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Epic Games calls PS5 a "masterpiece of systems design"

Bo_Hazem

Banned
Yep, for sure the UE5 PS5 gameplay demo is the most impressive in-engine graphics yet seen, let alone playable gameplay graphics.

The great thing is it'll be topped at some point this gen, parts of Horizon 2 already will pronably achieve that by the time its released.

And that with uncompressed 8K movie assets and 16K shadows, more like a stress test and no frame drops! The Rebirth Quixel demo cinematic is using 25% compressed 4K assets and below 4K at 24fps!
 

Ascend

Member
You make good points, curiously it is in redesigning the I/O controller and the API’s accessing the filesystem where maximal use of the SSD can be obtained and likely what both MS and Sony worked on and an area where Sony may have the advantage (ensuring they get much better random read access performance lowering the cost per request).
Sony has the hardware advantage for I/O, no doubt. But you can't just throw any game on it and expect it to magically load in 1 or 2 seconds. You have to program for it. It's not going to be hard at all to do that btw. At least not as hard as optimizing for HDDs.
 

geordiemp

Member
33LTokb.png
 
??

What are you talking about?
I was responding to you saying high resolution textures have been a thing for years now... sure, if you don't worry too much about how long it takes to stream them, etc. the idea is that now we have the possibility and the facilities to do the same almost instantly (one 10th of a second compared to 10 seconds for the same amount of data).

For loading the benefits will likely be visible, and easier to measure, but the really interesting part is what the higher bandwidth with much reduced access times enable in therms of in game asset streaming.
 

geordiemp

Member
Going to laugh when these unreal engine games look better on xsx

Maybe it’s a ploy to downplay the series x

You should ask tim sweeny, someone already asked your question,.... :messenger_beaming:

yK9Tyqx.png



If the Xbox could make unreal games look better, wouldn't they have ran their demo off an Xbox?

If your showing off software, why not use the platform that would make your software look best, right?

If anybody actually listened to both Cerny and Tim sweeny interviews, 2 things become apparent.

1. Cerny says high clocks favour rendering SMALL Triangles, also Ps5 focus is on low latency IO
2. UE5 demo likes low latency IO, fast SSD and draws lots of small traingles pixel sized.

Maybe its a conspiracy ! What about terrafloppies ?
 
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quest

Not Banned from OT
You should ask tim sweeny, someone already asked your question,.... :messenger_beaming:

yK9Tyqx.png





If anybody actually listened to both Cerny and Tim sweeny interviews, 2 things become apparent.

1. Cerny says high clocks favour rendering SMALL Triangles, also Ps5 focus is on low latency IO
2. UE5 demo likes low latency IO, fast SSD and draws lots of small traingles pixel sized.

Maybe its a conspiracy ! What about terrafloppies ?
Yep because ea,ubisoft and the other big multiplatform publishers are totally going on a world press tour promoting only 1 platform and treating the others like leapers. If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck its probably a duck. Marketing deals happen all the time lol. They should just be honest about it. I trust sweeney the dude who proclaimed the ps3 easy to program for Hahaha.
 

geordiemp

Member
Yep because ea,ubisoft and the other big multiplatform publishers are totally going on a world press tour promoting only 1 platform and treating the others like leapers. If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck its probably a duck. Marketing deals happen all the time lol. They should just be honest about it. I trust sweeney the dude who proclaimed the ps3 easy to program for Hahaha.

Must be, cant possibly be the super low latency IO and fast SSD, super fast GPU clocks which would help with rasterising lots of small traingles, the fast caches and the faster culling so showing just what camera sees.

There is no possible way the Ps5 might be well suited and best selection for this criteria and TF means everything.

Ha
/s
 
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CurtBizzy

Member
-.- -_- >_<
I'm going to try to something here... Rather than assuming malice, I am going to assume ignorance, or, lack of knowledge to put it more softly... So... Let me try and explain a few things... Maybe, just maybe, things will become clear in the end. This is relevant for you too, @Keihart ...

Games are currently developed with HDDs in mind, not SSDs. What do HDDs have? They have platters and a head to seek information. In order to access data on the HDD, the platters spin, and the head needs to be 'put' in the proper position on the platter to start reading the data. Obviously, you want to read things as fast as possible. But it takes time for the head to be put in the right position, to start reading the data.
Then we have SSDs. SSDs do not have seek times in the traditional sense. Basically, you can read from an SSD in a similar way compared to how you read from RAM.
Hopefully, this has been understood. Before jumping to conclusions, if you have any doubts, please do me a favor and ask.

... Let's continue...

What happens if you put a game programmed for HDDs on an SSD? Well, we need some more background information here...
First of all, since HDDs are so slow, developers do multiple things to reduce seek times (i.e. the time the head has to search for the data on the platter) and also to transfer data as fast as possible. This is to optimize for the slow data transfer.
The first thing they do is copy the same file multiple times on the HDD. So basically you can have 5, 10, or even 20 copies of the same file in extreme cases, in order to reduce seek times. This is one of main the reasons games are so big right now. Look at it like this. If you have to find one ball as quick as possible on a football field, the chances of finding it in less time is a lot higher if there are several balls rather than only one.
Additionally, when the game is installed, each file is stored sequentially, meaning, all the data is placed in the exact order that the head would move over the spinning platter. This reduces the amount of times you have to seek for data, in addition to enabling the head to 'constantly' read the data without interruptions afterwards.

SSDs on the other hand, they do not benefit from multiple copies of the same file at all (it's actually the opposite), and benefit to a much lesser extent from sequential data. Data on the SSD can practically be accessed relatively instantly anywhere on the drive. The main thing that slows down SSDs is random reads, because I/O requests are not free. Sequential data would reduce the amount of I/O requests in comparison to the data being scattered everywhere, and thus you get an increase in performance. But it does not have anything to do with seek times or the actual accessing of the data.

And that is exactly the problem. Since you have a bunch of copies of the same file when you programmed with HDDs in mind, the HDD is trying to access whichever data is the closest, and this increases performance. On an SSD, there really is no 'close' or 'far away' data. So the SSD will try to read from all of the copies, basically turning the sequential read into a random read, tanking performance. The optimal setup for the HDD is pretty much the worst for the SSD. Rather than an optimization, it is pretty much gimping the SSD. You end up making a lot of unnecessary I/O requests, because the game thinks it's on an HDD that needs to find a ball as quickly as possible by running on a field. It is the exact reason why SATA SSDs perform basically the same as NVMe SSDs, despite the latter being a LOT faster. They both get 'killed' equally by the unnecessary I/O requests of the game.

This is why I have been saying that dropping a game that is not optimized for an SSD on the PS5 will have the exact same effect as what State of Decay had in the non-optimized demo for the XSX. And yes, it was non-optimized. Find the State of Decayt video on YouTube and read what the description says. The argument of an older gaming having the same effect on the PS5 and XSX has little to do with the capabilities of either console, and it has everything to do with the way things are being done currently, and how they are far from optimal for the new hardware in either console. If you can acknowledge that a SATA and NVMe SSD give pretty much the same performance on a game optimized for HDD, despite an NVMe SSD generally being anywhere between 5 to 7 times faster, it really is a stretch to somehow believe that things are different for the XSX SSD and the PS5 SSD. Especially considering the fact that a PS5 SSD is not even 3 times as fast as the XSX SSD, compared to the 5+ times faster of SATA vs NVMe...

Hopefully, this clears up some things, and we can lay off the disinformation.
Can you explain why did Crystal Dynamics see an increase speed of loading by an order of a magnitude on the PS5 without any optimization unlike State Of Decay ? Also what about that spiderman demo ?
 
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Leyasu

Banned
I was responding to you saying high resolution textures have been a thing for years now... sure, if you don't worry too much about how long it takes to stream them, etc. the idea is that now we have the possibility and the facilities to do the same almost instantly (one 10th of a second compared to 10 seconds for the same amount of data).

For loading the benefits will likely be visible, and easier to measure, but the really interesting part is what the higher bandwidth with much reduced access times enable in therms of in game asset streaming.
Yeah, and I was responding to your claims that high res textures were now just made possible because of the SSD in the PS5. No one is doubting the benefits, the doubts come from some of the claims being made.

Especially as a new thing getting touted by the sony fans that high res textures/high quality assets will now solely be available on the PS5. Things that have been available for ages. Long before the SSD, I/O talk entered the fray.
 

PaintTinJr

Member
…..

Especially as a new thing getting touted by the sony fans that high res textures/high quality assets will now solely be available on the PS5. Things that have been available for ages. Long before the SSD, I/O talk entered the fray.
The problem with your point is that nothing has ever rendered those assets at polygon density of the UE5 demo(4 per pixel with GI) that makes adding more polygons pointless in a REYES streaming scenario. It is a complete paradigm shift to some high res Pc shot
 

CurtBizzy

Member
Sony has the hardware advantage for I/O, no doubt. But you can't just throw any game on it and expect it to magically load in 1 or 2 seconds. You have to program for it. It's not going to be hard at all to do that btw. At least not as hard as optimizing for HDDs.
Yes I expect current gen games to boot up in 1 or 2 seconds just like the spiderman demo displayed.

Heres a quote from the wired article

The raw read speed is important,“ Cerny says, “but so are the details of the I/O [input-output] mechanisms and the software stack that we put on top of them. I got a PlayStation 4 Pro and then I put in a SSD that cost as much as the PlayStation 4 Pro—it might be one-third faster." As opposed to 19 times faster for the next-gen console, judging from the fast-travel demo.
 
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godhandiscen

There are millions of whiny 5-year olds on Earth, and I AM THEIR KING.
We’ll see the games over the span of the generation, these statements are just farts on the wind. The PS3 was also touted as a masterpiece of design and in practice it had crippling limitations such as the broken memory pool which made it harder to develop for than the x360.
 

martino

Member
Can you explain why did Crystal Dynamics see an increase speed of loading by an order of a magnitude on the PS5 without any optimization unlike State Of Decay ? Also what about that spiderman demo ?
spiderman demo was ongoing optimization of spider-man engine. there is little doubt about it now with the morales ps5 standalone game
did you even see the video ?
xsx is slower and yet the order of magnitude is only missed by 2 sec....
 
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CurtBizzy

Member
spiderman demo was ongoing optimization of spider-man engine. there is little doubt about it now with the morales ps5 standalone game
did you even see the video ?
xsx is slower and yet the order of magnitude is only missed by 2 sec....

Do you have a source or link about the claims made about the spiderman demo ?

Also im skeptical that the Xbox X version takes that long to load, seems fishy
 
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martino

Member
Do you have a source or link about the claims made about the spiderman demo ?
Also im skeptical that the Xbox X version takes that long to load, seems fishy
So you can't open your eye to see the spiderman demo is not running a game and ms is lying
ok i'm out.
 

Ascend

Member
Can you explain why did Crystal Dynamics see an increase speed of loading by an order of a magnitude on the PS5 without any optimization unlike State Of Decay ? Also what about that spiderman demo ?
Just to confirm what I have already said... Let's take the exact statement by Crystal Dynamics from the PlayStation blog...;

The GPU and CPU improvements on PS5 are exciting, but even more exciting is the introduction of an ultra-high speed SSD with lightning fast load speeds. This is a transformative improvement in consoles that will reduce load times down to one or two seconds and enable real-time streaming of massive worlds at ridiculously fast speeds. Without any optimization work, the loading and streaming of Marvel’s Avengers improved by an order of magnitude on PS5. When optimization is complete, loading content will be nearly instant, allowing players to seamlessly jump into missions anywhere in the game world.


"An order of magnitude" is a vague statement, because it doesn't specify how much faster the loading takes place. The State of Decay demo also improved the loading speed "by an order of magnitude". On the XSX, it took 10-ish seconds, while on the Xbox One, it took 50-ish seconds. That's 5 times faster, from simply having an SSD. Remember that even the XSX SSD is at least around 25x (more likely around 50x) faster than an HDD.




As for the Spiderman demo. It is a leak with too many variables and too little facts. It is highly likely that it has been optimized for the PS5's SSDs.

Also im skeptical that the Xbox X version takes that long to load, seems fishy
All I have to do is leave this video here.... But to avoid any misinterpretations and confusion, I will still explain it.
This user replaced their Xbox One X internal hard drive with a SATA SSD. He decided to test the loading times with four games, the first one being State of Decay. One difference with the Xbox One X vs Series X demo is the fact that he takes the loading time from booting up the game, rather than from starting a level. But you can deduct that time anyway, and get a good sense of the loading time.
On the Xbox One X with the HDD, the loading time starting at the moment of pressing "continue game", is about one minute and 5 seconds, or 65 seconds.
On the Xbox One X with the SSD, the loading time starting at the moment of pressing "continue game", is around 25 seconds.




Now before you start saying "Oh but the XSX did it in 10 seconds, so they are definitely leveraging the new architecture", there are a few things to take into account.
The fact that it is SATA rather than NVMe, can give a small difference of 2-3 seconds.
The levels and environments used for the loading tests are completely different. So even though it is the same game, you cannot directly compare the loading time of the XSX vs Xbox One demo with the one of the YouTube video above, because different assets are being loaded, and the game state is completely different. This is why there is a large discrepancy (15 seconds) even between the two Xbox One results.
But more importantly...
Decompression on the Xbox One and PS4 still happen through the CPU. The same thing applies for the State of Decay demo on the XSX. But because the XSX CPU is a lot stronger than the Xbox One CPU, this in addition to the other points above, can easily explain the better loading performance on the XSX demo compared to an Xbox One X with an SSD.

Think of it logically. Any game at any point, has to have data in RAM. The Xbox One X has 12 GB of RAM, so we'll use that as a basis for the amount of RAM State of Decay is using. If we assume State of Decay is using the full 12 GB of RAM (it's less than that for sure), and the XSX can do 2.4GB/s without compression when optimized, it should take at most 5 seconds to load everything with zero data in RAM at the start. It takes twice as long, with some data inevitably already being in RAM, and the RAM usage being exaggerated to 12GB (it's more likely closer to 10ish)...
The obvious conclusion is that what we saw in the XSX vs Xbox One demo is not optimized for the new XSX architecture.

If we had the same amount of footage for the PS5, we could analyze that as well. But we don't. The fact still remains that the PS5 SSD is faster than the XSX. But the fact also remains that throwing games on the PS5 without code changes, although it will be faster than an HDD, will not load in 1 or 2 seconds. I wouldn't be surprised if the PS5 would load the same non-optimized State of Decay demo in around the same time, give or take a couple of seconds. At the same time, I wouldn't be surprised that if both were optimized, the XSX would take twice as long (e.g. 2 seconds vs 1 second) compared to the PS5.

And none of this takes away from the engineering of the consoles. A new airplane that runs of jet fuel is not somehow bad because it can't fly on aviation gasoline. If that analogy is too far out there, it means that the relatively slow loading of games designed for HDD on the new consoles is not somehow bad for the consoles. It's still way better than an HDD, and more importantly, it means the games that will be optimized for the SSDs will be getting MUCH better than we are seeing now.
 

godhandiscen

There are millions of whiny 5-year olds on Earth, and I AM THEIR KING.
It also had the best-looking exclusives of that generation.
Yes, Sony had multiple first party development teams that focused on third party adventures that showcased the hardware. Who knows if Sony just has better developers or hardware at that point. Across multi platform developers the design decisions were criticized. What I am trying to say is that we should not attribute much weight to these claims before the generation starts.
 
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PaintTinJr

Member
Just to confirm what I have already said... Let's take the exact statement by Crystal Dynamics from the PlayStation blog...;

The GPU and CPU improvements on PS5 are exciting, but even more exciting is the introduction of an ultra-high speed SSD with lightning fast load speeds. This is a transformative improvement in consoles that will reduce load times down to one or two seconds and enable real-time streaming of massive worlds at ridiculously fast speeds. Without any optimization work, the loading and streaming of Marvel’s Avengers improved by an order of magnitude on PS5. When optimization is complete, loading content will be nearly instant, allowing players to seamlessly jump into missions anywhere in the game world.

…...

If we had the same amount of footage for the PS5, we could analyze that as well. But we don't. The fact still remains that the PS5 SSD is faster than the XSX. But the fact also remains that throwing games on the PS5 without code changes, although it will be faster than an HDD, will not load in 1 or 2 seconds. I wouldn't be surprised if the PS5 would load the same non-optimized State of Decay demo in around the same time, give or take a couple of seconds. At the same time, I wouldn't be surprised that if both were optimized, the XSX would take twice as long (e.g. 2 seconds vs 1 second) compared to the PS5.

...

I'm pretty sure the IO complex enhances both methods of SSD access in the PS5 according to what Cerny said in the Road to PS5 - just that using the new IO API without filenames and using data priority schemes would yielded even better performance. So I suspect even without code changes the two Co-processors and memory in the IO complex will completely unravel all the designed for mechanical HDD issues/duplication at the point of install and provide loading times 1/2 as quick as the new PS5 IO API . Which will be close enough to Spiderman loading.

The question is: The SSD in the PS5 is relatively small compared to PS4 BC game installs, so Sony won't want anything unnecessary going on the drive, causing additional wear (IMHO),.
 

sendit

Member

Marvel's Avengers has the following optimizations on PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X:

Ray-traced visuals
High resolution and HDR
FPS vs graphics priority options
Extremely fast load times
Improved destruction effects
Seamless and dynamic play on PlayStation 5

Interestingly mentions next gen upgrades for both consoles but specifically states:

"Seamless and dynamic play on PlayStation 5"
 
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Redlight

Member
"Marvel's Avengers has the following optimizations on PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X:

Ray-traced visuals
High resolution and HDR
FPS vs graphics priority options
Extremely fast load times
Improved destruction effects
Seamless and dynamic play on PlayStation 5"

Interestingly mentions next gen upgrades for both consoles but specifically states:

"Seamless and dynamic play on PlayStation 5"
That list is a tad misleading, it suggests that only the PS5 experience will be 'seamless and dynamic', but the press release actually says this...

"The PlayStation®5 experience will be seamless and dynamic, fully utilizing the ultra-high speed SSD, the PS5 DualSense advanced haptics, and immersive spatial audio. To fully customize their visual experience, PS5 will also provide players with their choice of Enhanced Graphics Mode or High Framerate mode.

We’ll have more details to share on Xbox Series X, Stadia, and PC specific features at a later time."


There is nothing there to suggest that the Series X experience won't be equally 'seamless and dynamic'. Judging by the language don't be surprised if there is a marketing deal in place with Sony.
 
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Geki-D

Banned
The funny thing about this is that Sony themselves rarely use Unreal Engine, they tend to use in-house engines. As of right now, there are ZERO first party games for PS5 using UE5. However on Xbox Hellblade 2 & InXile's next game will be using UE5.

...Seems Epic would have more reason to talk up one over the other and yet...
 

phil_t98

#SonyToo
Normally i would say yes to this but the demo wasn’t running at 4K or even 60fps so thats a tough statement to make at this point
 

FranXico

Member
The funny thing about this is that Sony themselves rarely use Unreal Engine, they tend to use in-house engines. As of right now, there are ZERO first party games for PS5 using UE5. However on Xbox Hellblade 2 & InXile's next game will be using UE5.

...Seems Epic would have more reason to talk up one over the other and yet...
For example, Bend already used Unreal 4. We don't know which PS studios will use U5 or not yet.

Also, it is in Sony's best interest that Unreal provides proper support for their platform. So third party games running on U5 don't run like shit on the PS5.
 

Geki-D

Banned
Also, it is in Sony's best interest that Unreal provides proper support for their platform. So third party games running on U5 don't run like shit on the PS5.
It's not in Microsoft's? MS are actually already paying them to use their engine on 2 upcoming games...
 

Sony

Nintendo
The funny thing about this is that Sony themselves rarely use Unreal Engine, they tend to use in-house engines. As of right now, there are ZERO first party games for PS5 using UE5. However on Xbox Hellblade 2 & InXile's next game will be using UE5.

...Seems Epic would have more reason to talk up one over the other and yet...

Maybe that's exactly why Epic is focussing so much on them.. maybe it's because of the bigger marketing reach, I don't know.
I mean in general I don't understand why a game engine is promoted so much though one partner. It's not like Unreal Engine 5 is exclusive to Playstation 5. What's Epic's endgame here?
As far as promoting an engine goes, they're doing a pretty bad job.
 

Geki-D

Banned
What's Epic's endgame here?
As far as promoting an engine goes, they're doing a pretty bad job.
Maybe there's none? It would actually be more in their interest to promote the system that actually is confirmed at this point to be using their engine, especially when that platform holder uses their engine way more.

So what's left? Well, maybe the devs at Epic are genuinely just more impressed with the PS5...
 

sendit

Member
That list is a tad misleading, it suggests that only the PS5 experience will be 'seamless and dynamic', but the press release actually says this...

"The PlayStation®5 experience will be seamless and dynamic, fully utilizing the ultra-high speed SSD, the PS5 DualSense advanced haptics, and immersive spatial audio. To fully customize their visual experience, PS5 will also provide players with their choice of Enhanced Graphics Mode or High Framerate mode.

We’ll have more details to share on Xbox Series X, Stadia, and PC specific features at a later time."


There is nothing there to suggest that the Series X experience won't be equally 'seamless and dynamic'. Judging by the language don't be surprised if there is a marketing deal in place with Sony.

They pointed out the similarities and highlighted the differences for the PS5. Maybe the XSX version will sport a more stable resolution versus dynamic, given the extra raw GPU power.
 

Sony

Nintendo
So what's left? Well, maybe the devs at Epic are genuinely just more impressed with the PS5...

Which is fine. But then give the receipts. I don't think they've officially acknowledged the existence of an Xbox Series X.
 

Kenpachii

Member
Which is fine. But then give the receipts. I don't think they've officially acknowledged the existence of an Xbox Series X.

Don't think he cares for xbox to be honest, its a competitors platform on the PC space with windows game store and its nothing but a PC. Sony does something new that could push market shift forwards and he praises it.

He probably is more interested in innovation then more of the same.
 
You'll be proven wrong in a few years. Lets bookmark this post of yours.
Sound good to me. Holiday 2022 it is!
Almost forgot about this. It's been over two years, and it's pretty safe to assume there won't be any surprise AAA release announcements for the coming holidays.

So where are those PS5 games using movie quality assets and raw sculpts straight out of Zbrush?
 

Guilty_AI

Member
Almost forgot about this. It's been over two years, and it's pretty safe to assume there won't be any surprise AAA release announcements for the coming holidays.

So where are those PS5 games using movie quality assets and raw sculpts straight out of Zbrush?
Thats some dedication. I remember bookmarking someone who said TLoU would never get a PC port despite all the other sony ports, couldn't get back to him after the annoucement cause he got banned 🐔


Oh, and of course>

 
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Thats some dedication right here. I remember bookmarking someone who said TLoU would never get a PC port despite all the other sony ports, couldn't get back to him after the annoucement cause he got banned 🐔
It's pretty interesting to see how expectations from two years ago measure up to the realities of today. It's been two years and as far as I know, the closest Lumen and Nanite have come to appearing in an actual game was that Matrix thing, which was really just another tech demo. Meanwhile, Sony's biggest releases this year were all cross-gen titles, including the upcoming God of War game. Probably not what many people were expecting.
 
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