• Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.

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

Rolla

Rolla

Banned
“The ability to stream in content at extreme speeds enables developers to create denser and more detailed environments, changing how we think about streaming content. It’s so impactful that we’ve rewritten our core I/O subsystems for Unreal Engine with the PlayStation 5 in mind,” he added.

More at the link.

www.vg247.com

Epic Games had to rewrite parts of Unreal Engine to keep up with the PS5's SSD

The SSD inside every PS5 is going to be transformative for game development, and the maker of Unreal Engine has seen it firsthand.
www.vg247.com www.vg247.com
 
Last edited:
Arkam

Arkam

Member
Yup. My understanding is that Sony has been working with Epic for a long time to help them leverage the PS5's speed. This is how I knew that UE5 was a ways off, cuz I heard (from a first hand source) that they were helping out Epic and that Epic had a long way to go. Oh and that demo was originally suppose to have been shown at GDC, but Epic was not ready.
Edit: This was in January
 
Last edited:
GymWolf

GymWolf

Member
Most ue5 third party games are not gonna use the major difference in ps5 ssd.

If this thing really permits groundbreaking stuff at level design level compared to sex ssd, devs are not gonna waste money and time to create 2 different version of the same game.
 
ethomaz

ethomaz

Banned
Like I assumed before Game Engines and Games needs to change how they write the I/O code to take advantage of the SSD faster SSD.
That will beneficial everybody and move the industry foward.

Bonfires Down said:
Well that was unnecessary since no third party devs will take advantage of the faster SSD anyway 😁
Click to expand...
At least 3rd-party devs using Unreal Engine 5 will already take advantage of faster SSD in PS5.
 
Last edited:
ToadMan

ToadMan

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.
 
Psykodad

Psykodad

Banned
GymWolf said:
Most ue5 third party games are not gonna use the major difference in ps5 ssd.

If this thing really permits groundbreaking stuff at level design level compared to sex ssd, devs are not gonna waste money and time to create 2 different version of the same game.
Click to expand...
Doesn't it scale, so XSX could do the same with more pop-in/less detailed textures/lower LOD?

Not sure how it works.
 
F

Frederic

Banned
MasterCornholio said:
The PS5 SSD will still provide some advantages even with multiplats.

What developers won't do is make a game require an I/O solution like the PS5s. You will only see that kind of think with games that are developed for the system.
Click to expand...

You are contradicting yourself. For multiplatform games, devs won't build their games around a single SSD or I/O. They just use the PC SSD as a baseline and call it a day, so that would mean better loading time for PS5, but not better textures. Devs won't create new textures just for a single platform.

Anyway, we will see as soon as the multiplatform games arrive.

Aidah said:
It's very likely that two or three years down the road when we see multiplatform games making use of this on console we'll also see SSDs being listined as a minimum requirement for the PC version. PC versions for those kinds of games aren't going to accommodate slow HDDs forever.
Click to expand...

yes and thats when devs will use PC SSD as the lowest common denominator and call it a day. No different gameplay, or textures on PS5/XSX. Only better loading times.
 
Last edited:
Aidah

Aidah

Member
Frederic said:
Devs won't create new textures just for a single platform.
Click to expand...
They already do create better textures intended for a single platform. Or just generally create something specific to a single platform.

Besides, we still don't really know all the potential ways SSDs are going to be leveraged, and how it'll scale with speed.
 
Last edited:
Psykodad

Psykodad

Banned
Frederic said:
You are contradicting yourself. For multiplatform games, devs won't build their games around a single SSD or I/O. They just use the PC SSD as a baseline and call it a day, so that would mean better loading time for PS5, but not better textures. Devs won't create new textures just for a single platform.

Anyway, we will see as soon as the multiplatform games arrive.
Click to expand...

I thought the whole point of UE5 was to not have to worry about the quality of textures and assets and it would just scale down to whatever quality can be used on different sets of hardware?

So basically, they could theoretically just use those better textures for PS5 by default and UE5 would automatically downscale it on other platforms.
At least, that's what I got from the UE5 tech-demo.
 
geordiemp

geordiemp

Member
Frederic said:
You are contradicting yourself. For multiplatform games, devs won't build their games around a single SSD or I/O. They just use the PC SSD as a baseline and call it a day, so that would mean better loading time for PS5, but not better textures. Devs won't create new textures just for a single platform.

Anyway, we will see as soon as the multiplatform games arrive.



yes and thats when devs will use PC SSD as the lowest common denominator and call it a day. No different gameplay, or textures on PS5/XSX. Only better loading times.
Click to expand...

It will be made for Ps5 and it will be scaled down to whatever XSX and PC can manage with lower quality assets.
 
G

GlassAwful

Member
I think I'm starting to understand why Sony wanted to lead with the Unreal demo.

They probably could have shown their first party stuff months ago but with the perceivable spec advantage to Xbox they want to show that multiplats can also be developed to take advantage of the I/O they invested so heavily in so they could temper those that would say multiplats would be better on Xbox. To do that, they had to get the biggest 3rd party engine dev on board out the gate.

I'm expecting the first party to be more advanced than what Epic has put together. I'm expecting them to heavily leverage primitive shaders to create true procedural unlimited detail at close range and more advanced lighting, physics and particle effects than Epic showed.
 
Bo_Hazem

Bo_Hazem

Banned
Rolla said:
“The ability to stream in content at extreme speeds enables developers to create denser and more detailed environments, changing how we think about streaming content. It’s so impactful that we’ve rewritten our core I/O subsystems for Unreal Engine with the PlayStation 5 in mind,” he added.

More at the link.

www.vg247.com

Epic Games had to rewrite parts of Unreal Engine to keep up with the PS5's SSD

The SSD inside every PS5 is going to be transformative for game development, and the maker of Unreal Engine has seen it firsthand.
www.vg247.com www.vg247.com
Click to expand...

I can smell more 3rd party exclusives for PS5. When the gap is massive between SWWS games and other studios, standards will be pushed higher, and gamers' expectations will be higher as well. Any cross-gen, current-gen-like game will get butchered by reviewers. Big studios won't want that, and DICE is already leveraging the Tempest engine, the true 3D audio.

Thanks for the article!
 
Last edited:
Andodalf

Andodalf

Banned
Soon we’ll see devs talk about how they have ray tracing features “only enabled by XSX” and you’ll see that when people say stuff like this they’re comparing it to last gen, not other products coming out today.
 
Knitted Knight

Knitted Knight

Banned
geordiemp said:
It will be made for Ps5 and it will be scaled down to whatever XSX and PC can manage with lower quality assets.
Click to expand...

More or less. Sales are extremely important in this regard too. Which is why it's imperative for Sony to knock it out of the park early this gen to solidify a hold on those 110m PS4 consumers. Third party devs will cater to your product the bigger your userbase is compared to your direct competitor (Xbox). It's a reinforcing support loop that only helps widen sales gaps. Conversively for Xbox; it's the same . I'm not surprised at the level of FUD we see these days. As for PC they'll be dragged kicking and screaming as always - at a price, which I'm sure the relatively small master-race is more than willing to subsidize and pay. Next gen gaming on PC may become prohibitively expensive until at least 2022.
 
Last edited:
Knitted Knight

Knitted Knight

Banned
Journey said:
Lower quality assets on a more powerful PC?? I don't know if it's Sony's SSD CoolAid doing its work, but PCs don't have a lack of memory that the consoles are making up for, so how can anyone come to this conclusion?
Click to expand...

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?
 
Last edited:
Ar¢tos

Ar¢tos

Member
I honestly don't expect SSDs to become a pc requirement anytime soon, they'll just increase the ram requirements to 32gb (64gb optimal) and use ram to compensate. You'll have to deal with a longer initial loading compared to consoles, but after that it should be OK.
 
Bo_Hazem

Bo_Hazem

Banned
Psykodad said:
This is the only part I don't really get. UE5 will handle LOD as well, right? Isn't that based on data size too?
Click to expand...

They're doing it the smart way this time around. Instead of random LOD's pop ins or excess polygon count that you can't see on screen, you can shoot for a polygon/frame for more predictable outcomes and sustainable. All platforms should benefit from that, but will scale according to how fast they can stream things. Actually 20 million polygons per frame is quite excessive, it's above native 6K theoretically, but provides much cleaner final image closer to real life footage.

You would need at least 1 polygon per frame to mimic similar results but with less, meaning 8.5 million instead of 20 million (4K is 8.5 million).

That demo was crunching 4.7 polygons per frame per pixel (1440p, ~4.2 megapixels). Anti-aliasing is out of the window as well, I guess.
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

Digital Foundry: Unreal Engine 5 Console Health Check: Every Major UE5 Game Tested on PS5 & Xbox Series X/S
35
3K
FireFly replied
Digital Foundry: RoboCop Rogue City - DF Tech Review - Unreal Engine 5 Shines on PS5/Xbox Series X/S
2 3 4 5 6
256
28K
Darsxx82 replied
Microsoft internal emails show Xbox executives reacting to the strengths and weaknesses of the PS5 tech specs
2 3 4
171
14K
JackMcGunns replied
[Stephen Totilo] Exclusive: The making of the PlayStation Portal
News Platform
10
889
ChorizoPicozo replied
Skyrim in Unreal Engine 5: Riverwood
45
5K
Inviusx replied
Top Bottom