Sony Epic Games interview: PCs will need to catch up to PS5's SSD

[legend]

2 hours ago, Mr.Vic20 said:

@legend , not sure if this was posted elsewhere, but it goes into pretty good detail on what Lumen is and how it contracts to RT. In essence, its several techniques combined to more or less mimic RT lighting at a lower cost.    

 

 

 

Thanks! Yeah this was posted a bit earlier in the other thread. It's a great video and makes it more clear.

[number305]

The other thing that seems to be a little forgotten in this discussion is that the SeX has a pretty fast HD too. Obviously the PS blows everything away in this category, but it isn't like Microsoft is running off a potato. When they start streaming off the HD on the SeX they will still have very good speed. 

[AbsolutSurgen]

7 minutes ago, number305 said:

The other thing that seems to be a little forgotten in this discussion is that the SeX has a pretty fast HD too. Obviously the PS blows everything away in this category, but it isn't like Microsoft is running off a potato. When they start streaming off the HD on the SeX they will still have very good speed. 

As far as NVME drives go, 2.4 GB/s is pretty slow. 

[crispy4000]

 

[SimpleG]

27 minutes ago, crispy4000 said:

 

That video is top notch , nice find.

[Keyser_Soze]

7 hours ago, JPDunks4 said:

I can clearly see the difference and how the tech actually changes games.  We used to see this as well with other new PC tech like PhysX, ect.  

 

You can see a drape flapping around instead of just one that had physics on it or those amazing green globs in Borderlands 2!

 

PhysX was a joke.

[JPDunks4]

38 minutes ago, Keyser_Soze said:

 

You can see a drape flapping around instead of just one that had physics on it or those amazing green globs in Borderlands 2!

 

PhysX was a joke.

It was maybe a joke, but the side by side comparisons of a competent PC vs a console at the time showed the difference in performance you could expect.  It's just one of the first comparison vids that came to mind.

 

 

Epic could have pretty easily demonstrated something like this showing what the Demo would look like with the "God Tier" SSD vs what it'd look like on a regular NVMe SSD.  Just so we could see the actual real life application of the tech.  Reading numbers about I/O doesn't mean a whole lot to me since I'm not the most tech savy, but seeing a side by side comparison to demonstrate it would do wonders.

[MeatAndPotatoes]

15 hours ago, AbsolutSurgen said:

If I had the choice, I wouldn’t build a PC without a PCIe4.0 NVME drive and either a RDNA2 or an Ampere GPU. 

Would be optimal to to use an NVME PCIe4.0 SSD for my games and use my current SSD for everything else?

[Keyser_Soze]

22 minutes ago, JPDunks4 said:

Epic could have pretty easily demonstrated something like this showing what the Demo would look like with the "God Tier" SSD vs what it'd look like on a regular NVMe SSD.  Just so we could see the actual real life application of the tech.  Reading numbers about I/O doesn't mean a whole lot to me since I'm not the most tech savy, but seeing a side by side comparison to demonstrate it would do wonders.

 

Indeed but side by side comparisons don't sell PS5s!

[Duderino]

33 minutes ago, JPDunks4 said:

Epic could have pretty easily demonstrated something like this showing what the Demo would look like with the "God Tier" SSD vs what it'd look like on a regular NVMe SSD.  Just so we could see the actual real life application of the tech.  Reading numbers about I/O doesn't mean a whole lot to me since I'm not the most tech savy, but seeing a side by side comparison to demonstrate it would do wonders.

Given how new this tech is and how key the SSD and file I/O is to this process, I doubt Epic wants to show this running on anything less than the ideal hardware right now.  Why show something "pretty good" now when they can potentially improve on it in the coming months.

[AbsolutSurgen]

11 hours ago, MeatAndPotatoes said:

Would be optimal to to use an NVME PCIe4.0 SSD for my games and use my current SSD for everything else?

I don't know what your current SSD is.

 

IMHO, you should use your fastest SSD as your boot drive.  Your system will boot and feel faster if Windows is installed on a fast drive.

 

I'll clarify my previous point, and my thought process.

Current games do not benefit a whole lot from putting them on really fast SSDs -- because a lot of your "loading time" in games isn't actually loading, but "decompression", etc.  The SSD will improve the speed of the loading, but not the rest.  So when you put in an SSD that is 5x faster, it only reduces the loading time by a little bit.

However, if you believe that having "really fast storage" will be a key component to future game engines (in 202, 2022 and beyond) -- you're probably going to want to try and "future proof" yourself, by not locking yourself out of that.   PCIe4.0 SSDs are a step function in speed above previous SSDs.  The problem is that right now, PCIe4.0 requires support by the motherboard -- and only a few MBs support it -- and they are all AMD.  So if you're doing a build right now, and you want to add the future storage later, you're going to need to buy a new MB later (and probably a new CPU, and maybe new RAM).

 

That said, I am generally not a proponent of futureproofing -- because you're guessing.  Maybe super-fast storage won't be important for PCs, but having a boatload of RAM will be.  We just don't know.

If it were my money, I wouldn't buy a new PC right now.  New CPUs from AMD and Intel are imminent.  New GPUs from Nvidia and AMD are imminent.  PSUs are in short supply.  New consoles are on the horizon, and given that many/most developers target consoles (and Sony consoles in particular) for their engines.  One way of thinking about running those games on a PC is "like the console, but better" -- so I'm waiting to see how it all shakes out before I put my $$$ into a new gaming PC.

[SimpleG]

13 hours ago, Duderino said:

Given how new this tech is and how key the SSD and file I/O is to this process, I doubt Epic wants to show this running on anything less than the ideal hardware right now.  Why show something "pretty good" now when they can potentially improve on it in the coming months.

Unless I am misunderstanding you , you just made @JPDunks4 point valid. 

Epic: New X destroys Y

Epic: Demos X

User: Can You Demo X vs Y ?

Epic: Its not ready for Y

User:So you mean X is better then an incomplete Y

 

 

 

 

 

[Duderino]

1 hour ago, SimpleG said:

Unless I am misunderstanding you , you just made @JPDunks4 point valid. 

Epic: New X destroys Y

Epic: Demos X

User: Can You Demo X vs Y ?

Epic: Its not ready for Y

User:So you mean X is better then an incomplete Y

Epic's primary goal here is to sell people (and developers) on what Unreal 5 will be capable of.  The PS5 happens to be the ideal platform to demo it.  Sony's priorities have aligned well with Epic's tech.

 

A comparison video now would probably drive PS5 sales and increase intent to purchase future NVMe drives, but work against Epic's pitch of their tech being a paradigm shift for the industry as a whole.

[SimpleG]

9 minutes ago, Duderino said:

Epic's primary goal here is to sell people (and developers) on what Unreal 5 will be capable of.  The PS5 happens to be the ideal platform to demo it.  Sony's priorities have aligned well with Epic's tech.

 

A comparison video now would probably drive PS5 sales and increase intent to purchase future NVMe drives, but work against Epic's pitch of their tech being a paradigm shift for the industry as a whole.

Agreed , Tim should have only said it was game changer but he didnt , he compared the 2 and only showed 1 side , so it certainly isnt out of the realm of reason for people to ask him to prove it. If folks are willing to give him a pass on it thats fine, but I wont.

[Xbob42]

I think there's a few assumptions being made here that I don't know we should be making:

 

1. That the demo is maxing out the PS5's SSD. The PS5 has a really fast SSD, yes, but we're assuming that means this demo is maxing out that SSD's bandwidth. What if it ran just as good on an XSX or a typical mid-tier PC SSD? Will developers be trying to max out this bandwidth if they don't need to? Seems like you'd use as much as you need. Let's not forget this comment by Epic Games China:

 

Quote

Earlier this week, Epic Games presented an amazing tech demo of Unreal Engine 5 on PS5. That demo was running at 1440p with 30fps and looked spectacular. However, that same demo can already run with 40fps on an NVIDIA RTX2080 notebook at 1440p.

 

This has been confirmed by Epic Games China. According to Epic Games China, the Unreal Engine 5 Tech Demo can already run faster on the PC. Not only that, but it appears that the demo does not take full advantage of PS5’s SSD. After all, an NVMe 970 SSD is more than enough to run the game with 40fps at 1440p.

 

Thus, a modern system with an NVMe 970 SSD and an NVIDIA RTX2080 can already outperform the unreleased PS5 in this particular tech demo. Again, and while the PS5 SSD is quite a beast, this particular demo does not push it to its limits. However, I think it’s quite obvious right now that owners of such GPUs and SSDs will be fine with next-gen games.

https://www.dsogaming.com/news/epic-games-claims-that-unreal-engine-5-tech-demo-can-run-with-40fps-on-rtx2080-notebook-at-1440p/  ... https://dailygamingtech.com/2020/05/17/epic-games-unreal-engine-5-tech-demo-runs-at-1440p-40fps-on-rtx2080-notebook/

 

2. That this will necessarily just be a boon for SSDs. I've been reading from multiple developers that they expect RAM to be able to do this just fine, you'd simply need more of it. A lot were saying 64GB will probably be a new target for people with slower SSDs on games that utilize it heavily, because of course RAM is actually much faster than even Sony's SSD. Obviously consoles aren't going to be getting 64GB of RAM, so this might be a cheaper route PC gamers can take for even faster speeds. I say might, because I imagine the developer has to account for this and I'm unsure of this information myself, it's just what I've been reading.

 

3. That this is going to actually play a big deal outside of Sony exclusives. The Xbox's SSD is half as fast as Sony's. Most PCs with SSDs have them around the speed of the XSX or a bit slower, depending on how many years they've been holding on to them. I can't imagine a lot of multiplatform devs willingly leaving the Xbox out to dry over an issue like this, especially since even XSX's SSD is still basically infinite from a developer's perspective compared to decades of slow mechanical HDDs. This is the part I'm most worried about, because I don't want any console to be holding us back in this area too much. Gaming in this realm specifically has had a massive albatross around its neck for so long, I'd hate to see us only break-out by half.

[Duderino]

@Xbob42, that dsogaming article is misleading, as confirmed by Tim Sweeney:

They playing the video on the stream. Do you see the ".mp4" in the title bar?

— Tim Sweeney (@TimSweeneyEpic) May 17, 2020

Said it earlier, but there is plenty of misinformation being spread.

[Xbob42]

9 minutes ago, Duderino said:

@Xbob42, that dsogaming article is misleading, as confirmed by Tim Sweeney:

Said it earlier, but there is plenty of misinformation being spread.

 

Interesting, but why would it be at 40 FPS?

 

EDIT: This reply has the part of the stream in question where an Unreal dev literally says "obviously you wouldn't need such insane SSD speeds for the demo":

 

Another reply brings up a good point: Why would Epic developers mix up footage of the demo playing with a very specific combination of hardware and results? That doesn't add up.

 

If I were a betting man, I wouldn't say there's misinformation so much as misdirection, from Epic themselves. They clearly have some sort of deal going with Sony, so they want to talk about the PS5 and its capabilities. We saw this when they adamantly refused to even say the word Xbox when being interviewed by Keighley, even when asked directly.

 

Now, this doesn't mean there's some conspiracy or something, I think it's just a basic marketing deal to show off the power of the PS5, but I think part of that is not acknowledging the power of anything else.

[Duderino]

17 minutes ago, Xbob42 said:

Interesting, but why would it be at 40 FPS?

That is easily explained. The 40fps number comes from this statement in the China presentation that multiple people speaking the native language have confirmed:

Quote

The Epic guy is saying the first scene(Lumen) can run at 40fps on his notebook, not the whole demo.

People just ran with it, misrepresenting what was actually said (and shown).

 

Hopefully that clarifies things.

[Xbob42]

That doesn't clarify things. How did the rest of it run? Where can we find this demo? I WANT TO RUN THE DEMO.

[JPDunks4]

 

So we are to believe that Epic didn't also develop this demo alongside various PC specs to see how it'd perform on different hardware?

[Duderino]

Just now, Xbob42 said:

That doesn't clarify things. How did the rest of it run? Where can we find this demo? I WANT TO RUN THE DEMO.

It clears up the false claims, not how well we can expect this demo to run on other platforms.

 

We need more information and further demonstrations from Epic to get better understanding there.  No one outside of Epic has those answers yet.

[Xbob42]

8 minutes ago, JPDunks4 said:

 

So we are to believe that Epic didn't also develop this demo alongside various PC specs to see how it'd perform on different hardware?

You are to believe that Sony paid Epic a lot of money to not talk about anything else!

 

To be fair, he's made statements like this:

 

But even then notice how it was a culmination of years of discussions between Sony and Epic. It just makes it really hard to get a feel for how anything else will run it because they're clearly so Sony focused right now. GIVE US THE BENCHMARK! I want to melt my computer, dammit! I AM AN AMERICAN CITIZEN I HAVE THE RIGHT TO KILL MY COMPUTER!

[Duderino]

Epic stands to gain way more profits from gamers buying Unreal 5 tittles through the PC Epic Games store.  I could never see Epic agreeing to avoid talking about other platforms. Money hat joking aside, it doesn't add up.

[legend]

I suspect this kind of result will be possible on both XSX and a current high-end PC with NVMe. Particularly since Epic targets all platforms.

 

 

1 hour ago, JPDunks4 said:

 

So we are to believe that Epic didn't also develop this demo alongside various PC specs to see how it'd perform on different hardware?

 

I'm sure they have run it on other systems, but that doesn't mean they can make a fair comparison if the other platforms need more optimization work. Optimization can take a long time, and if the PS5 is the best situated for this tech, then it may have been easier for them to get it to work there first.

[Duderino]

1 hour ago, legend said:

I'm sure they have run it on other systems, but that doesn't mean they can make a fair comparison if the other platforms need more optimization work. Optimization can take a long time, and if the PS5 is the best situated for this tech, then it may have been easier for them to get it to work there first.

It's kinda crazy that we're seeing some next-gen tech on a console first.  When was the last time that happened?  The psx/n64 era?

[Duderino]

More of Tim setting the record straight:

There's not some secret deal. 100% of the stuff we've been working on with Sony over the past months is now publicly announced: The UE5 demo on PlayStation 5, Nanite, Lumen, and Epic Online Services for cross-platform play across all platforms.

— Tim Sweeney (@TimSweeneyEpic) May 17, 2020

Not sure exactly what was said. The translated quote on 40 fps isn't a comparison between hardware capabilities. To hit a 100% solid 30 fps with vsync in the demo, per-frame times vary from 30 fps up to much higher.

— Tim Sweeney (@TimSweeneyEpic) May 17, 2020

[AbsolutSurgen]

1 hour ago, Duderino said:

It's kinda crazy that we're seeing some next-gen tech on a console first.  When was the last time that happened?  The psx/n64 era?

Xbox 360. 

[Duderino]

39 minutes ago, AbsolutSurgen said:

Xbox 360. 

Trying to remember, what was shown on the 360 that broke ground on consoles first?  It's been quite a while. On Sony's end the PS3's cell processor never had a breakthrough game demonstration on this level.

[AbsolutSurgen]

18 minutes ago, Duderino said:

Trying to remember, what was shown on the 360 that broke ground on consoles first?  It's been quite a while. On Sony's end the PS3's cell processor never had a breakthrough game demonstration on this level.

X360 graphics were ahead of PCs in its day.  Xbox Live was arguably revolutionary compared to the multi-player PC options.

[Xbob42]

Xbox 360 launched with a GPU that was ahead of anything available on PCs at the time (for a few months anyway) -- Xbox Live was never regarded as anything special by PC players, and I still don't think it is. Paying money to use your internet you already pay for, good deal! At least now you get some "free" games out of it.

 

But I think if we ignore something like "stronger piece of hardware," this is the first thing in a while. This isn't just a fast SSD, it's an SSD using new hardware to make it faster. I'm sure we'll see something like that on PCs within a year or two unless the tech drastically changes.

 

5 hours ago, Duderino said:

Epic stands to gain way more profits from gamers buying Unreal 5 tittles through the PC Epic Games store.  I could never see Epic agreeing to avoid talking about other platforms. Money hat joking aside, it doesn't add up.

I don't think they're focusing on super high-end games with their PC store right now. They don't need to. They gave away a 7 year old Xbox 360 game and it killed their servers worldwide. I think they've got more than one strategy at play here. The biggest games on PC are rarely the ones pushing hardware. LoL, Dota 2, Hearthstone, Fortnite, PUBG, we see time and time again that the big money is typically not associated with the high-end. That doesn't mean they don't want money from UE5 on PC, but with it being over a year away because of optimizations, I also think there's no rush to show off what it can do for PCs. By the time it's ready for actual use, who's gonna even remember this PS5 specific demo in a way that matters? So why not make money off of it now?

 

Also his secret deal comment really reads like a Sweeney tweet alright. He starts off ostensibly answering the question and then veers in a weird direction. Who said there was a secret deal to begin with? I don't think anyone thought it was a big secret. But then he gets lost in the weeds.

 

Quote

There's not some secret deal. 100% of the stuff we've been working on with Sony over the past months is now publicly announced

This reads to me like "There's not a secret deal, you can see exactly what the deal was."

Anyway, none of it's a big deal, I just think it's fun to speculate because Sweeney's known to be a sneaky boy. I think it's great we're getting consoles pushing the limits instead of holding everything back. The worst part of this gen was hearing about those awful CPUs and knowing it'd be an anchor weighing down progress. I haven't seen anything like that this time. They really seem to be going for it, and that makes me more excited to build a new PC than I have been in well over a decade. Really feeling that generational leap with a bunch of new hardware is great. It'll make my Trails of Cold Steel games with their $12 budget run at so many frames per second!

[Duderino]

1 hour ago, AbsolutSurgen said:

X360 graphics were ahead of PCs in its day.  Xbox Live was arguably revolutionary compared to the multi-player PC options.

Recall any graphics specifics?  

 

My memory is a bit hazy but I remember the tech behind Doom 3 and idTech4 paving the way for that console generation before UE3, Gears, and the 360.  Gears was impressive, but Doom 3 was like seeing next-gen early.

[Xbob42]

I remember Call of Duty 2 looking better in many ways on 360 than the PC version did. That was a surprise.

 

That was in 2005...

 

We've had 15 Call of Duty games since, on just 2 generations! Jaysus.

[Keyser_Soze]

31 minutes ago, Duderino said:

Recall any graphics specifics? 

 

Actually off the top of my head I remember motion blur being a cool new thing. That was the only thing about PDZ that stuck out other than it sucked.

[Duderino]

Back to the UE5 stuff:

Yeah just got around to reading the eurogamer article. Jerome did say that normal maps are just tiling surface detail, but in the trailer there is a clear texture streaming issue that makes it look like NMs have unique surface information. So I'm standing by for more info 🙂 pic.twitter.com/5hxMq45K9G

— Andrew Maximov (@_ArtIsAVerb) May 17, 2020

It does look like a normal map streaming in, but it could also be actual geometry detail missing.  Like some kind of texture style mip level, but for vertex data. Hmm....

[JPDunks4]

Curious what does this mean...  That using this type of rendering, or bringing in Megascans, isn't really feasible for real games?  As I said, I'm not all that tech savy, so just wondering what this translates to.