PS5 & XBSX - SSD Tech to surpass the PC?

Inviere

Hi folks, so I'm sure most have heard about the specs & tech of the next-gen consoles, specifically with regards their SSD tech. Mark Cerny of Sony (lead designer of PS5) has stated:

"The storage architecture on the PS5 is far ahead of anything you can buy on PC for any amount of money right now. It’s going to help drive future PCs"

I'm inclined to believe these claims are more than just idle marketing, as they'' be easily tested on release...so there's obviously something to them. I'm certain the SSD tech itself is of standard design, so they're obviously doing something with the interface between the SSD & APU.

Tim Sweeney (Epic founder) has mentioned:

"Those PC numbers are theoretical and are from drive into kernel memory. From there, it's a slow and circuitous journey through software decompression to GPU driver swizzling into video memory where you can eventually use it. The PS5 path for this is several times more efficient. And then there's latency.

On PC, there's a lot of layering and overhead. Then you have the issue of getting compressed textures into video memory requires reading into RAM, software decompressing, then calling into a GPU driver to transfer and swizzle them, with numerous kernel transitions throughout."

So what exactly are the next-gen consoles doing in terms of interfacing their storage with the gpu side of things? Have they dedicated GPU hardware that can decompress textures directly passed from storage or something? How can that be mirrored in terms of future pc-tech....a connection between next-gen gpu & ssd?

I'm curious to know, because while I've always been and always will be a pc guy...the next gen consoles are packing some serious heat in terms of spec, which probably can't be price-matched for an equivalent pc just yet.

Cuddlesworth

I think he explained it quite well, I don't see why a graphics chip with direct access to shared system memory couldn't de-compress a image faster then a x86 cpu. I'm pretty sure thats the type of workload thats right up its alley.

It will be the same tech effectively but low level API's will probably give the consoles better direct access to the hardware cutting out the middleman.

Cordell

I think there are some valid points but also some wild claims
Price matching is a moot point, PCMR rigs are more expensive than consoles, that's the reason they exist, we spend more money to get a better experience.
Those "numerous kernel transitions" have under 1 ms overhead if done right, and probably they are done right in most instances. But having that direct path from SSD straight into video memory it must be indeed faster. Probably it can be done on PC as well, I don't see a reason we can't have DMA transfers straight into the video memory. But how much will it matter? Probably adding more RAM, 32G for example, and using it efficiently to store textures, will work just as well.
As for the heat the consoles pack, it's about as much as an mid-entry level gaming PC. Which is not bad, and in line with previous generations.

ARGINITE

GPU Direct
NVidia's offering
Implementation if you want to try it.

K.O.Kiki

We don't know the price of Xbox Series X / PS5 yet. For all we know, they'll launch them for €700.
Also, AMD/Nvidia should have next-gen desktop GPUs out before Xmas 2020, driving down the price of their current products.

In terms of SSD tech it's a load of hullaballoo.

But the most important kicker is that they seem to have already given up on 60FPS gameplay.

Cordell

ARGINITE wrote: »

GPU Direct
NVidia's offering
Implementation if you want to try it.

So that is proof that it can be done but with quite a few caveats: it may or may not work depending on the system, and in some cases even if it works it may not have the desired performance benefits. Have a look at this https://docs.nvidia.com/cuda/gpudirect-rdma/index.html even if it's NIC to GPU the same issues do apply. This is where consoles are better, the hardware and firmware is well defined. We need to see motherboards with GPU direct storage certified NVMe connectors
So I'm going back to may point, the DRAM to VRAM path is faster than any SSD to VRAM path.

K.O.Kiki

K.O.Kiki wrote: »

We don't know the price of Xbox Series X / PS5 yet. For all we know, they'll launch them for €700.
Also, AMD/Nvidia should have next-gen desktop GPUs out before Xmas 2020, driving down the price of their current products.

In terms of SSD tech it's a load of hullaballoo.

But the most important kicker is that they seem to have already given up on 60FPS gameplay.

That would be the main reason i won't be purchasing one. >60fps or GTFO.

Cordell

We should be looking beyond the marketing BS, there is no such thing as a guaranteed 60fps. We need to look at the specs and adjust our expectations accordingly.

Inviere

Cordell wrote: »

As for the heat the consoles pack, it's about as much as an mid-entry level gaming PC. Which is not bad, and in line with previous generations.

Maybe you're right, it just 'feels' like a much bigger step this time for console hardware. The PS5 appears to have an 8 core 3.5Ghz Zen 2 processor, an RDNA2 36CU gpu @2.2Ghz & a shared 16GB of gddr6 memory. It's going to come down to how they price these things, but those specs seems quite capable in context of a pc by todays standards. Was the Xbox One or PS4 as comparable to mid-entry pc's when they launched (genuinely asking)?

K.O.Kiki wrote: »

We don't know the price of Xbox Series X / PS5 yet. For all we know, they'll launch them for €700.
Also, AMD/Nvidia should have next-gen desktop GPUs out before Xmas 2020, driving down the price of their current products.

Remember the PS3 launch price? For the full-fat PS3 they dropped at €599....and it did NOT go down well. I'd be very surprised if these new consoles are that price...gut instinct tells me €499, maybe €549 at a push...but we'll have to wait & see.

But the most important kicker is that they seem to have already given up on 60FPS gameplay.

That doesn't suggest they've given up on 60fps though, to me it reads like devs can decide themselves how to best utilise the power available to them, much as is always the case. They invariably go with resolution over frame rate unfortunately, but all consoles are governed by such limitations no? They can develop towards a higher resolution/lower framerate game, or a lower resolution/higher framerate game.

Cordell wrote: »

So I'm going back to may point, the DRAM to VRAM path is faster than any SSD to VRAM path.

So with 32GB ram, let the game data be dumped into ram, giving the GPU direct access to it?

Deleted User wrote: »

That would be the main reason i won't be purchasing one. >60fps or GTFO.

Same. It's hard to believe in the year 2020 that consoles are still flailing around with 30fps (and below in some cases).

Cuddlesworth

Cordell wrote: »

So that is proof that it can be done but with quite a few caveats

The caveats being all lanes lead to the CPU in a PC. Well the IO die in a Ryzen system but the principal is the same.

In the DC, AMD is basically heading in the same direction creating a underlying network between GPU/CPU/Whatever that doesn't require the CPU specifically to talk to each other.

https://www.anandtech.com/show/15596/amd-moves-from-infinity-fabric-to-infinity-architecture-connecting-everything-to-everything

Cordell

Inviere wrote: »

Maybe you're right, it just 'feels' like a much bigger step this time for console hardware. The PS5 appears to have an 8 core 3.5Ghz Zen 2 processor, an RDNA2 36CU gpu @2.2Ghz & a shared 16GB of gddr6 memory. It's going to come down to how they price these things, but those specs seems quite capable in context of a pc by todays standards. Was the Xbox One or PS4 as comparable to mid-entry pc's when they launched (genuinely asking)?

Yes, they were comparable to a mid level gaming PC at the day of the launch, but they stayed pretty much there for years, going down towards the low end. Same now with these next gen launches, you get decent performance and even better value, and for most people this is good enough.

Inviere wrote: »

So with 32GB ram, let the game data be dumped into ram, giving the GPU direct access to it?

Yes, pretty much. Crude approach, but it can work, and games should do more to utilize as much memory as possible, otherwise it just sits there wasted...

Cuddlesworth wrote: »

The caveats being all lanes lead to the CPU in a PC. Well the IO die in a Ryzen system but the principal is the same.

In the DC, AMD is basically heading in the same direction creating a underlying network between GPU/CPU/Whatever that doesn't require the CPU specifically to talk to each other.

https://www.anandtech.com/show/15596/amd-moves-from-infinity-fabric-to-infinity-architecture-connecting-everything-to-everything

All lanes to CPU will not be an issue, that's actualy the best case, minimum number of hops, PCIe has a root, it's not P2P. The problem is that most CPUs in use today will have a 16 lane bus used by the GPU and everything else going through the switch in the chipset.

Homelander

The big difference between this gen, and last gen, is that the new consoles have high-end CPU's at the time of launch.

It was the polar opposite with the Xbox One and PS4, even at launch they had really weak CPU's that were way, way behind mainstream Intel processors of that era.

Xbox One was the first console that radically underwhelmed me. The Xbox 360 was way more impressive when it launched in 2005.

Much more interested in this generation as there should either be 60fps standard in most games, or an option to do 4K/30 or 1440P/60 type setup.

Some developers may still chose to stick with 30FPS for certain types of games for maximum visual effect.

Inviere

Homelander wrote: »

The big difference between this gen, and last gen, is that the new consoles have high-end CPU's at the time of launch.

It was the polar opposite with the Xbox One and PS4, even at launch they had really weak CPU's that were way, way behind mainstream Intel processors of that era.

Yep that's how I remember it too. They were never impressive, at launch, nor later on when devs knew the hardware....most basic 'gaming' pc's would stand toe to toe with an Xbox One or PS4 back in 2013/2014 whenever they launched. That said, the on-paper specs of the Xbox One were significantly better than the 360...it just never translated into a 'generational leap' in terms of user experience though.

BloodBath

I don't think there's any difference outside of games actually being designed with SSD usage in mind.

We haven't had that yet because consoles dictate game design capabilities for the most part. Lowest common denominator is usually the way.

The xbox SSD seems to be slower PCIe gen 3 speeds and the PS one is PCIe 4. I'm not seeing anything in the numbers that differentiate it from PC hardware.

No way will pricing be above €500-549. It would be suicide to do that. It's still at around €1000 worth of PC hardware for nearly half the price.

Anima

The latest COD is 150gigs. Of course the storage speed/system is going to become more important as games get bigger and more high res.

Unreal engine 5 seems to be doing some mega texture technology that was similar to the Rage engine. So they're probably streaming this in real-time which would be unfeasible on slower drives.

https://www.unrealengine.com/en-US/blog/two-thousand-gigapixels-of-textures-anyone

The PS5 CPU is only a zen 2 type chip so it will be well out of date by the time it's actually released. At least it has a high core/thread count. It is really impressive how much performance they can get out of these closed systems.

BloodBath

Is Nanite similar to granite then?

How are they generating the extra geometry? Is it some type of better tessellation using textures?

Anima

Nanine/Naninte is streaming in geometry as opposed to granite which is streaming in textures. I guess that's even more load on the disk.

Not sure how it's achieved. Seems to be some dynamic level of detail adjustment as it's being processed.

Homelander

It's so baffling to read the comments on the already kicking off flame war on posts about the new consoles. I was just looking at a post on Facebook about the UE5 demo running on PS5, and the top liked comment was "Amazing, you would need a PC costing about $3K to run at this level".

Reminds me of the lad on one of the gaming forums here on boards where he said how the Xbox One X was out-performing his new €2k PC.

I just don't know where people pull these random "facts" from, or if it's just brilliant trolling.

Cordell

Trolling, ignorance, or both. Don't bother with them

TitianGerm

Homelander wrote: »

It's so baffling to read the comments on the already kicking off flame war on posts about the new consoles. I was just looking at a post on Facebook about the UE5 demo running on PS5, and the top liked comment was "Amazing, you would need a PC costing about $3K to run at this level".

Reminds me of the lad on one of the gaming forums here on boards where he said how the Xbox One X was out-performing his new €2k PC.

I just don't know where people pull these random "facts" from, or if it's just brilliant trolling.

Have a look on r/pcmasterace. Nothing but nonsense been posted by all sides.

People lose the run of themselves. What it boils down to for me is how good a game is. If a game is rubbish then it doesn't really matter what platform you play it on. Having great performance on this rig is just a bonus for me.

Cordell

But if a game is good then you will enjoy it better with high details and high frame rate.

BloodBath

More like a €800-900 PC. It will be even lower by the time the consoles release.

Still good value assuming the consoles come in around €500.

Dravokivich

Cordell wrote: »

But if a game is good then you will enjoy it better with high details and high frame rate.

Dunno. Personally high detail is too distracting for me. It makes it more difficult to observe the objective when there is a lot going on around the screen.

Cordell

Well then you can observe the objective way better in glorious ultra high framerate