Game Developer at Team Blur Games on Xbox Series X: You're going to hear a lot about why SFS (Sampler Feedback Streaming) is such a big deal

But hold, new secret sauce....

Nm9iSp6.jpg


Oops, thats ps4 manual lol

Yes, but Sampler Feedback Streaming is a new level right?

PRT discards unnecessary textures after loaded in RAM, and SFS discards before loaded in RAM.
 
But hold, new secret sauce....

Nm9iSp6.jpg


Oops, thats ps4 manual lol

PRTs and SFS are not the same thing. SFS takes PRTs further

Migrating elements of texture streaming implementations from mip-based streaming (i.e. loading entire levels of detail) to tile-based streaming and partial residency can be an effective mitigation to performance issues. Techniques using partial residency can allow content complexity to continue to grow without a corresponding increase in load times or memory footprint. Tiled resources (also known as partially resident textures or PRTs) can be improved so that these PRTs can be widely adopted while minimizing implementation difficulty and performance overhead for GPUs. These improvements include hardware residency map features and texture sample operations referred to herein as "residency samples," among other improvements.

A first enhancement includes a hardware residency map feature comprising a low-resolution residency map that is paired with a much larger PRT, and both are provided to hardware at the same time. The residency map stores the mipmap level of detail resident for each rectangular region of the texture. PRT textures are currently difficult to sample given sparse residency. Software-only residency map solutions typically perform two fetches of two different buffers in the shader, namely the residency map and the actual texture map. The primary PRT texture sample is dependent on the results of a residency map sample. These solutions are effective, but require considerable implementation changes to shader and application code, especially to perform filtering the residency map in order to mask unsightly transitions between levels of detail, and may have undesirable performance characteristics. The improvements herein can streamline the concept of a residency map and move the residency map into a hardware implementation.

A second enhancement includes an enhanced type of texture sample operation called a "residency sample." The residency sample operates similarly to a traditional texture sampling, except the part of the texture sample that requests texture data from cache/memory and filters the texture data to provide an output value is removed from the residency sample operation. The purpose of the residency sample is to generate memory addresses that reach the page table hardware in the graphics processor but do not continue on to become full memory requests. Instead, the residency of the PRT at those addresses is checked and missing pages are non-redundantly logged and requested to be filled by the OS or a delegate

PRTs have specific use-cases and are not universal for all textures. Using them in the same manner as SFS would require specific hardware to be built into the APU of the PS5.
 
The simple truth is PS5 answers xboxes power by extreme optimisation. Xbox answers Ps5s amazing throughput with their own advancements such as VA/BCP/SFS.

Neither are quite as good as the other in this regard, but both are incredibly awesome machines that are nearly on par.

This seems to offend a lot of people though, which is quite sad. 🤷🏼

It seems that both PS5 and Xbox are capable of only loading the needed pixels from a particular Mip of a texture.
What are some of the advantages of Xbox's approach instead of PS5 aside from handling transparency and blending better?

It seems like the part people are most interested in is the increase in "effective bandwidth" due to not having to load texture but everything I see suggests that this is a function both consoles will have. Can you clarify?

Hopefully I can have you teach me something before you give up on this forum
 
Amazing... A developer describes how SFS works and a handful of people on here blast him and try and discredit him because it doesn't fit their biased narrative? This had to be one of the most neutral attempts at putting information out that I've seen in quite a while. Some miserable MFers on here.
 
from what i understand here, with this SFS, the XSX can reduce the ssd gap with ps5..probably not make it on par or very close as some people assumed..but this is great solution to make current xsx ssd to perform better and not make it pale compared to the competition..and ps5 probably 'no need' this since it already has very fast ssd and efficient i/o as implying in the tweet that the ssd is 'brilliant'

but as other poster explained this stuff might be already used/simillar features existed before, there chances that devs might use similliar stuff on ps5 too

Regardless that this is interesting solution since both console might look similliar on outside but actually developed with different goal in mind, each with their own solution and features to cover each other weakness/gap and leverages their advantages

2021 GDC would be very interesting
 
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I was banned (temp) on era because I said I didn't like Jason S as he had blocked me on twitter for not being part of his echo chamber. He then pops up, posts why he blocked me (over barely nothing as usual) and then posts a follow up tweet I made after the fact, as proof of... something, where I insult him in a tweet (that he couldn't see as he blocked me anyway, so clearly he goes looking for this stuff) All off site drama I may add, in the middle of a thread where I'm explaining things and helping being thanked for it, while ignoring obviously fangirls who don't like it. So much the same as what went on here.

The mods on their infinite wisdom saw it as me being the problem.

To be fair, it's era. I wasn't surprised which side they would take. Does it really shock anybody?


This is pretty easy, instead of explaining us how SFS works, explain to us what exactly makes it impossible to do in other systems and what hardware exclusive to Xbox Series X enables the concept of only loading the part of the texture that you see.

If you're a developer and you're openly admitting you prefer one brand over the other, it's already a shaky start, but you have an opportunity here.

Explain to us why it's impossible for the PS5 HW to only load a part of a texture, based on sampling the previous frame.
 
Good read, thanks for the breakdown. Both consoles sound great and more prepared than this gen.


Also someone be a gem and get that little Gordie kid a hug or something.
 
Oh wow, finally someone explaining what SFS is in simple terms. Sounds really cool. Although, this is still software so what keeps anyone else from developing a similar feature?
Nothing and they already have which is why hyperbole like this

"now, coupled with SFS, it essentially levels the playing field somewhat."

Rubs me up the wrong way. This has already been discussed to death in the XVA thread too.
 
This is pretty easy, instead of explaining us how SFS works, explain to us what exactly makes it impossible to do in other systems and what hardware exclusive to Xbox Series X enables the concept of only loading the part of the texture that you see.

If you're a developer and you're openly admitting you prefer one brand over the other, it's already a shaky start, but you have an opportunity here.

Explain to us why it's impossible for the PS5 HW to only load a part of a texture, based on sampling the previous frame.

Nothing and they already have which is why hyperbole like this

"now, coupled with SFS, it essentially levels the playing field somewhat."

Rubs me up the wrong way. This has already been discussed to death in the XVA thread too.

How about patented proprietary hardware?

It's really not that complicated. He has explained more than enough. But it's never going to be enough for some people.

He's literally posted almost 30 tweets, and quite a few posts on here elaborating. He's even got James Stanard who is one of the architects behind SFS corroborating and elaborating on his explanation in the twitter thread.

I really can't tell if you all are seriously this dense, deluded, demented or just trolling at this point.
 
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How about patented proprietary hardware?

It's really not that complicated. He has explained more than enough. But it's never going to be enough for some people.

He's literally posted almost 30 tweets, and quite a few posts on here elaborating. He's even got James Stanard who is one of the architects behind SFS corroborating and elaborating on his explanation in the twitter thread.

I really can't tell if y'all are seriously this dense, deluded, demented or just trolling at this point.

This isn't about SFS. It's about his claim PS5 physically can't do something similar.

I need receipts for that, and you don't seem to have them.
 
tenor.gif


LOL

People just need to calm down a bit. I think we are all mature enough to realize that some of the bickering went a little too far. People need to relax a bit before this gets worse. And as all know what happens when it does.
I would disagree with this sentiment.. the same characters shit up every one of these threads... Every one. Developer comes on here to explain things in a neutral way and he gets attacked both personally and professionally. The entitled attitudes by some on here are ridiculous and need to be put in check... If not by the members, then by the mods.
 
I would disagree with this sentiment.. the same characters shit up every one of these threads... Every one. Developer comes on here to explain things in a neutral way and he gets attacked both personally and professionally. The entitled attitudes by some on here are ridiculous and need to be put in check... If not by the members, then by the mods.

Neutral? Saying he prefers one brand over the other while boasting about a rendering technique in one console vs it's absence on the other without exposing why something similar can't be done in the other, isn't being neutral. That's called being a hype man. Apparently he doesn't even have access to the dev kits.

You don't have receipts it can do it either, what's your point?

My point is if you don't have the receipts then don't act like you do. Avoid the comparison.
 
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How about patented proprietary hardware?

It's really not that complicated. He has explained more than enough. But it's never going to be enough for some people.

He's literally posted almost 30 tweets, and quite a few posts on here elaborating. He's even got James Stanard who is one of the architects behind SFS corroborating and elaborating on his explanation in the twitter thread.

I really can't tell if you all are seriously this dense, deluded, demented or just trolling at this point.

Like I said, go read the XVA thread. this patent along with what it does differently is all discussed and dissected there. It's for finding if a texture is resident and falling back to a lower always resident in memory texture. It isn't a patent to increase IO speed.

What's with the sudden jump to insults? Are you one of the idiots who was arguing there who got themselves banned for getting aggressive protecting your xbox's honour?
 
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Neutral? Saying he prefers one brand over the other while boasting about a rendering technique in one console vs it's absence on the other without exposing why something similar can't be done in the other, isn't being neutral. That's called being a hype man.

First off, your not so thinly veiled bias is way more apparent than his. He wasn't boasting, he was explaining.. and in the meantime boasting about the PS5 solution as being more straight forward. How SFS works has been theorized about pretty extensively on other threads, this just adds clarification to it. No where does he proclaim that this is the ultimate solution... Just MS's way. Not every conversation about how the xbox ssd works needs to be bombarded by PS5 equivalence.
 
No where does he proclaim that this is the ultimate solution... Just MS's way. Not every conversation about how the xbox ssd works needs to be bombarded by PS5 equivalence.

That's all well and good except:


He was clearly inviting this to the conversation. We wouldn't even be talking that much about SFS if it weren't for the spec difference just as we wouldn't really be talking all that much about clock boosts.
 
First off, your not so thinly veiled bias is way more apparent than his. He wasn't boasting, he was explaining.. and in the meantime boasting about the PS5 solution as being more straight forward. How SFS works has been theorized about pretty extensively on other threads, this just adds clarification to it. No where does he proclaim that this is the ultimate solution... Just MS's way. Not every conversation about how the xbox ssd works needs to be bombarded by PS5 equivalence.

Thinly veiled? Brother it ain't no secret, I'm a PlayStation guy. This doesn't mean I don't know XSX is one fine piece of ass, but it is what it is. They will need to put those cheap XSS out there if they want a slice of my wallet.

He brought the PS5 into the discussion, he brought the comparison. Not only that he effectively questioned the design decisions and took a jab. Fair game after that.
 
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The entitled attitudes by some on here are ridiculous and need to be put in check... If not by the members, then by the mods.
Dial back the meta drama and personal attacks towards each other. If you can't discredit the information and must resort to attacks on one's character, then remove yourself from the conversation all together.

MoW has games to play, kids! Thank you.

I missed Mod of War Mod of War comment from before when I made mine.

With that said they are already aware if what's going on in this thread. I'm pretty sure they will take the appropriate action with those that continue to offend after the warning was issued. It's basically how these types of things work here.
 
The simple truth is PS5 answers xboxes power by extreme optimisation. Xbox answers Ps5s amazing throughput with their own advancements such as VA/BCP/SFS.

Neither are quite as good as the other in this regard, but both are incredibly awesome machines that are nearly on par.

This seems to offend a lot of people though, which is quite sad. 🤷🏼

Gunna need those receipts son
 
It physically can't do anything similar because Microsoft has patented this method...

He said similar. Products get patented all the time while other similar products get made. Like how the Dual Sense is a similar product to the XSX controller even though Microsoft has a patent on their controller.

Doesn't mean the PS5 can't use techniques that are similar to what Microsoft is doing as long as it doesn't infringe any of their patents.
 
Thinly veiled? Brother it ain't no secret, I'm a PlayStation guy. This doesn't mean I don't know XSX is one fine piece of ass, but it is what it is. They will need to put those cheap XSS out there if they want a slice of my wallet.

He brought the PS5 into the discussion, he brought the comparison. Not only that he effectively questioned the design decisions and took a jab. Fair game after that.
Maybe I just don't warrior enough to take that as bashing the PS5. To me he didn't question the design, he said they went about their ssds in different ways to get similar results. In fact i would say he praised the PS5 SSD design but said it would potentially be impractical for wider adoption (PC market) vs MS software solution. As for the statement that MS has more up their sleeve... The following by the MS r&d guy tells me that he may be in the know.. we'll see.
 
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I've asked a principle graphics engineer to quote me on this, to say definitively(Below) this is hardware or software based, and if it also can match in hardware what the XSX is doing. Of course it could be done in software but the results would be far from similar, obviously. If it has dedicated hardware to support the exact same feature set, that puts this to bed. Likewise if it doesn't, same thing.

Update: he replied, but cannot comment on if the ps5 has dedicated hardware or not to support this. Only to say that of course the hardware has been there to support the very old form of sf in ps4. But that to do the important stuff that was mentioned previously (the bulk of new optimisation) it's shader based.

So as of right now, I can't even get a Sony principle graphics engineer to confirm it exists. This should be a yes or no question but they are still holding their cards to their chest.

I'm trying to clear the waters for you guys here, but look what I'm dealing with? When I'm told by people who are developing games thing it doesn't do XYZ, and you can't get the guy who works at Sony to confirm it exists, it's not exactly easy. It also reads a very certain way, to me at least, which maybe suggests... there is no hardware to support this to the extend XSX does. But that interpretation is up to you.





It also doesn't help you people throwing your toys out the pram. Now what else can I do to make you guys happy? A little foot rub? Maybe fetch you a nice cold one? I now have both ms engineers and Sony engineers commenting. What else is needed?

Come on people, let's not do this. Believe it or not the original twitter thread was supposed to be a very simple explanation to the core aspects of this, it didn't even include more advanced features. It was supposed to help. Yet it's been turned a around by you guys for obvious reasons. Let's not be like that eh?

Update 2: he's actually going to get back to me tomorrow with further clarification if he can actually tell me If it's hardware or software based. You can't ask for more than that can you?
 
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Teamblurr are not a developer, he just pains images and wants soemone to animate them. He is just a 1 man painter in his bedroom. Oh my sides.
Look, why dont you go join team blurr, he paints pictures and you can do those animation things and sound things to make a game thingy.
If you take his image and shake it it loads quicker than Ps5,....
You can be a dev to, just copy the Blurr logo and create a web site, they will come and you can be a dev.
We all can be devs. We can be heroes, but just for one day

Dev fishy.
Lets join that team blurr guy and we can animate a fish across his 1 screen.....We can use PRT+ so we only use the mipmap in view Frustum.
Why is it not so clever people all they can do is personal insults ?


Why indeed.
 
He said similar. Products get patented all the time while other similar products get made. Like how the Dual Sense is a similar product to the XSX controller even though Microsoft has a patent on their controller.

Doesn't mean the PS5 can't use techniques that are similar to what Microsoft is doing as long as it doesn't infringe any of their patents.
Possible, but much of the XVA's features like SFS are hardware and software features that work in parallel. SFS is built physically into the XSX as much as it is a software application. The PS5 would need to have engineered SFS in mind. Much like some raw read speed of the SSD on the PS5 may be mimicked by the XVA's decompression and SFS but not organically reproduces at the same Physical delta
 
Come on people, let's not do this. Believe it or not the original twitter thread was supposed to be a very simple explanation to the core aspects of this, it didn't even include more advanced features. It was supposed to help. Yet it's been turned a around by you guys for obvious reasons. Let's not be like that eh?

Don't let it get to you. The original post was very informative and helpful.

There's three kinds of people reading it...

1) Pro-Xbox people who are glad to hear it.
2) Pro-Sony fans who are desperate to discredit both the info, and sadly, you.
3) The vast majority, Sony, Xbox and PC users, who appreciate the effort, can see the fan boy back and forth and don't want to engage.

The more aggressive posts are the ones that tend to be remembered but that's not representative of most of the people reading or responding.
 
I've asked a principle graphics engineer to quote me on this, to say definitively if this is hardware or software based, and if it also can match in hardware what the XSX is doing. Of course it could be done in software but the results would be far from similar, obviously. If it has dedicated hardware to support the exact same feature set, that puts this to bed. Likewise if it doesn't, same thing.

Update: he replied, but cannot comment on if the ps5 has dedicated hardware or not to support this. Only to say that of course the hardware has been there to support the very old form of sf in ps4. But that to do the important stuff that was mentioned previously (the bulk of new optimisation) it's shader based.

So as of right now, I can't even get a Sony principle graphics engineer to confirm it exists. This should be a yes or no question but they are still holding their cards to their chest.

I'm trying to clear the waters for you guys here, but look what I'm dealing with? When I'm told by people who are developing games thing it doesn't do XYZ, and you can't get the guy who works at Sony to confirm it exists, it's not exactly easy. It also reads a very certain way, to me at least, which maybe suggests... there is no hardware to support this to the extend XSX does. But that interpretation is up to you.





It also doesn't help you people throwing your toys out the pram. Now what else can I do to make you guys happy? A little foot rub? Maybe fetch you a nice cold one? I now have both ms engineers and Sony engineers commenting. What else is needed?

Come on people, let's not do this. Believe it or not the original twitter thread was supposed to be a very simple explanation to the core aspects of this, it didn't even include more advanced features. It was supposed to help. Yet it's been turned a around by you guys for obvious reasons. Let's not be like that eh?

Like all sony engineers, he refuse to tell pretty much anything related to PS5 hardware, but I think if their console would have similar feature he would at lest suggest it.
 
Like all sony engineers, he refuse to tell pretty much anything related to PS5 hardware, but I think if their console would have similar feature he would at lest suggest it.

If anything it would be Mark Cerney that would talk about it. Plus if he suggested it that could be a breach of an NDA.
 
I've asked a principle graphics engineer to quote me on this, to say definitively(Below) this is hardware or software based, and if it also can match in hardware what the XSX is doing. Of course it could be done in software but the results would be far from similar, obviously. If it has dedicated hardware to support the exact same feature set, that puts this to bed. Likewise if it doesn't, same thing.

Update: he replied, but cannot comment on if the ps5 has dedicated hardware or not to support this. Only to say that of course the hardware has been there to support the very old form of sf in ps4. But that to do the important stuff that was mentioned previously (the bulk of new optimisation) it's shader based.

So as of right now, I can't even get a Sony principle graphics engineer to confirm it exists. This should be a yes or no question but they are still holding their cards to their chest.

I'm trying to clear the waters for you guys here, but look what I'm dealing with? When I'm told by people who are developing games thing it doesn't do XYZ, and you can't get the guy who works at Sony to confirm it exists, it's not exactly easy. It also reads a very certain way, to me at least, which maybe suggests... there is no hardware to support this to the extend XSX does. But that interpretation is up to you.





It also doesn't help you people throwing your toys out the pram. Now what else can I do to make you guys happy? A little foot rub? Maybe fetch you a nice cold one? I now have both ms engineers and Sony engineers commenting. What else is needed?

Come on people, let's not do this. Believe it or not the original twitter thread was supposed to be a very simple explanation to the core aspects of this, it didn't even include more advanced features. It was supposed to help. Yet it's been turned a around by you guys for obvious reasons. Let's not be like that eh?

Update 2: he's actually going to get back to me tomorrow with further clarification if he can actually tell me If it's hardware or software based. You can't ask for more than that can you?

I'm just here to tell you thanks for the twitter thread. Your explanation on mip maps was clear and easy to digest.

What made you choose to make it a tweet chain instead of a GAF post by the way?
 
I'm just here to tell you thanks for the twitter thread. Your explanation on mip maps was clear and easy to digest.

What made you choose to make it a tweet chain instead of a GAF post by the way?

Simple. On twitter it's been 99% positive people wanting to chat about how stuff works, what happens etc, with full time professionals and software engineers engaging both with me and the public and answering questions.

On Gaf it turned into this within one page. 🤷🏼
 
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It also reads a very certain way, to me at least, which maybe suggests... there is no hardware to support this to the extend XSX does. But that interpretation is up to you.
STOP SPREADING FUD !
I swear i read the same bullshit from console warriors about the lack of hardware raytracing in PS5.
 
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STOP SPREADING FUD !
I swear i read the same bullshit from console warriors about the lack of hardware raytracing in PS5.

I literally have a software engineer from Sony replying above. He's waiting to get back to me if he can answer the question without breaking NDA. How hard is that to understand?

Here is one you will love as well that ain't FUD. He's just confirmed again what I reported on earlier in the year, that PS5 is a mixture of rdna 1 and 2 (with a few custom bits) but not full 2. Is that fud too?
 
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Mild shock dot gif

Also while Matt knows his stuff, what I posted was a very basic, almost layman's terms type intro. Of course somebody like Matt wouldn't be bothered by it. It would read like Chip and Kipper to him.

More importantly, what does posting era pics here have to do with anything, other than further antagonise/troll?
 
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I literally have a software engineer from Sony replying above. He's waiting to get back to me if he can answer the question without breaking NDA. How hard is that to understand?

Here is one you will love as well that ain't FUD. He's just confirmed again what I reported on earlier in the year, that PS5 is a mixture of rdna 1 and 2 (with a few custom bits) but not full 2. Is that fud too?

you will have the same end of the developer of the "dolphin simulator", until today he is talking shit about the PS5 SSD, which overheats and 5.5GB / s is fake, and in reality is 1GB / s ... so that in total irrelevance alone on his twitter, and he will probably never get a job in a serious studio, if it's not just Astroturfing
 
you will have the same end of the developer of the "dolphin simulator", until today he is talking shit about the PS5 SSD, which overheats and 5.5GB / s is fake, and in reality is 1GB / s ... so that in total irrelevance alone on his twitter, and he will probably never get a job in a serious studio, if it's not just Astroturfing

No doubt ps5 gets hot, and no doubt those are peak speeds, but I think one thing I've been very clear on time and time again is how much I love the ps5 SSD and it's IO customisation. I think I know what/who you are on about here, I remember the game pics.
 
No doubt ps5 gets hot, and no doubt those are peak speeds, but I think one thing I've been very clear on time and time again is how much I love the ps5 SSD and it's IO customisation. I think I know what/who you are on about here, I remember the game pics.

Every time I see someone lying, he likes to say "without a doubt" "it is a fact" just with the statement, trying to give weight or convince.

when someone speaks the truth, says "it's peak" and it's over, because she doesn't try to convince anyone.
 
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This thread is a prime example of why people from the industry don't frequent these forums as much as they do on resetera.

Unless your pro Sony some posters can't handle that.
 
This thread is a prime example of why people from the industry don't frequent these forums as much as they do on resetera.

Unless your pro Sony some posters can't handle that and what makes it worse the modding team don't mod because technically these are the guys whos paying the bills, tough decisions eh.




LOL
 
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looking for attention on the internet?
I'm not interested in how you feel, I won't return the curiosity :)

That makes no sense but thank you for contributing precisely dick to the thread.

I'll post back tomorrow when the Sony engineer gets back to me about whether he can talk about this or if it's NDA bound.

For now, do whatever it is you people seem hellbent on doing I guess?
 
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