I will also say this for perspective: Streaming data from storage for instant access and display is nothing new. Indeed its the fundamental technique making games on one of the first gaming consoles even possible. The Atari 2600 has 128 bytes (hundredandtwentyeight BYTES) of RAM. So not only do they stream data every frame from storage to display it, they do it every raster line (aka racing the beam). That was over 40 years ago. Imagine that!
Nah, its fine 
Yea the PS5 is very unbalanced where GPU has been cut back way more then it needed to allow the tech budget of the PS5 SSD speeds that will not be needed this gen.
Later in the gen itâs lower GPU power and missing RDNA 2 features are going to be more noticeable then its extra SSD speed.
Not really. We are one year down in a 7 year cycle. Games now take on average four years to build from scratch. We have at least another 12 - 18 months of cross gen. So say we have a clean run at it for the last 5 years of the generation, what is going to revolutionise in game engine creation, which then results in more than one game released at the end of the gen? UE5 is going to dominate the games landscape, and nothing they have shown so far even remotely requires large amount of data streaming from an SSD.
My thought is that maybe the following generation would be more likely to use those SSD speeds. I donât think with how things are headed do far that we will see any real use of the SSD speeds by the end of the gen.
Sorry for posting a gaming topic on a gaming forum. Feel free not to post in it if you donât like it.
I think the nicest thing about the ps5 super ssd (and xbox series to some extent) is that it eases development, not that it enables game design that it is impossible to do on a lower-end ssd. Devs wonât need to worry that much on data streaming, nor modeling maps with speed/memory limitations in mind⌠and that dev time can be used elsewhere (or producing games at a Âżslightly? faster pace).
I think Sonyâs strategy of a hardware solution over a software one like Microsoft shows the difference between the two companies, one a hardware company and one a software. A hardware solution is always preferable over a software.
I think that Sony would have had a reason for sure. Remember the decision to go with that speed would have been made about 3 years ago now, and in that time things have changed to where it maybe isnât as needed as they thought? Letâs be honest, the biggest improvement isnât RT, or more polygons, or faster RAM, the biggest impact by far has been the upscaling tech like DLSS. It allows the GPUs to work less, and means there is less texture size that needs to be streamed. Even the upscaling used by UE5 is really good. At this point, in game, I doubt either SSD has gotten out of first gear.
This is not a true statement
From a ease of use, best results without worrying about cost factor a hardware solution is always better. If there was two options, an extra 2 gig of RAM outright vs less RAM but writing extra code to cache things better, or other software tools to reduce your memory footprint, every developer on planet earth would take the extra 2 gigs of RAM. Same goes for RAW SSD speed over having software extensions like SFS to help the efficiency of SSD usage. In industry the first and best solution in any hierarchy of control is engineer a mechanical solution over work arounds and procedures.
Like everything, there are tradeoffs. Iâm not saying that a software solution is better for this problem, I just donât like the absolute statement.
A software solution isnât necessarily a work around or procedure, it can be done for increased flexibility, future growth, future compatibility, etc. I think one need only look at how BC ended up on both consoles to see the benefit of software solutions.
That doesnât always apply. Simple case is backwards compatibility. Sonyâs hardware only approach for BC doesnât provide the improvements that Xbox software and hardware does. Resolution improvements, texture filtering, Auto HDR, Frame rate improvements, loading speed improvements, etc.
This⌠Same goes for Ray Tracing
Good for developers and publishers. Not so much for gamers
Yes. Like for example, SDFGI will be 100% preferable compared to RTGI in the coming generation.
Letâs see how starfield stresses the ssd next year to get this answer. I think they did great going by ratchet and flight sim.
But Sony decided to either not wait or nix on some really good hardware based RDNA 2.0 GPU features that will pay off more this gen then their over engineered SSD solution.
They spent to much of their hardware budget on SSD speeds that wonât be needed this gen at the sacrifice of more advanced GPU power and hardware GPU features that will be used and come in very handy later in the gen.
Was this stated anywhere or are you assuming? Honest question.
Probably basing it off the xbox one-ps4 era that lasted from 2013 to 2020.
You are comparing apples to oranges.
I am guessing. Itâs normally a 7 to 8 year cycle. Last gen with mid gen upgrades was even less.