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[AlexxKidd]

Could elevators be used to address the gap in the Series X SSD?

Microsoft's William Stillwell, who currently manages the company's Mixed Reality program, spent years at Xbox working on backwards compatibility, xCloud, and Xbox platform services, seems to think so.

"So the ability of a game developer to look and say, 'Ok, I am building this game and I wanna have seamless transition with no loading screens on [PS5], but I am also gonna wanna sell on Xbox, what am I gonna do to manage that kinda thing?'

"Like, that will be the tricks and the techniques, so – I am just making this up – maybe there are elevators in the Xbox Series X version and not on the [PS5] version. I don't know yet how they're gonna address it, but they'll learn to address it and they will figure out ways to work around it."

 

[Mister Wolf]

They will just not use the full speed of the PS5 SSD. That's the solution that costs the least and that's how businesses work.

 

[GymWolf]

They will just not use the full speed of the PS5 SSD. That's the solution that costs the least and that's how businesses work.

one and done.

 

[SplunkyMunkey]

Not just very quick loads. Very fast texture streaming higher quality assets and may even skip LODs

 

[phil_t98]

well I keep asking the question but seem to not get any answers, if games are similar to this gen in size as being predicted and games are around about 100gb plus for a 12 hour game will we need such a fast speed SSD. not trolling PS5 SSD its a genuine question. how much data will be needed any one time? I mean to get full use of the 6GB speed of PS5 how big with the game files be?

 

[SplunkyMunkey]

well I keep asking the question but seem to not get any answers, if games are similar to this gen in size as being predicted and games are around about 100gb plus for a 12 hour game will we need such a fast speed SSD. not trolling PS5 SSD its a genuine question. how much data will be needed any one time? I mean to get full use of the 6GB speed of PS5 how big with the game files be?

It will be less due to not having duplicate textures there for reduces the file size of the game

 

[phil_t98]

It will be less due to not having duplicate textures there for reduces the file size of the game

so if a game is 100gb in size, the PS5 will read the entire game in 16 seconds. now due to memory being 16gb and moving with in a game will that speed be needed?

 

[SplunkyMunkey]

so if a game is 100gb in size, the PS5 will read the entire game in 16 seconds. now due to memory being 16gb and moving with in a game will that speed be needed?

Yes because the ssd on the ps5 will able to stream pretty quick. Where the high gig of games we have now the the textures are the corporates as the standard HDD os to slow to stream thats while the file sizes are to big or getting bigger and bigger

 

[Bryank75]

Coming from the PlayStation customer perspective... the biggest games will want to sell everywhere so I don't expect major deviations in game design.

However games that sell much more historically on PlayStation... Japanese games, Souls, some Capcom games etc etc may decide just to go to PS5 cause they are not giving up much sales, it lets them follow their vision more closely and sales are being diminished on Xbox by Gamepass.

Gamepass is basically cheap entertainment that results in people saying 'I have plenty of games to play' so they don't buy comparatively expensive new releases. Once it becomes a bigger trend on the platform, MS may compensate more to developers to keep them coming to the platform but you can't stop a flowing river, eventually they will have to decide to not pay some developers and forgo releases. That is what I believe the reality of their approach means.

 

[phil_t98]

Coming from the PlayStation customer perspective... the biggest games will want to sell everywhere so I don't expect major deviations in game design.

However games that sell much more historically on PlayStation... Japanese games, Souls, some Capcom games etc etc may decide just to go to PS5 cause they are not giving up much sales, it lets them follow their vision more closely and sales are being diminished on Xbox by Gamepass.

Gamepass is basically cheap entertainment that results in people saying 'I have plenty of games to play' so they don't buy comparatively expensive new releases. Once it becomes a bigger trend on the platform, MS may compensate more to developers to keep them coming to the platform but you can't stop a flowing river, eventually they will have to decide to not pay some developers and forgo releases. That is what I believe the reality of their approach means.

can I ask what are you expecting in terms of changes in game design?

 

[phil_t98]

Yes because the ssd on the ps5 will able to stream pretty quick. Where the high gig of games we have now the the textures are the corporates as the standard HDD os to slow to stream thats while the file sizes are to big or getting bigger and bigger

I get we will have no LOD load and stuff like that and no loading screens but surely textures won't take 6g per second to load cos that would be some serious game size. I may not be getting this right btw am just curious to how this is gonna work.

 

[Bryank75]

can I ask what are you expecting in terms of changes in game design?

More detailed environments with more random and physics based stuff happening at the same time and just denser level and world design.

Spider-man for instance....faster webslinging, more random encounters, real reflections, more building interiors, more and better textured npcs... no loading from outside to going into a hideout or lab etc.

 

[Elginer]

It begins...

 

[SplunkyMunkey]

No it be less depends how high the assets will be

 

[JareBear: Remastered]

Well, it makes sense, right? Obviously multi-plat games are going to have to be optimized for each architecture

 

[phil_t98]

More detailed environments with more random and physics based stuff happening at the same time and just denser level and world design.

Spider-man for instance....faster webslinging, more random encounters, real reflections, more building interiors, more and better textured npcs... no loading from outside to going into a hideout or lab etc.

so nothing major? just a whole next gen upgrade as usually more npc better graphics but massive bonus of no loading which is cool.

 

[Kuranghi]

Sounds right to me, if a game can't load in data fast enough, the framerate will crash or it will need to cut to a loading screen. If you made something for PS5 with a certain storage speed in mind, then just put it on another system with slower storage and didn't add these "loading elevators" (or whatever method) into the level I think it would be a bad experience for Xbox users.

Here is an example of what I think it might look like: Uncharted 3 was leaked early on PS3 but they ripped the files from the disc wrongly, they ended up unpacking a few giant files into thousands of small files, this meant the game couldn't be read from the HDD as fast as the game expected (most people played backups from HDDs, not disc, its possible the problem wouldn't exist on the a disc made from the iso) and during the chase/run away sequences (lots of data coming in fast) the game literally cut to auto-generated loading screens when it couldn't keep up.

I saw a video of this happening at different points each time depending on player choices in the sequence, it just cut to black as Nathan was say, running down a burning hallway, went to loading screen (black screen with animation in the corner) and then 6-7 seconds later came back to the gameplay, it even did it during a jump haha!

The reason this happened is the read speed for thousands of small files was much lower than for parsing the one big file while on an HDD, at least. I think thats what would happen if you didn't add those "loading scenes" with PS5 vs Xbox.

On 3rd party I'm not sure they'd give themselves that much extra work if they could avoid it, but they might be
tempted if they feel it lets them more accurately realise their creative vision.

 

[Dirk Benedict]

So they're expecting Devs to use tricks and techniques to somehow catch up to a hardware design that, too can be further optimized through time.

I'm going to be honest, I'm getting a PS5 and going with a Beefy PC, so these console war squabbles are beneath me, but at the same time I really want to know how far ahead Sony's hardware configuration is ahead of the curve as some developers have suggested. It seems to be CLOUDing up the XBSX power advantage message, somewhat.

Either way, it's a good way to keep the competition from hogging limelight. All they have to do is reveal the games, hardware and price MS into a corner, instead of giving them the advantage to do the same.

 

[SUPERGGK]

I feel that developers will use very high quality assets on ps5, because they easily can, due to the extremely high speed of it's ssd, and maybe these assets will be of a lower quality on sex. But other than that I don't think that there would be much differences in games on both systems. Maybe sex will have better framerate and resolution but I don't think it would be too extreme.

 

[Naddy]

This doesn't make any sense. Developers can not and will not for multiplatform games, build their games around a single SSD. This is not how it works at all.
I mean, think about it, if the developers would built their multiplatform games around the PS5 SSD, they would have to basically create two version of a game.

One Version for PS5 and one version for XSX and PCs with SSD.

Would this - from economic point of view- feasible?
I think not, we are not going to see anything like this. I think what we will see is the following:

Developers will build their games around the PC SSD and use as the lowest common denominator and then XSX and PS5 will benefit from shorter loading times compared to PC, but other than that, it won't be different to PC.
It simply isn't feasible at all, developing games is already super expensive and developing a game version for PS5 and one for XSX/PC would make it even more expensive.
Of course, this doesn't apply to CPU and GPU.

With CPU and GPU it's very easy to scale up and down, we have seen this in current gen and on PC, where we have different modes and settings, e.g. lower or higher FPS/Resolution. This is super easy and doesn't take any resources from the developers, the developer doesn't have to create different versions of a game.

 

[Evangelion Unit-01]

They will just not use the full speed of the PS5 SSD. That's the solution that costs the least and that's how businesses work.

Yep and they'll have to run on PC too. I think everyone is placing a little too much importance on SSD. It's why I think the average third party game will look better on Series X but I also think some first party Sony studios will also do some cool stuff with the SSD. The next Naughty Dog game will probably use it in a cool new way but the next COD/GTA will probably look better on Xbox.

That said, PS5 first party stuff will likely end up on PC too so really it's anyone's guess. Part of me wonders if PS5 hardware was developed before the PS as a Platform shift started to happen and that's why we are getting such an incredible SSD but with a less powerful cpu/gpu. Whatever the case may be I'm looking forward to seeing what devs do for both team green and team blue.

 

[Bryank75]

so nothing major? just a whole next gen upgrade as usually more npc better graphics but massive bonus of no loading which is cool.

Traversal speed, level of detail and diversity of npc's and surroundings, as well as density of the environment etc are things that potentially impact the game significantly and matter to me at least.

Xbox SX has it's strengths and I am sure MS will market them well. They have the first party showcase coming up, I am interested to see how they leverage the GPU etc.

 

[Knightime_X]

I just want to know if performance isn't compromised down to 30fps with all of that loading.
I feel like SOMETHING is going to be a bottleneck.
Guess I'll have to wait and see.

 

[Bryank75]

I just want to know if performance isn't compromised down to 30fps with all of that loading.
I feel like SOMETHING is going to be a bottleneck.
Guess I'll have to wait and see.

No, the SSD has its own processors and directory.

 

[Deleted member 471617]

They will just not use the full speed of the PS5 SSD. That's the solution that costs the least and that's how businesses work.

Yep. This is what im expecting. 2.4GB/sec standard or 4.8GB/sec compressed with the PS5 version being the same for all third party games.

 

[Knightime_X]

No, the controller has its own processors and directory.

WHEW! That's a relief!
300fps controller or preorder cancelled!

 

[Mister Wolf]

Yep. This is what im expecting. 2.4GB/sec standard or 4.8GB/sec compressed with the PS5 version being the same for all third party games.

For games intended to be released on PC simultaneously it's probably going to be even less. They are not going to waste their time and budget to create solutions to problems that dont need to exist. Expect SATA SSD to be the new floor for game developers from big publishers that get their PC releases out day one (Namco, Capcom, Ubisoft, CD Projekt Red, EA, etc)

 

[Bryank75]

WHEW! That's a relief!
300fps controller or preorder cancelled!

Naa the controller just processes the data coming from the SSD I believe. The main CPU is where most of the FPS work is done.

It's the same chip as in the SX just clocked down by .1 , so I wouldn't expect much difference between the two.

 

[SSDfan]

I like elevators and corridors, but can we declare PS5 as king of free gaming level design? Not even high end PCs can do that

When my friend Tim and I, along with our great partner misses Lisa were saying that king Cerny was about to revolutionize the gaming development enviroment, we all got cursed by some fanboys. But this has always been the truth.

What Sony are trying to do is beyond visual and physics leap. The Very concept of developing and designing a game is dratically changed. We are looking for a new 2D-3D transition where devs are free to express themselves, free from unecessary men Power and resources for old and boring gamey tricks, promoting vast worlds with seamless transitions, preserving an absurd level of real world details with also extreme diversity with no file duplications, useless space consuming Textures and geometry, all these on a platform that, along with the coherency Engine, process everything without any special coding from devs.

 

[itsjustJEFF]

Could elevators be used to address the gap in the Series X SSD?

Microsoft's William Stillwell, who currently manages the company's Mixed Reality program, spent years at Xbox working on backwards compatibility, xCloud, and Xbox platform services, seems to think so.

Based on this guys experience and work history, he might know what he's talking about. That's likely a valid option #Elevators

 

[Deleted member 471617]

For games intended to be released on PC simultaneously it's probably going to be even less. They are not going to waste their time and budget to create solutions to problems that dont need to exist. Expect SATA SSD to be the new floor for game developers from big publishers that get their PC releases out day one (Namco, Capcom, Ubisoft, CD Projekt Red, EA, etc)

I agree 100%. Those who fully utilize the PS5 SSD will be Sony's internal studios or the studios that are third party but developing an exclusive for the console. It will definitely be interesting to see how it all plays out to say the least.

 

[Bryank75]

Another point is that LOD models take a significant amount of manpower, so when Unreal Engine 5 comes in and doesn't require LOD for PS5, it makes PS5 significantly faster to develop for...... so where does that leave the other platforms? Later releases?

 

[NickFire]

If OP is correct and the gentleman works for MS, is this official confirmation that the difference between the SSD's are rather significant?

 

[ethomaz]

" I am just making this up" I laughed.

 

[Coolwhhip]

Xbox, where you get more elevator rides for your buck.

 

[Naddy]

Another point is that LOD models take a significant amount of manpower, so when Unreal Engine 5 comes in and doesn't require LOD for PS5, it makes PS5 significantly faster to develop for...... so where does that leave the other platforms? Later releases?

no, all games will be released at the same time, otherwise they would have to pay again for marketing etc.
Unless of course Sony or MS are going to pay for timed exclusivity.

 

[Jboemios]

Another point is that LOD models take a significant amount of manpower, so when Unreal Engine 5 comes in and doesn't require LOD for PS5, it makes PS5 significantly faster to develop for...... so where does that leave the other platforms? Later releases?

Please stop. You dont know what you are talking about

 

[Bryank75]

no, all games will be released at the same time, otherwise they would have to pay again for marketing etc.
Unless of course Sony or MS are going to pay for timed exclusivity.

What if it's just cheaper to make the game for PS5 cause you don't need as many people to do LOD stuff? Takes less time etc? and then Gamepass cuts into sales....

I could see some companies just not bothering with other ports. Maybe this is where the real war is, not on the customer side....

 

[hunthunt]

The PS1 Resident Evil doors and the N64 fog are back in the form of a 12 TF console.

 

[geordiemp]

well I keep asking the question but seem to not get any answers, if games are similar to this gen in size as being predicted and games are around about 100gb plus for a 12 hour game will we need such a fast speed SSD. not trolling PS5 SSD its a genuine question. how much data will be needed any one time? I mean to get full use of the 6GB speed of PS5 how big with the game files be?

God war was 45 GB with lots of dublicates and was not kraken compresssed. Ps5 discs are 128 GB each.

You could in theory with compression 2 x quality assets in 1 disk, and with 2 disks god help our eyes.

 

[geordiemp]

Another point is that LOD models take a significant amount of manpower, so when Unreal Engine 5 comes in and doesn't require LOD for PS5, it makes PS5 significantly faster to develop for...... so where does that leave the other platforms? Later releases?

They can just be lower quality assets, simple. Posters dont want to read that.

 

[Bryank75]

Please stop. You dont know what you are talking about

I absolutely do.... you need artists and time to create assets for each LOD, unless you somehow have a way around it, such as the solution in the Unreal demo.

If you have something to say that contradicts me or proves you know more, then say....

 

[thicc_girls_are_teh_best]

They will just not use the full speed of the PS5 SSD. That's the solution that costs the least and that's how businesses work.

Dunno about that. It comes down to the engine. UE5 seems to have made optimizations to attempt both leveraging PS5's SSD I/O in particular (but not at the expense of other systems), AND having targeted performance that can be scaled across different I/O implementations.

So I'd assume devs using that engine, even for multiplats, should be able to get very good use of PS5's SSD I/O without needing to do too much work or compromise. So they can still design the game as they want, and target strengths of the PS5 architecture (and for XSX, target strengths of XSX's architecture). Meaning we'll be able to look forward to more than just 1st-party games making fuller use of these systems...if they're using engines like UE5

I like elevators and corridors, but can we declare PS5 as king of free gaming level design? Not even high end PCs can do that

When my friend Tim and I, along with our great partner misses Lisa were saying that king Cerny was about to revolutionize the gaming development enviroment, we all got cursed by some fanboys. But this has always been the truth.

What Sony are trying to do is beyond visual and physics leap. The Very concept of developing and designing a game is dratically changed. We are looking for a new 2D-3D transition where devs are free to express themselves, free from unecessary men Power and resources for old and boring gamey tricks, promoting vast worlds with seamless transitions, preserving an absurd level of real world details with also extreme diversity with no file duplications, useless space consuming Textures and geometry, all these on a platform that, along with the coherency Engine, process everything without any special coding from devs.

Hate to break it to 'ya but we aren't getting anything near the shift from 2D to 3D gaming here. In fact almost all examples I've seen in terms of trying to state PS5's SSD I/O advantages have amount to basically higher polygon assets and texture streaming, but graphics-related.

I don't just think of prettier graphics when I think of fundamental game design innovations. They're a part of the equation, but not all there is to it. So I think a lot of people are underselling the benefits of PS5's SSD I/O in that respect, and they're also ignoring other features that play a big role in game design shifts like CPU innovations, GPU breakthroughs (ML, upscaling, AI neural network capabilities, asynchronous programming etc.) and more, some of those being things XSX happens to have the advantage in.

It'll take leveraging all of these things in tandem to get big shifts, plus the market demanding for things aside from just prettier graphics for a change.

 

[Mister Wolf]

For games intended to be released on PC simultaneously it's probably going to be even less.

Dunno about that. It comes down to the engine. UE5 seems to have made optimizations to attempt both leveraging PS5's SSD I/O in particular (but not at the expense of other systems), AND having targeted performance that can be scaled across different I/O implementations.

So I'd assume devs using that engine, even for multiplats, should be able to get very good use of PS5's SSD I/O without needing to do too much work or compromise. So they can still design the game as they want, and target strengths of the PS5 architecture (and for XSX, target strengths of XSX's architecture). Meaning we'll be able to look forward to more than just 1st-party games making fuller use of these systems...if they're using engines like UE5

CD Projeckt Red, Remedy, Ubisoft, EA, From Software, Capcom, Rockstar, and plenty others even smaller developers like 4A Games(Metro) all use their own preexisting in house games engines most of the time. There are some outliers like Capcom using UE for street fighter but I dont believe neither of us are really thinking about fighting games.

 

[thicc_girls_are_teh_best]

CD Projeckt Red, Ubisoft, From Software, Capcom, Rockstar, and plenty others all use their own in house games engines most of the time. There are some outliers like Capcom using UE for street fighter but I dont believe neither of us are really thinking about fighting games.

That's a good point, and if their in-house engines can't target those features, then they won't design their games with them in mind. It just felt like every other dev was using UE4 for something this gen so I assume the uptick in support for UE5 will continue as we go forward, especially if engine costs for in-house solutions become too cost-prohibitive.

Maybe due to this we won't start seeing more studios leveraging non-in house engines like UE5 until midway through the gen, when budgets for games increase so much that they'd rather scale back on investment in engine investment by choosing a strong middleware solution because even if they have to pay a licensing fee it could end up much cheaper than the R&D they would need for their own engines by that point with games getting that ambitious. But we're talking maybe 3-4 years from now I suppose

 

[Thirty7ven]

Ubisoft and Capcom have been at the vanguard of real-time graphics this generation so I have little doubt they will remain so next gen.

 

[DoctaThompson]

No, the controller has its own processors and directory.

Does the controller have rumble and 6axis? Asking for a friend.

 

[killatopak]

I don't think that will happen though. I'm sure third party will make their engines scalable or just don't design their game around PS5 speeds.

 

[Mister Wolf]

That's a good point, and if their in-house engines can't target those features, then they won't design their games with them in mind. It just felt like every other dev was using UE4 for something this gen so I assume the uptick in support for UE5 will continue as we go forward, especially if engine costs for in-house solutions become too cost-prohibitive.

Maybe due to this we won't start seeing more studios leveraging non-in house engines like UE5 until midway through the gen, when budgets for games increase so much that they'd rather scale back on investment in engine investment by choosing a strong middleware solution because even if they have to pay a licensing fee it could end up much cheaper than the R&D they would need for their own engines by that point with games getting that ambitious. But we're talking maybe 3-4 years from now I suppose

If history is anything to go by these companies would rather invest into creating their own proprietized engines that they can use for years which saves millions in the long run over paying Epic to use their engine. Monster Hunter World which sold over 15 million copies uses a engine that was created by Capcom in 2010(MT Framework 2.0)

 

[phil_t98]

God war was 45 GB with lots of dublicates and was not kraken compresssed. Ps5 discs are 128 GB each.

You could in theory with compression 2 x quality assets in 1 disk, and with 2 disks god help our eyes.

Ok but at 6gb per second the SSD will burn through that in no time. I get it will use portions of the game and have instant access to them but will it need 6gb of data quickly all the time?