One key detail regarding the PS5 shared today, Sony's next-gen console will feature a "specialised" SSD, or solid-state drive. SSDs are fairly common in laptops and PCs these days, allowing for faster operating speeds when compared to regular hard drives.
You may have heard people say that installing an SSD in your PS4 speeds up load times and, in some cases, can help games run more smoothly. Sony will essentially be applying this logic to the PS5, where the next-gen console's SSD will allow for dramatically reduced load times and better overall performance.
Demonstrating the technical might of Sony's in-development machine, system architect Mark Cerny used PS4 exclusive Marvel's Spider-Man to show just how much of a difference this specialised SSD can make. As Wired reports, fast-travelling from one area of the map to another within the game, on PS4, the loading can take around 15 seconds. Using a PS5 prototype, Cerny did the same thing, fast travelling to a different part of the map. This time, it took 0.8 seconds.
Cerny went on to demonstrate how quickly an open world title like Marvel's Spider-Man can render with the help of this next-gen hardware. The article states that Cerny makes the camera speed "uptown like it’s mounted to a fighter jet", pausing at points to show that the game's world is perfectly loaded. This is apparently running in 4K, too.
It's sounding like the PS5 might be a bit of a beast, isn't it? Say goodbye to load times in the comments section below.
[source wired.com]
Comments 47
But can an SSD render puddles?
can anyone make a rough guess of how much the system could be priced based on the recent SSD and ray tracing tech?
@jdv95 I'm guessing it won't be more than €499.
All of this seems fantastic. Going all out to bring a high end console.
I'm a little worried about the price tag.
Sounds incredible.
That's actually really good to hear. I just put my first SSD into my PC a week ago and it dramatically enhanced everything on my PC.
HDDs usually bottleneck the performance of a PC, but SSDs allow everything to run at it's full potential.
A lot of good stuff going for PS5. Good news all around.
SSD's are very expensive compared to traditional drives in terms of price per MB of storage. I wonder if we will see a smaller drive, a 512GB instead of 1TB or more to keep the costs down. I expect external drive support too so you 'swap' your current playlist to the SSD for the benefits it offers but can still play other games via an external
if it's SSD, very doubtful whether it's going be big capacity wise. 2Tb SSDs for example are ridiculously expensive at the minute, so i could see it being 500gb standard.
Sounds to me like we're going to have a repeat of PS3 in terms of people crying about the price of the system.
Now just think off playing Bloodborne with the PS5. With those performance issues and loading times fixed, the game could be perfect.
Like the sound of that!
@SoulsBourne128 I know man, lets just hope FromSoft issues a patch for the game on the "next gen console" or better yet, Bloodborne 2 as a launch title
@leucocyte NAND SSD prices started dropping this year right? I'm sure they learned from the PS3 launch fiasco
Oh man, I put a SSD in my PS4 which finally fixed my horrible problems plaguing basically every game. See my profile pic for an example of a slightly faulty HDD on Spider-Man PS4.
so trying to upgrade the hard drive will become expensive, solid state drives especially 2TB ones are very pricey, what were they thinking with this one?
on top of that the ps5 will be expensive too, that will mark the price up.
@jdv95 LOL 2TB SSD £300 LOL
@Octane more with the SSD built in.
@huyi I'm sure Sony knows this but will gladly take the hit of costs and make it lower for consumers.
@BAMozzy but the big main issue on ps4 is the game data installs and the push towards digital more, forcing SSD drives for the ps5 will not help that as the game data installs will be even bigger than ps4, this will be a major issue, the only cheaper solution i see is installing games to external drives to keep the cost down, i would have no choice but to use one.
😎 sound like the ps5 is a 14 teraflops machine 👍.word up son
It'll still be cheaper than PS3 was at launch.
So there's that.
The PS5 can fast travel Spider-Man in 0.8 seconds, ...but that's a PS4 game. Won't devs push the PS5 to the limit in terms of graphics, details, and objects on screen, thereby requiring more data and resources, thereby cranking the fast travel time (e.g) back up to a "normal" amount of time? Or am I being too simplistic? Don't get me wrong, I'm excited, I just don't get it.
@Amplified - true, but even with falling nand prices, a 2Tb SSD (a regular one, and not the 'specialised' one sony claims to be using) is still more than £200. the 1Tb drive that's in the PS4pro is less than £30 and that's still a £300 machine.
SSD? Just hope it's at least a 1TB one.
With the price of SSD, I'm guessing perhaps a 2-drive system - maybe something like a 200GB SSD and a HDD of between 500GB and 1.5TB.
Perhaps you install games to the HDD, and when you launch them they get copied to the SSD while you play?
I can't see it being a huge capacity SSD and nothing else - as people have said, they're prohibitively expensive for large capacities.
Then again, they say it's "specialised" and apparently much faster than the SSDs you get for PC, so... perhaps they've come up with a affordable solution.
@Octane I would say cost will be more around the £500 mark
@XurAgentofthe9 That would be a repeat of the PS3...
I want the ps5
My prediction is $799 Canadian, so somewhere around $649US.
@leucocyte well..... thats the thing about these "specialized" SSDs they claim the next gen hardware will have. We dont really know what it is, does Sony make them in house? do they outsource these custom SSDs, we cant really compare them to DIY PC hardware (I'm being blindly optimistic here lol). So maybe Sony wont blindside us with another $600 price tag, we all know how that worked out for them
You can pick up a 1tb ssd for less than £100 and the price keeps dropping. The question is the quality of the SSD drives that sony will put in the machines. Some last a lot longer than others.
I run the PS4 with a SSD there is a difference in load times but I would not say its significant for people to think this will be a game changer.
Just all looks amazing, time for me to come out the stone age and get a decent 4k hdr TV for this!!
I wonder if specialised means like with the vita when it had its own memory cards. Where sony will charge crazy prices for higher storage drives
Maybe they might go for some solution like the amd storemi, since it's amd licensed as well anyway, which is basically having an SSD and a HDD in your system and then based on how you use your system an ai using ml will simply be putting the stuff you use more on the fly. I wouldn't be surprised if that is indeed the case.
@huyi I bought a 2 TB SSD for my PS4 pro just over a week ago and it only cost £204.
In 18 months time it’ll probably be around half that.
@Ryall
Agreed the SSD storage price is dropping like a stone at the moment
Sounds cool but also sounds expensive. And if it's expensive the internet will start moaning like mad(what's new) allover again :-/
@RawnDawn Lets not do that i rather have them spend money on games. Maybe they put in a hybrid harddisk.
Yes, my goodness the UI is an atrocious laggy mess.
@jdv95 Even the new M2 NVME are not expensive anymore. I just got a 500Gig for $69
https://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?item=N82E16820225110
@Paranoimia As per community rules
Do not use profanity; Use of unsavoury language including profanity and swearing is not acceptable, please remember that this website has users of all ages.
So let's watch the language please
Thanks for understanding
@Flaming_Kaiser I too want them to make more games, but I think it's a smart way to do it. PS3 didn't sell what it could have at launch so I'm sure Sony is going to do the same thing as PS4.
Also, you're most likely right on the hybrid part.
This really makes sense. SSDs are becoming more and more affordable, larger and standard. The era of HDDs is passing by. I say within 10 years, only the cheapest machines will still use them, if that.
@Tasuki "Bitching" is not profanity. Thanks for understanding.
@Paranoimia This is personally how I think they will handle the expensive pricing too.
However as you said, would be nice if they found a way to produce these Specialized SSDs at a cheaper price, without giving up performance or space.
I hope it improves the speed of the PS4 Pro fan and slow that down and doesn't act like a jet taking off as soon as you start a game :/ I love my PS4 Pro but the noise is something else. I'm sure Sony will make their PS5 quieter.
Not going to lie, more excited about this then the BC.
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