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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

#131

Post by runawaybottle »

Nextgrid wrote: post #124
limomium wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A fast SSD won't solve the network latency of connecting to a server and downloading all its data.

Assuming the maps and assets are static, the only thing needing to be downloaded is the current state of the game and entities, which is a handful of megabytes. I agree that an SSD is completely irrelevant here, but so is the network. The hard problem here is how do you sync state between the different servers in real time so that transitioning between servers is seamless (and how do you handle reconciliation after a…

From what I know, World of Warcraft does something like that on a conceptual level. Obviously syncing game state in non-action game like WoW is probably a little easier than something like a full blown action FPS.

https://wow.gamepedia.com/Sharding_(term)#Behavior

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

#132

Post by CountSessine »

brigade wrote: post #108
russli1993 wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you missed the real point: Textures stored on the SSDs is now byte addressable by the texturing unit on the GPU. When the texturing unit issue a read for texture data, the read can now go directly to the SSD controller, and SSD controller issue NVMe commands to read the data. The texture decompression block sits between the GPU and SSD controller, decompresses the texture at line speed. This way, the GPU can…

> GPU directly read from a SSD, bypassing all of the steps in between Ehh... unless you have more specific knowledge that’s still under NDA, the reasonable assumption is that the CPU still mmap()es the file into the GPU’s address space, and then the CPU pages in data from the SSD as the GPU generates page misses. Which is technically possible on PCs today, but isn’t done because you can’t assume fast SSDs and you def…

the reasonable assumption is that the CPU still mmap()es the file into the GPU’s address space, and then the CPU pages in data from the SSD as the GPU generates page misses.

You seem to know quite a bit about this - just wondering - how does this work? The GPU can generate PCIe bus traffic to do RAM reads or writes, but how does it cause a page fault in the CPU? Is this some kind of IOMMU? Is there any place I can read more about this?

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

#133

Post by 013a »

Tehdasi wrote: post #117
013a wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is a really critical component of having an SSD, and knowing you'll have an SSD (as a game developer) which is easily missed (the article may cover this, but just to reiterate). Lets say you only have 8gb of memory. Most importantly: You know you'll have 8gb (not more, not less). You build your game around having 8gb; textures are a specific size and quality, levels are designed around this, etc. With a hard dr…

"But, with SSDs, this changes entirely: new textures can be paged in within just a couple frames. Now, that paging can happen more on-demand." Erm, texture loading from RAM to the GPU memory already is critiqued in games, since players can see the slowdown when it happens. Either this is going to be using the system RAM as a cache for the SSD data, (and then it will have the same problem, plus the developers will hav…

> Erm, texture loading from RAM to the GPU memory already is critiqued in games, since players can see the slowdown when it happens.

Well then, its good that the PS5 doesn't have system memory; like the PS4 before it, it uses a unified pool of GDDR memory for everything.

> or they are getting the GPU to pull data directly from the SSD, and SSDs are very slow compared to RAM.

Yes, this is what they're doing.

SSDs are slow compared to memory. But, that's not the important metric. The important metric is, are they fast enough to meet a specific rendering target, given each game's specific asset quality. But, actually, even that's not accurate: Games will change their asset quality to match the speed of the SSD such that they're capable of doing this, not the other way around. That's the special sauce of consoles; developers optimize specifically for the hardware available, because everything has the same hardware.

On PC, game developers say "alright, we'll bin 8 different asset qualities the player can select from based on their PC, hope they pick right, ship it." On consoles, developers say "hmm, if the player turns around in this segment, the framerate drops from 30fps to 20fps; lets dig in there and pre-load some of those assets." You cannot, fundamentally, at any level, compare PC gaming to console gaming, because the optimizations go all the way back to the overworked engineers at the development companies making sure the experience is great for the hardware console gamers have available. On PC, developers say "gamers can theoretically see the whole world, but we'll layer in some adjustable fog in case they can't handle it." On consoles, developers say "we know the system cant handle it, so lets block some sightlines with a mountain range and a few buildings."

The PS5 SSD can load data at upward of 9GB/s. This means the SSD is capable of loading 150MB of data within one frame at 60fps. If you develop games, you'd know how much data that is (its a ton). Hell; you can drop ten whole frames, 60fps to 50fps, most gamers short of DigitalFoundry wouldn't even notice, and you can literally replace 10% of the entire GPU memory. Even at 60fps, the SSD is fast enough to become a pretty dang suitable hot-cache for GPU memory.

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

#134

Post by sukilot »

leddt wrote: post #59
freeone3000 wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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!

The difference with PCs is that since the hardware is standard, developers can now create gameplay that depends on those capabilities. Until all (or most) PCs are equiped with high performance NVMe SSDs, those kind of features won't be possible other than on consoles. Also, the PS5's architecture is optimized end-to-end for faster loading times, it's more than just faster storage.

Gaming PCs are standardized, in practice. People who have insufficient hardware don't play game X, or they upgrade.

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

#135

Post by 013a »

slx26 wrote: post #99
013a wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is a really critical component of having an SSD, and knowing you'll have an SSD (as a game developer) which is easily missed (the article may cover this, but just to reiterate). Lets say you only have 8gb of memory. Most importantly: You know you'll have 8gb (not more, not less). You build your game around having 8gb; textures are a specific size and quality, levels are designed around this, etc. With a hard dr…

Yes, a lot of people commenting here should really go watch the talk Mark Cerny gave [0]. It's clear there's no "big technological breakthrough". SSDs are great but have been around for a while already, we simply had to wait for the technology to mature enough. What we are seeing is that we can't just keep slapping better CPUs and GPUs to the machines, because the improvements nowaday are not that impressive anymore,…

Right; this isn't a Nintendo 64 situation where the jump is so technologically huge that it enables fundamentally new experiences because of the jump. Its a situation where all the pieces were already out there, and now they're just integrated in a way that is developer-focused and standardized such that products can be built to rely on those pieces.

Putting an SSD in a PS4 is not interesting. You can go do it today. Hardcore gamers and streamers will do it, because it does reduce load times by maybe 20% or so. But, until the entire pipeline, from SSD to hardware decompress to system memory to platform libraries to everything, is aware of that SSD and built around it, we wouldn't get the 10x benefits. This generation is where that's happening.

When I think about the PS3 to PS4 generation jump, I didn't get that excited. Sure, games looked better, but they're still 30fps by-and-large, they're still using rendering tricks all over to speed things up instead of truly awesome new tech like ray tracing, we're still waiting minutes for many games to load. The PS4 to PS5 jump (and similar jump on X1, don't want to leave out those players) will be far more transformative, in ways that actually matter to players and developers alike. It sucks that some people are still so jaded as to think "I have an SSD in my computer, its nice but its not huge"; they're missing the bigger pictures, and that bigger pictures is what people like Mark Cerny and Phil Spencer spend their entire lives thinking about.

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

#136

Post by stepbeek »

therockhead wrote: post #98
serf wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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-…

I think the demo disks with the PS magazines are often overlooked as well.

You've unzipped me. That silent hill demo scarred me for life.

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

#137

Post by fishtacos »

jhack wrote: post #20
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…

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

Prey did the same thing 14 years ago... I don't see what is groundbreaking about this particular gameplay segment at all.

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

#138

Post by fishtacos »

runawaybottle wrote: post #131
Nextgrid wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Assuming the maps and assets are static, the only thing needing to be downloaded is the current state of the game and entities, which is a handful of megabytes. I agree that an SSD is completely irrelevant here, but so is the network. The hard problem here is how do you sync state between the different servers in real time so that transitioning between servers is seamless (and how do you handle reconciliation after a…

From what I know, World of Warcraft does something like that on a conceptual level. Obviously syncing game state in non-action game like WoW is probably a little easier than something like a full blown action FPS. https://wow.gamepedia.com/Sharding_(term)#Behavior

Planetside 2 is a great and current example of multiple massive 100+ player battles occurring simultaneously in the same server/map.

Obviously its graphical detail is nowhere what was shown here, but the precedent exists, and the only thing that would be different is the geomotry and texture res.

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

#139

Post by inertiatic »

inertiatic wrote: post #97
jimmaswell wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Maybe N64 had a better library of games to you, but for others PS1 had Silent Hill, MGS, FFVII, Gran Turismo, Tomb Raider, Tekken, all games that define their genre even 20 years later.

I failed to also mention Resident Evil. Shameful.

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

#140

Post by OGWhales »

leddt wrote: post #59
freeone3000 wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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!

The difference with PCs is that since the hardware is standard, developers can now create gameplay that depends on those capabilities. Until all (or most) PCs are equiped with high performance NVMe SSDs, those kind of features won't be possible other than on consoles. Also, the PS5's architecture is optimized end-to-end for faster loading times, it's more than just faster storage.

I imagine it will not take long for NVMe to be part of the required or recommended specs for gaming.
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