In Theory: How SSD Could Radically Change Next-Gen Games Beyond Faster Loading

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Auer

[H]ard|Gawd
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Faster loading and faster background streaming are just two ways in which the next-gen consoles will utilise SSD storage technology. But hints from Microsoft suggest that the tech will be pushed in other directions - which could radically improve the fidelity and scope of the games we play. Rich shares his theories in this vid.

 
Wait wait wait wait wait wait wait... So my take away from this is that previous consoles [with storage drives] didn't [properly] utilize a page file? If that's the case, it explains soooo much.
 
With these crappy new console ports, everyone that went with 16GB RAM and 8GB GPUs are going to be sorry once they are designed to be memory hogs. Can't wait for the memory leaks either.
 
Faster loading and suspend states for jumping back in where you left off sounds wonderful to me.
 
DanNeely said:
Anyone got a TL;DW?
Click to expand...

A type of amd SSG implementation pretty much. I mean, the tech exists and is in use for select professional products (energy design and the like), they think that it could be used that way in consoles.

No, it isn't the same as a page file because the driver needs to be directly accessible by the gpu with specialized memory controllers.
 
Physically we are not there yet, as it would be too expensive to accomplish what everyone wishes for... swap file even on quad NVMe board in Raid0 would not perform on par with actual ddr4 3200 memory (not to mention GDDR6); in terms of latency its still far away... Thats why we would need scenes or use cases where latency doesn't matter that much - like scene rendering - rather than games.
It allows us to assign, and attribute enormous amount of objects, and textures. As mentioned above amd's ssg is pretty much it.

But... to have it work in our games, as everyone would want it to, it needs to be fast. Current SSD's top out at around 500MB/s, and U2 disks at around 2.5GB/s. Its quite slow to matter big unless engine coding actually is capable of utilizing rationally its big slow cache... and games are not really there.
 
What likely is that since there is custom hardware and a unified memory the storage drive on the console will have a more direct access to both system and GPU memory, and therefore the CPU/GPU.

The issue for PCs is I'm not sure how it could be mimicked on the PC side due to the base design difference and how game ports will handle the differences. Remember how a big advantage of PCs compared to consoles were the loading times? That could be reversed this generation.

cyklondx said:
But... to have it work in our games, as everyone would want it to, it needs to be fast. Current SSD's top out at around 500MB/s, and U2 disks at around 2.5GB/s. Its quite slow to matter big unless engine coding actually is capable of utilizing rationally its big slow cache... and games are not really there.
Click to expand...

They're rumored to use NVMe SSDs that are "faster" (not sure what the exact metric is) than "current" PC NVMe SSDs (this was before PCIe 4.0 SSDs were announced). Not sure why you're bringing up U2, the consumer side of that never took off.

Remember this is about the console ecosystem, not PCs.
 
limitedaccess said:
What likely is that since there is custom hardware and a unified memory the storage drive on the console will have a more direct access to both system and GPU memory, and therefore the CPU/GPU.

The issue for PCs is I'm not sure how it could be mimicked on the PC side due to the base design difference and how game ports will handle the differences. Remember how a big advantage of PCs compared to consoles were the loading times? That could be reversed this generation.



They're rumored to use NVMe SSDs that are "faster" (not sure what the exact metric is) than "current" PC NVMe SSDs (this was before PCIe 4.0 SSDs were announced). Not sure why you're bringing up U2, the consumer side of that never took off.

Remember this is about the console ecosystem, not PCs.
Click to expand...
well when anyone states NVMe SSD's i automatically see u2; instead of m.2 nvme.

even with pci-e 4.0 a single nvme will top out at 7.8GB/s (at very best), and lets be honest consoles are not going to get it. They are likely going to get a median between 3-4GB/s R, and crappy writes capping at 2-3GB/s.
 
Skarth said:
Shortest Version : Using a SSD as a page file and/or extended memory, for the GPU's memory.
Click to expand...
SSDs are not memory though. Even if it was it would be horrible. Guess the creator never played a game where the GPU had to swap into system RAM. It is a truly horrible and unplayable experience.
 
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.pr...graphics-accelerates-4k-and-8k-workflows/amp/

Lots of people suddenly forgot that this exists, the console gpu could maybe partition a slice of the SSD if the memory controller is designed for it, to try and bypass having to go ask the cpu to ask the controller for it. With busses designed for it then it has a chance to work.

Lots of IF's are involved but won't be the first exotic spec used in a console memory wise.
The cost of it VS actual RAM may make sense, but the utility is niche.
 
Using the SSD as virtual memory shouldn't be a surprise to anyone at this point. Go to the 2 minute mark of their own trailer.

 
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