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2 years in, can we call BS on the "power of SSD" in new consoles?

ZehDon

Member
Isn't that just what H:ZD did on the standard HDD?


That's frustrum culling, a visual representation of the game's rendering, not loading. The things not being rendered are still in memory, they're simply culled from being drawn to save on GPU resources. This tech is pretty old, and H:ZD isn't doing anything particularly special here.
 
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Kagey K

Banned
I posted a whole ton of data on Beyond3D when I upgraded my PS5 SSD and the game isn't nearly as IO intensive as people think. I recorded a playthrough of the entire game and it only read ~1.5TB from disk over a full 8 hours of play.

Keep in mind though that 500MB read in 0.1s is still a read rate of 5GB/s. It's still a very good showcase of the SSD but people shouldn't think that it's reading at 5.5GB/s throughout the entire game. The actual average is only ~50MB/s.
Ssd speed doesn't seen to matter much, but it is still an SSD.

https://www.neogaf.com/threads/df-c...ade-run-ratchet-and-clank-rift-apart.1619055/
 

Kagey K

Banned
That's frustrum culling, a visual representation of the game's rendering, not loading. The things not being rendered are still in memory, they're simply culled from being drawn to save on GPU resources. This tech is pretty old, and H:ZD isn't doing anything particularly special here.
It was the first example I could think of doing similar to the Tweet.

Remember we also had things like Gofall saying they couldn't do what they were doing without the PS5 SSD either, and we know how that went

https://www.neogaf.com/threads/godf...owerful-ssd”-and-improved-controller.1515451/
 

ElCasual

Member
I am playing Sekiro and Nioh Remastered. The load in every dead in both games Is notorius even in the Demons Souls remake.
 

jigglet

Banned
Since when have we seen many new hardware features being used to their maximum potential within the first 2 years?

In fact, don't expect to see ray tracing even used properly until another generation if not more.
 

Boglin

Member
Ok good so now you know how the SSD can help essentially "multiply" bandwidth

Unless a way to show the game running on an HDD is figured out, a lot of people could never be convinced an SSD could help with graphics by freeing up reserved memory. It's one step too far and they can't wrap their heads around it.

I personally try to think of it like comparing the 3GB 1060GTX graphics card to the 6GB version which have measurable differences in benchmarks, showing that having more memory can be important. If having an SSD can free up more memory by streaming in assets as needed instead of keeping them loaded in reserve, then it should also have a measurable difference in benchmarks.
 
Absolutely not! You haven't seen a thing yet. Games are still being designed around spinning hard drives. Sure they utilize the API to better take advantage of the SSDs capabilities and to get the expected loading uplift from that over last gen, but that's really all it's been used for thus far. If games are designed around the massive leap in I/O performance you will notice a tremendous difference in the raw quality of visuals you're seeing simply because they're better able to bring in and swap out higher quality asset information without breaking the visual consistency of the game.

The cache scrubbers on PS5 will be something that is beneficial to that end, as will the insanely high speed of the SSD. And then on the Series X side of things, no game is currently yet utilizing Sampler Feedback Streaming. I initially assumed Halo Infinite would have been the first, but that wasn't the case. I suspect that Forza Motorsport could be the one doing it, not because of anything RT related, but because of the way they were just jumping between different views so fast in real-time. It appeared to operate like how the SFS demo did on Series X, but who knows.

Sampler Feedback Streaming is a legit game changer, and so is the PS5 SSD setup. I really don't believe we've seen anything just yet from these consoles.

If we get to 2024-2025 before really seeing anything that proves this out, then maybe we can revisit. And sometimes even when the tech might be there developers may just not have a plan in mind on how to do anything much with it beyond the usual just yet.
 
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ZehDon

Member
It was the first example I could think of doing similar to the Tweet.

Remember we also had things like Gofall saying they couldn't do what they were doing without the PS5 SSD either, and we know how that went

https://www.neogaf.com/threads/godfall-is-a-ps5-exclusive-because-of-its-“exceptionally-powerful-ssd”-and-improved-controller.1515451/
Sure, but they're still two entirely different things. H:ZD isn't doing something similar to the tweet.

With that said, Godfall being on PS4 and operating on PCs without high end SSDs demonstrates the lie the developer tried to sell due to their PlayStation exclusivity deal. That Sony is also working on improving the porting process to PC for their first party titles via dedicated porting studios should also highlight that, frankly, the PS5's SSD isn't all that fundamental, and more of a "nice to have".
 

Guilty_AI

Member
If somehow additional io bandwidth fundamentally changes how games are made and played, I'd be the first one to sing it from the rafters. But been around along enough to smell marketing bullshit when I see it.
It can help. It can improve on the proccess of how they're made, but not how they're played.
The games people will be (or already are) calling "true next gen" won't really be different from the stuff we already have, they'll just look prettier.

The thing some people don't realize is that all this faster storage does is, mostly, remove a bottleneck that had been growing through the generations. This bottleneck wasn't hampering game design, it was hampering visual quality. Storage speed grew at a considerably lower curve than graphical rendering quality.

Problem is there were a selection of devs that were choosing to sacrifice game design for higher fidelity in their games, and those are the ones now saying "how revolutionary" all of this SSD stuff is. Now they can finally do things that were always possible and have been done before, but prettier.
 
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Kagey K

Banned
Not even close really. In Horizon we're talking way less than 100MB/s of data in those "chunks" they're referring too, in a procedurally generated game

PS5's SSD can do raw speeds past 5 GB/s with crazy seek times
But not necessary for that game as I showed in post #154 just up this page.
 

Kagey K

Banned
Sure, but they're still two entirely different things. H:ZD isn't doing something similar to the tweet.

With that said, Godfall being on PS4 and operating on PCs without high end SSDs demonstrates the lie the developer tried to sell due to their PlayStation exclusivity deal. That Sony is also working on improving the porting process to PC for their first party titles via dedicated porting studios should also highlight that, frankly, the PS5's SSD isn't all that fundamental, and more of a "nice to have".
I agree that the QOL speeds that SSDs have brought are great, but the hyperbole surrounding them prior to launch was essentially just that.
 

Hobbygaming

has been asked to post in 'Grounded' mode.
But not necessary for that game as I showed in post #154 just up this page.
So he's testing warps, Insomniac (in my screenshot) are talking about devoting the memory budget to what's in front of you, it could be any given number of scenes in the game. I'm sure he didn't test all of them

Also Rift Apart is an early gen game
 
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Kagey K

Banned
So he's testing warps, Insomniac (in my screenshot) are talking about devoting the memory budget to what's in front of you, it could be any given number of scenes in the game. I'm sure he didn't test all of them
It didn't fail, if it did I'm sure they would have dug deeper.

Regardless now everyone has all shapes and sizes of SSD inside some PS5, so that utra fast built in is negligible, as the games are going to have to account for various configurations
 
The pandemic slowed down all development of entertainment. And most video games nowadays are huge, way longer development times. Don’t expect to next gen games till 4 years into PS5’s life.

I think the next Rachet Game is going to blow rift apart apart. They are going to do so many SSD specific loading tricks.
 

Kagey K

Banned
The pandemic slowed down all development of entertainment. And most video games nowadays are huge, way longer development times. Don’t expect to next gen games till 4 years into PS5’s life.

I think the next Rachet Game is going to blow rift apart apart. They are going to do so many SSD specific loading tricks.
I don't know if there will be another Ratchet and Clank, they seem to be a Marvel studio now.
 
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Hobbygaming

has been asked to post in 'Grounded' mode.
It didn't fail, if it did I'm sure they would have dug deeper.

Regardless now everyone has all shapes and sizes of SSD inside some PS5, so that utra fast built in is negligible, as the games are going to have to account for various configurations
Yes, and the requirements are there so that every future game can run efficiently without going haywire
 

Hoddi

Member
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NinjaBoiX

Member
Yeah, I'm still waiting on this tech doing anything substantial. In fact, this entire new gen has been pushing so little boundaries that because almost every game is cross gen.
Fixed.

Your answer is right there in your OP, proper next gen software isn’t really available yet, besides a handful of titles.
 

Kagey K

Banned
Yes, and the requirements are there so that every future game can run efficiently without going haywire
So you agree that the crazy I/O and speeds really make no difference?

Interesting.

Those requirements are way below even the Xbox Series SSD.
 

Kagey K

Banned
It’s all relative. Could you tell the difference between 500MB read in 0.1s on SSD vs 10s on HDD? Probably yes.

But could you tell the difference between 0.1s on one SSD vs 0.2s on a different SSD? Probably no.
With the variety of speeds they allow in the PS5 can anyone tell a difference? It's not like someone is having a vastly different experience playing thier games on a $1000 SSD vs a 200 SSD.
 
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Kagey K

Banned
How'd you get that out of my reply?? 😂

As games get more demanding with all of this data streaming, games need to be future proof, hence the SSD requirements.
I was going of Sonys spec sheet, the SSD requirements are for the extra drive.

https://www.pcmag.com/news/sony-details-ssd-requirements-for-ps5-storage-expansion

It's not that hard.

You agreed the requirements are there to "stop the game from going haywire"

So essentially the "superboosted" SSD has no bearing on gameplay or performance

According to Sony themselves.
 
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Kagey K

Banned
It's nice to know you're already testing games that studios haven't released 🤣


So 5,500MB/s reads are bad now?
Never said either of those things.

I'm just looking at the reality now.

If you want to make up arguements, that's on you.

Show me where I said 5,500 mbs/second was bad. I can wait.
 
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Hobbygaming

has been asked to post in 'Grounded' mode.
I was going of Sonys spec sheet, the SSD requirements are for the extra drive.

https://www.pcmag.com/news/sony-details-ssd-requirements-for-ps5-storage-expansion

It's not that hard.

You agreed the requirements are there to "stop the game from going haywire"

So essentially the "superboosted" SSD has no bearing on gameplay or performance

According to Sony themselves.
So if I get a game in 2024 and it doesn't run due to me not having the SSD with the right requirements, that's saying it was needed right?
 

Kagey K

Banned
So if I get a game in 2024 and it doesn't run due to me not having the SSD with the right requirements, that's saying it was needed right?
If Sony said the drive would work and it doesn't, that's on them.

But you keep putting words in my mouth I didn't say.

I am going off of known specs now, and thier official literature.
 

Robb

Gold Member
Hard to say when we’ve barely had any next gen games. I do think we’ll see some more interesting things in a couple of years though. That said, there was definitely a lot of overblown SSD marketing mumbo jumbo being thrown around before the consoles launched.
 

Kagey K

Banned
😂 I'm done bro. You win
It's not about winning or losing. If I was wrong, I'd admit to it. (And have many times in the past)

Most ppl here seem adverse to the task.

I provided many links as proof throught this thread, and nobody has countered it with any evidence.

Just lol emojis and feelings posts
 
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Hobbygaming

has been asked to post in 'Grounded' mode.
If Sony said the drive would work and it doesn't, that's on them.

But you keep putting words in my mouth I didn't say.

I am going off of known specs now, and thier official literature.
The requirement is 5.5 GB/s reads
 

Corndog

Banned
I'm posting this one more time in case you missed it

0UTiZyA.jpg
And all that is possible with more ram. I’m not saying ssd are not beneficial. I’m saying they don’t improve image quality. They are just being used as a ram substitute.
 

Corndog

Banned
???
Try refresh your screen?

Don’t push bullcrap.
Edit: goto about the 1:55 mark. He says the entire level is loaded in memory. No ssd even required. You could run this on a standard hard drive. The initial load would just be long.
 
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MarkMe2525

Gold Member
You're not only wrong. You are EXTREMELY wrong.

After playing Demon's Souls on PS5 I physically will never go back to old gen. The game virtually has no loading when you jump from 1 location to another.

Returnal is fast when you die and for a roguelike game you die a lot.

Assassins Creed no longer takes 10 million years to load in.

Quick resume on Xbox Series X is incredible.

I don't know what you been doing or playing. There is a massive difference in loading thanks to SSD. And like others have said, we have yet to really kick this gen off. Just be a bit more patient lol.

Are you aware that during the PS4 gen we still got cross gen games for over 2 years as well? Why do people always QQ about cross gen lol. It's been like that every generation, it takes time before old gen is left 4 dead.
While i agree with you in that the SSD's have benefited my gaming experiences with shorter load times and quick resume. In the OP, he specifically pointed to the claims that the ssd would allow for gameplay mechanics and worlds that were not possible on last gen. While the faster loading has been a Godsend, the games you mentioned could absolutely to played on last Gen minus some graphical flourishes.

It seems disingenuous to say he is "extremely wrong" all while never addressing his actual claims.
 

bender

What time is it?
While i agree with you in that the SSD's have benefited my gaming experiences with shorter load times and quick resume. In the OP, he specifically pointed to the claims that the ssd would allow for gameplay mechanics and worlds that were not possible on last gen. While the faster loading has been a Godsend, the games you mentioned could absolutely to played on last Gen minus some graphical flourishes.

It seems disingenuous to say he is "extremely wrong" all while never addressing his actual claims.

Agreed but it feels like Cerny's presentation on the SSD capabilities are being oversold. In the past developers would hide level transitions in load times through things like cutscenes (Max Payne 3), slow walk and talk sections down a small hallway (Gears of War) or crawling/squeezing through a narrow space (Tomb Raider/Uncharted). Think of that like an hour glass, with the top and bottom being two levels and the middle being how level transition/load is being hidden. With the SSD solutions in both scenarios, that middle section should become much wider and barely hinder the flow of sand.

Has that paid dividends in games yet? Maybe R&C. We are still seeing a lot of cross generational developed games where the benefit is just the brute force speed in the newer systems. And even if a game isn't cross generation, old habits are hard to break.
 

Corndog

Banned
Agreed but it feels like Cerny's presentation on the SSD capabilities are being oversold. In the past developers would hide level transitions in load times through things like cutscenes (Max Payne 3), slow walk and talk sections down a small hallway (Gears of War) or crawling/squeezing through a narrow space (Tomb Raider/Uncharted). Think of that like an hour glass, with the top and bottom being two levels and the middle being how level transition/load is being hidden. With the SSD solutions in both scenarios, that middle section should become much wider and barely hinder the flow of sand.

Has that paid dividends in games yet? Maybe R&C. We are still seeing a lot of cross generational developed games where the benefit is just the brute force speed in the newer systems. And even if a game isn't cross generation, old habits are hard to break.
The biggest benefits will be load times and being able to use more textures than you typically could with only 16GB of ram. It is definitely beneficial on all platforms.
 

Kagey K

Banned
Agreed but it feels like Cerny's presentation on the SSD capabilities are being oversold. In the past developers would hide level transitions in load times through things like cutscenes (Max Payne 3), slow walk and talk sections down a small hallway (Gears of War) or crawling/squeezing through a narrow space (Tomb Raider/Uncharted). Think of that like an hour glass, with the top and bottom being two levels and the middle being how level transition/load is being hidden. With the SSD solutions in both scenarios, that middle section should become much wider and barely hinder the flow of sand.

Has that paid dividends in games yet? Maybe R&C. We are still seeing a lot of cross generational developed games where the benefit is just the brute force speed in the newer systems. And even if a game isn't cross generation, old habits are hard to break.
Or it won't break. They still want to get thier hours of exposition, regardless of if the game is loaded or not

You can't just play it, you need to feel it
 
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