SSD Mandatory for Next-Gen Games?

Dunno, the Samsung 500 GB SATA drive made a vast difference to our lowly 40GB PS3 (bloody cheap arse Seagate OEM was in there).
 
No storage tech is "mandatory" with PCs. This article should read "Next-Gen consoles." ...and I could care less what console makers do, its not going to make up for their shoddy graphics and controls.
 
The foundries would never be able to make enough flash to meet console demand. It will never happen.
 
I think an order from Microsoft for 10 million of them at a certain price point and capacity would speed price drops along nicely. For example, if they went to Samsung, and said, we are prepared to purchase 10 million 512GB SSd drives from you with xyz specs, for the next xbox, and we need them to be $50 each... when can you do this?" I think the company receiving the order would use it as a way to do the mass production necessary to bring the price down.
 
I doubt next gen consoles will have physical media. so, an SSD would be nice for load times and overall user experience.
 
Until the price goes down. Its still a rich mans choice. Memory always been expensive which makes me think they are price fixxing. Normal hard drives are really cheap. Raptor drive are fast but no as fast as SSD. I am waiting till price comes down little more.
 
The controller in the PS3 only supports SATA I speeds. While SATA II and III will work since they're backwards compatible, I don't see much of an advantage for an SSD to be running in SATA I.

Brian Leahy said:
According to the user doing the testing, the initial loading of time of 55 seconds can be reduced to 29 seconds. The user also hints that the menu navigation is faster, but does not provide concrete data.
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Anyone else not take this seriously?
 
:( for no edit option.

sleepeeg3 said:
No storage tech is "mandatory" with PCs. This article should read "Next-Gen consoles." ...and I could care less what console makers do, its not going to make up for their shoddy graphics and controls.
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I completely agree. SATA I? No ability to swap graphics cards, SLi/CF, RAID? :rolleyes: There better be some improvement in the next gen consoles.
 
could always do a hybrid storage system.

20-40 gigs of flash for games built in, 500 gigs for media.thats swappable.
 
a hybrid would make sense, intelligently moving the game you're playing to the faster storage. People don't tend to play a huge variety of games that they need all of them on SSD all the time.
 
What about 1 SSD per game with an SSD slot...and if you buy 2 copies of a game you can raid them. That way people would buy 8 copies.
 
bbf said:
Next, they'll come to the realization that if consoles had 8 GB of DRAM and a smart predictive caching algorithm that would decrease load times to nearly ZERO.
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We have ourselves a winner!
 
niconx said:
The foundries would never be able to make enough flash to meet console demand. It will never happen.
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They've been able to keep up with Apple, and like it or not over the long haul they've caused prices to drop. Adding consoles to the mix will drop it even further.
 
The PS3 and Xbox 360 both use slow 5,400rpm lap top hard drives with 8 MB buffers so they're much slower than desktop PCs which typically use (ironically) cheaper 7,200 rpm 16/32 MB buffered hard drives. They're also using the older and slower SATAII interfaces.

The cost of SSDs are prohibitive and I suspect they will be when the next crop of consoles arrive so a better solution would be for them to use SATAIII 7,200rpm hard drives which offer substantially more storage space for a lower cost. With Sony and Microsoft shifting toward downloadable games and downloadable content for them I very much doubt an SSD will cut the mustard when larger capacity hard drives exist for a lower cost. Which would you rather have anyway: a 256 GB SSD that costs more and offers 5 second quicker loading times but limited space or a 2 TB hard drive that costs less, loads a little slower and offers plenty of space for games content?

Most of my PC games load in under 15 seconds except for a few games so loading times are not intrusive at all like they can be with console games. I'm still using SATAII as well. Although I have an SSD in my system it is used solely for Windows 7 and applications not games; games are installed on a fast Samsung F3 drive.
 
cbags101 said:
I doubt next gen consoles will have physical media. so, an SSD would be nice for load times and overall user experience.
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I very much doubt that Sony will ditch BD for the PS4 and you have to remember that not everyone has option to download games anyway. Would you want to download 20 GB+ games on a 2 MB/sec capped connection? BD drives will be as cheap to produce as DVD drives are now and disc costs will be less too by the time the next gen machines are announced.

Although things are improving I don't think we'll be at the stage where we can ditch DVD and BD for games by the time Microsoft and Sony release their next gen machines. Maybe for the ones after that but I suspect we'll see announcements of the 360 and PS3's successors in the next 18-24 months myself. Both their current machines will be over six years old by that point and will be holding back developers from making the games they want to. Although both manufacturers want the current gen to last longer, hence their attempts to prolong their lives by adding motion-controls, there's nothing to stop either releasing new machines while the current models still continue to exist. In fact, Sony have always done this anyway.
 
Ryokurin said:
They've been able to keep up with Apple, and like it or not over the long haul they've caused prices to drop. Adding consoles to the mix will drop it even further.
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Those Apple devices have an insignificant installed base compared to 360 and PS3.

Xbox 360 Units sold 196.9 million (as of October 30, 2010)
PS3 Units sold 200 million (as of October 30, 2010)

The fabs simply cannot make that much flash memory. They would need a whole lot of new plants and we all know how expensive those are. Maybe it will happen one day but it will not be anytime soon.
 
You can always "patch" badly designed games with something like SSD but what you really could need is a smarter way to cache.
Nintendo is a good example here. Nintendo is the marketleader they support SDHC , yet there is no function to allow it to be used as cache.

As soon as Nintendo (or MS & Sony) allow these things to be able to be used as cache you can speed up even more then normal.
But the console people are just so afraid to make such decisions, what would be nice if they used that in their next gen dev kit. You can cache up to 32 gb which is pretty good i guess. The 32 gb goes for about $100 I'm sure those prices will drop. 16gb costs only $25 orso.
 
niconx said:
Those Apple devices have an insignificant installed base compared to 360 and PS3.

Xbox 360 Units sold 196.9 million (as of October 30, 2010)
PS3 Units sold 200 million (as of October 30, 2010)

The fabs simply cannot make that much flash memory. They would need a whole lot of new plants and we all know how expensive those are. Maybe it will happen one day but it will not be anytime soon.
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that's only 40 million a year, and slowly ramped up over a 4 or 5 year period. Again next gen consoles are still at least 4 years away, long enough that if say Sony wanted to go with SSD they can partner with Samsung or whomever to build a plant to meet demand, similar to what Apple does now. Again, I'm not expecting SSDs to replace storage outright for consoles, but I can see it used for swap purposes.
 
BK_201 said:
The controller in the PS3 only supports SATA I speeds. While SATA II and III will work since they're backwards compatible, I don't see much of an advantage for an SSD to be running in SATA I.
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iops goes up significantly even on SATA I
it really depends on the workload of the drive
 
I wouldn't classify this as a "discovery".

Yes, faster HDs decrease load times.
 
Ryokurin said:
that's only 40 million a year, and slowly ramped up over a 4 or 5 year period. Again next gen consoles are still at least 4 years away, long enough that if say Sony wanted to go with SSD they can partner with Samsung or whomever to build a plant to meet demand, similar to what Apple does now. Again, I'm not expecting SSDs to replace storage outright for consoles, but I can see it used for swap purposes.
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Right, the manufacturers know this is coming and hell its what they want.

They already have the gear up for the tablet market.

Driven by the massive success of Apple Inc.’s iPad and the arrival of a range of competing devices, the use of NAND flash memory in tablets will triple from 2010 to 2011, according to the market research firm iSuppli Corp.

Shipments of NAND flash for tablet devices are projected to reach 1.7 billion Gigabytes (GB) next year, up a phenomenal 296.1 percent from 428 million GB in 2010. The shipments will continue to climb steadily over the next few years, hitting 8.8 billion GB by 2014.
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http://www.isuppli.com/Memory-and-S...-NAND-Flash-in-Tablets-to-Triple-in-2011.aspx
 
ssds will be super cheap in 3 - 5 years

there will be pink ones shaped like hearts it will be sold at the average supermarket, they will start designing them to be fashionable

MARK MY WORDS
 
Godmachine said:
It doesn't even have to be a fast transfer speed SSD. Even a basic one with .001 random access time would be so useful to both next gen consoles.

Sony however needs to learn how to stream information off Blu Rays better , 45 minute installs for any game regardless if its only 1 is completely unacceptable. Having to install a new set of data each time MGS4 had to load in a new section was also retarded.

The next Xbox also MUST include a hard drive. It was a massive mistake to make it a non-requirement for the 360. Having a hard drive is a giant plus in every way and the first Xbox benefited massively from it allowing developers a lot more flexability.
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This is right on. Throw in the biggest HDD's available at the time and go from there. Who knows, maybe 1TB SSD's are affordable whenever the next gen is out. Next-gen hopefully goes digital distribution and that requires a lot of space. Speeding up load times over the HDD is the least of my concern on consoles -- way behind raw GPU and CPU power. We are LONG overdue.
 
Bad news everybody.
Most advantage from SSD will be eaten up by massive bloat because HDD load times were "acceptable"
 
You don't even need a SSD. You could use a 4 gigabyte flash area for another level of cache. The last few played games would be stored there, This would work great for people like me who play one game for a long time. It would be a lot more deterministic than the ReadyBoost technology was. Either you're playing a cached game, or you're not.
 
if ssd make it into the next gen console would be interesting to see how they optimize the wear and tear.
 
FurbySlayer said:
cause thousand dollar consoles work... ask neo geo
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Bad example. NeoGeo was never meant to be a main stream console, they started selling those for use in hotels and then just said fuck it and dropped into the market.

And the real offender was the price of the games, 600 to well over a grand for a game didn't work.
 
Spiko said:
ehhhh I duno. I don't want to see a 600 dollar price tag on any console ever again.
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So your the reason consoles look like shit 1 year after they're released. Thanks a bunch asshole.

I'd be perfectly happy with a 600$ console if it meant the graphics actually looked decent. I find it really hard to go play on a console when it can't keep decent frames looking like shit all at only 720p when my computer is pushing twice the pixels +AA + more frames + more detail.

Not sure if I'll ever bother to buy another console.
 
Cataulin said:
Do they really increase load times? Example a game loads up in 1 minute using a regular sata drive. If installed on a SSD what kind of increase could I see?
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PS3 memory size=256M/256M ram/graphics
Xbox360 memory size=512M shared

512M/60sec (unrealistic fantasy)=8.5 M/sec
256M/60sec (absolute max, still unrealistic)=4.3M/sec

Even 2.5" drives can do 10x that.

My take is that you are seeing complete and utter fail on the developer's side. Level loads are utterly known and can thus be read in optimal order, and correctly ordered on the drive for optimal reading. Throwing the cost burden entirely on the user is the industries standard practice, so expect another $600 console.

Here's looking at you, GT5. Six years and you couldn't be bothered to do a single pass at optimization (sure nobody else does either, but what were you doing besides changing the textures for real time graffiti updates).
 
Ryokurin said:
that's only 40 million a year, and slowly ramped up over a 4 or 5 year period. Again next gen consoles are still at least 4 years away, long enough that if say Sony wanted to go with SSD they can partner with Samsung or whomever to build a plant to meet demand, similar to what Apple does now. Again, I'm not expecting SSDs to replace storage outright for consoles, but I can see it used for swap purposes.
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40 million a year doesn't sound like much but really think about how few SSD drives get used by regular consumers right now. I am not saying it couldn't technically happen only that it would simply cost way too much to make it happen. Home game consoles are targeted at very low price points. I can't imagine sufficiently large SSD drives ever becoming so cheap they would be included in a game console.
 
KHeT said:
next console isn't rumors to be out until sometime after 2012... pretty sure SSD should be standard by then.
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My first thought when I read this:

They are really going to wait until 2012 to release the next gen consoles? This things are obsolete NOW and ought to have been updated last year.

Then again, while 2012 sounds like far into the future, its only just over a year away...
 
heaven forbid a game should last a whole 6 hours, when w/accelerated load screen times it can be over in 5 hours & 55 minutes
 
vengence said:
So your the reason consoles look like shit 1 year after they're released. Thanks a bunch asshole.

I'd be perfectly happy with a 600$ console if it meant the graphics actually looked decent. I find it really hard to go play on a console when it can't keep decent frames looking like shit all at only 720p when my computer is pushing twice the pixels +AA + more frames + more detail.

Not sure if I'll ever bother to buy another console.
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Why wouldn't you just spend the $600 on your PC?
 
jstnomega said:
heaven forbid a game should last a whole 6 hours, when w/accelerated load screen times it can be over in 5 hours & 55 minutes
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Console load times are significantly higher than that. My friend has spent about 6 out of 70 hours waiting on load screen with New Vegas on his 360
 
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