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[mckmas8808]

I don't get your question. The game runs on HDD when Marcus Smith said it wouldn't be possible without the PS5 SSD.

What are you guys trying to accomplish here? You understand what Marcus Smith was saying so why play dumb? He was right. Is this supposed to be some gotcha dev "we caught you in a lie" blog post?

 

[Topher]

What are you guys trying to accomplish here? You understand what Marcus Smith was saying so why play dumb? He was right. Is this supposed to be some gotcha dev "we caught you in a lie" blog post?

I already acknowledged I was wrong my man.

 

[mckmas8808]

I already acknowledged I was wrong my man.

Oh my bad lol. I was on the first page.

 

[Tomeru]

So what was "not possible" "2 years ago" is "possible" "now"?

 

[adamsapple]

 

[REDRZA MWS]

So what was "not possible" "2 years ago" is "possible" "now"?

Exactly, lol!

 

[iHaunter]

Steam deck users would.

For the 15 mind of game time I guess.

 

[Lysandros]

The SSD controller in PS5 is still pretty exotic by todays standard. Wouldn't you agree?

The SSD controller isn't that 'exotic', the I/O complex within the APU is. And i completely refuse to accept that any current game engine is leveraging its full potential yet. Extented cross-gen and Sony going (semi) multiplatform can not be helping. In the same time, enthusiasts have all the right to hold Sony and first party developers accountable in relation to the earlier premises and statements.

 

[SlimySnake]

It will be curious to see this running on a 2GB GTX 960. Better tflops performance than the PS4 but way worse vram.

 

[winjer]

There are GTX 960 with 4Gb of vram.
They could use that.

 

[JimboJones]

Makes me wonder, what would stop DirectStorage implementation on older Xbox One? Since it's an API for directX12, which is supported on that console, wouldn't that potentially boost loading times?

Is it not a DX12 Ultimate feature?

 

[Buggy Loop]

Is it not a DX12 Ultimate feature?

Yeah? But, what’s limiting hardware wise? Seems to be 100% software and should work with old PC components as long as they have the good version of windows.

 

[BbMajor7th]

I mean, I think the nice thing here is that with consoles embracing SSDs and dedicated decompression, PC and the industry as a whole have moved forward a generation in terms of storage and data streaming. Direct Storage will bridge some gaps with certain concessions (as is the case here), but the gains across the board for all game development are very welcome.

 

[JimboJones]

Yeah? But, what’s limiting hardware wise? Seems to be 100% software and should work with old PC components as long as they have the good version of windows.

I'm not sure myself, I'm sure MS would be able to port it back if they really wanted if it is just software, I just remember they introduced it a few years ago and gpus had to support it for the newer features.


Edit:
Actually looking into it apparently min requirements Direct Storage is any DX12 capable GPU with Shader Model 6.0.

 

[SHA]

The ps5 was just the same step up we've seen every gen but we were tricked by marketing. There is absolutely nothing special about it vs xbox or pc. It just has a faster ssd than xbox.

The pro will launch and all will be forgotten.

I don't think, or hope many will be tricked again.

Looking forward to the digital foundry on this.

Hopefully direct storage will be a hit on pc and it needs to roll out more.

It's all about the games, not the hardware, remember?

 

[SHA]

The ps5 was just the same step up we've seen every gen but we were tricked by marketing. There is absolutely nothing special about it vs xbox or pc. It just has a faster ssd than xbox.

The pro will launch and all will be forgotten.

I don't think, or hope many will be tricked again.

Looking forward to the digital foundry on this.

Hopefully direct storage will be a hit on pc and it needs to roll out more.

The 4pro was made to just run 10 games better intentionally, pc is superior, there's no magic or secret source, even the hardware doesn't punch above its weight, nothing special about it, ever.

 

[LiquidMetal14]

I think it's awesome that a technology and software suite that runs on a console can be scaled to run on PC and it's actually capable of it right now. The reason I even say that is because on pc, it's been a whole lot of fluff and truthfully, those enthusiasts on PC like me, we've been really jealous of stuff like this being implemented on console. The fact that it can run on just about anything depending on the hardware configuration, that shows the breadth and power of pc.

That is the kind of technology and advancement I want to see implemented to use our super expensive hardware and for us to flex our muscle with all this money we spend.


I despise the politically driven fanboy commentary that has surrounded this port. I simply care about cool new technology being implemented to take advantage of all sorts of different hardware on our computers. I think clearly you can see that a game like this which was designed for the hardware available on the PlayStation 5 can be properly implemented depending on the level of specification that you have. Given that a hard drive is really slow you're going to need either something else to compensate or there will be performance penalties. So saying that it can run clearly means very much different than the way it runs originally. This is where I laugh or I despise the political or console warrior like renting happening in regards to this game because anybody more informed, and this excludes us since we're just a bunch of form dwelling bicycle sniffers, they would know that with the right configuration you can migrate even if performance won't be ideal.

Major credit to the developer of this port because they are definitely proving themselves and are a very viable and reliable developer when it comes to making a benchmark PC experience.

 

[YCoCg]

So what was "not possible" "2 years ago" is "possible" "now"?

After testing the DirectStorage Benchmark on a 5,400rpm drive I can easily tell you the results were not good but using a 7,200rpm pushed past the 600MB/s limit of SATA and 10,000rpm was actually impressive and beat a lot of cheap SSDs.

 

[Hoddi]

After testing the DirectStorage Benchmark on a 5,400rpm drive I can easily tell you the results were not good but using a 7,200rpm pushed past the 600MB/s limit of SATA and 10,000rpm was actually impressive and beat a lot of cheap SSDs.

People should realize that this is just a demo and not a benchmark. The only reason people are seeing these high numbers on HDDs is because the dataset is a single 2198 kilobyte file (labelled Avocado.marc) that gets read over and over. This easily fits into the HDD's DRAM cache and it isn't being read from the spinning platters.

But multiple gigabyte games won't be running from that cache. They'll be running off the platters with all of the high seek times and low throughput that entails. It's a cool demo but it's 100% meaningless for HDD performance on DirectStorage.

 

[sachos]

Can't wait for DF analysis of this port. I want to see if an HDD is enough to run the game with same settings as PS5 and same performance (no loading hitches).

 

[Unknown?]

Only possible due to the magic of PS5 ultra fast SSD

Sony you

But it wasn't possible when it released, it took newer tech to make it work on a crappy PC.

 

[vdopey]

I agree with you, but I'm also wondering why they say SSD is required for the higher performance targets.

Most likely because the higher the quality the more data that needs to be streamed from storage so the quicker the storage medium needs to be.

Even stuff like directstorage (silly name) going directly from disk to gpu - the gpu will need to be fed that data consistently and at a high throughput, gpu have finite onboard ram, which the disk will need to constantly fill - also would be interesting to see what they are doing with assets. 1 of the benefits of NVME / SSD is that you have no seek time or you shouldn't have a seek time as the disk doesn't need to spin for it to retrieve the data, where assets were stored in multiple locations before, a lookup table can be used which in turn lead to much smaller game installations (no need for duplicating data in multiple locations) - something I am sure Insomniac would have used - how much bigger is the R&C game disk installation on PC compared to PS5 - this would be another interesting thing to see.

 

[DenchDeckard]

Think like a 500mb sata ssd would do for eveey setting?

 

[GymWolf]

Jimbo after hearing this news:

 

[TheRedRiders]

So basically the game does actually need an SSD to play it at higher settings, same as the PS5.

I'm not sure which narrative the critics are going with here, either the game doesn't need an SSD at all and Sony and Cerny are liars or.... b. well you only need a SATA SSD and Sony and Cerny are still liars. lol

 

[TheRedRiders]

if direct storage uses the gpu wont that eat into fps? what's the point to port it for hdd?

GPU's since Pascal series have been built with so much compute capabilities which is what allows them to be efficient in GPU based data decompression. The software also has to be super efficient as well, which luckily is the case with DirectStorage.

 

[Kumomeme]

the loading speed performance differences on HDD will be interesting.

 

[Whitecrow]

So basically the game does actually need an SSD to play it at higher settings, same as the PS5.

I'm not sure which narrative the critics are going with here, either the game doesn't need an SSD at all and Sony and Cerny are liars or.... b. well you only need a SATA SSD and Sony and Cerny are still liars. lol

The game needs it to function as it does on PS5.

Yes, the game may be able to run on older HDDs, but they will swallow some loading times which are not present on PS5.
The thing is, having loading times was not how the game was envisioned, so... marketing was mostly right, but it's cool to say it was bs.

 

[Larxia]

Just looking at the spec requirements, it doesn't run that well above 720p textures right? I was also told here that it comes with a slight cost to CPU performance. Is that true?

I never understood this.
720p texture doesn't mean anything, even "4K" texture doesn't mean anything, unless you're literally talking about a 4096x4096 texture.

I don't know where this idea comes from that mesh textures are directly related to display resolution, it's a lot more "complicated" than that, you can't talk about texture size as a universal thing.
It really depends on multiple things, like the camera distance from said texture is actually the most important thing. A texture that looks very blurry from close up in 4K, will look as bad in 1080p. A 512x512 texture can look super crisp on a mesh while a 4096x4096 texture can look blurry, depending on the UV map, on the scale of the object, how the texture is tiled etc... It really depends on the object, how it's used, how far you are from it, more than the display resolution itself.
And that's without even getting into material layers, normal maps etc which can make low resolution textures actually look really good.

A texture on a 3D object that looks perfectly clean from close up in 1080p should never look suddenly horrible in 4K.

 

[JimboJones]

I never understood this.
720p texture doesn't mean anything, even "4K" texture doesn't mean anything, unless you're literally talking about a 4096x4096 texture.

I don't know where this idea comes from that mesh textures are directly related to display resolution, it's a lot more "complicated" than that, you can't talk about texture size as a universal thing.
It really depends on multiple things, like the camera distance from said texture is actually the most important thing. A texture that looks very blurry from close up in 4K, will look as bad in 1080p. A 512x512 texture can look super crisp on a mesh while a 4096x4096 texture can look blurry, depending on the UV map, on the scale of the object, how the texture is tiled etc... It really depends on the object, how it's used, how far you are from it, more than the display resolution itself.
And that's without even getting into material layers, normal maps etc which can make low resolution textures actually look really good.

A texture on a 3D object that looks perfectly clean from close up in 1080p should never look suddenly horrible in 4K.

I remember Microsoft started referring to optional XboxOneX downloadable textures packs as "4K textures".

 

[FlyyGOD]

I'll admit that I bought into the SSD hype though after Cerny's deep dive, but really neither console lived up to the marketing. Xbox hasn't really delivered on being the "most powerful console". And let's not forget Microsoft was extremely proud of their SSD tech too. Trademarked "velocity architecture". So yeah......all this "secret sauce" isn't really special at all.

I'm sure alot of developers games that have come out are still using last gen engines on their games. We'll see better use of the new hardware in the coming games this year.

 

[Topher]

I'm sure alot of developers games that have come out are still using last gen engines on their games. We'll see better use of the new hardware in the coming games this year.

We will see. The further we get into the gen the worse games seem to perform.

 

[twilo99]

Major credit to the developer of this port because they are definitely proving themselves and are a very viable and reliable developer when it comes to making a benchmark PC experience.

Major credit to the company responsible for developing direct storage 1.2 as well because without that the dev can’t do a thing about it

 

[Buggy Loop]

When is the DF video gonna hit? Anyone know?

I have the popcorn ready

 

[b0uncyfr0]

When is the DF video gonna hit? Anyone know?

I have the popcorn ready

Tmr? They still have to fire it up and test stuff.

 

[FoxMcChief]

No offense, but in 2023 who the fuck is running modern games off a mechanical HDD? A 1TB SATA or M.2 NVMe drive is like $35-45. That will get you like 500MB/s(SATA) or 3500MB/s(NVMe).

Doesn’t steam periodically release their survey results for what tech is used by steam users? I remember when I used to game on PC, I was asked frequently to provide my tech specs for their surveys. Maybe quite a few people still use older HDD’s.

 

[Catphish]

Ok, it's out. Someone buy it and report on performance.

 

[DR3AM]

Can't wait for the 5400 rpm mechanical drive test.

 

[Kataploom]

Doesn’t steam periodically release their survey results for what tech is used by steam users? I remember when I used to game on PC, I was asked frequently to provide my tech specs for their surveys. Maybe quite a few people still use older HDD’s.

What I don't get is why don't devs just ditch those users? Make then upgrade, SSD and even super fast SSD have been common for more than a decade on PC... Even the PCI-e 3.0 that Xbox uses was already out and quickly became last PCI-e gen one the console released.

People playing from HDD are most probably mainly online players anyway.

 

[FoxMcChief]

What I don't get is why don't devs just ditch those users? Make then upgrade, SSD and even super fast SSD have been common for more than a decade on PC... Even the PCI-e 3.0 that Xbox uses was already out and quickly became last PCI-e gen one the console released.

People playing from HDD are most probably mainly online players anyway.

I’m sure it comes down to money. There’s probably still more gamers using HDD than SSD.

 

[Kataploom]

I’m sure it comes down to money. There’s probably still more gamers using HDD than SSD.

They make people wait for patches these days, I don't think they consider PC sales too front loaded, PC market is more for long term gain

 

[Bojji]

Can't wait for the 5400 rpm mechanical drive test.

 

[Varteras]

 

[FoxMcChief]

They make people wait for patches these days, I don't think they consider PC sales too front loaded, PC market is more for long term gain

That’s all out of my knowledge bubble, lol. I couldn’t keep up with PC gaming, and my brain was never satisfied and I always wanted more. It was unhealthy (for me) and costly. So I went cold turkey, donated my gaming pc and went console only gaming again.

 

[YCoCg]

After testing the DirectStorage Benchmark on a 5,400rpm drive I can easily tell you the results were not good but using a 7,200rpm pushed past the 600MB/s limit of SATA and 10,000rpm was actually impressive and beat a lot of cheap SSDs.

 

[LiquidMetal14]

Major credit to the company responsible for developing direct storage 1.2 as well because without that the dev can’t do a thing about it

Don't forget to thank God for giving us electricity and for the parents of the creators for having sex.

 

[Vox Machina]

Jimbo after hearing this news:

Good lord. I need eye bleach now.

Regardless, the game looks beautiful. Will definitely be picking this up after Starfield.

 

[theclaw135]

So basically the game does actually need an SSD to play it at higher settings, same as the PS5.

I'm not sure which narrative the critics are going with here, either the game doesn't need an SSD at all and Sony and Cerny are liars or.... b. well you only need a SATA SSD and Sony and Cerny are still liars. lol

I think the answer is neither. There's a simpler explanation I find more likely: the PS5 version needs an SSD.
That is to say, the game's original developers didn't implement any support or optimizations for mechanical drives.