and nothing on the PS5. I also believe the PS5 decompressor needed to be quite powerful due to the speeds that Sony were aiming for.

 

[MasterCornholio]

source?

I've been using this for the data regarding the PS5.

Transcribe - The Road to PS5 - Mark Cerny's a deep dive into the PlayStation 5 - - The Road to Next Gen Ludens

Thank you Jim. There will be lots of chances later on this year to look at the PlayStation 5 games.Today I want to talk a bit about our goals for the PlayStation 5 hardware and how they influenced the development of the console.

playstationvr.hateblo.jp

 

[driqe]

I've been using this for the data regarding the PS5.

Transcribe - The Road to PS5 - Mark Cerny's a deep dive into the PlayStation 5 - - The Road to Next Gen Ludens

Thank you Jim. There will be lots of chances later on this year to look at the PlayStation 5 games.Today I want to talk a bit about our goals for the PlayStation 5 hardware and how they influenced the development of the console.

playstationvr.hateblo.jp

I knew about the ps5 already, but I haven't heard anything about Xbox Series decompression. Where did you get that from?

 

[x@3f*oo_e!]

I knew about the ps5 already, but I haven't heard anything about Xbox Series decompression. Where did you get that from?

try here https://news.xbox.com/en-us/2020/07/14/a-closer-look-at-xbox-velocity-architecture/

I think they quoted right

 

[MasterCornholio]

I knew about the ps5 already, but I haven't heard anything about Xbox Series decompression. Where did you get that from?

I'm guessing people are getting it from hotchips and maybe the talk about the velocity architecture. I'm not pulling any data from there though.

 

[MasterCornholio]

try here https://news.xbox.com/en-us/2020/07/14/a-closer-look-at-xbox-velocity-architecture/

I think they quoted right

Thank you.

Assuming a 2:1 compression ratio, Xbox Series X delivers an effective 4.8 GB/s in I/O performance to the title, approximately 100x the I/O performance in current generation consoles. To deliver similar levels of decompression performance in software would require more than 4 Zen 2 CPU cores.

 

[Reallink]

To some degree yes. 100%. But Sony and Epic have a VERY close relationship. So close that Sony partically owns EPIC now. I think Sony paid like $250 Million to be a part owner of Epic. So, that relationship of course will always benefit Sony more.

LOL keyword there is "partially". $250 million like a single weekend of new Fortnite skins and is an utterly meaningless and inconsequential stake. Neogaf traders who might have bought 5 or 10 G's of Epic stock 5 years ago would be larger "owners" than Sony.

 

[theclaw135]

Not Really. The only Microsoft IP's that I can think of that uses UE is Gears of War and Sea of Thieves. Halo and Forza use their own proprietary game engines. However, Microsoft's future releases are very UE heavy with Hellblade 2, InXile's unannounced new game, and I believe Perfect Dark all being confirmed as UE5 games.

Lost Odyssey is a Microsoft IP using UE.

 

[DarkMage619]

I'll add this as well.

Now Epic/Sony/RAD are all very close, with UE5 having been tailored a lot more for PS5 especially with Nanite, Epic started consultations with Cerny and Sony ICE about 3-4 years ago and the collaboration is much longer running than with Xbox. Which is why UE5 mainly with Nanite seems so in tune with the PS5 and it's SSD I/O + Geometry Engine and pretty much snubs Xbox's work with custom SFS.

You sure Epic has worked with Sony longer? Didn't Epic create Gears of War on the X360? What titles did Epic make for PlayStation back then? Also I thought it was Epic that told MS to increase the RAM in the X360. I wasn't aware they were heavily involved with PS2 or 3 too.

 

[MasterCornholio]

You sure Epic has worked with Sony longer? Didn't Epic create Gears of War on the X360? What titles did Epic make for PlayStation back then? Also I thought it was Epic that told MS to increase the RAM in the X360. I wasn't aware they were heavily involved with PS2 or 3 too.

Does it matter if Epic worked with Microsoft longer?

We should be looking at how Sony and Microsoft are currently working with them more than anything.

 

[King_A_Acumen]

You sure Epic has worked with Sony longer? Didn't Epic create Gears of War on the X360? What titles did Epic make for PlayStation back then? Also I thought it was Epic that told MS to increase the RAM in the X360. I wasn't aware they were heavily involved with PS2 or 3 too.

In terms of when the consoles were available, Epic has made games on the PS1 and PS2. But I was talking more in terms for the Engine and specifically UE5.
From the recent interview:

Sony, you see, had listened. PS5 was going to make Nanite possible. "It was three or four years ago at least when we started to talk with Mark Cerny about possibilities for the next generation," Sweeney says. Their discussion wasn't just about graphics, but about the growing realisation that storage architecture in game hardware – having to load data from a hard drive, the huge amounts of latency between mass storage and a processor – was a limiting factor in Epic's and all developers' future plans for game-making. The team at Epic received very early hardware access to the next-gen console, and the Sony collaboration has been far longer-running than the Microsoft one, Sweeney says.

 

[MasterCornholio]

In terms of when the consoles were available, Epic has made games on the PS1 and PS2. But I was talking more in terms for the Engine and specifically UE5.
From the recent interview:

Sony let epic in extremely early. I wouldn't be surprised if Epic and Cerny worked together to design the PS5s I/O. Also probably the reason why they demonstrated UE5 with it. No offense intended for Microsoft DarkMage619 . Sometimes collaborations happen this way.

 

[King_A_Acumen]

Sony let epic in extremely early. I wouldn't be surprised if Epic and Cerny worked together to design the PS5s I/O. Also probably the reason why they demonstrated UE5 with it. No offense intended for Microsoft DarkMage619 . Sometimes collaborations happen this way.

If Epic and Sony started talking about the next-gen 3-4 years ago as Sweeny says, I'm sure they had input on each other. Especially since Sony has their ICE team dedicated full time to researching advance game engine tech.

Nanite fits way too well with the PS5's SSD I/O hub and Geometry Engine to be a coincidence. Cerny is also very in tune with the industry he works on the games, the game engines and the hardware/software, he takes a few months trip like every 2 years to visit the major devs/publishers to talk about what they want/need.

 

[MasterCornholio]

If Epic and Sony started talking about the next-gen 3-4 years ago as Sweeny says, I'm sure they had input on each other. Especially since Sony has their ICE team dedicated full time to researching advance game engine tech.

Nanite fits way too well with the PS5's SSD I/O hub and Geometry Engine to be a coincidence. Cerny is also very in tune with the industry he works on the games, the game engines and the hardware/software, he takes a few months trip like every 2 years to visit the major devs/publishers to talk about what they want/need.

You're right about that. Cerny did say that Developers are a huge part in the PS5s design. I wouldn't be surprised if they influenced many different aspects of the systems design. His trips to see different developers was extremely important.

The first of these is listening to the developers which is to say that a lot of what we put into a console derives directly from the needs and aspirations of the game creators.

We definitely do have some ideas of our own but at the core of our philosophy for designing consoles is that game players are here for the fantastic games.

Which is to say that game creators matter anything we can do to make life easier for the game creators or help them realize their dreams we will do.

So about once every two years I take a tour of the industry.

The PS3 taught Sony on how important it is to get developer feedback. Ever since that platform it's been a main focus for them.