@TheFinalBoss710
Xbox explains SFS as this.
Consider a game that wants to load 20GB of data.
Sony PS5 SSD will take 3.63 seconds to load the data.
Theoretically, Xbox Series X SSD will take 8.33 seconds to load the same amount of data. But thanks to SFS, entire 20GB data need not be loaded, only 8GB is required. So, Xbox Series X SSD will load the 8GB data in 3.3 seconds.
Which is quite misleading.
Let’s be fair, first of why should we assume ps5 needs to load the full 20gb of data? We know ps5 can do Sampler Feedback. And most likely will use Oodle With Kraken as well.
(Note: SF and SFS is NOT the same thing.)
Secondly, since both companies work in the same space they likely know the challenges as much as the other.
PS marketing doesn’t seem to be interested or focus on fancy names and marketing tech.
There’s still a lot of what we don’t know about the PS5 and it wouldn’t be a surprised if they already worked on this as well.
Take Unreal Engine 5, no doubt SFS is a great feature but next-gen more likely have other good solutions as well.
Anyway, if a game is asking 20gb of “text” data for Xbox it will only be 8gb, thanks to SFS that is truly impressive no question about it.
BUT that’s not the end of the whole of the story is it?
SFS will essentially free up a significant amount of RAM to be use else where in the system.
Since there’s still other assets like mocap, model shape, audio, etc etc.
and there’s still other works and operations, the file request, the mapping and checking still all happen within the cpu core for Xbox, while none of this is on the PS5 cpu, the DMA controller can communicate with the SSD controller to allocate memory virtually itself and the management, file checks and mapping to page tables is all done within the 2 dedicated code processor along side another pool of SRAM which feeds through SSD and is likely a faster local cache that ties into the other features this entire memory subsystem has in those GPU scrubbers.
Again, communication cost is prohibitively expensive.
Xbox VA and SFS both works with the GPU and the CPU as well.
And they need to communicate with each other to work.
Communication is a big bottleneck in performance for modern processors.
“Accelerator design is guided by cost.”
“Accessing even a small memory array costs way more than doing an operation
And a lot of what we think of memory cost today is really communication cost”
(William Dally, Nvidia Chief Scientist)
PS5 microarchitecture is much, much more focused on the I/O then Xbox.
With all the costume hardware PS5’s solution is for better communication
and being completely independent from the CPU, thus “eliminating the bottlenecks”.
And this, is just a part of the ps5 I/O complex.
SFS, a single accelerator of software and hardware filter combination specialized for textures is NOT going to do that or what the other accelerators for specialized work load does, that is implemented on the PS5.
So no, VA does NOT put it on par with ps5 and doesn’t even close the gap.
And so even with a highly efficiently compression algorithm like BCPack+SFS that improves and betters the IO
throughput, while it does help somewhat “level the playing field”.(Not on Par)
But is unlikely to full compensate for all of that.
@TheFinalBoss710 you seriously think VA and SFS put Xbox on “par” with ps5?? Smh
Then you clearly have no idea how both works.
VA and specially SFS a smart solution and ground breaking, is really impressive.
No doubt about it and
no one should downplay it.
But Ps5 IO storage system is just on another level, and to say it’s on par is just simple stupid and wishful bias/fanboy talk.
“Sampler FeedBack Streaming”
「What SFS enables is fine-grained control to stream in/out parts of a mip.」
(Jame Renard, the guy working with SFS)
Thus making Xbox’s ssd more efficient and effective but while texts are the most demanding, there’s other assets and works need to be done as well.
So SFS alone doesn’t close the “gap” between ps5 I/O storage system.
PS5’s solution is, not just independent from the CPU but also has a very minimized communication cost.(“Accessing even a small memory array costs way more then doing an operation”) and with over 2 times I/O throughput compared to Xbox. With (seems like everybody’s forgetting now) the 12 channel flash memory, DMA controller, two I/O co-processors, coherency engines, GPU cache scrubbers and SRAM cache.
Comments 2
Re: Sony on PS5 Exclusives: We Can't Take Everyone with Us from Previous Gens
@TheFinalBoss710
Xbox explains SFS as this.
Consider a game that wants to load 20GB of data.
Which is quite misleading.
Let’s be fair, first of why should we assume ps5 needs to load the full 20gb of data? We know ps5 can do Sampler Feedback. And most likely will use Oodle With Kraken as well.
(Note: SF and SFS is NOT the same thing.)
Secondly, since both companies work in the same space they likely know the challenges as much as the other.
PS marketing doesn’t seem to be interested or focus on fancy names and marketing tech.
There’s still a lot of what we don’t know about the PS5 and it wouldn’t be a surprised if they already worked on this as well.
Take Unreal Engine 5, no doubt SFS is a great feature but next-gen more likely have other good solutions as well.
Anyway, if a game is asking 20gb of “text” data for Xbox it will only be 8gb, thanks to SFS that is truly impressive no question about it.
BUT that’s not the end of the whole of the story is it?
SFS will essentially free up a significant amount of RAM to be use else where in the system.
Since there’s still other assets like mocap, model shape, audio, etc etc.
and there’s still other works and operations, the file request, the mapping and checking still all happen within the cpu core for Xbox, while none of this is on the PS5 cpu, the DMA controller can communicate with the SSD controller to allocate memory virtually itself and the management, file checks and mapping to page tables is all done within the 2 dedicated code processor along side another pool of SRAM which feeds through SSD and is likely a faster local cache that ties into the other features this entire memory subsystem has in those GPU scrubbers.
Again, communication cost is prohibitively expensive.
Xbox VA and SFS both works with the GPU and the CPU as well.
And they need to communicate with each other to work.
Communication is a big bottleneck in performance for modern processors.
“Accelerator design is guided by cost.”
“Accessing even a small memory array costs way more than doing an operation
And a lot of what we think of memory cost today is really communication cost”
(William Dally, Nvidia Chief Scientist)
PS5 microarchitecture is much, much more focused on the I/O then Xbox.
With all the costume hardware PS5’s solution is for better communication
and being completely independent from the CPU, thus “eliminating the bottlenecks”.
And this, is just a part of the ps5 I/O complex.
SFS, a single accelerator of software and hardware filter combination specialized for textures is NOT going to do that or what the other accelerators for specialized work load does, that is implemented on the PS5.
So no, VA does NOT put it on par with ps5 and doesn’t even close the gap.
And so even with a highly efficiently compression algorithm like BCPack+SFS that improves and betters the IO
throughput, while it does help somewhat “level the playing field”.(Not on Par)
But is unlikely to full compensate for all of that.
Re: Sony on PS5 Exclusives: We Can't Take Everyone with Us from Previous Gens
@TheFinalBoss710 you seriously think VA and SFS put Xbox on “par” with ps5?? Smh
Then you clearly have no idea how both works.
VA and specially SFS a smart solution and ground breaking, is really impressive.
No doubt about it and
no one should downplay it.
But Ps5 IO storage system is just on another level, and to say it’s on par is just simple stupid and wishful bias/fanboy talk.
“Sampler FeedBack Streaming”
「What SFS enables is fine-grained control to stream in/out parts of a mip.」
(Jame Renard, the guy working with SFS)
Thus making Xbox’s ssd more efficient and effective but while texts are the most demanding, there’s other assets and works need to be done as well.
So SFS alone doesn’t close the “gap” between ps5 I/O storage system.
PS5’s solution is, not just independent from the CPU but also has a very minimized communication cost.(“Accessing even a small memory array costs way more then doing an operation”) and with over 2 times I/O throughput compared to Xbox. With (seems like everybody’s forgetting now) the 12 channel flash memory, DMA controller, two I/O co-processors, coherency engines, GPU cache scrubbers and SRAM cache.