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Kraken Vs ZLIB: 29% Smaller Game Sizes Losslessly, 297% Faster Decompression on PS5

REDRZA MWS

Member
There only one Kraken...... he plays for the NY Yankees.

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Bo_Hazem

Banned
Not even sure what the point of this post was.

I was initially worried id run out of space on my PS5 but it’s been fine so fare. I don’t play more than a game or 2 at a time. Haven’t had to delete a game unless I was completely done with it.

Definitely that. Seems like both would sustain enough space for the vast majority of gamers out there. And if you have a good, uncapped internet then you won't ever need an extra space.
 

Bo_Hazem

Banned
This is a fantastic post, thank you whoever bumped. We still haven't seen it in action (apart from maybe Control)?

Yes it should be more utilized when we ditch last gen+HDD PC's. But in terms of size latest rumors suggest 27GB on PS5 and 35GB on XSX|S for RE:Village, with MS Store number being confirmed. So it's 28% bigger in size than PS5 if true.

With Control the Xbox SX|S was 68% bigger in size vs PS5 (42GB vs 25GB).
 
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Bo_Hazem

Banned
I was worried originally about games getting bigger. I always expand on storage space anyway so nothing new there.

It looks as if anything they'll be smaller because of compression tech and no copying of assets.

Yup, been using 2TB on base PS4 then transferred it to my PS4 Pro on 2016. I had shit internet (ADSL 16Mbps) so now with 200Mbps I really think I won't need much more than the base storage as I usually play the games at highest difficulty once then delete them if no DLC's coming.
 

N1tr0sOx1d3

Given another chance
Definitely that. Seems like both would sustain enough space for the vast majority of gamers out there. And if you have a good, uncapped internet then you won't ever need an extra space.
I’ve always liked the idea of an installed library but the reality is I’d never finish my games as I switch back and forth. Limited storage almost encourages me to complete my games to make way for newer ones.
 

Bo_Hazem

Banned
I’ve always liked the idea of an installed library but the reality is I’d never finish my games as I switch back and forth. Limited storage almost encourages me to complete my games to make way for newer ones.

It's actually cheaper to buy one game, finish it, then move to the other game. Some games could take more than one month, and at that time you might catch your next game on sale.
 
What is happening with these Xbox large file sizes? Microsoft didn't market that their platform had a system to intelligently download only the files needed to each specific machine? What happened with that?
 

Bo_Hazem

Banned
What is happening with these Xbox large file sizes? Microsoft didn't market that their platform had a system to intelligently download only the files needed to each specific machine? What happened with that?

I think you could blame the unified GDK, makes 3rd party devs lazy as they use the same file for PC, XSX, and XSS instead of doing the extra work of separating each. Maybe we're too early into this gen, as XSX should at least be smaller than PC that mostly has HDD as the lowest requirement.
 
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What is happening with these Xbox large file sizes? Microsoft didn't market that their platform had a system to intelligently download only the files needed to each specific machine? What happened with that?
  • Hardware Accelerated Decompression: Game packages and assets are compressed to minimize download times and the amount of storage required for each individual game. With hardware accelerated support for both the industry standard LZ decompressor as well as a brand new, proprietary algorithm specifically designed for texture data named BCPack, Xbox Series X provides the best of both worlds for developers to achieve massive savings with no loss in quality or performance. As texture data comprises a significant portion of the total overall size of a game, having a purpose built algorithm optimized for texture data in addition to the general purpose LZ decompressor, both can be used in parallel to reduce the overall size of a game package. 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.

I am gonna say what happened is the HYPE train. Look at Control, 42% smaller. RE8, if true is looking to have similar results as far as storage is concerned. Which is incredible.
 
I am gonna say what happened is the HYPE train. Look at Control, 42% smaller. RE8, if true is looking to have similar results as far as storage is concerned. Which is incredible.

These types of results do validate the claim that the PS5 handles compression better. Kraken and Oodles Textures are (on paper) more efficient than what Microsoft is using.

I'm not sure what's going to happen once the true next gen games start hitting. But it appears that the PS5 might end up being able to store more than the XSX due to compression.

It's not the end of the world for the XSX and I do believe they have enough storage. But it's still interesting to see these results.
 
These types of results do validate the claim that the PS5 handles compression better. Kraken and Oodles Textures are (on paper) more efficient than what Microsoft is using.

I'm not sure what's going to happen once the true next gen games start hitting. But it appears that the PS5 might end up being able to store more than the XSX due to compression.

It's not the end of the world for the XSX and I do believe they have enough storage. But it's still interesting to see these results.

Agreed, would be nice for games to just become smaller overall, as they've increased rapidly in size of the last few years due to higher quality assets, etc.
 
Yup. This advantage is showing in my internal storage in both devices. My PS5 has more games installed than on my Series X yet it appears I have more spaces available. I don't have a mirror library mind you, so the games on my PS5 aren't exactly the same as what I have installed on the Series X. Feels more like a trend than proved data for my case anyway.
 
Yes it should be more utilized when we ditch last gen+HDD PC's. But in terms of size latest rumors suggest 27GB on PS5 and 35GB on XSX|S for RE:Village, with MS Store number being confirmed. So it's 28% bigger in size than PS5 if true.

With Control the Xbox SX|S was 68% bigger in size vs PS5 (42GB vs 25GB).

  • Hardware Accelerated Decompression: Game packages and assets are compressed to minimize download times and the amount of storage required for each individual game. With hardware accelerated support for both the industry standard LZ decompressor as well as a brand new, proprietary algorithm specifically designed for texture data named BCPack, Xbox Series X provides the best of both worlds for developers to achieve massive savings with no loss in quality or performance. As texture data comprises a significant portion of the total overall size of a game, having a purpose built algorithm optimized for texture data in addition to the general purpose LZ decompressor, both can be used in parallel to reduce the overall size of a game package. 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.

I am gonna say what happened is the HYPE train. Look at Control, 42% smaller. RE8, if true is looking to have similar results as far as storage is concerned. Which is incredible.

Not only Control and RE8. Mortal Shell is also smaller on PS5. Although, game size is already small, on PS5 is barely 4 GB, on XSX is around 5.1 GB.

Also, worth mentioning. Valhalla is around 51 GB on XSX, while on PS5 is 41.8 GB, but with all patches till date, size of patches on XSX is 38.6 GB, while on PS5 is 18.1 GB

Anyway :
 
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Bo_Hazem

Banned
Not only Control and RE8. Mortal Shell is also smaller on PS5. Although, game size is already small, on PS5 is barely 4 GB, on XSX is around 5.1 GB.

Also, worth mentioning. Valhalla is around 51 GB on XSX, while on PS5 is 41.8 GB, but with all patches till date, size of patches on XSX is 38.6 GB, while on PS5 is 18.1 GB

Anyway :

Those are amazing findings! Thanks for sharing! Didn't notices myself.
 

REDRZA MWS

Member
Unfortunately he got too efficient at compressing his batting average to increasingly small numbers ... 🙄
My man went to work this off-season and took his lumps like a man. Went to the DR for winter ball, reworked his swing to make it more compact and direct to the ball. Peep it.

 
I
But developers will still use the compression with most PS5 games. I don't see them going back to the old way of compressing games.
It's a work in progress, they just achieved 17 gigs per sec , I didn't meant to downplay what they achieved already, I wanna see how it translate to real world performance, if anyone take it as it sounds then you'll see 50 halo and gow alike games which will never gonna happen cause games cost more to make.
 
I
It's a work in progress, they just achieved 17 gigs per sec , I didn't meant to downplay what they achieved already, I wanna see how it translate to real world performance, if anyone take it as it sounds then you'll see 50 halo and gow alike games which will never gonna happen cause games cost more to make.

Developers will still use Kraken and Oodles Textures often since it's part of the developer kit. I know that most won't design their games to only be usable with the PS5s I/O but having everything highly compressed won't hurt the other platforms.
 

Sejan

Member
I bet less than 10 titles will fully utilize it through the end of generation.
Pretty much every game is going to use it. It’s essentially free compression. Any other solution for compression would needlessly waste cpu clocks and memory. You can tell it’s already being used by looking at the size comparisons of games that have been posted here. PS5 games run considerably smaller than XBX and even smaller than XBS in some cases despite using higher fidelity textures.
 

rofif

Banned
That's interesting. With fast nvme and decompression on ps5, the smaller SSD space might not be an issue as much as we expected.
 

Bo_Hazem

Banned
It's obvious, to it's limit as cerny said before , around 22 gigs per sec.

So far Sony's 1st party are the obvious ones, UE5, and lately EA (probably Frostbite, but not sure to what extent). By 2024, most games will be built around data streaming that will give so much breathing room for GPU to push much higher fidelity instead of wasting it on traditional LOD's. Nvidia, AMD, and Microsoft (Xbox included) will have DirectStorage, so all will have something towards that goal, with Nvidia claiming 14GB/s that will need GPU compensation for it, but the 3080/3090 already have too much power to spare.
 

Bo_Hazem

Banned


Because those old games and some more other games aren't coded to take full advantage of either. 1st party games so far are doing below 1sec up to 3-4sec max, and they look much more better than those games.

Same on PC, btw. So far all these cross-gen games have been simple ports from PC to Xbox. We have no clue how big the decompression potential is on Xbox because nobody is using it.

Should be good enough, but I don't think it'll compete well if it's still using ZLIB on Xbox, as devs will rather save money than license Oodle Kraken individually for their game on Xbox, while it's free + Oodle Texture on PS5/4.
 

M1chl

Currently Gif and Meme Champion
Yes it should be more utilized when we ditch last gen+HDD PC's. But in terms of size latest rumors suggest 27GB on PS5 and 35GB on XSX|S for RE:Village, with MS Store number being confirmed. So it's 28% bigger in size than PS5 if true.

With Control the Xbox SX|S was 68% bigger in size vs PS5 (42GB vs 25GB).
Well, there is this issue of non-Smart Delivery games (which is easily verifiable, if someone have the game, if it's "gen9aware") which bundles both version of the game in one package (X1 and S|X), however even 28% is very nice (because audio files compression is efficient enough, that you can't really do much more with it). I would still like to be RE8 to be as long as possible tho, I am worried after R3make.
 

Bo_Hazem

Banned
Well, there is this issue of non-Smart Delivery games (which is easily verifiable, if someone have the game, if it's "gen9aware") which bundles both version of the game in one package (X1 and S|X), however even 28% is very nice (because audio files compression is efficient enough, that you can't really do much more with it). I would still like to be RE8 to be as long as possible tho, I am worried after R3make.

Overall both should have enough storage with future games. I still doubt that any off the shelf NVMe m.2 7GB/s will match PS5's internal custom 5.5GB/s SSD, even though that 7GB/s top tier NVMe m.2 SSD's are vastly better than Xbox cut-down (2x lanes instead of 4x) low budget (only 4 channel for around 16 chips!) SSD's. I think Sony should just release a 825GB extension, and they might do that but they avoided it now to avoid bad press.
 
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