8 ms·

A Deeper Look at the PlayStation 5

17 points by jhack 7y ago

retSava 7y ago
I think this little nugget was interesting, speaking of reducing load times: > To minimize [rotating harddrive seek time], developers will often duplicate certain game assets in order to form contiguous data blocks, which the drive can read faster. > "If you look at a game like Marvel's Spider-Man," Cerny says, "there are some pieces of data duplicated 400 times on the hard drive." 400 times! That's a lot. I wonder to what extent or ratio the game is simply redundancy. Likely only smaller assets are duplicated. edit: also, > However, game installation (which is mandatory, given the speed difference between the SSD and the optical drive) I guess this means only a cursory disc check will be performed at game start, from then the rest will be from ssd. That'd be great.
- needz 7y ago
  One of Spiderman's developers gave a very interesting talk about this (and more) during the Game Developers Conference this year. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KDhKyIZd3O8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KDhKyIZd3O8
- Narishma 7y ago
  > I guess this means only a cursory disc check will be performed at game start, from then the rest will be from ssd. That'd be great. That's already the case on the PS4 and Xbox One. The disc is only used to install the game to the hard drive and for copy protection I guess.
  - retSava 7y ago
    Aha, that is likely the case, but I still experience the disc (Spiderman, PS4) spinning for quite a long time after starting the game before spinning down. Ie, not just a "is the correct disc inserted?"-check. Perhaps some kind of late release of file handle or something, or optimization from the ps4 itself.
Razengan 7y ago
I'm glad somebody is sticking with a sensible naming scheme.
- jedieaston 7y ago
  I'm sorry, I can't hear you over the sound of my Azure Edge GPU system for Legacy Games 3.11 for Workgroups (built on NT Technology.
  - theandrewbailey 7y ago
    The one with SuperDuperSpeed USB4 Gen 4x2 Type-C ports?
- rasz 7y ago
  Next Microsoft console will be called "Xbox", just "Xbox".
  - Razengan 7y ago
    Which is actually more confusing.
danso 7y ago
It's funny, as someone who grew up in the NES days (and played a little Atari and Apple ][), my reaction to every generation after the original PSX is "how could things possibly get better?". And of course, looking back now, I realize how silly I was (yes, I too bought into the hype of the PS3 "super-computer" [0]). But the PS4/Xbone generation seems to have truly hit a high mark in fidelity, in which there is obviously room for more realistic and complex 3D visuals (especially with VR), but in which the returns seem much more diminishing than in past generations. I would be very happy with a PS5 (though not happy enough to buy it just for this) that rendered Witcher 3 with 60FPS and slightly higher quality, and near-instantaneous load times. I'm sure I'll be wowed once again by how developers take advantage of increased graphical capabilities. But the high mark that's already been reached is satisfying enough. It helps that there's been a renaissance of great indie gaming that hand-drawn (Cuphead) and retro (Shovel Knight, Undertale, Minecraft-likes) games in which graphical rendering does not require continued leaps in next-gen graphics hardware. [0] https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-2018-what-was-actually-real-in-the-e3-2005-ps3-reveal https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-2018-what-...
- theandrewbailey 7y ago
  For many years, I've felt that model and texture detail in games has been good enough. If games didn't progress much beyond 2010-2011 era graphics, I would be OK with it. The only thing that would blow me away (for a realistic art style) would be better lighting, and ray-tracing seems to be necessary for that. I'm interested in what can be done in a non-realistic style, like Borderlands.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- Razengan 7y ago
  > "how could things possibly get better?" For everybody else other than Nintendo and Apple, the answer to that seems to be "Better graphics!" The DS, the 3DS, the Wii, the WiiU, the Switch, the iPad and even the Apple TV Remote have given me more ways to enjoy games than just better graphics.
- 7y ago
wpdev_63 7y ago
"The controller (which history suggests will one day be called the DualShock 5, though Cerny just says "it doesn't have a name yet") does have some features Cerny's more interested in acknowledging. One is "adaptive triggers" that can offer varying levels of resistance to make shooting a bow and arrow feel like the real thing—the tension increasing as you pull the arrow back—or make a machine gun feel far different from a shotgun. It also boasts haptic feedback far more capable than the rumble motor console gamers are used to, with highly programmable voice-coil actuators located in the left and right grips of the controller." I didn't think of having haptic feedback in the ps5 controllers. It's going to be interesting on how it will turn out.
theandrewbailey 7y ago
> Like the PS5, Scarlett will boast a CPU based on AMD’s Ryzen line and a GPU based on its Navi family > “There is ray-tracing acceleration in the GPU hardware,” he says It'd be great if AMD would release a PC version of that GPU soon. The market desperately needs the competition.

17 points by jhack 7y ago

I think this little nugget was interesting, speaking of reducing load times: > To minimize [rotating harddrive seek time], developers will often duplicate certain game assets in order to form contiguous data blocks, which the drive can read faster. > "If you look at a game like Marvel's Spider-Man," Cerny says, "there are some pieces of data duplicated 400 times on the hard drive." 400 times! That's a lot. I wonder to what extent or ratio the game is simply redundancy. Likely only smaller assets are duplicated. edit: also, > However, game installation (which is mandatory, given the speed difference between the SSD and the optical drive) I guess this means only a cursory disc check will be performed at game start, from then the rest will be from ssd. That'd be great.

needz 7y ago
One of Spiderman's developers gave a very interesting talk about this (and more) during the Game Developers Conference this year. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KDhKyIZd3O8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KDhKyIZd3O8
Narishma 7y ago
> I guess this means only a cursory disc check will be performed at game start, from then the rest will be from ssd. That'd be great. That's already the case on the PS4 and Xbox One. The disc is only used to install the game to the hard drive and for copy protection I guess.
- retSava 7y ago
  Aha, that is likely the case, but I still experience the disc (Spiderman, PS4) spinning for quite a long time after starting the game before spinning down. Ie, not just a "is the correct disc inserted?"-check. Perhaps some kind of late release of file handle or something, or optimization from the ps4 itself.

Razengan 7y ago

I'm glad somebody is sticking with a sensible naming scheme.

jedieaston 7y ago
I'm sorry, I can't hear you over the sound of my Azure Edge GPU system for Legacy Games 3.11 for Workgroups (built on NT Technology.
- theandrewbailey 7y ago
  The one with SuperDuperSpeed USB4 Gen 4x2 Type-C ports?
rasz 7y ago
Next Microsoft console will be called "Xbox", just "Xbox".
- Razengan 7y ago
  Which is actually more confusing.

danso 7y ago

It's funny, as someone who grew up in the NES days (and played a little Atari and Apple ][), my reaction to every generation after the original PSX is "how could things possibly get better?". And of course, looking back now, I realize how silly I was (yes, I too bought into the hype of the PS3 "super-computer" [0]). But the PS4/Xbone generation seems to have truly hit a high mark in fidelity, in which there is obviously room for more realistic and complex 3D visuals (especially with VR), but in which the returns seem much more diminishing than in past generations. I would be very happy with a PS5 (though not happy enough to buy it just for this) that rendered Witcher 3 with 60FPS and slightly higher quality, and near-instantaneous load times. I'm sure I'll be wowed once again by how developers take advantage of increased graphical capabilities. But the high mark that's already been reached is satisfying enough. It helps that there's been a renaissance of great indie gaming that hand-drawn (Cuphead) and retro (Shovel Knight, Undertale, Minecraft-likes) games in which graphical rendering does not require continued leaps in next-gen graphics hardware. [0] https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-2018-what-was-actually-real-in-the-e3-2005-ps3-reveal https://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-2018-what-...

theandrewbailey 7y ago
For many years, I've felt that model and texture detail in games has been good enough. If games didn't progress much beyond 2010-2011 era graphics, I would be OK with it. The only thing that would blow me away (for a realistic art style) would be better lighting, and ray-tracing seems to be necessary for that. I'm interested in what can be done in a non-realistic style, like Borderlands.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
Razengan 7y ago
> "how could things possibly get better?" For everybody else other than Nintendo and Apple, the answer to that seems to be "Better graphics!" The DS, the 3DS, the Wii, the WiiU, the Switch, the iPad and even the Apple TV Remote have given me more ways to enjoy games than just better graphics.
7y ago

wpdev_63 7y ago

"The controller (which history suggests will one day be called the DualShock 5, though Cerny just says "it doesn't have a name yet") does have some features Cerny's more interested in acknowledging. One is "adaptive triggers" that can offer varying levels of resistance to make shooting a bow and arrow feel like the real thing—the tension increasing as you pull the arrow back—or make a machine gun feel far different from a shotgun. It also boasts haptic feedback far more capable than the rumble motor console gamers are used to, with highly programmable voice-coil actuators located in the left and right grips of the controller." I didn't think of having haptic feedback in the ps5 controllers. It's going to be interesting on how it will turn out.

theandrewbailey 7y ago

> Like the PS5, Scarlett will boast a CPU based on AMD’s Ryzen line and a GPU based on its Navi family > “There is ray-tracing acceleration in the GPU hardware,” he says It'd be great if AMD would release a PC version of that GPU soon. The market desperately needs the competition.