The PS5's SSD is so fast that Epic had to rewrite parts of Unreal Engine 5

[SethNW]

Yeah, you can do a lot of tweaking to best utilize SSDs. We haven't yet seen any of it, because everybody had to support old legacy, or HDDs, if we are more exact. And you can't have both, you either support HDDs or you drop HDDs in favor of SSDs. Plus when storage gets too fast you can actually get into unexpected issues too. Like if you would try to install Windows 2000 to fast SSD, you will get multiple errors, because setup buffer to which data from CD gets stored to be copied you HDD gets empty. They never expected that to happen with slow mechanical HDDs, so setup simply isn't programmed to deal with it.

But anyway, fast SSD storage is something developers are really happy about, because it allows them to do things they just couldn't do when they had to support HDD. And I can't wait for this to come to PC.

 

[SethNW]

I am actually skeptical in...

It will be as usual. Multiplatform games will get programmed for lowest common denominator. If anyone will take the fullest advantage of each consoles, it will be exclusives, I guess, we will have to see. But most stuff will use advantages of each console to extent of it being optional, so they can release game on other console too.

As far as console gamers go, it will likely be more up to where friends are and which brand wins favor, as well as price to an extent. But if anything, it won't really be specs that will matter, but rather features. Provided they do good job presenting them. Like XB1 lost generation even before it came out... :-D

 

[Ben1978]

HDD are simply the slowest because they require moving parts.

Sata SSD is leaps and bounds beyond HDD. I'd say the only limiting factor is the operating system.

PCIE has less of a physical gap than Sata and higher transfer capability. On a human scale you may not be able to notice the performance difference, but it is there.

PS5/ XSX owners who've never experienced SSD speeds before will be blown away.

Sure. I'm not knocking my purchase, I just upgraded the 240gb nvme boot drive to a 1gb one with a higher speed. Cannot see any obvious difference but the price wasnt much higher than another sata drive.

 

[Edster]

Yep, one will be able to do Ray-Tracing better (Xbox) and one will load games slightly quicker (PlayStation).

That will be the only difference.

No but as someone from the PC crowd, Microsoft have given me no reason to buy their console since I can get most Xbox games on PC now. Sony's lineup of games is far more appealing so I'll be getting a PS5 even if it was more expensive.

Yes, but the question is, is that "better" and that "faster" actually even going to be significant enough for console gamers to care, or even notice. That's before we got to, as you have pointed out, choice of exclusive games and circle of friends (as others have pointed out). And this is especially so when Devs go for the lower hardware in the development. I just don't think any of this matters in non-exclusive games.

Only exclusives will take full advantage; but then we can't compare performance there.

 

[m4a4]

*Sigh* At this point, it really does just sound like people are trying to take the one "better than XSX" feature of the PS5 and hype it up beyond what it really is.

If the XSX was still using an HDD, I'd understand. But realistically, it won't make much of a difference (which is seconds, assuming there are no other bottlenecks).

Just pick a favourite and you'll be fine lol

 

[treetops]

Basically what you're talking about is having the newest SSD technology which has been stress tested for endurance running without all the background clutter and performance drains of an Operating system like Windows 10. I have no doubts it will be fast and work efficiently with other components.

But there's two main things that determine how good it will be: the quality of the games and the dedication of the developers. They have to take advantage of all that speed and deliver a product that delivers a standardized and corporatized experience for buyers.

The new consoles may offer console players the fastest speeds they've ever seen, but I truly doubt PC Enthusiasts will be wowed.

To bad they won't have a 10900kf.

 

[Burty117]

Yes, but the question is, is that "better" and that "faster" actually even going to be significant enough for console gamers to care, or even notice. That's before we got to, as you have pointed out, choice of exclusive games and circle of friends (as others have pointed out). And this is especially so when Devs go for the lower hardware in the development. I just don't think any of this matters in non-exclusive games.

Only exclusives will take full advantage; but then we can't compare performance there.

Oh absolutely, your average console gamer won't be able to tell the difference at all, they're just too closely matched this time round.

I reckon your average console gamer will notice the faster load time before the ever slightly increased graphics though. If a multi-plat actually did try to take advantage, if said console gamer played 1 hour of it on the Xbox then straight afterwards the same 1 hour on the PlayStation, I reckon they'd notice the faster load speed vs some extra Ray-Tracing.

I'm only basing this off some of the console gamers I know though, pretty much their biggest gripe is load times on PS4 / Xbox One, they struggle to see much of a difference between the two graphically yet the Xbox runs games at lower resolutions and although I notice that, I don't think your average console player does.

 

[pildorman321]

Ahhh the power of marketers. such MASSIVE BS. remember when the ps2 was so powerful that it " might threaten national security" !!!! because of THE POWER OF RSX "Reality Synthesizer used 4 "potential military applications" and the power of the PS3 cell??? that was supposed to change the world interconnecting everything, toasters your tv, freezer, gime a fk break please, this are plastic toys constrained by price ( heat, size, etc) the cheapest sony can afford. is NEVER, EVER GOING TO SURPASS a COMPETENT PC.

 

[Xex360]

really? how do you know? or you think maybe that tflops is the indicator of 'power'?
Because we know that Radeon VII, 14 tflops is more powerful that nVidia 2080 super, 11 tflops!.

oh wait...
lol.

Damn we have been wasting our time and money on the 2080ti while the 2080 offers the same performance...
lol

 

[dnous]

Oh absolutely, your average console gamer won't be able to tell the difference at all, they're just too closely matched this time round.

I reckon your average console gamer will notice the faster load time before the ever slightly increased graphics though. If a multi-plat actually did try to take advantage, if said console gamer played 1 hour of it on the Xbox then straight afterwards the same 1 hour on the PlayStation, I reckon they'd notice the faster load speed vs some extra Ray-Tracing.

I think it will be very noticable during multiplatform games. Considering the difference in performance, games will most likely have a better/more stable framerate on the xbox. A repeat of what we saw with multiplatform games on the 360 compared to the ps3.

 

[Paul1979]

I recommend to listen to Cerny's presentation.
And if this is not enough insightfull, this guy (frostbyte engine developer) made a very good video commenting information from Cerny and putting them into professiona context:

in short, option to put data from drive directly into the memory in gpu readable format with on-fly decompression is a game changer. All data in any PC have go through CPU to RAM, then CPU have to decompress it, then copy it from RAM to GDDR. Huge overhead, so even .m2 raid, with theoretically higher throughput will be slow down by cpu / gpu driver bottleneck:

https://twitter.com/x/status/1267480162012139520

Sony and many developers at the time used that same logic on the PS4 single memory pool and yet it didn't really change much.

Transfering a lot of data on the PC with a fast M2 drive using very little cpu cycles if the M2 drive has a good controller and decompression of data is light work on the cpu even with a lot of data, compressing data is a lot more demanding but decompression flies like a rocket, anyone can test that out on the PC and see what I mean.

The overheads are very little and wont impact PC gamers, especially with 8 or more cores.

 

[Axil00]

It's true multiplatform games will be programmed to run on both machines, but more compute power means that scenes that push the PS5 will be handled easier by the series x. The situation was reversed in the xbone/ps4 launch. As an xbox one owner I absolutely noticed that some games had to be downgraded to 900p or some scenes suffered from a little studder when a lot was going on.

Microsoft did what Sony is doing now, talking about how the kinect and tv integration will be better. Shaving a few seconds off load screens is nice, but I'd never sacrifice raw power for it unless it was somthing like a HDD vs SSD situation

 

[mAdmAnDingo]

I am actually skeptical in how much advantage the supposedly amazing PS5 SSD and the supposedly better XBX processing power is going to be for games that fanboys of both sides talk about endlessly. Kinda feel like this is just comparing clones.

People harp on and on about XBX's better teraflops, how many Devs will actually take the time to make any meaningful difference; and how much tangible difference would the PS5 SSD give anyone beyond slightly faster loading time,especially when it when people use extended storage. And when you consider that people are more likely to develop for the weakest link first.

I will also put out the question for XBX's processing superiority. Sony and MS basically use the same architecture as they both went from AMD and their RDNA2, so how powerful these consoles are in a way, purposefully chosen as I doubt AMD went for any favoritism. If you go for power, you need to back it up with the proper cooling which would raise cost; so too would the SSD very likely. Both packages are compromise between performance and cost; I think anyone who thinks that MS managed to get a more powerful processing by their design team, and likewise for Sony's SSD, is just blinded by fanboyism.

Remember. PS3 was supposedly powerful, it was powerful for its time, but it didn't win the console war for its generation. PS4 won this generation without overwhelming power, it won by having a good price (and MS own goals, PS2 vs Xbox is not a fair comparison). Recent reports of PS5 is that it might cost lower than most expect, I haven't heard mich about XBX's cost. But I fully expect the more competitively priced consoles to win. Most console gamers aren't blinded by specs like the PC crowd is.

PS3 actually came back to win its console generation in the end, as reported buy multiple news outlets when PS3 did win.
https://www.escapistmagazine.com/v2/who-finally-won-ps3-or-xbox-360/
https://www.techradar.com/news/gaming/consoles/how-the-playstation-3-won-the-console-war-1196215
https://www.thesixthaxis.com/2013/01/10/figures-show-ps3-has-finally-outsold-the-360/
And game devs don't focus on the lowest platform when it comes to consoles, game devs focus on the highest selling platform when it comes to consoles. That is why XB0X 360 multi-plat titles ran worse on PS3 for a long time, because PS3 was released a year after 360 and didn't overtake 360 in sales until the end of the generation.

So game devs didn't learn PS3 hardware until much later in the generation when more people owned PS3 and devs had to learn PS3 architecture to get comparable performance out of it as well.

Same with with PS4 vs Xbone. PS4 sold much better and games all ran better on its more powerful hardware as well. Most new games run terribly on OG Xbone/S now, as shown by Digital Foundry. But OG PS4 still does fine.

Next gen PS5 vs Series X will likely be like PS4 Pro vs Xbox One X is now for multiplats. Xbox Series X will likely have higher res and maybe more stable FPS as well and PS5 will likely have a lower res (with checkerboarding?) and maybe lower FPS or the same FPS. We will see though. It will really be Sony exclusive games that will be the best looking and performing, same as always.

But which console sells the most also does benefit a consoles game dev support in the end.

 

[mAdmAnDingo]

I think it will be very noticable during multiplatform games. Considering the difference in performance, games will most likely have a better/more stable framerate on the xbox. A repeat of what we saw with multiplatform games on the 360 compared to the ps3.

It is actually more comparable to what we have now with PS4 Pro vs Xbox one X. The X has higher res and sometimes a more stable framerate, but sometimes the X has less stable FPS vs the Pro, because the Pro does chekerboarding to achieve a lower res and that leads to a higher FPS in some titles.

That is much more comparable to the upcoming PS5 vs Series X because they are also basically the same architectures. PS3 and 360 were actually more different than alike. And PS3 was more complicated and launched a year later than 360, so 360 already had a large market when PS3 released and 360 was also simpler to program for.

It took game devs years to get a handle on PS3 architecture, but in the end PS3 started achieving parity in lots of titles, and PS3 was even awarded the best version of GTA V according to Digital Foundry.

But I expect PS5 vs Series X to be very similar to what we have now with Pro vs X1X.

 

[mAdmAnDingo]

Sony and many developers at the time used that same logic on the PS4 single memory pool and yet it didn't really change much.

Transfering a lot of data on the PC with a fast M2 drive using very little cpu cycles if the M2 drive has a good controller and decompression of data is light work on the cpu even with a lot of data, compressing data is a lot more demanding but decompression flies like a rocket, anyone can test that out on the PC and see what I mean.

The overheads are very little and wont impact PC gamers, especially with 8 or more cores.

Game devs didn't use that same logic with PS4 unified RAM. Xbox 360 already had an unified memory pool, PS3 didn't and that caused issues for game devs. The 8gb of unified RAM for PS4 and Xbone was just to simplify development for game devs (like 360) and also the fact that it was 8gb was actually the biggest win. That was the single biggest step pevious gen consoles could have taken with memory size, and it did lead to bigger games and a better life for the consoles.

The bandwidth was alos great for PS4 vs Xbone,but the logic behind the PS4 memory pool was not the same as the logic behind the PS5, you are wrong on that one.

 

[Digitalzone]

First of all, I'm basing my information on leaks coming from developers, rather than marketing information. But I agree with you that the PS5 SSD is not a substitute to VRAM, there's no argument there.
My post is meant for people who reduce the PS5 SSD to shorter loading times. We are already getting shorter loading times on PC, but solid-state memory directly linked with the VRAM is much more than that, and there are some rumors that we might see SS memory enhanced graphic cards in the future. That exists already, for the professional market.

You simply don't need "SSD directly linked with the VRAM" when you have enough RAM or VRAM. They will just save money on shared V/RAM again so they have to come up with this ridiculous tech which will only lead to short life expectancy of such a SSD unit. But they have to market it for simple minds.

 

[neeyik]

They will just save money on shared V/RAM again so they have to come up with this ridiculous tech which will only lead to short life expectancy of such a SSD unit

It won't affect the lifespan of the SSD that much, as the damage is only done during writes. The system used is designed to improve data reads from storage to the global/local memory.

In a Windows-based PC, the graphics card simply cannot directly read from the HDD/SSD. All write must be written into the system RAM first, then copied to the GPU's local memory before it can be used. For PCs with integrated GPUs, the system memory is the local memory, but it has far less bandwidth.

In the case of the PS5, this isn't done: if required, the GPU can read directly from the SSD without the need for it be transferred.

 

[MaitieS]

Do we know maximum write capacity for console SSD's?

 

[mAdmAnDingo]

Do we know maximum write capacity for console SSD's?

Not yet bud. But I don't think it will be an issue for either console. SSD/NVME have been reliable for years now. I do lots of professional work with editing/converting/rendering and even my oldest Samsung SSD is still great after years of abuse.

Samsung Magician says it is still healthy and by my estimate it still has years of abuse left in it yet. And I highly doubt either next gen consoles SSD will receive as much abuse as my Samsung SSD. And my newer NVME drives are receiving just as much writes and abuse and are looking no worse for the wear either.

And if by some small miracle the consoles SSDs do receive more abuse then mine do, they should be able to be replaced anyway. But I honestly don't think that either will have any issue. The real issue with both is that they will likely have to be upgraded (from lack of space) or added to with externals SSDs because of large game collections I think. Unless uninstalling games is not a problem for someone.

 

[MaitieS]

Not yet bud. But I don't think it will be an issue for either console. SSD/NVME have been reliable for years now. I do lots of professional work with editing/converting/rendering and even my oldest Samsung SSD is still great after years of abuse.

Samsung Magician says it is still healthy and by my estimate it still has years of abuse left in it yet. And I highly doubt either next gen consoles SSD will receive as much abuse as my Samsung SSD. And my newer NVME drives are receiving just as much writes and abuse and are looking no worse for the wear either.

And if by some small miracle the consoles SSDs do receive more abuse then mine do, they should be able to be replaced anyway. But I honestly don't think that either will have any issue. The real issue with both is that they will likely have to be upgraded (from lack of space) or added to with externals SSDs because of large game collections I think. Unless uninstalling games is not a problem for someone.

Yeah you are totally right. I have SSD 950 PRO NVME and I think that my capacity is 400TB and I only used like 82TB after 4 years of service. I am definitely planning to use this SSD as my secondary for my next build up as well (512GB only :/)

 

[tembew]

Sounds like a whole heap of nothing. You'd be incompetent if you didn't update your engine to take advantage of new hardware. Engines will be updated for ps5 and xbox

 

[scavengerspc]

Why is it that the only thing I hear about the PS5 is the SSD?

 

[mAdmAnDingo]

Why is it that the only thing I hear about the PS5 is the SSD?

Because it is what Sony/Cerny spent most of their budget and resources on, and because it is the one area that it beats Series X (and home PCs as well actually).

But PS5 SSD and its Kraken decompression performance and the way it can read direct from SSD to GPU is quite impressive.

But here are the full specs for both next gen consoles if you are interested.

PlayStation 5 vs Xbox Series X specs: CPU, GPU, storage and more compared

This is the essential PlayStation 5 vs Xbox Series X specs comparison: CPU, GPU, storage, backwards compatibility and more compared by Digital Foundry.

www.eurogamer.net

Inside PlayStation 5: the specs and the tech that deliver Sony's next-gen vision

Sony has broken its silence. PlayStation 5 specifications are now out in the open with system architect Mark Cerny deli…

www.eurogamer.net

Inside Xbox Series X: the full specs

This is it. After months of teaser trailers, blog posts and even the occasional leak, we can finally reveal firm, hard …

www.eurogamer.net

 

[newstark2042]

Lower loading screens are not needed,stop focusing on ssd and talk about graphical power

 

[ilovetohateyou]

Basically what you're talking about is having the newest SSD technology which has been stress tested for endurance running without all the background clutter and performance drains of an Operating system like Windows 10. I have no doubts it will be fast and work efficiently with other components.

But there's two main things that determine how good it will be: the quality of the games and the dedication of the developers. They have to take advantage of all that speed and deliver a product that delivers a standardized and corporatized experience for buyers.

The new consoles may offer console players the fastest speeds they've ever seen, but I truly doubt PC Enthusiasts will be wowed.

It's not the performance drains of the Windows OS. The OS and a few typical background apps pale in comparison to the needs of an AAA game at high resolution and quality on an enthusiast gaming PC. The reason why this sort of new approach to coding games and game engines is happening on console first is because the new consoles will only ship with fast SSDs. You can't assume fast storage on PC. It's the same reason why traditionally console games are tuned to operate at a single setting because the hardware is known and predictable while on PC there has long been a need to have a myriad of quality and resolution options precisely because you need to support a wiiiide variety of hardware configurations.