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

Sad truth is, that majority of people are not smart and/or educated/wise enough to understand even 30% of that presentation, even when Cerny explains things really well.

I mean, not just this presentation, but on average people lack the information to really understand technical stuff on deeper level. And that is fine, but it is not fine when these less-technical people have the attitude of "if I dont understand it, it must be bullshit!" which is fairly common on any conversation about anything more complex than drinking a beer. :messenger_beaming:

People whom dont understand things and people whom dont understand, that they dont understand things are often the same ones. So then they either call everything bullshit, or dont understand that they took the information in wrong way and now are spreading some lies themselves when they didnt understand what they heard.

I watched this presentation live and thought that this is one of the best presentations I have seen about tech stuff, and basically everything were clear as sky because Cerny explained things so well.

And then all the bullshit started and some still do claim that he said or didnt said this and that, because they just cant understand it.

But it is nice to see that one by one Cernys clear claims have been proven:messenger_relieved:
To be fair, you have to have a very high IQ to understand Mark Cerny's presentation. The complexity is extremely subtle, and without a solid grasp of theoretical physics most of the presentation will go over a typical viewer's head. There's also Cerny's nihilistic outlook, which is deftly woven into his characterisation - his personal philosophy draws heavily from Narodnaya Volya literature, for instance. The fans understand this stuff; they have the intellectual capacity to truly appreciate the depths of these technical intricacies, to realize that they're not just complex- they say something deep about LIFE. As a consequence people who dislike Mark Cerny's presentation truly ARE idiots- of course they wouldn't appreciate, for instance, the humour in Cerny's existencial catchphrase "Pretty Cool, Right?" which itself is a cryptic reference to Turgenev's Russian epic Fathers and Sons I'm smirking right now just imagining one of those addlepated simpletons scratching their heads in confusion as Mark Cerny's genius unfolds itself on their screens. What fools... how I pity them. 😂 And yes by the way, I DO have a Mark Cerny tattoo. And no, you cannot see it. It's for the ladies' eyes only- And even they have to demonstrate that they're within 5 IQ points of my own (preferably lower) beforehand.
 
On PC you can compress any game you want with multiple, modern and lightweight compression techniques.

But yes, laziness of devs is alarming.

96JaIdj.png

It's about money. ZLIB is free, Kraken isn't. So Sony had to license it for PS5/PS4 SDK's to avoid them skipping it.

that not how it works...of course you can copress it to death on PC but guess what - you need to decompress it again. And PC has no decompression Hardware yet - so all of that is you CPUs job. But then there is no time for managing the Game itself.
OR you decompress the whole game at the boot up but then you have rediculous load times at start...
so they could liscense Kraken but still have to deal with dekompression...
 

tommib

Member
To be fair, you have to have a very high IQ to understand Mark Cerny's presentation. The complexity is extremely subtle, and without a solid grasp of theoretical physics most of the presentation will go over a typical viewer's head. There's also Cerny's nihilistic outlook, which is deftly woven into his characterisation - his personal philosophy draws heavily from Narodnaya Volya literature, for instance. The fans understand this stuff; they have the intellectual capacity to truly appreciate the depths of these technical intricacies, to realize that they're not just complex- they say something deep about LIFE. As a consequence people who dislike Mark Cerny's presentation truly ARE idiots- of course they wouldn't appreciate, for instance, the humour in Cerny's existencial catchphrase "Pretty Cool, Right?" which itself is a cryptic reference to Turgenev's Russian epic Fathers and Sons I'm smirking right now just imagining one of those addlepated simpletons scratching their heads in confusion as Mark Cerny's genius unfolds itself on their screens. What fools... how I pity them. 😂 And yes by the way, I DO have a Mark Cerny tattoo. And no, you cannot see it. It's for the ladies' eyes only- And even they have to demonstrate that they're within 5 IQ points of my own (preferably lower) beforehand.
Do we have yearly awards for cringe posts?
 

Bo_Hazem

Banned
that not how it works...of course you can copress it to death on PC but guess what - you need to decompress it again. And PC has no decompression Hardware yet - so all of that is you CPUs job. But then there is no time for managing the Game itself.
OR you decompress the whole game at the boot up but then you have rediculous load times at start...
so they could liscense Kraken but still have to deal with dekompression...

I know where you're coming from, but even on a CPU level the Kraken compression is decompressed ~300% faster than ZLIB on PC. A dedicated decompressor would just accelerate that even more, but it's beneficial even without a HW decompressor.
 

Utherellus

Member
that not how it works...of course you can copress it to death on PC but guess what - you need to decompress it again. And PC has no decompression Hardware yet - so all of that is you CPUs job. But then there is no time for managing the Game itself.
OR you decompress the whole game at the boot up but then you have rediculous load times at start...
so they could liscense Kraken but still have to deal with dekompression...
I have been using win10 xpress8k/16k compression for ages.
As I said It's very lightweight and had barely noticeable overhead even on my ex 4770k.
Not to mention my current 5800x.
 

Pedro Motta

Member
To be fair, you have to have a very high IQ to understand Mark Cerny's presentation. The complexity is extremely subtle, and without a solid grasp of theoretical physics most of the presentation will go over a typical viewer's head. There's also Cerny's nihilistic outlook, which is deftly woven into his characterisation - his personal philosophy draws heavily from Narodnaya Volya literature, for instance. The fans understand this stuff; they have the intellectual capacity to truly appreciate the depths of these technical intricacies, to realize that they're not just complex- they say something deep about LIFE. As a consequence people who dislike Mark Cerny's presentation truly ARE idiots- of course they wouldn't appreciate, for instance, the humour in Cerny's existencial catchphrase "Pretty Cool, Right?" which itself is a cryptic reference to Turgenev's Russian epic Fathers and Sons I'm smirking right now just imagining one of those addlepated simpletons scratching their heads in confusion as Mark Cerny's genius unfolds itself on their screens. What fools... how I pity them. 😂 And yes by the way, I DO have a Mark Cerny tattoo. And no, you cannot see it. It's for the ladies' eyes only- And even they have to demonstrate that they're within 5 IQ points of my own (preferably lower) beforehand.
 

winjer

Gold Member
To be fair, you have to have a very high IQ to understand Mark Cerny's presentation. The complexity is extremely subtle, and without a solid grasp of theoretical physics most of the presentation will go over a typical viewer's head. There's also Cerny's nihilistic outlook, which is deftly woven into his characterisation - his personal philosophy draws heavily from Narodnaya Volya literature, for instance. The fans understand this stuff; they have the intellectual capacity to truly appreciate the depths of these technical intricacies, to realize that they're not just complex- they say something deep about LIFE. As a consequence people who dislike Mark Cerny's presentation truly ARE idiots- of course they wouldn't appreciate, for instance, the humour in Cerny's existencial catchphrase "Pretty Cool, Right?" which itself is a cryptic reference to Turgenev's Russian epic Fathers and Sons I'm smirking right now just imagining one of those addlepated simpletons scratching their heads in confusion as Mark Cerny's genius unfolds itself on their screens. What fools... how I pity them. 😂 And yes by the way, I DO have a Mark Cerny tattoo. And no, you cannot see it. It's for the ladies' eyes only- And even they have to demonstrate that they're within 5 IQ points of my own (preferably lower) beforehand.

Cerny's presentation was somewhat lacking. Especially in technical depth.
If you want something more meaty, might I recommend AnandTech's article on the subject.
It addresses Cerny's presentation, but goes much deeper.

Storage Matters: Why Xbox and Playstation SSDs Usher In A New Era of Gaming

 
I have been using win10 xpress8k/16k compression for ages.
As I said It's very lightweight and had barely noticeable overhead even on my ex 4770k.
Not to mention my current 5800x.
what? in what context do you compress something? Like your compressing actual games manually and you get away with it performance wise ? - cant believe that..
 
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Stooky

Member
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Stooky

Member
For devs it was even more lackluster, because it was so barebones in technical data.
What are you taking about? Devs have the actually ps5 dev kit again they know what they saw. that talk was an introduction to the ps5 development philosophy. The only confusion came from gamers.
 
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winjer

Gold Member
What are you taking about? Devs have the actually ps5 dev kit again they know what they saw. that talk was an introduction to the ps5 development philosophy. The only confusion came from gamers.
Do you understand what the word 'lackluster" means.
For devs of any user that knows a bit about hardware, that presentation was very scarce in technical data.
Here is what a presentation for Devs looks like.
 

Tripolygon

Banned
Do you understand what the word 'lackluster" means.
For devs of any user that knows a bit about hardware, that presentation was very scarce in technical data.
Here is what a presentation for Devs looks like.
The talk is not lackluster, it was a high level overview of the entire system architecture. They also have low level technical deep dives into specifics but they are not made for public consumption.
 
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Stooky

Member
Do you understand what the word 'lackluster" means.
For devs of any user that knows a bit about hardware, that presentation was very scarce in technical data.
Here is what a presentation for Devs looks like.

Thats 30min detailed breakdown on mesh shaders. If you have attended gdc like i have that would be white paper talk followed by QA. That wasnt the goal of the PS5 presentation. Again it was intro for devs not for you. You keep trying it make it be something it was not. Devs have the documentation on the PS5 you dont. It wasnt for you. The proof is the only people complaining are bloggers and gamers.
 
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winjer

Gold Member
Thats detailed breakdown on mesh shaders. That wasnt the goal of the PS5 presentation. Again it was intro for devs not for you. You keep trying it make it be something it was not. Devs have the documentation on the PS5 you dont. It wasnt for you.

You keep saying that it was a presentation for Devs, as if that is some magic argument that deflects every criticism.
But the reality of things, that was a very simplistic presentation. For a Developer, there was little information there.
 

Stooky

Member
You keep saying that it was a presentation for Devs, as if that is some magic argument that deflects every criticism.
But the reality of things, that was a very simplistic presentation. For a Developer, there was little information there.
I keep saying because its true. It was simple presentation loaded with info in 30mins. Gamers are still breaking it down. It was an overview, some best practices info. Good for a dev. But we devs know that the actual work and knowledge comes from actually developing on the unit. No slight to you on this, You're just at the window looking in. which is why you are info starved, and we (devs) are just fine with that presentation.
 
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winjer

Gold Member
I keep saying because its true. It was simple presentation loaded with info in 30mins. Gamers are still breaking it down. It was an overview, some best practices info. Good for a dev. But we devs know that the actual work and knowledge comes from actually developing on the unit. No slight to you on this, You're just at the window looking in. which is why you are info starved, and we (devs) are just fine with that presentation.

You probably know very little about hardware, otherwise you would quickly realize that presentation was very unloaded. Almost as marketing for tech illiterates.
It was presented in a simplistic way, very low on details. Low on concrete technical information.
Fortunately there's some competent tech press, that was able to dig more info. Like Dr. Ian Cutress from Anandtech.

Here is a real presentation for Devs and tech jornalists.
I really wish Sony had done something as in-depth as this. Instead of something generic and superficial.
 
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Stooky

Member
You probably know very little about hardware, otherwise you would quickly realize that presentation was very unloaded. Almost as marketing for tech illiterates.
It was presented in a simplistic way, very low on details. Low on concrete technical information.
Fortunately there's some competent tech press, that was able to dig more info. Like Dr. Ian Cutress from Anandtech.

Here is a real presentation for Devs and tech jornalists.
I really wish Sony had done something as in-depth as this. Instead of something generic and superficial.

You probably know very little about hardware, otherwise you would quickly realize that presentation was very unloaded. Almost as marketing for tech illiterates.
It was presented in a simplistic way, very low on details. Low on concrete technical information.
Fortunately there's some competent tech press, that was able to dig more info. Like Dr. Ian Cutress from Anandtech.

Here is a real presentation for Devs and tech jornalists.
I really wish Sony had done something as in-depth as this. Instead of something generic and superficial.

This is hot chips talk not GDC. Although interesting this talk would have been out of place GDC. The gamer tech hobbyist side of me would love hearing about this, the dev side of me currently has this sitting on my desk. On that note im done. Dont want to derail the thread.
 
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You probably know very little about hardware, otherwise you would quickly realize that presentation was very unloaded. Almost as marketing for tech illiterates.
It was presented in a simplistic way, very low on details. Low on concrete technical information.
Fortunately there's some competent tech press, that was able to dig more info. Like Dr. Ian Cutress from Anandtech.

Here is a real presentation for Devs and tech jornalists.
I really wish Sony had done something as in-depth as this. Instead of something generic and superficial.

While I enjoyed Cerny's presentation, I know I enjoyed it because I'm a gamer who knows a bit about tech. It was a rather superficial intro on how the PS5 works and that's fine. But yeah I don't see how people would think it was super complex and in depth. Hence the Rick & Morty copypasta I had to post earlier.
 

Boglin

Member
Cerny's presentation was still too complicated based on the reaction after the video dropped. Many people were spouting off about how Sony was misleading with some sort of "SSD = Rendering power" message when in reality it didn't even hint at it. All he said was that the I/O would allow the ability to stream in many assets and would help free up memory that would normally be reserved for upcoming scenes but somehow the message was understood about as well as a quantum physics book written in hyroglyphs.
 
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winjer

Gold Member
This is hot chips talk not GDC. Although interesting this talk would have been out of place GDC. The gamer tech hobbyist side of me would love hearing about this, the dev side of me currently has this sitting on my desk. On that note im done. Dont want to derail the thread.

Correct. A Hotchips presentation would be a bit out of place in a GDC.
But the problem is that Sony never did a Hotchips presentation, or similar, to deepen the technical aspects of the PS5.
Because of that we were left speculating, waiting for leaks, die shots, etc.
 
Pre-load is out for Xbox:

Xbox Series: 51gb
Xbox One: 27gb

Kind of surprised for the sizes of both, specially the Xbox One version.

Well the compression is better on the PS5 so I'm not surprised that the Series version is bigger. But it's weird seeing the Xbox One version at a much smaller file size. That version is designed to run off an HDD but the compression should be worse than the other platforms. It has to be down to the assets in my opinion but even I doubt that.

Thanks for the update.
 
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MaKTaiL

Member
Well the compression is better on the PS5 so I'm not surprised that the Series version is bigger. But it's weird seeing the Xbox One version at a much smaller file size. That version is designed to run off an HDD but the compression should be worse than the other platforms. It has to be down to the assets in my opinion but even I doubt that.

Thanks for the update.
I'm actually positively surprised about the Xbox Series size. Only 8gb more than the PS5 version. Either Xbox has improved it's compression or Dice hasn't utilized Kraken to its fullest on PS5.
 
I'm actually positively surprised about the Xbox Series size. Only 8gb more than the PS5 version. Either Xbox has improved it's compression or Dice hasn't utilized Kraken to its fullest on PS5.

Im honestly never expecting a massive difference between the Series and PS5 versions when it comes to install size. I know that 8GBs isn't tiny but I still consider it a small difference between the two.
 

yurinka

Member
For devs it was even more lackluster, because it was so barebones in technical data.
Yep. The goal of the talk was to explain to the devs the benefits that the hardware arquiecture he designed was going to give them/us. He obviously didn't have time to go into super detail, but at least I as game programmer and depending on the project game designer too, who doesn't enter too much into technical things, got the point what he said and why did the architecture in this way.

But obviously it was only an introduction. After the talk I had many questions about a ton of details which for different reasons he couldn't explain them there (limited time, confidentiality, etc).
 
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I'm actually positively surprised about the Xbox Series size. Only 8gb more than the PS5 version. Either Xbox has improved it's compression or Dice hasn't utilized Kraken to its fullest on PS5.
Probably the latter. Xbox still isn't using BCPack, so that can't be the reason.
 

Panajev2001a

GAF's Pleasant Genius
I think they're waiting for DirectStorage to land on PC before they go BCPack. The latest hint is Forza 5 having the exact same size on Series and PC.
I do not see the connection between BCPack (which is an extension of texture schemes they were using on XBox One I think) and Direct Storage, but it seems a bit a “oh wait, while we lambast PS5 for not including VRR, it is ok not to see SFS, now BCPack, maybe hey Direct Storage too… they are yet to be used almost a year in”… so basically considering this affects loading times too we are supposed to think PS5 titles are going all in with Oodle Texture + Kraken and a 5.5 GB/s raw interface and XSX is fighting with a 2.4 GB/s and zlibbed at best textures? 🤨.
 
I do not see the connection between BCPack (which is an extension of texture schemes they were using on XBox One I think) and Direct Storage, but it seems a bit a “oh wait, while we lambast PS5 for not including VRR, it is ok not to see SFS, now BCPack, maybe hey Direct Storage too… they are yet to be used almost a year in”… so basically considering this affects loading times too we are supposed to think PS5 titles are going all in with Oodle Texture + Kraken and a 5.5 GB/s raw interface and XSX is fighting with a 2.4 GB/s and zlibbed at best textures? 🤨.
BCPack is not an Xbox One derived "scheme", it's a brand new algorithm for texture data decompression and we're gonna see use of it once PC starts using DirectStorage.

The reason why it's ok that we don't have SFS, BCPack and DirectStorage yet is because we're still in the cross-gen phase where these things don't matter. The reason why VRR has been important from day one is because devs like Ubisoft deliver games that have constant screen tearing and VRR gets rid off the problem.
 

Bo_Hazem

Banned
BCPack is not an Xbox One derived "scheme", it's a brand new algorithm for texture data decompression and we're gonna see use of it once PC starts using DirectStorage.

The reason why it's ok that we don't have SFS, BCPack and DirectStorage yet is because we're still in the cross-gen phase where these things don't matter. The reason why VRR has been important from day one is because devs like Ubisoft deliver games that have constant screen tearing and VRR gets rid off the problem.

No actual connection here. BCPack is pre-final compression and it's for image-based content, just like Oodle Texture. It's compatible with even Windows 95, you're mixing it up with SFS.

After you're done with BCPack or Oodle Texture you do the final compression/container for the whole game elements, logic, etc that is ZLIB, Oodle Kraken.
 
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MaKTaiL

Member
Battlefield 2042 (without Day 1 patch):

- PS4: 42.7gb
- PS5: 45.9gb

- Xbox One: 27gb
- Xbox Series: 51gb

EA is definitely not using Kraken for PS5 (probably due to marketing reasons in favor of Microsoft). Also PS4 size is enormous compared to Xbox One (and people wanting to keep both PS4 and PS5 versions installed like me will suffer).

I wonder if the Xbox One version is missing files that will only be included with the day 1 patch. That would explain the size difference. Now we just need to find out the PC version size for a complete list.
 
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Sinthor

Gold Member
My brain is melting.

I get back to you in three days Bo once i have read all this and looked up some words.

Nice post btw.
Hey Mr. Fishy! Just FYI on the storage upgrade. If you're looking...I tried the Patriot Viper VP4300. Was one of the cheapest out there but also the fastest at 7400mbps. I SUCK with mechanical things. Was a laptop tech a long time ago and you did NOT want me working on your laptop! It would work, but I'd have a missing screw or two left over....lol. Anyway, it comes with TWO heatsinks and I was able to put both one quickly and easily and fit it in the PS5 easily as well. I mean the WHOLE operation probably took me about 10 minutes, including getting the PS5 case off. Was pretty amazing to me. And it even worked! I got the 2TB option just so I don't have to worry about storage ever again with this thing, but the 1TB option was the cheapest I could find for any compatible SSD drive. So might want to take a look at that one if you're in the market.
 
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