Former Frostbite Software Engineer Explains How PS5’s SSD Will Work

gameseveryday · 2020-05-26T13:57:01Z

It’s about more than just what the player can see.

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Beside open world games that everybody is talking. I think racers could also get a huge jump and maybe perfect copy from the real world with high detail.

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dan3232171d ago

Good open world racing games would be nice indeed.

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RememberThe3572171d ago

Midnight Club!!!! PLZ!!!!

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bouzebbal2171d ago

Sony please bring back The Getaway

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oof462171d ago

You guys forget about Smuggler's Run?

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2170d ago

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solideagle2171d ago (Edited 2171d ago )

Although this approach of loading assets where the player is looking open new possibilities but they will have to work on AI, how will AI react to no environments, etc?

Next-gen programming is changing forever and I am super excited :D

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Babadook72171d ago (Edited 2171d ago )

The ai uses a collision mesh to build a Nav mesh and that will always be present. Just the visual meshes (which are far more complex) will load and unload as you look around.

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solideagle2171d ago (Edited 2171d ago )

@Babdook7
Thanks for your explanation. I hope next-gen games are innovative as this gen is more of the same which is not a bad thing at all but I find it sad that we get so many remasters but not new experiences like devs have stopped making new experiences and banking on old games.

super excited about next-gen, did I say that already? :D

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rainslacker2171d ago

The track itself would probably be laid out either way. Something along the level of guide lines, with standard AI routines put in for more immediate needs. Hopefully those will improve as time goes on. AI that runs on a predetermined path and always tries to get back to that track can be shallow at times.

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nismo3702171d ago

Impossible.

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Games1st2171d ago

Anything will benefit from higher movement speed. It will be great for people without much time to waste, combine that with sub zero loading and looters will get a lot more loot.

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ps5fanboy2169d ago

gt7 is gonna blow mind in vr.. with ,a sat in movement chair..wow.

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no_more_heroes2171d ago

Next-gen for me is full resolution textures for everything in view at all times with no pop-in at all, fully interactive environments and sensible, realistic animations. I want my characters to interact with even a random thing in a random corner the exact same way someone would in real life. No more nonsensical invisible walls.

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crazyCoconuts2171d ago

I think some of that, but we'll still have buggy games because, well, quality is hard.
I think the surprise for many about what next gen will mean is, yes, better looking games, but more impacting will be the usability of those games on our system. No more waiting for slow menus, waiting for games to load. Going through title screens to get back to where you were at in a game you played last week. Maybe less thinking about hard drive space, automatic streaming when you own a game that you haven't downloaded yet. I think next gen will be a bigger lift on HOW we play our games more so than the games themselves. Having a fantastic user experience develop while PC users are dealing with failing Windows updates and fragmented stores will make next gen consoles even more attractive to the PC market as well

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sinspirit2171d ago (Edited 2171d ago )

I always wanted characters holding weapons and items to change how they wield so that they arent clipping through the wall. Which would also alter the way they use it

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rainslacker2171d ago

That's still a lot of programming for the interaction. Games that have a lot of interaction now like that tend to just have collision effects coupled with some sort of basic physics routine, so whether you hit a orange cone or steel beam, they flop around the same.

The graphics themselves could indeed be as good as you suggest though.

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2171d ago

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AnubisG2171d ago

It will be interesting to actually see this in action. It is talked up a lot certainly.

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Dirtnapstor2171d ago

Had already watched this guy before I found this article. He’s very insightful, breaking things down. A good watch/listen.

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Hakuoro2171d ago

Developer after developer say the same thing.

The SSD can change the way the games are designed from the ground up.

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Minute Man 7212171d ago

Yes faster loading........
We know this

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Atticus_finch2171d ago

You sound bothered. You okay.

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russo1212171d ago

Careful, you'll have a stroke trying that hard.

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Games1st2171d ago

Sub zero to zero loading, 16gb ram in one direction, faster movement speed.

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remixx1162171d ago

It's so much deeper than that but you seem to want to belittle its benefits as if it hurts you personally that it exists.

Developers are the ones that builds these games we love so if something excites them then we can only benefit from it even if we don't necessarily understand it in its entirety. Therefore we should be excited too.

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Neonridr2171d ago

I give up.. honestly. After spending so much time in the PC camp and understand which hardware actually translates to true performance when it comes to games, let these guys think what they want. This is clearly their secret sauce. And when 3rd party comparisons show the XSX being superior, they will blame it on devs not understanding the true I/O potential of the PS5 and blah blah blah. Honestly it's ridiculous. Guys, it's a faster hard drive. It's not going to double framerates or increase resolutions. Wait and see.

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sinspirit2171d ago (Edited 2171d ago )

@Neonridr

"I give up.. "

Good, cause not only do you have no idea what you're talking about, but you're ignoring what's being said. No one said the SSD increases gaming performance. The conversation is world density, detail in the immediate scene, and development being free of picky RAM constraints. The more data the GPU's can recieve, the more data that's displayed on screen. Quite necessary for higher end GPU's.

You're so quick to downplay SSD and make a negative buzzword against it.

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ARZ19902171d ago

Can’t wait for the official reveal! Both machines will be beast in their own right

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aaronaton2171d ago

Yeh true, the Xbox is massive.

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FyBy2171d ago

Loading screens aside, its simply better extension of ram. Its much more perfect virtual ram with very fast access. Not only transfer speed is much better but also cpu processing is almost non existent. Its similar to radeon pro ssg card. AMD describes this SSD close to GPU tech this way:
The Radeon Pro SSG comes equipped with a large total onboard memory. This advancement in graphics technology enables vastly higher performance for the demanding use-case scenarios. Easily make real-time material and complex lighting changes of rendered objects and scenes and generate near real-time photorealistic walkthroughs of rendered visualizations. Create high-fidelity real-time VFX pre-visualizations to help inform and make decisions on-the-fly.

Or in some review:
Where the Radeon Pro SSG comes into its own thing, is pre-visualization on movie sets, where directors can have near-final visual effects running in real-time thanks to the Radeon Pro SSG. Normally studios will have to water down the super high-end assets that visual effects studios make so that they can provide a real-time look at the visual effects on the set, but with Radeon Pro SSG they can do it in real-time at a much higher level of detail.

Read more: https://www.tweaktown.com/n...

I dont see there anything else. But this is really cool.

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remixx1162171d ago (Edited 2171d ago )

Thank you for this!!

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Einhander19712171d ago

Stuff your open world rubbish, God there is more to gaming than open world, so shallow.

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S2Killinit2171d ago (Edited 2171d ago )

Que? Its not just for open world. Have you not noticed the techniques currently used to hide loading in all sorts of games? From linear to multiplayer

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CaptainOmega2171d ago

I want worlds where your actions make a meaningful impact.

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Sharingan_no_Kakashi2171d ago

I hope we see a return to the 3d platformer. Imagine those games looking as good as a pixar film.

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rainslacker2171d ago (Edited 2171d ago )

Heck, a 2D platform could have amazing graphics since it only needs to load small sections of the level at a time. They could crank up the texture and object quality so high, it would make your eyes bleed.

I saw a concept of this from one dev. I'm hoping they turn it into a game, because it was pretty cool

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quenomamen2171d ago

I own a PS4, and would never buy an Xbox but cmon, both New consoles will have similar SSD set ups

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cd12171d ago

Maybe but Sony do appear to have put a lot focus on IO this time - happy days if all these Dev rumours end up true.

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Games1st2171d ago (Edited 2171d ago )

Best SSD system in the world with over 2x speed, with supporting hardware for complete efficiency, in deep dive stated 100 times better than PS4 processing is similar?

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crazyCoconuts2171d ago

It'll be a simple showdown for 3rd party game load times across consoles We'll all know after launch

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Destiny10802171d ago (Edited 2171d ago )

the original SSD in XSX was going to be !.8 GB/s when they got wind of the PS5 they changed it to 2.4 GB/s

Xbox gamers should also thank Mark Cerny

while the XSX will be doing something similar it will be a long way short of the PS5, it would be like comparing a plane to a fighter jet, similar but which one would you take into battle

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FyBy2170d ago (Edited 2170d ago )

I agree that both consoles will hav SSD. Also both consoles support some form of texture streaming without much work required by cpu.
But we dont know exactly, how both solutions will differ in reality.
For example:
1)Sonys 12channel vs MSs 4channel controller
2)Sonys 6 priority over MSs 2 priority requests
3)Sonys IO trhoughput vs MSs one (not transfer speed, but IO)
4)Where really is transfer speed line between "raw" assetts and scaled down ones

In other words, SSD speed is fine. But even twice as much speed can mean nothing, if whole system isnt build to use it. Here I think Sony put much more effort to optimalize whole system. Why would they tried so hard to put inside non existent (in retail) solution then?

Maybe some developer and good mathematician can solve this equation. Sonys approach seems to me like they simply needed that speed and that number of channels for exact reason. Not simply because they wanted fastest SSD on the market. What for? GPU power is much more marketable value.

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Angrymorgan2170d ago

I hope so..if xbox isnt similar, 3rd party devs wont utilize this function if one system cant use it the same way

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Angrymorgan2171d ago

So basically graphically, the ssd setup can load an infinite amount of detail in your pov on screen in an instant, I'm no expert but that sounds good.

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rainslacker2171d ago

It is good. One thing that holds back graphics now is needing them to have to be held in resident memory for an entire scene. This takes away a lot of usable memory that could be used for other things, and means that during optimization, assets tend to be downgraded.

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FyBy2170d ago

Exactly! That means you have virtually x-times more free ram to use in next gen consoles. Thats really revolutionary. Every gen, developers fighting low amount on RAM on consoles. This is past now.

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Neonridr2169d ago

my NVMe drive in my PC is perfectly fine though. So while it's a nice thing to have, I think people are putting too much stock in it.

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rainslacker2169d ago

@Neon

Any PC SSD could manage what I'm talking about better than a standard hard drive, or even a hybrid. It may not be as efficient as a full system build around that kind of paradigm, and of course the OS will add it's own layer that will restrain it's potential, but it'd still work with some consideration on how much actually has to be held in memory.

But, the games have to be designed around that, and they simply aren't, and it's unlikely it will become the norm on PC anytime in the near future.

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