Support NeoGAF

[Apollo Helios]

PlayStation 5: Does the new Sony console deliver the next-gen dream?

Yes, we finally saw the console, we know what it looks like and how gigantic it is - but crucially, yesterday's PlaySta…

www.eurogamer.net

Lots more interesting nuggets in the article, I recommend giving it a read.

Feel the need to reiterate that portion:

Elsewhere, another aspect of the Cerny presentation paid off spectacularly. One of the key features of the new GPU is the Geometry Engine, giving developers unprecedented control over triangles and other primitives and easy control over geometry culling. There's nothing new in terms of principles here - it boils down to removing the need to render triangles that end up being invisible in the final frame. The less geometry you process, the less work there is for the GPU, meaning that resources can be used elsewhere. The immense richness in detail seen in idTech 7 and Call of Duty Modern Warfare's IW8 engine owes much to culling. However, the next-gen geometry engine does this at the hardware level, while opening the door to primitive shaders, which helps to streamline the entire process.

Now to the crux of whole VRS debacle and PS5's inherent hw efficiency that voids the need to use VRS in the first place
Remember Matt Hargett ex Sony principle software engineer on Playstation when he tweeted this gem:


and also this thread where someone working at MS gets in on the discussion and says MS also have GE (but from GCN μArch, then Matt retorts and says what PS has is specific to their platform and what MS has is generic version - and MS employee deletes his tweets after breaking NDA and making a fool of himself in the meanwhile)


Let me try to explain it to you guys, GE - Geometry Engine is not something one and done, it has versions just like GCN, RDNA 1, RDNA 2, and what MS didn't work on with their consoles were primitive discards right on the primitive shaders, which unsurprisingly what Sony was working on for during last gen, both in PS4 and then later on PS4 Pro consoles. Their efforts were mostly unused because of some reason that are not clear, but it is safe to say they botched that aspect up until now. However on PS5, with their past mistakes, they implemented the correct hw to discard geometry that is
1 - not in the FoV of the screen with some safety margins, (++ perf gain)
2 - in the screen but behind objects thus are unseen (+++++ perf gain)

#2 is important because up until now, the objects behind were still being calculated in the GPU (before GE) but then later on discarded, since they are not drawn on the screen anyway, however as you can see even some calculation for those unseen/behind objects are completely unnecessary. PS4 Pro botched the implementation of this step (did the #1 very well and you can see HZD documentary for it - timestamped for exact visualization and explanation to #1)

Back then it was (trade marked) called as frustum culling which lead to the no loading, no cut open world designs like the ones found in God of War, HZD etc.

Now at this point they could do #2 as well but not on hardware, and not before whole lot of calculations were done on the object that will end up non-drawn anyway. Doing it in software not only loads CPU, but also not all GPU cycles were freed for those occluded objects, only a portion of it (and most likely very small one).

Now GE on PS5 is capable of doing it in hw and freeing up those precious cycles for other things, and on the next gen consoles only PS5 has the new version while MS gone ahead with the old one (but instead they went with VRS way).

There's a patent deep dive in a post if you want to read further

Primitive Shader: AMD's Patent Deep Dive

Primitive shader was mentioned in The Road to PS5 video, many suspected it was just another term for Mesh Shader, some said they are different concepts and thus PS5 would not support mesh shader. AMD's own marketing did not help clear the confusion, so I decided to take a look at their patent...

www.resetera.com

Bonus points for Death Stranding

EDIT: You know what watch the whole thing

 

[Bo_Hazem]

So,what's the deal with that destruction allstar game, I mean, it's a AA second party exclusive? A new studio acquisition or what?

Watch the beginning, it's labelled under PS Studios, then after it's a game by Lucid (probably a new branch, never heard about them)




Can't wait to play it! I really hope it's a launch title.

 

[Bo_Hazem]

Destruction AllStars (PS Studios) gameplay screenshots.

The next BIG multiplayer! Hope it's free, it'll pay off with microtransactions when monetized smartly like fortnite.

 

[DeeDogg_]

Destruction AllStars (PS Studios) gameplay screenshots.

The next BIG multiplayer! Hope it's free, it'll pay off with microtransactions when monetized smartly like fortnite.

That last explosion in particular looks real last gen

 

[Sinthor]

Destruction AllStars (PS Studios) gameplay screenshots.

The next BIG multiplayer! Hope it's free, it'll pay off with microtransactions when monetized smartly like fortnite.

I've seen a lot of people kind of ripping on this game. The attitude is, it's just some stupid little no name crash derby game. But...uh....Rocket League? That got pretty big. As for the technical side....do you see all the particle effects in explosions and the deformation and pieces the cars smash into, let alone all the reflections and such? This game is not some technically insignificant little thing. It seems fairly impressive to me. And, like Rocket League, it's a simple to pick up, but (seemingly) fun to play and probably fairly deep from how you can customize things. It looks to me like it might be "the next big thing" on the PS5 platform. Time will tell.

Bottom line, I think this game deserves more of a look and more credit than it's getting right now.

 

[Lethal01]

There are people in this forum really out here acting like if the first wave of next gen games don't look like this, It's not a generational leap.

Shame on VFX Veteran

 

[Bo_Hazem]

I've seen a lot of people kind of ripping on this game. The attitude is, it's just some stupid little no name crash derby game. But...uh....Rocket League? That got pretty big. As for the technical side....do you see all the particle effects in explosions and the deformation and pieces the cars smash into, let alone all the reflections and such? This game is not some technically insignificant little thing. It seems fairly impressive to me. And, like Rocket League, it's a simple to pick up, but (seemingly) fun to play and probably fairly deep from how you can customize things. It looks to me like it might be "the next big thing" on the PS5 platform. Time will tell.

Bottom line, I think this game deserves more of a look and more credit than it's getting right now.

It'll get all the attention, I'm more than sure it's the next big thing. Can't wait to play it! Looks way more fun than fortnite at least. Rocket League is amazing, but this one is so chaotic and fun!

 

[Apollo Helios]

There are people in this forum really out here acting like if the first wave of next gen games don't look like this, It's not a generational leap.

Shame on VFX Veteran

If it looks like this in PS6 or even PS7 era we are totally fucked, it is beyond uncanny valley that it will be hard to discern real-time rendering with life. Photorealism need to stop at one point, then focus on performance/resolution but should never cross that valley imo.

 

[3liteDragon]

And another one above the 90s https://www.metacritic.com/game/playstation-4/the-last-of-us-part-ii


That's why PS gamers cherish first party exclusives, because of the craft, of the quality. And that's why the voices that say having exclusives it's anti-consumer sound like nothing more than white noise to me.

Already pre-loaded on my PS4.

 

[husomc]

What is jaggies? You mean the ladder effect? I think it's VRS kicking in. I think it'll be sort it out as it seems in alpha phase so far.

Yup aliasing. Moving from ps3 to ps4, my benchmark for next gen was the elimination of aliasing and shimmering. It's disappointing to see it make a comeback on the PS5, however small. On another note this could be me hating on GranTurismo. Never was a fan of the series. I liked driveclub much more and was really pissed that Sony decided to shut them down. Also menus and the general aesthetics of GT games are really dated.

 

[Apollo Helios]

I've seen a lot of people kind of ripping on this game. The attitude is, it's just some stupid little no name crash derby game. But...uh....Rocket League? That got pretty big. As for the technical side....do you see all the particle effects in explosions and the deformation and pieces the cars smash into, let alone all the reflections and such? This game is not some technically insignificant little thing. It seems fairly impressive to me. And, like Rocket League, it's a simple to pick up, but (seemingly) fun to play and probably fairly deep from how you can customize things. It looks to me like it might be "the next big thing" on the PS5 platform. Time will tell.

Bottom line, I think this game deserves more of a look and more credit than it's getting right now.

Agree that it can be a big impact game like the next rocket league. On the note of deformation, actually it can be done in most sim racers because the engines are capable however most car manufacturers license their cars to games on condition of non deformation and destruction, or as little as possible of it. This game will not suffer that fate. It is a much less sinister twisted metal meets Rocket League.

 

[sircaw]

Destruction AllStars (PS Studios) gameplay screenshots.

The next BIG multiplayer! Hope it's free, it'll pay off with microtransactions when monetized smartly like fortnite.

Those screens look great

 

[Apollo Helios]

Already pre-loaded on my PS4.

Is the dynamic theme available beforehand? Mine is downloading as well and I have the Digital Deluxe Ed. but only have the game downloading currently, how can I get OST and the other thing to DL?

 

[Gamerguy84]

Wondering if any new F2P games are coming.

When PS4 launched one of my most played games was Blacklight Retribution..

I had Ass Creed Black Flag but hated it.

 

[3liteDragon]

Is the dynamic theme available beforehand? Mine is downloading as well and I have the Digital Deluxe Ed. but only have the game downloading currently, how can I get OST and the other thing to DL?

The dynamic theme is already installed on your PS4 but you can only use it starting from June 19th. As for the soundtrack and artbook, they automatically started downloading for me only AFTER the game itself was fully installed.

 

[Three Jackdaws]

Feel the need to reiterate that portion:


Now to the crux of whole VRS debacle and PS5's inherent hw efficiency that voids the need to use VRS in the first place
Remember Matt Hargett ex Sony principle software engineer on Playstation when he tweeted this gem:


and also this thread where someone working at MS gets in on the discussion and says MS also have GE (but from GCN μArch, then Matt retorts and says what PS has is specific to their platform and what MS has is generic version - and MS employee deletes his tweets after breaking NDA and making a fool of himself in the meanwhile)


Let me try to explain it to you guys, GE - Geometry Engine is not something one and done, it has versions just like GCN, RDNA 1, RDNA 2, and what MS didn't work on with their consoles were primitive discards right on the primitive shaders, which unsurprisingly what Sony was working on for during last gen, both in PS4 and then later on PS4 Pro consoles. Their efforts were mostly unused because of some reason that are not clear, but it is safe to say they botched that aspect up until now. However on PS5, with their past mistakes, they implemented the correct hw to discard geometry that is
1 - not in the FoV of the screen with some safety margins, (++ perf gain)
2 - in the screen but behind objects thus are unseen (+++++ perf gain)

#2 is important because up until now, the objects behind were still being calculated in the GPU (before GE) but then later on discarded, since they are not drawn on the screen anyway, however as you can see even some calculation for those unseen/behind objects are completely unnecessary. PS4 Pro botched the implementation of this step (did the #1 very well and you can see HZD documentary for it - timestamped for exact visualization and explanation to #1)

Back then it was (trade marked) called as frustum culling which lead to the no loading, no cut open world designs like the ones found in God of War, HZD etc.

Now at this point they could do #2 as well but not on hardware, and not before whole lot of calculations were done on the object that will end up non-drawn anyway. Doing it in software not only loads CPU, but also not all GPU cycles were freed for those occluded objects, only a portion of it (and most likely very small one).

Now GE on PS5 is capable of doing it in hw and freeing up those precious cycles for other things, and on the next gen consoles only PS5 has the new version while MS gone ahead with the old one (but instead they went with VRS way).

There's a patent deep dive in a post if you want to read further

Primitive Shader: AMD's Patent Deep Dive

Primitive shader was mentioned in The Road to PS5 video, many suspected it was just another term for Mesh Shader, some said they are different concepts and thus PS5 would not support mesh shader. AMD's own marketing did not help clear the confusion, so I decided to take a look at their patent...

www.resetera.com

Bonus points for Death Stranding

EDIT: You know what watch the whole thing

Wow, thanks for bringing this information together. Although a lot of this is beyond me I do have a basic understanding of what is going on and correct me if I am wrong, in a the smallest of nutshells the PS5 has hardware accelerated features which allows the game developers to take full control of the vertices/triangles which means that the only triangles/polygons which are in the field of view (FoV) need to be drawn/rendered and triangles which cannot be seen by the player (in case they are behind or covered by other objects) don't need to be drawn/rendered either, so this would mean the more CPU/GPU resources will be freed for other tasks.

Cerny did mention in his tech talk that the Geometry Engine is an optional feature and it will depend on developers if and how much they want to utilise it, considering what you have shared about the development of Horizon Zero Dawn, they could have made good use of GE. Although, I'm sure they'll make good use of it on the sequel.

Also interesting that the development team on Horizon Zero Dawn have a dedicated person(s) who manage the data streaming and loading aspect of the game, I'm sure they'll take full advantage of the GE features as well as the SSD.

 

[Sinthor]

The dynamic theme is already installed on your PS4 but you can only use it starting from June 19th. As for the soundtrack and artbook, they automatically started downloading for me only AFTER the game itself was fully installed.

Wait a second, how can the GAME be fully installed when it doesn't release till 6/19?

 

[3liteDragon]

Wait a second, how can the GAME be fully installed when it doesn't release till 6/19?

Pre-orders for games are usually installed on your PS4, days or even weeks in this case before the game's release, but it's locked. You can only open the game on it's release date. But you're given the option to turn on auto-download or not.

 

[Sinthor]

Pre-orders for games are usually installed on your PS4, days or even weeks in this case before the game's release, but it's locked. You can only open the game on it's release date. But you're given the option to turn on auto-download or not.

Wow, I didn't think it would install that far in advance. Unfortunately, I'm betting that setting your system time and date ahead won't make it work to unlock, either.

 

[MasterCornholio]

Look at these crabs dude

Yeah they look great.

 

[Corndog]

Wow, thanks for bringing this information together. Although a lot of this is beyond me I do have a basic understanding of what is going on and correct me if I am wrong, in a the smallest of nutshells the PS5 has hardware accelerated features which allows the game developers to take full control of the vertices/triangles which means that the only triangles/polygons which are in the field of view (FoV) need to be drawn/rendered and triangles which cannot be seen by the player (in case they are behind or covered by other objects) don't need to be drawn/rendered either, so this would mean the more CPU/GPU resources will be freed for other tasks.

Cerny did mention in his tech talk that the Geometry Engine is an optional feature and it will depend on developers if and how much they want to utilise it, considering what you have shared about the development of Horizon Zero Dawn, they could have made good use of GE. Although, I'm sure they'll make good use of it on the sequel.

Also interesting that the development team on Horizon Zero Dawn have a dedicated person(s) who manage the data streaming and loading aspect of the game, I'm sure they'll take full advantage of the GE features as well as the SSD.

Culling non visible geometry is nothing new. That said I have not looked to see how this compares to previous generation.

 

[Apollo Helios]

Wow, thanks for bringing this information together. Although a lot of this is beyond me I do have a basic understanding of what is going on and correct me if I am wrong, in a the smallest of nutshells the PS5 has hardware accelerated features which allows the game developers to take full control of the vertices/triangles which means that the only triangles/polygons which are in the field of view (FoV) need to be drawn and triangles which cannot be seen by the player (in case they are behind or covered by other objects) don't need to be drawn either, so this would mean the more CPU/GPU resources will be freed for other tasks.

You are partially correct in that drawn and calculated but undrawn/shaded is not the same thing
a) "only triangles/polygons which are in the field of view (FoV) need to be drawn" this part is always hw 'accelerated' in the GCN era, they are not even calculated first, only to be discarded later on, no gpu cycles at all for PS4 and PS5 (and possibly XBone) basically no calculation no shading and this is only prim shaders (not complete solution like GE)

b) "triangles which cannot be seen by the player (in case they are behind or covered by other objects) don't need to be drawn either" is two fold, in the past gen it was done in software and it was taking up CPU load and GPU cycles, it was calculated first but discarded later on to save some % of GPU overhead, like if it was drawn it would be 100% loss, if it was not calculated at all 0% loss, and this solution is somewhere in the middle, calculated but not shaded in the final for 80% loss (only 20%perf gain based on software)

Now GE on PS5 is new implementation of prim shaders in hw (now something even bigger in scope so that they actually renamed it to Geometry Engine that does geometry culling). Programmable GE can save 100% of calculation for objects that are in the FoV but unseen, it is a step even before start of culling so that each frame only calculates what can be seen within the FoV, and then draws only them.

Think of it this way, before GE, objects that was within FoV but unseen by the camera needed to be calculated by CPU so that it could be placed there in the unseen zone, when it was in that zone it was then discarded from memory (and this also caused a lot of misses and invalidations, so unnecessary GPU stalls) even when they were not drawn by the GPU, now GE checks the geometry of asset IDs and if they should be unseen, even partially, it does not even stream them (unseen parts) to memory (CPU cycle saved, memory bandwidth & space saved). This is the most efficient implementation of culling, VRS is cheating to lessen impact and cheaping out on the real culling.

 

[Bo_Hazem]

Yup aliasing. Moving from ps3 to ps4, my benchmark for next gen was the elimination of aliasing and shimmering. It's disappointing to see it make a comeback on the PS5, however small. On another note this could be me hating on GranTurismo. Never was a fan of the series. I liked driveclub much more and was really pissed that Sony decided to shut them down. Also menus and the general aesthetics of GT games are really dated.

I think it's Polyphony outdated engine still using LOD's like that pop-in in the tunnel, and probably VRS kicking in. GT7 so far is the least impressive graphically.

 

[Sinthor]

Is anyone else having problems with the PS5 site using a Mac and Safari? Keeps saying that due to a recent update to the website my browser temporarily isn't supported. I can log in to my Sony account but then it dumps me back to the same page and has "Sign In" as an option. Just weird that a main browser like that would have issues. Chrome works just fine, of course.

 

[Three Jackdaws]

Is anyone else having problems with the PS5 site using a Mac and Safari? Keeps saying that due to a recent update to the website my browser temporarily isn't supported. I can log in to my Sony account but then it dumps me back to the same page and has "Sign In" as an option. Just weird that a main browser like that would have issues. Chrome works just fine, of course.

Dude, this has been happening to me for months now, I cannot login onto the PS site through Safari on my Macbook, I'm instead forced to use Chrome which is a great browser but kills the battery life on my Mac.

 

[Apollo Helios]

Is anyone else having problems with the PS5 site using a Mac and Safari? Keeps saying that due to a recent update to the website my browser temporarily isn't supported. I can log in to my Sony account but then it dumps me back to the same page and has "Sign In" as an option. Just weird that a main browser like that would have issues. Chrome works just fine, of course.

Same here. It has something to do with Safari preventing cross site tracking and daily cookie removal I think.

 

[Apollo Helios]

Dude, this has been happening to me for months now, I cannot login onto the PS site through Safari on my Macbook, I'm instead forced to use Chrome which is a great browser but kills the battery life on my Mac.

To be fair, look at my above explanation, Safari is safer to use and gives the most privacy as a result. Chrome logs and sells your surfing habits and data.

 

[Corndog]

You are partially correct in that drawn and calculated but undrawn/shaded is not the same thing
a) "only triangles/polygons which are in the field of view (FoV) need to be drawn" this part is always hw 'accelerated' in the GCN era, they are not even calculated first, only to be discarded later on, no gpu cycles at all for PS4 and PS5 (and possibly XBone) basically no calculation no shading and this is only prim shaders (not complete solution like GE)

b) "triangles which cannot be seen by the player (in case they are behind or covered by other objects) don't need to be drawn either" is two fold, in the past gen it was done in software and it was taking up CPU load and GPU cycles, it was calculated first but discarded later on to save some % of GPU overhead, like if it was drawn it would be 100% loss, if it was not calculated at all 0% loss, and this solution is somewhere in the middle, calculated but not shaded in the final for 80% loss (only 20%perf gain based on software)

Now GE on PS5 is new implementation of prim shaders in hw (now something even bigger in scope so that they actually renamed it to Geometry Engine that does geometry culling). Programmable GE can save 100% of calculation for objects that are in the FoV but unseen, it is a step even before start of culling so that each frame only calculates what can be seen within the FoV, and then draws only them.

Think of it this way, before GE, objects that was within FoV but unseen by the camera needed to be calculated by CPU so that it could be placed there in the unseen zone, when it was in that zone it was then discarded from memory (and this also caused a lot of misses and invalidations, so unnecessary GPU stalls) even when they were not drawn by the GPU, now GE checks the geometry of asset IDs and if they should be unseen, even partially, it does not even stream them (unseen parts) to memory (CPU cycle saved, memory bandwidth & space saved). This is the most efficient implementation of culling, VRS is cheating to lessen impact and cheaping out the real culling.

VRS is not cheating anymore then checkerboard rendering is cheating. It can also be used to increase fidelity in select areas. I also highly doubt the Xbox culling will be any different then Sony’s considering they are using the same base tech.

 

[ksdixon]

"The new, currently-unnamed character quickly sparked a firestorm on social media, with fans of the franchise curious to see what role they will ultimately have. The gender of the character has also been a topic of conversation, as female Lombaxes had previously been established to not have tails. While there's a chance that Rift Apart will be retconning that in some way and having this new character be female, some fans have already headcanon-ed the new character as transgender or nonbinary."

oh for god's sake. give it a rest for once, ResetEra.

Edit: Next Gen Speculation? Is this Sony's first "next gen" trans character? wink, wink.

 

[husomc]

80 mins, someone please post a summary/recap once done. Cheers!

Summary:
There's 4k footage but if 4k footage is there they mention that it's definitely 30fps. If the graphical density is high and they don't know the framerate, then it must be 30fps just coz. There are raytraced elements on almost all first party titles. R&C had raytraced reflections but some were excluded from being raytraced. They generally liked all the indie titles apart from the Octodad creators title which they felt was like a ps3 game. Talked a lot about wanting more gameplay and less cinematics. Complained a lot about unclear messaging on whether titles were cross gen or ps5 only. Godfall is 4k 60 but according to them no raytracing. (personally i thought godfall looked like crap) Threw in a xbox targeting 120fps statement. Regarding the console it's too big, big, big (add any other synonyms for big) wanted to know how the cooling was going to work. There are not fans of the design and hated the Digital edition.

And in conclusion they felt there could have been lesser games and more gameplay. and a price. In Richard's words they should have shown Horizon and then shouted out the price of the PS5 saying this is what you have to pay to play this game.

 

[Lethal01]

You are partially correct in that drawn and calculated but undrawn/shaded is not the same thing
a) "only triangles/polygons which are in the field of view (FoV) need to be drawn" this part is always hw 'accelerated' in the GCN era, they are not even calculated first, only to be discarded later on, no gpu cycles at all for PS4 and PS5 (and possibly XBone) basically no calculation no shading and this is only prim shaders (not complete solution like GE)

b) "triangles which cannot be seen by the player (in case they are behind or covered by other objects) don't need to be drawn either" is two fold, in the past gen it was done in software and it was taking up CPU load and GPU cycles, it was calculated first but discarded later on to save some % of GPU overhead, like if it was drawn it would be 100% loss, if it was not calculated at all 0% loss, and this solution is somewhere in the middle, calculated but not shaded in the final for 80% loss (only 20%perf gain based on software)

Now GE on PS5 is new implementation of prim shaders in hw (now something even bigger in scope so that they actually renamed it to Geometry Engine that does geometry culling). Programmable GE can save 100% of calculation for objects that are in the FoV but unseen, it is a step even before start of culling so that each frame only calculates what can be seen within the FoV, and then draws only them.

Think of it this way, before GE, objects that was within FoV but unseen by the camera needed to be calculated by CPU so that it could be placed there in the unseen zone, when it was in that zone it was then discarded from memory (and this also caused a lot of misses and invalidations, so unnecessary GPU stalls) even when they were not drawn by the GPU, now GE checks the geometry of asset IDs and if they should be unseen, even partially, it does not even stream them (unseen parts) to memory (CPU cycle saved, memory bandwidth & space saved). This is the most efficient implementation of culling, VRS is cheating to lessen impact and cheaping out on the real culling.

Wouldn't having VRS ontop of that still give a boost though?

"The new, currently-unnamed character quickly sparked a firestorm on social media, with fans of the franchise curious to see what role they will ultimately have. The gender of the character has also been a topic of conversation, as female Lombaxes had previously been established to not have tails. While there's a chance that Rift Apart will be retconning that in some way and having this new character be female, some fans have already headcanon-ed the new character as transgender or nonbinary."

oh for god's sake. give it a rest for once, ResetEra.

Edit: Next Gen Speculation? Is this Sony's first "next gen" trans character? wink, wink.

Tbh her having something only male lombaxes have is a decent reason to think she's male.

 

[husomc]

I'm wondering :

Was the reveal of a full digital PS5 the meaning no PS1/2/3 retro ? Why would people buy the All-Digital when you could play older games on the "basic" version ?

I haven't bought a single disc based game for the PS4 for the entire generation. The only time I used the disc drive was to watch my daughter's ballet recital which in 2019 they decided to burn on a DVD at sub HD resolutions. So I would jump on a discless console that might save me some money. I also do understand that there are ppl collectors who line their walls with games they have bought since the 80s and might want to use a disc from a ps1 to play on the PS5. So it's great that Sony has given us a choice. For ppl jumping into gaming with no attachments to the past can buy the discless version without hesitation.

 

[SportsFan581]

To me, I see a big big difference. The skin, the hair look way better more realistic.

I don't think anyone would say the visuals are not notably improved. It's just that the visuals were so good before, that wasn't a specific point of contention for many this gen.

Graphically, PS1 > PS2, or PS2 > PS3 were more instant in a purely visual sense.

 

[MasterCornholio]

Tbh her having something only male lombaxes have is a decent reason to think she's male.

Or Female Ratchet and Male Ratchet can have a family together.

 

[ksdixon]

"The new, currently-unnamed character quickly sparked a firestorm on social media, with fans of the franchise curious to see what role they will ultimately have. The gender of the character has also been a topic of conversation, as female Lombaxes had previously been established to not have tails. While there's a chance that Rift Apart will be retconning that in some way and having this new character be female, some fans have already headcanon-ed the new character as transgender or nonbinary."

oh for god's sake. give it a rest for once, ResetEra.

Edit: Next Gen Speculation? Is this Sony's first "next gen" trans character? wink, wink.

Tbh her having something only male lombaxes have is a decent reason to think she's male.

I would have thought the Logical assumption, based on dimension-jumping black holes no less, would be that this is a female lombax from a dimension where they do have tales. Not jump straight to 'this is clearly a trans/non-binary character'.

 

[Apollo Helios]

VRS is not cheating anymore then checkerboard rendering is cheating. It can also be used to increase fidelity in select areas. I also highly doubt the Xbox culling will be any different then Sony’s considering they are using the same base tech.

checkerboard rendering is cheating too mate. I'm not defending checkerboard and then piss on VRS, they are different methods of cheating out on a real efficient culling, and provide extra overhead for non efficient rendering done but can never replace an efficient culling 1:1. VRS never increases fidelity in any areas, if you cheap out on circumferential fringes only to increase fidelity in the center there is no net gain anyway, no real efficiency, only cheating by saying pixels on sides are not important as pixels in the middle and doing a form of asymmetrical checkerboarding. You may highly doubts all you want, facts substantiated by software engineering principles leave nothing beyond the shadow of doubt for normal people, except for fanatics.

And "same base tech" which is a gross underestimation and an umbrella term for RDNA 2 is wrong in that each console has malleable feature lists that they have chosen. That is why both corporation underlines time and again by saying CUSTOM, this part is one of those customizations based on RDNA 2 μArch.

 

[Three Jackdaws]

You are partially correct in that drawn and calculated but undrawn/shaded is not the same thing
a) "only triangles/polygons which are in the field of view (FoV) need to be drawn" this part is always hw 'accelerated' in the GCN era, they are not even calculated first, only to be discarded later on, no gpu cycles at all for PS4 and PS5 (and possibly XBone) basically no calculation no shading and this is only prim shaders (not complete solution like GE)

b) "triangles which cannot be seen by the player (in case they are behind or covered by other objects) don't need to be drawn either" is two fold, in the past gen it was done in software and it was taking up CPU load and GPU cycles, it was calculated first but discarded later on to save some % of GPU overhead, like if it was drawn it would be 100% loss, if it was not calculated at all 0% loss, and this solution is somewhere in the middle, calculated but not shaded in the final for 80% loss (only 20%perf gain based on software)

Now GE on PS5 is new implementation of prim shaders in hw (now something even bigger in scope so that they actually renamed it to Geometry Engine that does geometry culling). Programmable GE can save 100% of calculation for objects that are in the FoV but unseen, it is a step even before start of culling so that each frame only calculates what can be seen within the FoV, and then draws only them.

Think of it this way, before GE, objects that was within FoV but unseen by the camera needed to be calculated by CPU so that it could be placed there in the unseen zone, when it was in that zone it was then discarded from memory (and this also caused a lot of misses and invalidations, so unnecessary GPU stalls) even when they were not drawn by the GPU, now GE checks the geometry of asset IDs and if they should be unseen, even partially, it does not even stream them (unseen parts) to memory (CPU cycle saved, memory bandwidth & space saved). This is the most efficient implementation of culling, VRS is cheating to lessen impact and cheaping out on the real culling.

I understand much better now, thank you. I'm also a little blown away from what I've just learned about the GE, seems like a really neat feature which allows for huge gains in efficiency.

This is from Paul from RedGamingTech explaining GE and VRS and it also adds up to what you have said.

"From what I understand speaking to a few developers, one of the big complaints about the PS4 and Pro is that developers didn't have as much control over the GPU as they wanted to, and this is one of the reasons why the PS4 Pro was kinda noisy, I've heard. that a number of developers didn't have as much of a fine grain control over culling and the entire control of the pipeline is perhaps what they would have wanted, this is why the GE is in place"

Here is a timestampped link, he goes over explaining VRS and then GE on the PS5.

 

[Lethal01]

I would have thought the Logical assumption, based on dimension-jumping black holes no less, would be that this is a female lombax from a dimension where they do have tales. Not jump straight to 'this is clearly a trans/non-binary character'.

That's a logical guess, as is her being male due to having a trait usually exclusive to males.
I just don't think you can write this as a case of people grasping at straws.

If you looked for the differences between male or female lombaxes one of the first things you would get is that only males have tales. It's logical to think the creators are extremely aware of this and right now it's a fair possibility that the creators would include a trans character.

Only issue I see is if people get mad if it turns out she is just in a universe where female lombaxes have tails.

 

[saintjules]

Starting to think that's one of the reasons they showed GTA at the start. $1mil a month in GTA 'V' until PS5 launch. $5 mil....5 months till launch?

 

[ksdixon]

Did you read Jim Ryan's reply about BC in the CNET interview? That is a clear mixed/contradictory message after watching and listening to Mark Cerny in Road to PS5 for me!

Like you say PS4 was so simple (barebones even) but clear about everything and now with PS5 it is like they are frightened to death to say anything definitive or even clear anything up when even the hardcore forums are arguing the meaning of everything said.

what did each one say? are these recent statements?

 

[MasterCornholio]

I would have thought the Logical assumption, based on dimension-jumping black holes no less, would be that this is a female lombax from a dimension where they do have tales. Not jump straight to 'this is clearly a trans/non-binary character'.

It could be like a multiverse thing where she is the remake version of Ratchet. Essentially Ratchet was born female instead of male. Which wouldn't have anything to do with being transgender because she's biologically a female.

That's my guess.

 

[Apollo Helios]

Wouldn't having VRS ontop of that still give a boost though?

Depends on the goal of devs, if goal is perf gain to eke out every last bit to lock 60fps, then it does this by lowering resolution on the edges and would give a boost on top of geometry culling. As you can see it is actually just a smart version of checkerboard rendering where every pixel are not equal in importance. But if GE is enough to lock 60 fps no reason to jump the hoops or decrease resolution partially on places on the screen.

 

[ksdixon]

and right now it's a fair possibility that the creators would include a trans character.

That is just a wholeheartedly saddening statement about the games industry in general. That (sometimes decades-old) established backstory and lore would potentially and perhaps repeatedly get thrown away to satisfy the social/politcal climate du jour.

 

[ksdixon]

It could be like a multiverse thing where she is the remake version of Ratchet. Essentially Ratchet was born female instead of male. Which wouldn't have anything to do with being transgender because she's biologically a female.

That's my guess.

I like the idea behind this as it could provide some interesting narrative turns, but the unnamed character says 'who?' to being called Rachet.

 

[Lethal01]

That is just a wholeheartedly saddening statement about the games industry in general. That (sometimes decades-old) established backstory and lore would potentially and perhaps repeatedly get thrown away to satisfy the social/politcal climate du jour.

Huh? was it established that female Lombaxes have tails in Rachet and Clank? If not I really couldn't care less if they feel like throwing in a trans character.

Depends on the goal of devs, if goal is perf gain to eke out every last bit to lock 60fps, then it does this by lowering resolution on the edges and would give a boost on top of geometry culling. As you can see it is actually just a smart version of checkerboard rendering where every pixel are not equal in importance. But if GE is enough to lock 60 fps no reason to jump the hoops or decrease resolution partially on places on the screen.

I mean, from what you are saying the answer isn't that it depends but yes. It's just up to the devs if they want to make use of it or not.

I'm mostly curious because of it's applications in VR when combined with a headset that has eye tracking.

 

[Three Jackdaws]

Depends on the goal of devs, if goal is perf gain to eke out every last bit to lock 60fps, then it does this by lowering resolution on the edges and would give a boost on top of geometry culling. As you can see it is actually just a smart version of checkerboard rendering where every pixel are not equal in importance. But if GE is enough to lock 60 fps no reason to jump the hoops or decrease resolution partially on places on the screen.

So theoretically speaking, a game which takes full advantage of Geometry Engine will mean that the GPU/CPU won't be taxed as much and what ever amount of resources left can be focused on other tasks such as higher frame rates, more detail or even a cooler CPU/GPU? of course depending on how the developer utilises the GE to begin with.

 

[Apollo Helios]

Also a smart VRS is not cheap it costs CPU cycles to calculate the resolution steps. A dumb VRS on the other hand is mostly free. A dumb VRS approach is where the screen is radially chopped up to pieces, like pie charts, and then resolution steps are defined to each piece. This form can easily be applied to racing games as it fits their nature, a mostly unchanging position of the car at the center and the important bit that is road ahead, and unimportant edges of the screen. A smart VRS is calculated each frame based on object IDs and compared with depth buffers for distance to the camera and then an algorithm is applied to assign importance values based on distance and dev assigned values for objects, that is how it eats up some CPU cycles to save on GPU overhead. That is why I said there's little net gain if any, you shift from one to save up on the other, if there's budget to do that, because there is a cost to smart VRS.

 

[Gamerguy84]

I thought Sony was going to use their version of VRS in PSVR 2?

 

[husomc]

Found this funny
Would certainly be an exotic way to cool things if the ps5 got hot....it opens up

They should just give it legs so the PS5 can go look for the nearest fan or A/C unit

 

[Corndog]

Just watched this video on mesh shaders for directx. Sounds exactly the same as geometry engine. Instead of fixed function you can use compute to do geometry computations.