The PlayStation 5's compression tech can drastically reduce game file sizes

[Polycount]

In context: The next generation of gaming arrived with the launch of the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series S/X, and unlike some past console launches, these units truly feel fresh and worthy of the next-gen moniker. The PS5, in particular, features a lightning-fast SSD, support for real-time ray tracing, and perhaps most importantly, consistently higher framerates for new and old titles,

However, there are drawbacks to all this progress: most notably, the PS5's mediocre 825GB of available storage space. As game file sizes climb higher and higher (sometimes upwards of 150GB on consoles), having less than a terabyte of available storage space is far from ideal.

Fortunately, the PS5 has a bit of a trick up its sleeve. As reported by Computer Base, the console is capable of extreme file compression. For example, Subnautica on PS5 takes up a mere 5GB of storage, while eating up 14GB on the PS4. That's a reduction of over 60 percent, and this isn't an isolated example.

To use a bigger-budget (and more graphically intensive) game as an example, Control's Ultimate Edition reportedly uses around 25GB of space on the PS5, while requiring 42.5GB on the XSX.

While we're not sure precisely what tech is working behind the scenes to enable such significant results, it's impressive nonetheless. Hopefully, the stronger compression we saw with Subnautica will become the norm moving forward; the PS5 will certainly need it if gamers are to have any hope of installing more than a few AAA titles at a time.

The situation should improve when Sony allows PS5 users to expand their consoles' storage capacity with additional NVMe drives, but it might be a while before that happens.

Permalink to story.

https://www.techspot.com/news/89769-playstation-5-compression-tech-can-drastically-reduce-game.html

 

[ZackL04]

Great, now lets see it on my series x

 

[Lounds]

Do we know if XSX uses a co processor for hardware file decoding or is it just offloading it to a Zen2 core? From what I read PS5 has been designed around file efficiency.

 

[Vulcanproject]

We see it with Control as mentioned, it's a big drop in file size for PS5. Anything like this is a notable advantage when SSD space is at a premium.

Certainly makes PS5 digital look much more attractive especially compared to Series S which has 300GB less storage available.

I get why Series S exists, it's a games pass machine, a secondary console only. But aspects like this show why it's not actually that great value for the hardware itself. Not when PS5 Digital manages more storage AND the full next gen chipset under the hood.

We'll just have to wait and see what SSDs end up approved for use in expansion for Sony's consoles. At the moment even with high end PCIe 4.0 SSD prices like the WD Black SN850 and Sabrent Rocket 4.0 Plus it still looks to slightly undercut Microsoft's (slower) proprietary drive.....

 

[Dimitriid]

We were just talking about how the PS5 can't handle games at 4k and this news about it's awesome, ground-breaking technique of compression (The thing that we've been doing pretty much since we invented personal computers) also makes the news.

The worst part is that this is going to make things much worst for gamers overall: Publishers are already super lazy and decide their AAA games like Call of Duty should fill up a third of your average 1tb ssd or more so now instead of telling Activision: "Hey! Go take a lesson from Skyrim modders in how to deliver super high quality textures at reasonable file sizes" we're just inventing ssds that do the compression that should have been done by the publishers before they well, publish the files.

 

[Kosmoz]

Do we know if XSX uses a co processor for hardware file decoding or is it just offloading it to a Zen2 core? From what I read PS5 has been designed around file efficiency.

XSX does have a hardware decompressor, but is nowhere near as good and the Kraken one in PS5, as it's SSDs and IO throughput is not either. So at this subject XSX ca do the same things, but worse or PS can do them better, however you want to put it.

We were just talking about how the PS5 can't handle games at 4k and this news about it's awesome, ground-breaking technique of compression (The thing that we've been doing pretty much since we invented personal computers) also makes the news.

The worst part is that this is going to make things much worst for gamers overall: Publishers are already super lazy and decide their AAA games like Call of Duty should fill up a third of your average 1tb ssd or more so now instead of telling Activision: "Hey! Go take a lesson from Skyrim modders in how to deliver super high quality textures at reasonable file sizes" we're just inventing ssds that do the compression that should have been done by the publishers before they well, publish the files.

1. XSX can't handle games at 4k either, unless we are talking of old gen games (then yes it can). All the new games run the same on PS5/XSX with very few exceptions where XSX has a little advantage, but considering ALL the new games (not to mention with RT ON) both consoles fail to run a true 4k, we'll have to wait at least another generation for that.
That being said, I for one don't care if it's true 4k, upscaled 4k from lower resolutions, dynamic 4k or any other tricks to make it look good at 4k, almost as good as native 4k, that you need to do 800% stop and zoom to notice any difference.
I really don't care, I let those things for snobs and Digital Foundry simps to worry or cry about. I care about 60 fps more.

2. Technically it is not the SSD that does the compression/decompression thing, it a co-processor, but it does take advantage of the fast SSDs (especially in PS5 up to 22GB/s throughput when using both the SSD+IO speed and Kraken).

P.S. Even RE Village has a considerable size difference: 35GB on XSX and 27GB on PS5.

 

[archimed2]

Who care ? we talk about a 14Gb game compressed to 5 Gb , only 9 Gb less ....

Why they don't show their magic on 150 Gb game.

looks like a pro sony post !
No word on microsoft who have the exact same tech (bcpack)

 

[Burty117]

P.S. Even RE Village has a considerable size difference: 35GB on XSX and 27GB on PS5.

Not to mention that the PS5 doesn't have a load screen in RE Village, it's basically instant, about a second "fade to black" screen. While the XSX has a loading screen for 10 seconds.

I assume this compression system is helping the PS5 feed itself so fast that loading screens are legit not needed.

 

[AMN3S1AC]

XSX does have a hardware decompressor, but is nowhere near as good and the Kraken one in PS5, as it's SSDs and IO throughput is not either. So at this subject XSX ca do the same things, but worse or PS can do them better, however you want to put it.


1. XSX can't handle games at 4k either, unless we are talking of old gen games (then yes it can). All the new games run the same on PS5/XSX with very few exceptions where XSX has a little advantage, but considering ALL the new games (not to mention with RT ON) both consoles fail to run a true 4k, we'll have to wait at least another generation for that.
That being said, I for one don't care if it's true 4k, upscaled 4k from lower resolutions, dynamic 4k or any other tricks to make it look good at 4k, almost as good as native 4k, that you need to do 800% stop and zoom to notice any difference.
I really don't care, I let those things for snobs and Digital Foundry simps to worry or cry about. I care about 60 fps more.

2. Technically it is not the SSD that does the compression/decompression thing, it a co-processor, but it does take advantage of the fast SSDs (especially in PS5 up to 22GB/s throughput when using both the SSD+IO speed and Kraken).

P.S. Even RE Village has a considerable size difference: 35GB on XSX and 27GB on PS5.

It was just reported that that PS5 can't run Biomutant acceptable at 4K, while the Series X can.

 

[Burty117]

It was just reported that that PS5 can't run Biomutant acceptable at 4K, while the Series X can.

But due to your inability to read, that story was misleading in the sense that the game doesn't have a PS5 version, it's just XSX has better backwards compatibility vs the PS5.

 

[AMN3S1AC]

But due to your inability to read, that story was misleading in the sense that the game doesn't have a PS5 version, it's just XSX has better backwards compatibility vs the PS5.

I read several articles that only stated "technical issues" as being the reason. It can't even do 2k, which is quite pathetic.

 

[Nobina]

Meanwhile Call of Duty Modern Warfare is 200GB plus 25GB updates almost weekly.

 

[Burty117]

I read several articles that only stated "technical issues" as being the reason. It can't even do 2k, which is quite pathetic.

You are painful to talk to. It's not a PS5 game, it's a PS4 game running in backwards compatibility mode on the PS5.

It's pretty well known Sony are not as good with their backwards compatibility as Microsoft are...

 

[AMN3S1AC]

You are painful to talk to. It's not a PS5 game, it's a PS4 game running in backwards compatibility mode on the PS5.

It's pretty well known Sony are not as good with their backwards compatibility as Microsoft are...

There is always a reason why something runs better on one system or another. Fact remains that the exact same game runs better on Series X because Microsoft's console is better at handling it.

 

[Rule110]

Do we know if XSX uses a co processor for hardware file decoding or is it just offloading it to a Zen2 core? From what I read PS5 has been designed around file efficiency.

Still amazing to see people don't know it has similar hardware decompression engines tuned for BCPack and Zlib, instead of Kraken and Zlib.. or similar coprocessors alltogether everywhere else.

XSX does have a hardware decompressor, but is nowhere near as good and the Kraken one in PS5, as it's SSDs and IO throughput is not either. So at this subject XSX ca do the same things, but worse or PS can do them better, however you want to put it.

I don't agree, the SSD throughput is what limits the max throughput of the on-die hw decomp. The SSD controller is nowhere as good and has less R/W channels, and then goes through 2 gen 4 PCIe lanes instead of 4.

Then when talking texture compression, BCPack already does a better job at it than Kraken, but at the same time efficiency ratios don't take into account the fact that they fetch partial textures, and less of them everytime because they also reduce the VRAM impact with SFS.

When loading, not especially compressed assets or textures, I don't think there is such a large gap.

in PS5 up to 22GB/s throughput when using both the SSD+IO speed and Kraken.

P.S. Even RE Village has a considerable size difference: 35GB on XSX and 27GB on PS5.

The 22GB/s I don't think is a realistic expectation, unlike the 8-9 and 14GB/s max mentionned in the initial talks.
Why ? Because that's literally 100% compressed assets transfers at 4x average compression ratios, also at peak sequential write speeds.
I.e. it's a hw/api unit test of fetching compressed assets of a test data sets and not an actual gameplay scenario.

That's not a considerable size difference, unlike Control, given that they have 130GB less from the start on the SSD. And we don't know if specific optimizations were applied equally to both, MS is late to the party with the SDK as confirmed by Remedy.

Not to mention that the PS5 doesn't have a load screen in RE Village, it's basically instant, about a second "fade to black" screen. While the XSX has a loading screen for 10 seconds.

I assume this compression system is helping the PS5 feed itself so fast that loading screens are legit not needed.

I think there can be an advantage in GB/s when completely swapping memory in the mercenaries mode for instance, but it's interesting that the PS5 runs a different codepath for loading times there than story mode.

It doesn't in the story mode - there is a 5-2s load time initially, then no more loadings after it. And of course you can quick resume to the story mode in 2s too.

 

[pildorman321]

Great, now compress the retro-futuristic casing

 

[Irata]

We were just talking about how the PS5 can't handle games at 4k and this news about it's awesome, ground-breaking technique of compression (The thing that we've been doing pretty much since we invented personal computers) also makes the news.

What‘s special is that PS5 has dedicated hardware decompression that‘s equivalent to about 9 (!) Zen 2 cores for that task.

I really hope that AMD integrates something comparable into their CPU / GPU in the future.

As for not being able to handle games @4K: The PS5 has no problem doing that even with RT for native PS5 titles. Also, I would not judge a CPU‘s, GPU‘s or console‘s performance based on what one developer / studio says.

 

[Kosmoz]

I read several articles that only stated "technical issues" as being the reason. It can't even do 2k, which is quite pathetic.

What is pathetic is xbots trying to spin the narrative and distort facts (as well as websites that just hunt for click-bait titles) and when confronted with the reality they deny it in a cognitive dissonant way... that's pathetic.

Xbox wins on BC games, so I guess they need this win to soothe their souls waiting for the 1st new good AAA exclusive game on Xbox since so many years ago... and still waiting... it's gonna be 2022 until we see it come.

But hey it's "the most powerful console ever", yet that narative was dropped (by MS actually) suddenly when PS5 was starting to match or outdo this "amazing" XSX console.

Here you go > Every PS5 Game That Outperforms The Xbox Series X Version In May 2021
- it's missing RE:V & Subnautica, or anything related to outperforming XSX about compression, so the list should be bigger actually.

 

[Dimitriid]

What‘s special is that PS5 has dedicated hardware decompression that‘s equivalent to about 9 (!) Zen 2 cores for that task.

I really hope that AMD integrates something comparable into their CPU / GPU in the future.

As for not being able to handle games @4K: The PS5 has no problem doing that even with RT for native PS5 titles. Also, I would not judge a CPU‘s, GPU‘s or console‘s performance based on what one developer / studio says.

....Yeah, I'm going to press X for doubt on that one: I've been hearing blown-out-of-proportion claims from console makers for the better part of 30 years now to believe they really dedicated the equivalent of the PS4 entire CPU just for compression on the PS5 because if they did, they'd be pretty stupid not to just drop it in favor of a few more Vega cores that might give em a fighting chance at running anything modern looking at 4k60: why would they decide "Nah we better use precious die space in decreasing disk space at a time when fast storage is at an all time low price, barely more expensive than spinning disks, who needs better graphics anyway is not like we put that on basically all of our pre-release press events!"

 

[Trapped Nowhere]

I'm confused at how graphics seem to have taken precedence on whether or not the games are good. I never understood the 4k 60fps thing when we were just complaining about devs being on 1080p 30fps years ago.

 

[Kosmoz]

....Yeah, I'm going to press X for doubt on that one: I've been hearing blown-out-of-proportion claims from console makers for the better part of 30 years now to believe they really dedicated the equivalent of the PS4 entire CPU just for compression on the PS5 because if they did, they'd be pretty stupid not to just drop it in favor of a few more Vega cores that might give em a fighting chance at running anything modern looking at 4k60: why would they decide "Nah we better use precious die space in decreasing disk space at a time when fast storage is at an all time low price, barely more expensive than spinning disks, who needs better graphics anyway is not like we put that on basically all of our pre-release press events!"

You can doubt all you like, you can doubt water is wet also.

The road to PS5 explained all this 1 year ago, yet ignorance is a bliss, still.

Here is a little benchmark for all doubters/ignorants/xbots: When the tech equivalent to the upcoming Ratchet and Clank will be available in the same manner in an Xbox/PC game (which will happen years from now) then everyone (with more than 2 neurons) will understand why did it took so much time for Xbox/PC games to catch up to PS5. - that's why. So let's see how much time it will take to happen...

Not only does it have a Kraken co-processor/chip, but also and 3d audio co-processor/chip (which does physics too + other jobs), those are not Zen2, not AMD, and you can ask Mark Cerny why, so far I can see the results and these are just the beginning. If last generations were a sing of things to come, I can't wait for mid and late gen games which will bring even more next gen improvements.

I'm confused at how graphics seem to have taken precedence on whether or not the games are good. I never understood the 4k 60fps thing when we were just complaining about devs being on 1080p 30fps years ago.

It's for snobs and ignorants. 60fps, yes is very noticeable vs 30fps, but 1440p vs 4k barely; and with the latest upscaling tricks even 1080p upscaled (depending on the game) can be very close to native 4k in image quality. But hey, the bragging rights are more important than the game itself... like XSX being the most powerful console is more important than actually having great games to play on said console...

Simpletons don't differentiate between the importance of a high rez image and a high rez texture / asset. The latter are more important than the former, also the scale and world density is also more important. That's why older games even running at true 4k still look like **** compared to a new 1080p upscaled to 4k game, because even though the old game has just a little more clearer image, the textures, the assets and the density of the world is light years in the past compared to the new game.
Nowadays image resolution is actually at the back of importance when it comes to image quality, thanks to all these more important features and the new tricks implemented to achieve similar results, but with a lower rez image.

 

[Irata]

....Yeah, I'm going to press X for doubt on that one: I've been hearing blown-out-of-proportion claims from console makers for the better part of 30 years now to believe they really dedicated the equivalent of the PS4 entire CPU just for compression on the PS5 because if they did, they'd be pretty stupid not to just drop it in favor of a few more Vega cores that might give em a fighting chance at running anything modern looking at 4k60: why would they decide "Nah we better use precious die space in decreasing disk space at a time when fast storage is at an all time low price, barely more expensive than spinning disks, who needs better graphics anyway is not like we put that on basically all of our pre-release press events!"

That‘s the beauty of dedicated hardware / dsp for a specific task - it can only do one thing but it does it very well, I.e. you do not need the same number of transistors vs general purpose chips. It‘s the same with hardware video de and encoders that are built into GPU - they perform much better than an entire CPU but take up much less space.

Xbox series S/X also have dedicated hardware decompression circuitry.

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

www.anandtech.com

 

[Irata]

I'm confused at how graphics seem to have taken precedence on whether or not the games are good. I never understood the 4k 60fps thing when we were just complaining about devs being on 1080p 30fps years ago.

Snobbery. Well made games are enjoyable even on my dirt cheap XBox one S (not series S). Graphics still look good enough and the console has allowed for some low budget gaming fun.

Sure, it‘s better on the PC, but the PC also cost a lot more.

 

[AMN3S1AC]

What is pathetic is xbots trying to spin the narrative and distort facts (as well as websites that just hunt for click-bait titles) and when confronted with the reality they deny it in a cognitive dissonant way... that's pathetic.

Xbox wins on BC games, so I guess they need this win to soothe their souls waiting for the 1st new good AAA exclusive game on Xbox since so many years ago... and still waiting... it's gonna be 2022 until we see it come.

But hey it's "the most powerful console ever", yet that narative was dropped (by MS actually) suddenly when PS5 was starting to match or outdo this "amazing" XSX console.

Here you go > Every PS5 Game That Outperforms The Xbox Series X Version In May 2021
- it's missing RE:V & Subnautica, or anything related to outperforming XSX about compression, so the list should be bigger actually.

I don't have an Xbox, I have a PC, a PS5, and a Switch. Using terms like xbots makes you look like the one who is obsessed with a particular brand.

Lol, imagine linking to a pro-playstation site while trying to promote the superiority of the PS5. I don't care that the PS5 is underpowered compared to the series x, as I only got it for the great exclusives. The Microsoft games I will play on PC.

 

[Rule110]

@Kosmoz I don't think that tone is proper to the conversation, please behave like you would with someone face to face.

Not only does it have a Kraken co-processor/chip, but also and 3d audio co-processor/chip (which does physics too + other jobs), those are not Zen2, not AMD, and you can ask Mark Cerny why, so far I can see the results and these are just the beginning. If last generations were a sing of things to come, I can't wait for mid and late gen games which will bring even more next gen improvements.

Actually, I doubt the design isn't a semi-custom block by AMD under guidance or specifications by Sony. They had made similar decomp hw for the PS4 BluRay drive data. And they made almost identical designs for MS on Zlib, and a custom one for BCPack. Audio, as well.
source:

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1240341184867758085

60fps, yes is very noticeable vs 30fps, but 1440p vs 4k barely; and with the latest upscaling tricks even 1080p upscaled (depending on the game) can be very close to native 4k in image quality. But hey, the bragging rights are more important than the game itself... like XSX being the most powerful console is more important than actually having great games to play on said console...

I can agree w/ the 30 vs 60, but not so much on the 1440p to 4K. Upscaling only leads you so far. Not every game makes use of it, if you have large view distance, it will make a big impact, otherwise, maybe not so much, especially if you need the performance gains to push better framerates or more details, like on consoles.

**** don't differentiate between the importance of a high rez image and a high rez texture / asset. The latter are more important than the former, also the scale and world density is also more important.
Nowadays image resolution is actually at the back of importance when it comes to image quality, thanks to all these more important features and the new tricks implemented to achieve similar results, but with a lower rez image.

Both are equally important if the end goal is high detail, and world density as you said. I think older games with resolution boosts, framerate boosts etc also look great. Unless you mean 10-15 years old games, but then you don't look for the graphics most.
Remember DLSS 1.0 was about 1600p-1800p and the difference was noticeable, afterwards, it indeed got better with a lower baseline resolution reference. Consoles are bound to get support for something at least better than DLSS 1.0 and quite efficient by AMD soon. At that point the performance targets will finally be proper on both systems. That resolution claim you made is true only if you get proper reconstruction on top of it.

What‘s special is that PS5 has dedicated hardware decompression that‘s equivalent to about 9 (!) Zen 2 cores for that task.
I really hope that AMD integrates something comparable into their CPU / GPU in the future.

I don't really think you should refer to that estimated performance requirement figure. I have seen too many people online adding those "cores" up, to reach ridiculous comparisons. Circuit's an ASIC, it's purpose-made to do work that you don't want to brute force in the first place. However, like most DSP workloads, it maps pretty well to SIMD or iGPU/dGPU cores, that's also the solution envisionned on PC.
Also keep in mind a PC doesn't suffer from economic design limitations, so out of the box, VRAM isn't constrained and DRAM is also (already) used to reduce the overhead access to SSDs.

Let's not follow MS/Sony's narrative to the letter: yes, both consoles are innovating on technologies unique to them now (and later for quick resume), but that's the normal course of innovation, but consoles were definitely the reason developers took so long to properly design for SSDs. It likely wouldn't have been the other way around. Now that AMD has made custom designs for it, they'll be widely adopted elsewhere.

On another note, I don't think we should be dismissive about previous gen titles running properly. Consoles have released for over 6 months now, and I doubt people have been playing the 2, 3 exclusive or nextgen titles on their new hw. And it's where the SSDs actually matter the most, imho. With new consoles, a load time delta of less than 10s is very little compared to 30s to entire minutes apart on games with lots of loadings.