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Storage Matters: Why Xbox and Playstation SSDs Usher in a New Era of Gaming

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Re: Storage Matters: Why Xbox and Playstation SSDs Usher in a New Era of Gaming

#61

Post by ErneX »

ardit33 wrote: post #11

I hate to say it but this SSD story has been plastered all over the news by the PR machine, mainly because the new consoles have no other inovations whatsoever.... No, it is not going to usher a new area of gaming, just make game have less 'loading' screens, and perhaps larger open worlds.... but it is no near the innovation and changes we experiences in the 90s and early 2000's.... Let me say in a more popular langu…

Oh you just wait. Have you seen the Ratchet & Clank trailer? that's just the beginning.

Re: Storage Matters: Why Xbox and Playstation SSDs Usher in a New Era of Gaming

#62

Post by pixl97 »

GiorgioG wrote: post #2

It's about time. SSDs have been around a very long time, and without a supported way of swapping out the internal hard drive, console gamers are penalized with long waits vs PCs where SSDs have become fairly standard.

Getting SSD reliably and cheap in console quantity has been the problem before now. Prices have fluctuated considerably in the past few years as other big buyers like data centers are up large amounts of the relatively small amount of ssd production.

Re: Storage Matters: Why Xbox and Playstation SSDs Usher in a New Era of Gaming

#63

Post by greyskull »

PudgePacket wrote: post #49
colesantiago wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, gamers don't give a toss about the tech details [0], and they shouldn't, Sony gave a presentation about all of the internals of the PS5 and all they got in response was "ZZzzZZZZZZ". They only want the console for the games, man, nothing else. [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ph8LyNIT9sg

This was actually a really awesome presentation. I don't think the intended audience was their customers, perhaps more for the media & gamedevs.

It was originally intended for the Game Developers Conference which was cancelled (postponed?). Sony didn't do the best job setting expectations ahead of time, but either way people were hungry for info. At the time, Sony had been fairly quiet.

Re: Storage Matters: Why Xbox and Playstation SSDs Usher in a New Era of Gaming

#64

Post by wtallis »

hyperpallium wrote: post #60
wltprgm wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It just means fast loading assets, so if SSD becomes RAM one day, anything interesting at all? Same goes for ray tracing, looking more realistic with control of light... Nothing special here, no need to hype edit: You know what really makes a difference? You playing an VR open world game where every single artificial intelligence NPC does thing in every possible way leading to different gameplay and outcome. And you…

"SSD as RAM" is a good way to reason about it. It means you have a lot more RAM, e.g. thus, PS5 has 825GB of RAM. RAM in the TB, soon. Would a couple of orders of magnitude make a difference? If software is designed with terabytes of RAM in mind?

"SSD as RAM" is a bad way to think about it. What you need to realize is that the standard for games has been to treat RAM as storage, because the hard drive was too slow to use for loading data on the fly. SSDs mean games can use storage as storage, but they still have to fit the working set in RAM.

Re: Storage Matters: Why Xbox and Playstation SSDs Usher in a New Era of Gaming

#65

Post by greyskull »

colesantiago wrote: post #14
ardit33 wrote: post #11

I hate to say it but this SSD story has been plastered all over the news by the PR machine, mainly because the new consoles have no other inovations whatsoever.... No, it is not going to usher a new area of gaming, just make game have less 'loading' screens, and perhaps larger open worlds.... but it is no near the innovation and changes we experiences in the 90s and early 2000's.... Let me say in a more popular langu…

Yes, gamers don't give a toss about the tech details [0], and they shouldn't, Sony gave a presentation about all of the internals of the PS5 and all they got in response was "ZZzzZZZZZZ". They only want the console for the games, man, nothing else. [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ph8LyNIT9sg

IMO required viewing for any dev to form a more informed opinion on the SSD tech. Cerny talks about it fairly practically.

Starting point on SSD: https://youtu.be/ph8LyNIT9sg?t=310 for about 20 minutes

Re: Storage Matters: Why Xbox and Playstation SSDs Usher in a New Era of Gaming

#66

Post by an_opabinia »

hyperpallium wrote: post #54
jhack wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can tell someone hasn't watched the Ratchet & Clank demo from the other day[0]. The SSDs in these consoles go far beyond short load times. They can radically change how games are made and designed. [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VsnG-3-r6-Q

Ratchet & Clank is the only demo with new gameplay based on the SSD. But it's overused, giving each game world less weight. The technological imperative, preoccupied with whether they could, etc. In contrast, artificial constraints add depth to gameplay, e.g. limited movement speed/duration ("sprint"). All that said, keeping processors fed with data is a central problem of CS. The innovations here are not just the SS…

Because execs will only be seeing demos after they’re loaded, and there’s no way some 55 year old is going to spend more than 5 minutes playing some Star Wars game and therefore trigger no world loading, games that do something special with the SSD will not be financed by anyone other than Sony. The technology is basically DOA for third parties. The stuff that third parties are saying is basically moot.

Conversely when Nintendo makes new hardware, it’s the same deal - they’re the only ones financing games that use the balance board or gesture controls or labo or whatever. They just put up a lot more money and have internal studios with more autonomy. SSDs are a Sony problem not a game design/engineering problem.

Re: Storage Matters: Why Xbox and Playstation SSDs Usher in a New Era of Gaming

#67

Post by stordoff »

walrus01 wrote: post #18
Someone1234 wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I do think we will still see a lot of people connecting USB3.0/USB3.1 external spinning drives to their new-generation consoles. The real question is: How many games will support that configuration? A game written for a slower HDD can always be run on an SSD, either with no improvement or an improved experience. But a game specifically designed for an SSD may be unplayable or even unstable on a system with an HDD.…

Hopefully single player only games should support that. It's a standard supported configuration on xbox one right now to connect any USB3.0 >250GB HDD externally and move games onto that. With PS5 there should be a number of single player games where greatly-increased loading times won't have a negative impact on anyone else, unlike multiplayer games where everyone should load into a map at the same time. I have in m…

I wouldn't be surprised if they shuffle games between external drives and the SSD _almost_ on demand. The HDD might not give the random access and burst speeds new games need, but if they can maintain 100MBps they can transfer a 100GB game in about 15 minutes (and faster if the game can prioritise the assets it needs or boot before it's fully installed). That's not the end of the world - I've had longer patches on PS4.

Re: Storage Matters: Why Xbox and Playstation SSDs Usher in a New Era of Gaming

#68

Post by serf »

jimmaswell wrote: post #28
ardit33 wrote: post #11

I hate to say it but this SSD story has been plastered all over the news by the PR machine, mainly because the new consoles have no other inovations whatsoever.... No, it is not going to usher a new area of gaming, just make game have less 'loading' screens, and perhaps larger open worlds.... but it is no near the innovation and changes we experiences in the 90s and early 2000's.... Let me say in a more popular langu…

The N64 looked way better, loaded faster, had a better controller, and to me had a better game library as a whole. The PS1 had comparatively horrible architectural choices like no built-in z-buffer, texture filtering, or floating point processing. Apparently N64 sold less per year available though. What did everyone see in the PS1?

>What did everyone see in the PS1?

storage space for CD quality audio, storage space for full-motion video, on-board full motion video decoders, cheaper media costs, easier media to deal with on development side, and most importantly a game library that catered more towards 'adultish' fans.

I remember reading back when these consoles were current that the biggest draw for most consumers was the fact that full-motion-video was a first class citizen on the PS1, and it was a huge technical wow for people. FMV was difficult on the N64 due to size and codec constraints, so it was rarely done -- and when it was if was usually subpar compared to the PS1 version of the same game. Resident Evil franchise was notorious for this phenomenon.

Re: Storage Matters: Why Xbox and Playstation SSDs Usher in a New Era of Gaming

#69

Post by jldugger »

jimmaswell wrote: post #28
ardit33 wrote: post #11

I hate to say it but this SSD story has been plastered all over the news by the PR machine, mainly because the new consoles have no other inovations whatsoever.... No, it is not going to usher a new area of gaming, just make game have less 'loading' screens, and perhaps larger open worlds.... but it is no near the innovation and changes we experiences in the 90s and early 2000's.... Let me say in a more popular langu…

The N64 looked way better, loaded faster, had a better controller, and to me had a better game library as a whole. The PS1 had comparatively horrible architectural choices like no built-in z-buffer, texture filtering, or floating point processing. Apparently N64 sold less per year available though. What did everyone see in the PS1?

Games. Nintendo lost Square to Sony, and Dragon Quest from Enix kinda petered out and eventually shipped on PS1. The effectively had a huge catalog of RPGs that n64 was sorely lacking. There was also a comparative lack of 'mature' themed games. And the catalog was smaller, about 5x so. Even Zelda was not a launch title. Probably because the cards were substantially more expensive than CDs.

There was also a supply issue early on in the n64's lifecycle, I seem to recall it being just shy of Tickle-Me-Elmo hard to find.

The ps1 was also easier to pirate, double edged sword though it be.

Re: Storage Matters: Why Xbox and Playstation SSDs Usher in a New Era of Gaming

#70

Post by runawaybottle »

freeone3000 wrote: post #45
jhack wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can tell someone hasn't watched the Ratchet & Clank demo from the other day[0]. The SSDs in these consoles go far beyond short load times. They can radically change how games are made and designed. [0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VsnG-3-r6-Q

That portal transition effect likely hides the load screen - it's still there, nearly half a second, it's just shorter. This is comparable to current load times with an SSD on PC!

So imagine this tech in a simulated war mmo, where each server of 64 players represents a part of a battlefield and you instantly can transition to a new server representing the next part of the battlefield when you walk there. All of WW2 would be a collection of servers that represent parts of Europe.

Takes a little imagination, but when you look at the ingenuity of something like F-Zero on SNES (2.5d graphics), it’s pretty clear that your typical tech really can used in amazing ways.

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