Topic: PlayStation 5 --OT--

@KratosMD For all we know the Series X is more expensive than the PS5. Who knows! Besides, I thought Series X was multiple consoles? Like a ''Lite'' and a ''Pro'' version, but no word on that?

Yeah, I wouldn't some more weird titles to flesh out the line up. I guess they have Dreams, The Last Guardian, and they had Concrete Genie, but I skipped out on that one. There were rumours about Insomniac working on another Ratchet & Clank for the PS5, so hopefully that'll happen.

@KratosMD I agree, more competition is good for us, the gamers, as it means Sony have to work harder for our benefit.

@KratosMD I'm not sure if the console wars ceased to exist, if anything what you described made it even worse.

@Octane Yeah agree, some media outlets as usual have just used that some were seemingly confused over BC to create speculative headlines to get clicks.

To summarise what we know so far:
PS5 games will load slightly more than twice as fast as the Xbox series X .
Screenshots of Xbox series X games will look slightly better than the same game run on PS5.
PS5 graphics will vastly surpass any current generation consoles.
We are unable to predict which of the next generation consoles will perform better in terms of frame rate because they’re so different and we don’t know where the bottlenecks will come. It may even vary by game with neither clearly better.
My understanding of the power management causing variable clocks on the CPU and GPU of the PlayStation five is that the CPU will take what it needs and the GPU will make do with what’s available but most of the time they will both have sufficient power to hit their peak clocks.

@JohnnyShoulder @KratosMD I mean I think it kinda ceased to exist because MS just plain lost the war. They embarrassed themselves beyond measure, had the worst console reveal of all time, had mediocre exclusives to start and never had a thing beyond that, maybe a good one if you were lucky. Heck the best was the MC collection which was just games from previous gen's remastered. They flubbed it so hard the war was just lost and console sales reflect that. Now they've both been doing a bad job with reveals and the war is back on lol.

@Ryall
'Screenshots of Xbox series X games will look slightly better than the same game run on PS5'

I dont get why people think 1.8Tflop will make any difference. Fast SSD is more useful to push more details on screen.

@JJ2 Eh, that’s not exactly how it works, a fast SSD will only load things quicker, not show more detail. TFlops are a number pointless without context but Xbox will be a traditionally more powerful box which means it’ll probably have better graphics. However, the differences are marginal enough that some developers might just use the same build for both consoles.

@nessisonett Didnt they say the SSD is almost as quick to access as the RAM? So they can load higher quality textures in more easily/frequently, no? I could easily be mistaken.

@kyleforrester87 IIRC, Cerny said that as you turned around, it could load textures so fast that you’d get consistently high graphics. Plus, the streaming will look nicer. So, way I see it, XBOX will have higher peaks in graphics whereas PS5 will deliver more consistent graphics. For the screenshot example, that one has to lie with XBOX despite how it might vary in quality in motion.

What you also have to remember is that pure native pixel count won't necessarily matter too much at such high resolutions and from normal seating distances. With VRS and DLSS (or a version of that), you will be hard pressed to spot any differences - even in a side by side.

Both next gen consoles will have their strengths and weaknesses in some areas but unlike the XB1 vs PS4, the competition shoild be more evenly matched. Remember the Xbox had a faster CPU but in almost every game, the PS4 matched or bettered it. Only a few games where CPU bottleneck mattered did you see Xbox getting a 'win' - games like Unity and Hitman with the large crowds gave Xbox a very minor frame rate advantage.

Certain tasks could be handled better by Playstation - thanks to its faster GPU whilst others could be better on Xbox due to its 'bigger' GPU. The CPU is faster too on Xbox but only by a small margin - in SMT mode - more if the game is built around Single Thread performance. RAM is faster on Xbox - albeit for 10GB with the other 3.5GB available for devs (2.5GB is for system operations) being 'slower' - but not 'slow'. However, the PS5 is all unified, all the same which may make it easier for devs - not having to be so 'careful' where they allocate the blocks.

Assuming the SSD was streaming 10GB of RAW uncompressed data directly into the game, the PS5 would do this in around 2secs where as that would take around 4s on Series X. What this could mean is that Fast Travel could be slightly faster on PS5 than Xbox. I say slightly because compared to current gen, both will be incredibly fast. As for game design, the most likely devs to take advantage of that Data transfer will be the First Party devs as 3rd Party will be looking at the Xbox and bulk of PC gamers hardware too and designing a game around what they can logistically handle. Its possible that Games may have higher quality textures and assets being used at a greater distance fro the camera position on PS5 too but then it will still have to render those and it puts more workload on the GPU. As the CU cores will be used for Ray Tracing, the Xbox could have more rays - a higher ray tracing level but if the CPU isn't being utilised heavily by PS5, they could use a CPU core as PS5 will be using AMDs version of Ray Tracing compared to MS using their own DXR version.

Its all speculation, one could be stronger here whilst the other is stronger there, one might look/run better because it has a faster CPU/Bigger GPU and the other may Load quicker because of its faster SSD! Of course they could end up being closer than it seems on paper or maybe one may have the advantage in the first few years whilst the other may well have an advantage in the after 3-4yrs when clock speed and data transfer becomes more important because more PC's offer that as well.

Its very difficult at the moment to predict and like some games are more CPU bottlenecked, others are more GPU bottlenecked - it really depends on the dev and their game. Maybe we will see Data transfer as a bottleneck in gaming but with advancements in compression, streamlining the rendering process and machine learning upscaling, any advantages could be negated on either system. For GPU bottlenecks, you have DLSS, VRS etc, for Data transfer, compression and again Machine Learning upscaling (using lower quality textures but making them look much higher quality) and as for CPU, both are very close in SMT mode anyway...

Its no point speculating where the advantages of either could lie as it really depends on the devs, their design and what their game needs to run at its best. If a game doesn't need to transfer more than 2.5Gb/s for example, then that is just overkill on a PS5 and doesn't give it any advantage at all over Xbox in that area. Having watched Digital Foundry's analysis of Wolfenstein and its implementation of DLSS, 1080p looked as good as native 4k so resolution could be no advantage to Xbox. It will be even more difficult to see with much higher resolutions and after post processing - some don't even notice when dynamic resolution kicks in now unless its a drastic drop....

At the end of the day, if you are a Sony Fan and have a PS4 back catalogue, you aren't going to jump to Xbox unless the PS5 is ridiculously under-powered, under-performing and expensive - at least not until the price is cut or Sony address that in a PS5 Pro. I could say the same about an Xbox fan too - they wouldn't jump ship either unless MS really screw up. Both represent a massive leap over the last gen with a different approach.

In any case, I am excited by the prospect and potential that both offer and intend to get both too. Both will offer a tangible upgrade over any console currently available.

@Jaz007 @KratosMD Oh right i get where Kratos was coming from now. The console wars between the console manufacturers was over pretty quickly this gen, but between fanboys i don't think it will ever stop lol.

@nessisonett The SSD essentially functions as additional RAM. If that means you can render stuff on the fly as you turn around, there is less need to render additional stuff outside of the player's view, so you can cram more into the visible field, resulting in a higher graphical fidelity, theoretically.

@nessisonett
Hey idk. I try to get informed.

@JJ2 I understand what they’re saying but the onus lies on the developer since an SSD isn’t a magic wand that can be waved over graphics. So if you add an SSD to a PC, games will load faster but won’t look any better. However, with the PS5, Sony will make use of the whole SSD as RAM concept but I just don’t think many multiplats will since it would require drastically changing the way objects are rendered.

@nessisonett
Well GodFall devs was already praising the ps5 SSD a few months ago. Obviously first party studios will use all its potential but multiplat will also find it an advantage to be really fast. SSD is to way to go from now on with new gen games.

RAM is the 'memory' - it holds the data of all the assets, all the textures etc. If you fast travel for example, all the data for that area has to be found on the disc and loaded into RAM which is then streamed into the GPU to construct that new setting. In essence, the SSD bypasses some of that so should cut down on that delay as the data is found and loaded into RAM and the time it takes for that amount of Data to pulled into the game so you cut down a lot of the loading time. What this also could allow is for you to be stood on top of a mountain looking out across the valley with a LOT of high level detail stretching off into the distance and turn around and have a similar long distance view of a completely different look - completely swapping out all the data needed for one scene and replacing it with all the data necessary for the other and when you turn back around, it swaps the data around very quickly. Fast travel could be virtually instantaneous as all the data necessary for the new environment is streamed straight into the GPU.

With data transfer that fast, you also don't need to have quiet, fairly restricted areas as you move from one 'block' or zone to another. Some games may have a narrow valley between two cliff faces that twist and turn so the view is quite 'plain' and with minimal draw distances to keep the load on the system very low whilst the data for the new area is swapped in - that doesn't have to happen with new games that utilise the SSD.

The Xbox 'could' still match it with various methods - like using Machine Learning to upscale those textures to reduce the size of the data. Maybe not have the highest level of detail for the more distant objects - similar to methods used today but at much greater distances. A houses a mile down in the valley may not have the highest textures used to create the look of tiles or brick work compared to what the PS5 could use but by the time you get close enough, the difference is negligible (if any).

Its like the PS5 could use methods to make the Visuals look equally as high resolution to offset that difference in GPU. It will be interesting to see though what Devs do create with the options the SSD offers - the future of gaming is exciting

@BAMozzy
Talking about RAM, PS5 went for a unified memory again which is a big advantage too. 👍

BAM talking about RAM lol.

@JJ2 I know - I mentioned unified RAM in one of my posts but it may not - it maybe easier for devs - meaning that they don't have to worry about which pool of RAM they allocate data too but Xbox still has the advantage and some data - like audio - even 3D audio doesn't need that high a bandwidth...

That slower, but not slow 3.5GB for games is only a bit slower than the PS4's unified RAM and could feed the CPU certain data....

@BAMozzy
Well I don't pretend I know what I'm talking about haha. However common sense tells me one pool of fast 16gb is way better than 10 fast + 6 slow. Apparently the OS doesn't even need to sit in memory