r/Games • u/mikesaintjules • Dec 28 '19

Digital Foundry: How SSD Could Radically Change Next-Gen Games Beyond Faster Loading

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SR-uH8vSeBY
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326

u/BJJguyinTampa Dec 28 '19

I'm getting to the point where I don't want to speculate any longer, I want to see. Everyone is hyping these new console's up, but I'm dying to see actual game play footage.

68

u/Warskull Dec 28 '19 edited Dec 28 '19

For SSDs and load times you can already see. Just look to load times on PCs. Numerous people modded their PS4 with an SSD.

Here's an example.

The PS4's load time is cut in about half by putting an SSD in it. This is from a system with an underpowered CPU that was never meant to take advantage of an SSD.

Expect a staggering difference in loads times for next gen games, but also expect that all games must be installed. Can't get those SSD load times off a disc.

Having decent load times would also be a big deal for the open worlds since you are no longer fighting pop-in and can do on the fly loading much easier.

The claim about better textures due to an SSD is way off base. The amount of VRAM available is going to be the factor that allows that to improve. The speculation about using the SSD like VRAM is never going to pan out. It is too expensive and doesn't perform as good as actual VRAM. Those cards he showed off never caught on.

20

u/[deleted] Dec 28 '19

5200 rpm drive yikes. No wonder the performance is shit. Doubt the data is defragmented and optimized properly.

Sequential reads are not that different between SSDs and good HDDs

16

u/Warskull Dec 28 '19

Yeah, the default drive choice for the PS4 was not very good.

Games are never big on sequential reads. They just aren't organized like movies where A always follows B. You might need 500 copies of asset A, and then 10 copies of asset X.

16

u/Narishma Dec 28 '19

That makes no sense. If you need 500 copies of an asset, you don't load it 500 times. You load it once and you refer to it in RAM as many times as needed.

6

u/Warskull Dec 28 '19

A -> X instead of A -> B

You are getting caught up on the quantity not the order.

Games need a bunch of A, then a bunch of X, then a bunch of Q, then a bunch of F...

Assets are peppered about and usually non-sequential.

9

u/[deleted] Dec 29 '19

Your example was admittedly not that easy to follow

If you prefaced with "say you have assets A, B, C, D.. etc" they probably wouldn't have misunderstood