PS5 News + Speculation

Andy

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Sep 11, 2013
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Summary of Wired article, linked below.

This info is coming from Mark Cerny. Summary courtesy GAF poster.
  • 8 core AMD 7nm Zen 2 based on third generation Ryzen.
  • Ray-tracing support with custom AMD Navi GPU.
  • Custom AMD unit for 3D Audio, also aided by ray-tracing, a big upgrade.
  • Extremely fast high-end custom SSD storage faster than any solution currently available for PC:
    Spider-Man load times on PS4 Pro: 15 seconds → 0.8 seconds on next-gen PlayStation.
  • Technically supports 8K but Cerny demoed Spider-Man load speed improvements on a 4K screen.
  • New Virtual Reality platform strongly hinted at but also supports current PSVR (meaning millions of VR users 'day one').
  • Death Stranding might be a cross-gen title (speculation in article based on Cerny reply).
  • Physical Media.
  • Backwards Compatible with at least PS4.
  • Four years in development so far.
  • 2020.
https://www.wired.com/story/exclusive-sony-next-gen-console/

Hints about the price suggest $499 to me, but that's my guess.
 
Summary of Wired article, linked below.

This info is coming from Mark Cerny. Summary courtesy GAF poster.
  • 8 core AMD 7nm Zen 2 based on third generation Ryzen.
  • Ray-tracing support with custom AMD Navi GPU.
  • Custom AMD unit for 3D Audio, also aided by ray-tracing, a big upgrade.
  • Extremely fast high-end custom SSD storage faster than any solution currently available for PC:
    Spider-Man load times on PS4 Pro: 15 seconds → 0.8 seconds on next-gen PlayStation.
  • Technically supports 8K but Cerny demoed Spider-Man load speed improvements on a 4K screen.
  • New Virtual Reality platform strongly hinted at but also supports current PSVR (meaning millions of VR users 'day one').
  • Death Stranding might be a cross-gen title (speculation in article based on Cerny reply).
  • Physical Media.
  • Backwards Compatible with at least PS4.
  • Four years in development so far.
  • 2020.
https://www.wired.com/story/exclusive-sony-next-gen-console/

Hints about the price suggest $499 to me, but that's my guess.

Yeah I agree on the price and even at that they are probably looking at a bit of a loss it would seem.
 
On a side note, I’m amazed at how games have improved from launch to now and not just because of the mid gen consoles.
I’m playing Dying Light right now (on X), and it still looks decent. But you can tell that it was kind of an early gen game

Yeah devs have really been making large strides in the last few years. There are a few early games that still hold up well too but when you see how much better Assassin's Creed Origins and Odyssey look compared to Black Flag (which is still a great game) or Unity it's a massive leap. Same thing for MKX to MK11 and back to Ubisoft even Watch Dogs 2 looked significantly better than the original and many more.
 
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One thing that they said that stood out to me was that the teraflop count may not be a great indication of what the power of these next gen machines will be so I'm guessing maybe they don't go much above 10TF but that's ok because a direct comparison to what a TF is worth now on current gen or even the refresh consoles vs what the new machines can do isn't really comparing apples to apples.
 
I am just wondering how they are going to cool a 10+TF GPU and a 8 core 16 thread Zen 2 CPU in the general size constraints of a console case That is gonna be the real question.
 
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With how fast the memory bus may be would the Blu-ray’s negate said speed?

Won't the games just be running off of the SSD like how the games now run off of the HDD? nothing runs directly from the disc anymore. I may have misunderstood your question though so if so I apologize.
 
Won't the games just be running off of the SSD like how the games now run off of the HDD? nothing runs directly from the disc anymore. I may have misunderstood your question though so if so I apologize.

Yee, that fact was mysteriously absent at the moment from my mind :p no worries, my mistake (it was a long day >,<), my apologies. But I do feel that Blu-rays have become dated for games.
 
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Yee, that fact was mysteriously absent at the moment from my mind :p no worries, my mistake (it was a long day >,<), my apologies. But I do feel that Blu-rays have become dated for games.

They'll probably have to use UHD blu-rays just to be able to include everything in a next gen game.
 
Seems like most people are pretty happy with what's been revealed so far. I'm not a tech guy, so I can't make an evaluation myself.

Personally I think next gen will be the last tech leap forward I'll care about, and even then, I'm not all that interested. It feels very much like diminishing returns at this point. Decreased load times, better FPS, some level of ray tracing ... hard to get terribly excited about that, personally. I mean, it's fine, but it feels more like a little nudge forward, rather than a leap. These things probably matter more to people who focus a lot on the technical performance of games, but I've never been like that.
 
Seems like most people are pretty happy with what's been revealed so far. I'm not a tech guy, so I can't make an evaluation myself.

Personally I think next gen will be the last tech leap forward I'll care about, and even then, I'm not all that interested. It feels very much like diminishing returns at this point. Decreased load times, better FPS, some level of ray tracing ... hard to get terribly excited about that, personally. I mean, it's fine, but it feels more like a little nudge forward, rather than a leap. These things probably matter more to people who focus a lot on the technical performance of games, but I've never been like that.

One thing that bugs me in games that I hope Raytracing can fix is shadows being drawn in as you approach objects. Like in GTA 5, you're driving down the highway and you can see the shadows from the overhang being drawn in as you drive.
 
One thing that bugs me in games that I hope Raytracing can fix is shadows being drawn in as you approach objects. Like in GTA 5, you're driving down the highway and you can see the shadows from the overhang being drawn in as you drive.

Yeah it happens in a lot of games, I'm hoping for an improvement in LOD overall, while there have been some nice strides this gen it can always be better.
 
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One thing that bugs me in games that I hope Raytracing can fix is shadows being drawn in as you approach objects. Like in GTA 5, you're driving down the highway and you can see the shadows from the overhang being drawn in as you drive.

It can but it’s also up to the developer if they want that level of detail at any distance. Take any racing game, you’ll notice (more so in circuit tracks) that when the car ahead of you pulls away to a certain distance that it’ll change into a lower poly/textured car, why, because optimization, so you can have higher detailed cars/objects near you look pretty whilst those in the distance don’t need to waste memory/power/resources.
 
So what do you guys think of this announcement? Impressed? Disappointed? Pretty much what you expected? Need to know more before making a judgment?
 
So what you guys think of this announcement? Impressed? Disappointed? Pretty much what you expected? Need to know more before making a judgment?
For me the custom SSD is the most impressive bit of news I take from it. Those load changes are insane.
 
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So what you guys think of this announcement? Impressed? Disappointed? Pretty much what you expected? Need to know more before making a judgment?

I think the CPU and GPU were what people expected or at least what they were hoping for. Some people were saying it was going to use a previous gen version of Ryzen and now we know that's not the case. We really don't know a whole lot though other than the SSD is going to make a big difference in load times. We don't know the clock speeds or how much memory is going to be included. I'm happy to hear them talking about it though and I can't wait to see actual games made for it.
 
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So what do you guys think of this announcement? Impressed? Disappointed? Pretty much what you expected? Need to know more before making a judgment?

Sony studios art direction plus even more powerful hardware makes me happy.

Just how much of leap it iwill be we'll have to see. I think things like scale, materials and lighting more impressive. 4k/60 standard. Maybe 4k/ 30 for really demanding titles.

Games like Star Citizen look beyond what current consoles are doing. So if these new consoles go beyond that, awesome.
 
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It can but it’s also up to the developer if they want that level of detail at any distance. Take any racing game, you’ll notice (more so in circuit tracks) that when the car ahead of you pulls away to a certain distance that it’ll change into a lower poly/textured car, why, because optimization, so you can have higher detailed cars/objects near you look pretty whilst those in the distance don’t need to waste memory/power/resources.
I'd like some darn hardware tessellation support. That should make LoD switches far less noticeable. Lod management will always be necessary until machines can render all polys for every scene while still having acurate lighting, etc. Otherwise, tracking that much data at all times is unreasonable. They'd have to track a full tree model full of data even when it only takes up a few pixels.
 
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Sony studios art direction plus even more powerful hardware makes me happy.

Just how much of leap it iwill be we'll have to see. I think things like scale, materials and lighting more impressive. 4k/60 standard. Maybe 4k/ 30 for really demanding titles.

Games like Star Citizen look beyond what current consoles are doing. So if these new consoles go beyond that, awesome.


I wanna see what japan studio can make, but like most artist we like limits to see what we can push and or brake. Sometimes unique styles can emerge from those limitations. Just hope their future titles don’t feel so clunky
 
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The guy who interviewed Cerny appeared on a podcast, haven't listened to the whole thing but here it is for anyone who's interested.
 
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One of a few things I found odd about what the media have focused on since this was announced, a few sites were saying "Sony made sure to announce this the day MS was announcing their digital console" why would Sony care about that? There is nothing new about the all digital xbox one other than a feature being removed, it's not like that was going to be some threat. They also keep saying they confirmed the specs when all they really did was confirm the architecture.

That article that's quoting a market analyst talking about specs is a bit silly, that's like Michael Pachter being taken seriously when talking about how hardware/software works. They understand sales but that's it, I don't think they know as much about how hardware works as the average person on this forum to be honest. Neither Sony or MS are going to focus on 8K, that's a silly thing to say.
 
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I wanna see what japan studio can make, but like most artist we like limits to see what we can push and or brake. Sometimes unique styles can emerge from those limitations. Just hope their future titles don’t feel so clunky

I'm not sure how limitations drive art direction so much anymore. Used to be number of pixels or even colors. Then polygons. Now it's more limitation on scope than anything.

Once we get raytracing as a norm they can start designing around that. Imagine having to worry about reflections giving you away, or using them to see around corners...
 
I'm not sure how limitations drive art direction so much anymore. Used to be number of pixels or even colors. Then polygons. Now it's more limitation on scope than anything.

Once we get raytracing as a norm they can start designing around that. Imagine having to worry about reflections giving you away, or using them to see around corners...


True, but it’ll still depend on the engine and optimization, but more than likely you’ll see games with raytracing only have effects on with when any object is on screen then when off camera...with time though they’ll eventually get their, sooner I hope rather than two gems from now.
 
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I think most Japanese studios have fallen behind western developers when it comes to making games that stand out visually over the past 7-10 years. Too many of their studios seem set in their ways and are unwilling to advance their art styles to take advantage of newer technology.
 
True, but it’ll still depend on the engine and optimization, but more than likely you’ll see games with raytracing only have effects on with when any object is on screen then when off camera...with time though they’ll eventually get their, sooner I hope rather than two gems from now.
I absolutely expect (if they use it) hybrid use of raytracing to fill in gaps. Maybe only use it for shadows or just reflection. Mix it with SSR.

Regardless, if the consoles don't implement it in their next machines, the PC space will skyrocket even further ahead than they already are. RT will be standard PC feature within the next couple years.
 
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One of a few things I found odd about what the media have focused on since this was announced, a few sites were saying "Sony made sure to announce this the day MS was announcing their digital console" why would Sony care about that? There is nothing new about the all digital xbox one other than a feature being removed, it's not like that was going to be some threat. They also keep saying they confirmed the specs when all they really did was confirm the architecture.

That article that's quoting a market analyst talking about specs is a bit silly, that's like Michael Pachter being taken seriously when talking about how hardware/software works. They understand sales but that's it, I don't think they know as much about how hardware works as the average person on this forum to be honest. Neither Sony or MS are going to focus on 8K, that's a silly thing to say.

I think some saw the "disk drive included" feature as a shot. Also I think Albert Panello or whatever his name is made a comment on the timing of the PS5 news.