NVIDIA RTX IO Brings PS5's Hyped SSD Performance to PCs

We've heard a lot about the PlayStation 5's magical SSD architecture, which is supposed to usher in an era of lightning-quick loading times and streaming speeds that are unheard of, even in the PC world.

[Jin_Sakai]

“It’s unclear whether this feature is exclusive to NVIDIA’s new GeForce RTX 30 Series, or if it will be available for Turing-based GPUs as well.“

Every single PS5 will have a 5.5 GB/s SSD whereas PC owners SSD speeds will vary. So PS5 will still benefit.

[RaidenBlack]

Nvidia updated their article later. RTX IO is coming to Turing-based GPUs as well.

[Marquinho]

It's not bringing anything from PS5. It's using Microsoft's Direct Storage. The fact that Sony marketed their SSD so hard doesn't mean nVidia got inspired by it. MS did it for XSX and PCs thinking of the next generation.

[RaidenBlack]

@Marquinho, but I didn't mention anything related to the PS5.

[Marquinho]

Yeah... I was referring to the article title.

[Babadook7]

I think Nvidia is using the (mostly) software based approach that Microsoft touted. Not as sophisticated as what's in PS5 but a step in the right direction. It's also going to need to take compute away from the GPU, unlike the ps5, which could make it perform worse in heavy streaming situations.

[StoneyYoshi]

Thats cool but it wont be nearly as beneficial on PCI 3.0 as it will be on 4.0.

[Eonjay]

It's still not as fast as the PS5. They admitted as much. In the end it comes down to the 12 channels on the controller.

But next year let's revisit this when the you can actually buy one of the new SSDs.

[DJStotty]

Your correct, some may have slower SSD's, some may have faster SSD's.

[Rimeskeem]

Either you buy a GPU the same cost as a PS5 or you buy an SSD that is maybe half the price

Consoles will always be good for younger gamers and those not wanting to enter high end pc market.

[shauzy]

@Rimeskeem
buying a GPU that costs the same as PS5 is lower class in the pc race, as the master race motto says: go broke or go home

[boing1]

@Rimeskeem

I'm a 40 year+ old game designer with family and I simply have no desire to play on PC because I see it as possible waste of time for me. Number of issues I've had with pc gaming in my career has absolutely killed it for me. I play exclusively on PS and work on PC, playing only the game we're making. I see this trend a lot among my friends and I also have seen pretty recent demographic data. Most gamers at my age are clearly choosing consoles because of convenience.

[Mithan]

@Rimeskeem:
I just want to correct you because you seem to lack knowledge. I have a PS4 Pro, I am 44 with an infant and a 2.5 year old kid. I also own a killer PC.

The reason people buy a console is variable, also, the majority of Sony consoles are owned by a 30+ crowd.

Why? Exclusive games, less trouble overall, sofa gaming, big screen tv gaming, living room gaming, etc.

Also, the PS4 Pro (and Xbox) have "good enough" graphics that most people can't tell the difference anyways. There isn't a huge difference between ACOdyssey on the PS4 Pro and my PC for example, that is actually noticeable when you are playing.

[crazyCoconuts]

@boing1 - I hear you, I bounce around a bit, but love the convenience of console gaming. But the 3000 series coming out at this time with SO much power at a great price point... hard to resist the temptation of seeing my multiplats and VR games torqued out to ultra all the way and still getting a high framerate...

[Christopher]

***Consoles will always be good for younger gamers and those not wanting to enter high end pc market.***

Laughable considering the mass majority of the PC market play on hardware no better than current gen consoles. You're acting like the <10% of PC gamers are the norm. That's like saying every Xbox owner plays on Xbox One X.

[Unspoken]

Rimeskeem makes a good point but I think he was misunderstood. There are plenty of reasons why consoles are beneficial and would be chosen over a PC. Price, ease of use - plug and play, lack of maintenance, size, portability, though a lot of these have been handled fairly well by PC.

If you are older and have moved on from PC for whatever reason you fall into his second category.

The article indicates we will have more devs working on the same tech and have exposure to more games utilizing the tech is really the bottom line.

[anubusgold]

@cornelis

No the huge step in gaming is amd hardware is behind 50% again like how i predicted months ago. This is what i said 99 days ago i under estimated lol

No Nvidia already said they are putting in twice the tensor cores that are used for raytracing so the next gen gaming gpus can run this easy and at a higher framerate than that 30 fps the PS5 demo is running at. Ray tracing will run at 60+ fps on the 3000 series and with better graphics since Nvidia is just better than amd we are looking at a 40 percent in graphics performance when the 3000 series launches.
99d ago 0 agree1 disagree

[LordoftheCritics]

All I'm picturing is a superman game or even a flash game.

[SullysCigar]

All I'm picturing is an empty wallet and wondering why I didn't buy a new TV, PS5 and a bunch of awesome exclusive games instead lol

[lelo2play]

Samsung already announced a new SDD that's faster then the one in the PS5... will even be released before the PS5.

[sero33]

this has little to do with the ssd in your pc. its going to be handled by the gpu which should be just as fast if not faster than the ssd in the ps5. it should also minimize latency. this is all in theory though so everybody should wait for benchmarks.

none of this matters though. games make or break a console, not its power or speed.

[NeoGamer232]

People are really over-estimating the benefits of fast SSD.

I agree that fast SSD is good and is useful for gaming... It will make levels larger and allow things like loading in different environments quicker as witnessed with R&C Rift Apart.

But, SSD is still not in the same ball park as RAM memory speeds (448 GB/s on PS5) so they are still a long way from really providing what is needed for games long term. Making a sloth move 5 or 10 times faster is a benefit. But, it still isn't comparable to a Cheetah.

[NeoGamer232]

@corneliis
RAM is used to compute and process the game engine. The more RAM you have the smart AI can be, the more complex a game, and the more interactive a game can be.

The only thing SSD storage provides is the initial loading of the game engine and the game environment.

If SSD was as fast as RAM it could do a lot more and games could be infinitely complex and interactive. But, since SSD is so slow compared to RAM it is narrowed to just a few functions.

[BrettAwesome]

@Neogamer
You're wrong. The super fast SSD's aren't only responsible for initial loading. They're responsible for loading data into RAM on the fly, which is one of the reasons they state they don't need more than 16gb. They can fill up ram in 2 seconds, meaning the can stream data to RAM as needed, not only initially but constantly.

[NeoGamer232]

@BrettAwesome
Yes, I did say, "different environments quicker as witnessed with R&C Rift Apart" which equates to loading data in on the fly.

But, there are limitations because SSD is nowhere as quick as RAM. If SSDs were in the same ballpark as RAM there would be no limitations.

[FlyingFoxy]

Fair to assume AMD will likely have something similar with their GPUs then. Looking good overall.

[TheOptimist]

Obviously they will. Consoles are AMD APUs -.-

[PixelOmen]

Yes, but the IO controllers on the consoles are dedicated coprocessors. Not saying AMD couldn't put something similar to this in a GPU, but the console architecture would have nothing to do with it.

[yeahokwhatever]

its a directx api so yes.

[DJStotty]

So the SSD tech is not exclusively only on the PS5 after all.

[RazzerRedux]

This isn't PS5 tech at all, but no, PS5's SSD tech isn't proprietary. This has been known for some time.

[PixelOmen]

PS5 tech is definitely proprietary. It's a custom designed coprocessor. Something could be created with similar/better performance, like RTXIO for example, but it wouldn't be the same tech.

[RazzerRedux]

@CyberCowboy

I'm not aware that Sony has even given Microsoft even the slightest mention. Sony doesn't have to. Sony let's their games do the talking and they are not afraid to show those next gen games off on PS5 hardware as Microsoft has been. They certainly don't have to trademark every damn thing in the hardware and brag about it endlessly instead of showing actual next gen games running on it. Bottom line: Microsoft absolutely needs to highlight the deltas while Sony does not. Simple as that.

[sprinterboy]

Nobody ever said it was, even Mark Cerney explained that.
You been living under a rock?

[garos82]

nobody said it would be

[Marquinho]

It's using Microsoft's Direct Storage. It has nothing to do with PS5. Microsoft had their own initiative for both PC and XSX.

[DJStotty]

I think the article is just basically saying, that the benefits the PS5 receives from the SSD architecture, will be mirrored in the other platforms by using similar methods albeit different names.

Poor choice of title i might add by saying "PS5's Hyped SSD Performance to PCs" i do not think it is "hyped" more than it is fact

There was the same article where the title mentioned the series X instead of the PS5.

[Marquinho]

Since it's using a Microsoft's technology that's going to be present in XSX, they should say that nVidia has partnered with Microsoft in order to bring the technology present in XSX to PCs, which is exactly what it is. Even Jensen (nVidia CEO) mentioned it in their event:

https://www.youtube.com/wat...

[waverider]

The only problem is that this cards will be used for less then 10% pc gamers. The average PC gamer doesnt have a high end PC. Not even close.

[RazzerRedux]

Why is that a "problem"? Since this will be available on Turing cards more and more PC gamers will have access to this as they upgrade. No more of a "problem" than ray tracing or any other new tech.

[garos82]

the "problem" is similar to that of seriex x and xbox one. you are not taking advantage of the beastly hardware when you have to cater to lesser beasts

[RazzerRedux]

@garos82

PC games have rarely had a problem outperforming their console counterparts so no, I don't see that as a problem. There isn't a console game out there that I wouldn't rather play on PC.

[waverider]

because the target gamers are a very low % of all PC gamers. The average PC gamers doesnt have a GPU that is able to use this.

[morganfell]

The problem is that developers and publishers are not going to be in a hurry to pay for all the time needed to really build their levels and in reality entire game design around a capability that few of their target audience possess. Having the PS5's architecture abilities provides very very limited boons if the developers do not build a game to take advantage of them. And by designing an entire game around a certain capability you are severing the other majority of PC gamers that do not have the correct hardware. They will in effect not even be able to play a game. Look at R&C into the Rift. There goes the rift. And that game is the tip of the iceberg. They are just getting started developing on the other side of the chasm that will really separate the PS5 titles from other games that employ a traditional design approach. The issue? Sales. Money. Operating in the red.

[RazzerRedux]

@waverider

"The average PC gamers doesnt have a GPU that is able to use this."

Which will change as more PC gamers adopt the newer tech. This is all part of the normal evolution of PC gaming.

@morganfell

Which means PC games are not likely to be "designed around" this tech immediately, but will still be able to take advantage of it. But the fact that this technology is becoming more prevalent and will be more widely adopted means more and more games in the future will indeed be designed with these capabilities in mind.

[sampsonon]

@RazzerRedux: I don't think that's what @garos82 was saying. he was saying that it's like the xbox one holding back the xsx. It had nothing to do with pc's out performing consoles.

[morganfell]

You can't take advantage of the tech if the software isn't there to take advantage of the tech. Its like having a dragster that does top speed...sitting in your garage with no strip on which to race it. I am not saying it will never happen but a smart person would wait. I will eventually get one next year sometime. Just not now. Let the drivers mature, the price to come down, and most importantly, the software to appear. As you said yourself, games in the future. When we get a little closer to that future I'll pony up. I might as well buy an 8K TV right now.

[RazzerRedux]

@morganfell

Well, there is a difference between software being "designed around" the tech and the software being able to take advantage of the tech as it is. Load times will improve without any effort as bottlenecks are removed. Devs don't have to program for that. But PC gamers are not going to see R&C type games that fully utilize it. That was your point and I agree with that, but that doesn't mean there will be no benefit at all. Don't think that is what you are saying so I think generally we agree.

@starchild

"But Sony has already said they plan to bring more of their games to PC, so even those are going to have to work on PC."

To be clear, Sony said they are exploring more games on PC. That doesn't mean PS5 games necessarily. More than likely that will be PS4 games, at least for quite some time, and those games are not designed around high speed SSD. If Sony isn't going to put their PS5 games on PS4 right away then they certainly are not going to push them to PC in the foreseeable future. Eventually, perhaps, and at that point high speed SSD will probably be standard for most.

[starchild]

@waverider
If that affected PC games it would also affect the majority of PS5 games, since the overwhelming majority of games on the PS5 will be multiplatform games that have to run on PC and Xbox platforms. So, at best you could argue that some PS5 exclusives could maybe take better advantage of it.

But Sony has already said they plan to bring more of their games to PC, so even those are going to have to work on PC.

I think that you will see some developers still targeting the newer IO speeds in their designs for PC games. It will be part of the required specs for their games. In other cases I think they will find ways to scale or adapt things for lesser hardware.

My prediction is that there won't be any significant real-world difference in this regard for PS5.

[anubusgold]

@morganfell Yes you can on pc you can always force settings some games dont even have decent AA or AF you can force it on pc when the developers get lazy. I remember back in the day when i used one card for graphics and one card for physics when the game itself ran like crap because of lazy developers.

[RaidenBlack]

Well, in case of RTX IO, its available even for an RTX 2060.
Just that, people with Turing GTX, Pascal and Maxwell are out of luck.

[TheOptimist]

I hope you realize these will also be enabled on the RTX 2060s and RTX 3060s which will be pretty affordable for most people. The GTX 1070 is still an extremely popular card. That is where the budget segment lies with the 60 and 70 series.

[sprinterboy]

Delusional pc elitist as usual, great tech for the ones who love high end/ultra gaming but agree 75% plus play on medium settings

[I_am_Batman]

I don't think that's right. The value proposition of the Ampere cards is much more convincing than it was with Turing, which only offered a small performance increase over Pascal. If Nvidia can meet the demand, these cards should sell really well. The inevitable 3060 and (maybe even 3050) will most likely support this feature as well, at a much lower price.

This is also great news for console players, because it means that higher IO bandwidth can be utilized by 3rd party devs more easily since it'll be a much more widespread feature.

[DJStotty]

If you are a PC gamer, then you would already be in the 10% that you mention.

You will probably find that the majority of PC gamers will have close/if not a high end PC.

[Christopher]

***You will probably find that the majority of PC gamers will have close/if not a high end PC.***

That's not even close to true. High End PC gaming is a niche market compared to most people who game on laptops and mid-range PCs that are about as good as mid-gen consoles.

[DJStotty]

May not have the top GPU's, but the builds themselves i personally would class as close to high end, like mid range+.

I game on PC on a mid-range PC but i would not class myself as a PC gamer. Half of the games i can not run all because of the GPU.

I suppose it depends on what you class as mid-range, my mid-range may be your low-range.

When you build a gaming rig, the components are next to nothing until you get to the GPU, so the PC could be classed as close to high end but have a slightly weaker GPU, like say a 1080ti. I think that was more the point i was trying to make.

[LordoftheCritics]

Every start of a console generation, pc gamers slowly transition to newer hardware. The games basically demand it. So whether someones picks up the highest 3090 or the unnannounced 3060, they will all far outperform the console. Thats exepcted.

It will be a large number of pc gamers who want to play the coming generation of games who will buy into the new tech. Why? Because the minimums which are closer to 2070 and 2080 are basically same price if not cheaper with the 3070 and also a larger performance gain. Its basically a no brainer.

[starchild]

Yet there will still be more higher end PCs than PS5 units sold in the first year. And then more and more people will be upgrading their PCs over time, including upgrades to new graphics cards that will come out in the coming years.

[Marquinho]

You do realize that Mid-End (Not high end) 3070 cards will provide 2x the power of a PS5, right?

Even the Low-End cards (probably 3060) will outperform it, so it's just a matter of upgrading. Not a "problem".

[Whitey2k]

Its crap that Sony made the tech and now everybody gonna want a piece of that tech. I think they should approach sony for that tech. Give it time when sony comes up with another tech idea nvidia will also take that tech idea

[Fishy Fingers]

Haha, what?

This is Nvidia tech leveraging MS's DirectStorage for Windows and ironically they'll be first to market (before PS5/XBSX). Nothing to do with "sony made tech".

[sampsonon]

Actually it does. Cerny and Sweany said that the tech Sony is using will far out perform anything on high end pc's. They both said the tech will come to market for pc's after sony launches the ps5. Meaning next yr. They are just talking about the speed, but how it's delivered. Sony is using their own tech which will hit pc's next yr.

[DJStotty]

@sampsonon

This has nothing to do with the PS5, or its tech.

So are Sony selling their tech to AMD and Intel? What Sony tech will be coming to PC's next year?

[TheOptimist]

The uneducation is real here.

Nvidia has been in the AI segment for very long now. I know it's not related, but what makes you think they are using Sony's tech to do all this?

[sampsonon]

The tech sony is using is better at transferring info faster because of the tech they created which won't be available til next yr sometime.

[RazzerRedux]

Don't let the article title confuse you. They are comparing RTX IO speed to PS5 SSD, but this is not PS5 SSD technology.

[sampsonon]

It's not, that's why it won't be faster than the ps5. It's not just the ssd but the tech surrounding it that makes it transfer info faster. Sony's tech when released for pc's will boost the speed way faster. But you gonna have to wait a bit.

[Melankolis]

It doesn't have anything to do with Sony.
PC is always ahead in technology, but console will set a standard what is going mainstream next.
I bet next-gen, after XSX and PS5 out, there will be more PC games require SSDs for recommended specification.

[karlmarblazehorn]

Technology like this has been around since 2016 were workstations cards bolted SSD's too the GPU, the novelty about DirectStorage is it can use the consumer SSD instead. This is all too support virtual texturing and virtual geometry using the new Meshlet piplines. Sony did not invent this technology at all.

[LordoftheCritics]

Its alright, we all talk shit sometimes.

[SegaGamer]

Well done, you win the award for Sony fanboy of the day.

[Sircolby45]

It's cute that you think Sony somehow pioneered this tech and everyone else "copied" it from them.

[SierraGuy]

Once PS5 releases it will be torn down completely and copied... until then nobody knows exactly how it works...so yes nobody will catch up until at least 6 months after PS5 release.

Also if you ask me they have "pioneered" the tech like usual.

[Kribwalker]

lol it’s not even using PS5 tech. It’s using the direct storage API, which is designed by MS and used in their velocity architecture

Not only is this tech not Sony’s, but it has placed sony as the odd man out here, as now programmers will be programming for Xbox and PC’s with these cards with the direct storage api at the forefront.

and the fact of the matter is, the PC market >>>>>>> than the console market

[RookieMonsterLives]

Oh I didn't know that the SSD tech in the new RTX 3000 series is the same as the one found on XSX. That means that the majority of developers will make their next gen games with PC/XSX as the lead platforms.

The PS5 is already underpowered but the SSD speed was their biggest strength and their one and only advantage hardware wise. But if most developers are not taking advantage of it and prioritize the XSX due to the Velocity Architecture is the same tech as the PC, then that is not looking good for Playstation 5. These Digital Foundry comparisons will be interesting.

[DJStotty]

@Whitey2k

You sound like one of these that think Sony own Blu-ray as well.

[aaronaton]

This IO is great and all, but not every PC gamer will have the same Card and SSD config (high-end) so PC developers will still have to design their games around the lowest common denominator (Steam surveys point to very low average spec Pc's from their user-base overall)
The Xbox also has this problem as it wants to launch their content across multiple platforms (XboxOne and PC)

This is why its safe to assume that the true next-gen DESIGNED games will only be available on the PS5. At this point in time, it will be virtually impossible to port the new Ratchet & Clank game to PC.

[catlover316]

They dont need to be high end, and as time goes on and the ps5 is actually released all that hardware will just get cheaper and faster. You cant have a strong opinion about something you know nothing about.

[aaronaton]

So are you saying that a PC developer can release a game with a minimum requirement of a PCieGen4 motherboard, and if the user doesn't have one, the game simply will not run?? If the answer if no (which is will be for the next 5+ years) then the developer simply cannot design a game around that specification.

[catlover316]

They can if they want, but it will be a while before we are there anyway. Maybe the games won’t load as fast on gen 3, but I’m sure they will work on even sata ssd.

[Christopher]

This is the truth of the matter as far as lowest common denominators.

Re: R&C -- I'm not certain it would be impossible. Multi-world loading games have existed. Dishonored 2 had the whole level where you could phased between two different times in the same level, for example. It just means a lot more would need to be constantly loaded. With higher-end CPUs to offset certain things as well, it might be doable. But, it would be a pain.

[Bladesfist]

It would most certainly be doable on Turing and Ampere at least, then it's just a business decision on whether or not to release a game on PC to such a small audience. Although that audience will probably be bigger than the PS5 install base when the game launches, they will have a really high attachment rate on the PS5 as there wont be many PS5 games on launch day so it will make much more business sense on console.

There are games like Star Citizen, Crysis and Flight Simulator that push the envelope and require very modern hardware on PC from time to time so I wont rule it out as impossible.

[Christopher]

***Although that audience will probably be bigger than the PS5 install base when the game launches, they will have a really high attachment rate on the PS5 as there wont be many PS5 games on launch day so it will make much more business sense on console.***

By the time the game releases (~march 2021), pretty sure the market reach of PS5 will be greater than that of GPUs that support what would be needed at that time. Regardless of the fervor in which PCMR people present online, they're a very niche market for constant upgrades, let alone the affect COVID is having on luxury purchases in general.

[catlover316]

R & c would run on current mid range hardware, what are you on about? Gamers would just play at 1080p.

[Christopher]

***R & c would run on current mid range hardware, what are you on about? Gamers would just play at 1080p.***

We're talking specifically about the loading of new world areas in rapid succession, which is reliant on a very fast SSD.

[SouljAx360]

There's only so much you can do with super fast loading speeds. Racing games exclusive to PS5? Everything that is 3rd party might just have more pop in or load stutter on the slower consoles and PC configs. I honestly don't think things will change all that much design wise. Just higher resolution textures and 4k gaming being the norm.

[mkis007]

You can literally stream new data as fast as you can turn the camera. How can you not see the massive impications?

[xtremexx]

You're talking like it isn't possible to program for different specs. Have you never seen an options menu before?

[GameBoyColor]

Im pretty sure big devs now scale down instead of up in terms of optimizing hw

[Bobertt]

That's great if it can give all the same benefits. Im really interested in the claims it will eliminate cpu bottlenecks, hopefully someone tests it with some older cpus to see.

[Bladesfist]

The idea is it's not using the CPU to decompress the data, it's loading compressed data to the GPU and then the Tensor cores (AI cores) are decompressing the data on the GPU.

So this is equivalent to the decompression co-processor in the PS5, it's just done on the AI cores on the GPU instead of on a separate processor.

[Hedstrom]

Thats awesome! Then more third party developers will program with lightning speed SSDs in mind!

[PitbullMonster]

Remember when PCMR laughed about Sony and their IO Tech. Now nvidia does the same and everyone is hyped. Lol
But Sony is still way ahead, the PS5 supports up to 22GB/s+Kraken+ Oodle Textures on Hardware base while RTX IO supports up to 14GB/s. On the other hand Nvidia has much more raw hardware power.

[LordoftheCritics]

Firstly your stats are completely false.

Secondly pc gamers love new tech. They may have been laughing at you not the tech.

[PitbullMonster]

With Kraken and Oodle Textures the Ps5 can reduce files to a quarter of their size, 4*5,5Gbs=22Gbs. Do you even math bro?

[LordoftheCritics]

Haha I know where you are getting all that.

LOL your data is still horse crap. Its a theoretical peak which is actually estimated at 9gb/s. In its entire lifetime it wont go that far.

[SierraGuy]

Linus 2.0 you are. 🤣

[Charal]

So IO speed is the next big thing for real.
Well played Sony to have anticipated the trend and equipped PS5 accordingly.

[Father__Merrin]

It's still not going to be anywhere near ps5 and the fact that it's a console means it will net even better results. I've not seen a gen where pc users have no choice but to upgrade to remain relevant.

In fact I would argue buying the new pc gpus will not usher in new gaming experiences eg if you can play warzone maxed at 60fps 90fps or 120fps a new latest gpu won't magically make it better unless you imagine things a lot,

[RazzerRedux]

PC gamers upgrade to improve performance. If you want to refer to that as "relevance"....lol, ok then console gamers had to buy TWO consoles this past gen to remain "relevant". That is just a silly line of thinking though, but we all know that is you being you.

"a new latest gpu won't magically make it better unless you imagine things a lot"

Exact same thing can be said for consoles. That's because it is up to game devs to create "new gaming experiences". New hardware brings new tools. It is still up to the devs to deliver the games. Not sure why these concepts are new to you.

[Father__Merrin]

Well let's wait and see the next gen console games and compare them to PC games

[Kados]

Actually, it is superior. With current PCI-E 4.0 NVMEs @ ~5GB/s raw, DX12 Ultimates Directstorage will provide 10GB/s compressed, which is higher than the PS5s 9GB/s. Sony has also said that their I/O will still require a single CPU core to transfer data between the system Ram and GPU, while Nvidia I/O completely bypasses the CPU, allowing the GPU to access system Ram directly. Nvidia has stated this makes it up to 100x faster (lower latency) vs having the CPU handle the transfer.

[catlover316]

Not to mention this is hardware and sofware available before the ps5 even launches, by the time devs start actually pushing the ps5 its hardware will be badly outdated compared to pc.

[LordoftheCritics]

Yup its already faster. Im waiting on the proper tech reveal for this.

[yeahokwhatever]

access to system ram != access to the hard drive.

[SierraGuy]

How much is PS5s 9GB compressed?

I'll wait.

[Kados]

Just went and rechecked the official info from Sony, i was misremembering some details. Their dedicated I/O block has similar processing requirements to a single Zen 2 core, but does not actually use a Zen 2 core. It does still use a standalone decompression unit inbetween the Ram and GPU though, unlike Nvidia I/O. The first part of my previous statement still holds. There is actually a new NVME from Sabrent that just released and is pushing 7GB/s raw reads. So we will have 14GB/s compressed with Directstorage.

https://www.pcgamer.com/sab...

@cornelis:

The Ram in the PS5 is shared, but the data still has to be decompressed by the seperate hardware block. The GPU cannot handle compression and decompression itself, as Nvidia I/O does. Despite the system Ram and Vram being linked, any data that is compressed will still have to be passed through the decompression block prior to reaching the GPU, which will add latency. The seperate block is simply designed to remove the load from the primary CPU, but it does not bypass external from GPU processing entirely.

[catlover316]

In my experience consoles perform about how you would expect, the only real advantage is the lack of api overhead which allows them to use weaker a CPU.

[SegaGamer]

Here's Father_Merrin downplaying PC news again.

[Silly gameAr]

Oh yeah? Well. my pee pee is bigger than yours.

[mark3214uk]

it is good that other companies have seen the benefit of what sony has done and have started implementing it them selfs, however, i think sony has made some tweaks in other components to further benefit the ssd speeds? e.g removed other potential bottlenecks

[Hyperstrada]

I don't think they saw Sony's new ssd and did this in response . I am sure this was planed out long ago.

[Bladesfist]

They went back in time after the PS5 reveal and blogged about the tech in 2019 https://developer.nvidia.co...

[rlow1]

So does this mean the series x will have this feature?

[Destiny1080]

the series x is 5x slower then the ps5 but its still fast and will handle everything phil throws at it

[Kados]

Where did you get 5x from?

PS5 = 5.5GB/s raw, 9GB/s compressed.
SX = 2.4GB/s raw, 4.8GB/s compressed.

That is ~56% slower raw, and ~47% slower compressed.

[FyBy]

Thing is that on ps platform all ps5 will have exactly same amount of power, speed. On pc, platform is shattered. So its great, that there will be gpus, which support ps5 like data streaming architecture. But devs will always have to choose. Its the same with ssds. There are Fast nvme ssds on pc. But how many players really have them and have game installed on them? Its really Hard for devs to push architecture advantage in games on pc.

[Christopher]

Seems more like hype at this time to me.

Up to 100x faster than your standard hard drive... so up to 5.4 GB/s which is already achievable on SSD, but the issue is constant speed and driver optimizations to maintain it for all read/write actions. Sony's design is to keep and maintain that 9 GB/s at all time and not have it go "up to" that point be be the standard.

And, lossless compression? No such thing. If it's compressed, you're losing something. Perhaps a new compression, but I highly doubt NVidia just found the secret compression algorithm that will enable us to download much less than we have now when graphics aren't even the majority of what we download. It's audio and video that takes up the most space on our drives.

[Bladesfist]

Ermm, Lossless compression has always been a thing, read about it here https://en.wikipedia.org/wi...

Most simple example of lossles compression is to take "This thing is better than this other thing that is better than this other thing, this this this" now create an index for each word, store those once with a number next to them and then just store the numbers "1 2 3 4 5 1 6 7 3 4 1..." and the lookup table. Also I'd wait for performance benchmarks before making up bandwidth numbers, the slide says 14 GB/s. Which would be possible with the fastest SSDs we have on PC 7GB/s read and a 50% compression ratio but who knows what we will get. (Of course this example would have a shit compression ratio and could easily go negative for small files, you can fix that by only replacing words that are repeated more than x times with an index and having a single lookup table for lots of files)

There is also visually lossless compression https://www.hardent.com/ves... like what you can find in display port and HDMI 2.1 which does lose data but the human eye cannot perceive the loss.

[Christopher]

Lossless compression is great for science data/flat files that don't need high speed interpretation, it doesn't work for graphical data. It is lossless. Saying it's lossless is just marketing to the masses, but it's not reality. You even say so in your last statement there. Add onto that "non-perceived" (BS, by the way, as it typically is perceived if viewed at a 1:1 size comparison) you are then processing that to be further affected by the GPU processing.

My comments refer directly to data being used by the GPU. Not Winzip archive files or the like. We're talking rapid decompression of data that is unnoticeable in comparison to read/write speeds. It just doesn't happen.

You're either losing something in the graphic or you're losing processing time

[Bladesfist]

@christopher the reviews I have seen of DSC have never mentioned being able to perceive the difference. If you find an example of someone who can, link it to me please. Also on the performance hit, decompression takes a lot of time on a few CPU threads, this time it has a lot of GPU cores to run on so I would imagine that accounts for the massive increase in decompression speeds. This is the first time I think we have seen GPU decompression.

[Christopher]

***the reviews I have seen of DSC have never mentioned being able to perceive the difference***

You're comparing display of solid-state images to video game graphics in those comparisons. That's not comparable. 60 frames of graphics processed on GPU as well as decompressed at a "lossless" rate with no visual difference? Same thing Stadia said about 4k streaming when it's clear that there is loss of image quality even with perfect environment setups. Is it a ton, no, but it is there. Same here.

***this time it has a lot of GPU cores to run on so I would imagine that accounts for the massive increase in decompression speeds***

Which then also means those cores are calculating compression rather than anything else. Again, not "lossless". You're losing computing power to do this. Why waste that energy on processing decompressing images rather than pushing the improvement and performance of it? It's not like SSDs at reasonable spec are breaking the bank here.

This seems aimed at the <1% PC crowd who are using the highest speed NVMe storage systems, which are expensive to get at a higher rate. But, for SSD, storage shouldn't be an issue unless you just are bad at utilizing storage.

---

I stand by my accusation here. This is selling a concept while ignoring what it means to get to it. Let alone even their description of "how fast it is" is in comparison to "standard HDD" which not specific between 5400 7200 or 10000. So many generic terms utilized to sell it.

[Bladesfist]

***You're comparing display of solid-state images to video game graphics in those comparisons.***

No I'm not, RTX IO works on solid state images, primarily textures, it's designed to allow you to load a lot of data into VRAM very quickly, it has nothing to do with frame buffers or framerates, DSC has an even more challenging job as it works on compressing all information going through the Display Port cable and decompressing it in real time on the target device.

***Which then also means those cores are calculating compression rather than anything else.***

You're losing computing performance if you are waiting on loading uncompressed textures plus this runs on the Tensor cores not on the cuda cores of the device which for non AI or RTX workloads are sitting idle anyway. They are continuously coming up with different things to task the AI cores with such as RTX Broadcast and AI denoising so that there isn't a bunch of wasted silicon on the cards when no AI tasks are running.

***This seems aimed at the <1% PC crowd who are using the highest speed NVMe storage systems***

Not at all, it's aimed at making loading compressed data into VRAM much more efficient than loading uncompressed data by having a way of decompressing data on the GPU very quickly. Nvidia have said that they expect this to work with all SSDs but of course you will get higher bandwidth with faster SSDs. Fast SSDs are not expensive either as NAND supply is oversaturated at the moment with prices expected to continue falling throughout the year.

Here is what Nvidia have said about it in a Reddit Q&A:

"There is no SSD speed requirement for RTX IO, but obviously, faster SSD’s such as the latest generation of Gen4 NVMe SSD’s will produce better results, meaning faster load times, and the ability for games to stream more data into the world dynamically. Some games may have minimum requirements for SSD performance in the future, but those would be determined by the game developers. RTX IO will accelerate SSD performance regardless of how fast it is, by reducing the CPU load required for I/O, and by enabling GPU-based decompression, allowing game assets to be stored in a compressed format and offloading potentially dozens of CPU cores from doing that work. Compression ratios are typically 2:1, so that would effectively amplify the read performance of any SSD by 2x."

Q&A Source: https://www.reddit.com/r/nv...

[Christopher]

***it has nothing to do with frame buffers or framerates, DSC has an even more challenging job as it works on compressing all information going through the Display Port cable and decompressing it in real time on the target device.***

But NVidia's solution isn't that.

The GPU decompresses the image. That means the GPU offloads processing to do that instead of other things. This will directly affect framerate and buffers.

You're speaking of decompression from port to port, this is decrompression on data on drive, uncomopressed by GPU, processed by GPU, then pushed to port-to-port.

NVidia's solution is specific to reduce on-drive texture sizes utilizing new compression schemas that will be taken in by the GPU and processed there. Port-to-port compression for displaying isn't a part of that.

Are we going in circles or talking about two completely different things here?

***You're losing computing performance if you are waiting on loading uncompressed textures ***

HDMI 2.1 doesn't have these issues. It just needs to be supported more. RTX 3090 supports 8k60fps because of this, for example. From drive speeds are more than fast enough to handle this as it is, let alone fast enough memory on GPU to handle buffering of it.

***Not at all, it's aimed at making loading compressed data into VRAM much more efficient than loading uncompressed data by having a way of decompressing data on the GPU***

You're just tellling me what NVidia is saying and I am saying isn't realistic without loss. I am disagreeing with NVidia's representation of the result here, not the technology utilized. You're saying it's more efficient, I'm saying that efficiency comes at a cost. You agree with NVidia, I do not.

[catlover316]

If you dont know anything about pc hardware and/or gaming, you really shouldnt have a strong opinion about it or how much it costs.

[catlover316]

the ps5 magic is mostly just marketing, despite this it does look like good console hardware.

[Binarycode]

It's nothing to do with PS5.lol.

RTX I/O relies on those cards to do the work.

For this type of tech to be mainstream, you would need a complete reworking of motherboards with co-processors to do the work.

The PS5 uses, not just a fast SSD, but a completely new I/O structure to get data in and out of memory blazingly fast while co-processors do the heavy lifting. Even the audio has an Spu structure to.produce quality 3d audio.

Interesting times for gaming and graphics.

[mkis007]

Completely overlooking the typical speed vs peak speed argument, as well as althe other bits in the io complex.

[galmi]

stupid clickbait title

[masterfox]

"PS5's Hyped SSD Performance to PCs" , and still they didn't show something as stunning as the games displayed in the Playstation presentations ;)

[OpenGL]

How's this supposed to work, you use the GPU to handle compression/decompression? That'll require sending all that data through PCIe to the GPU. I question the efficacy of this on non-PCIe 4.0 platforms, it cannot possibly reach PS5 SSD performance without it, so Intel users would be SOL.

[Charlieboy333]

Ummm are SSD IO and GPU IO the same thing even?

[yeahokwhatever]

nope. lol

[Charlieboy333]

Exactly, so why is there an article comparing PS5's SSD and Nvidia's GPU. They have different functions and influences on performance.

[Bladesfist]

This speeds up loading data into VRAM on PC by handling the compression on the AI cores on the GPU instead of on the CPU. The PS5 speeds up loading data into VRAM (although it only has VRAM so it might apply to more tasks) by handling decompression on a separate co-processor instead of on the CPU.

It's not the entire PS5 IO architecture, but it is bringing the benefits of some parts of it to PC so the comparison makes sense.

[Charlieboy333]

Ah ok, thanks for the breakdown 😀

[yeahokwhatever]

"might apply to more tasks" LOL it applies to every task on the PS5. nvidias tech only applies to graphics loads.

[Bladesfist]

@yeahokwhatever I thought about writing all tasks but it's not true, lossless compression is very task specific and some things will not be suitable for lossy compression. I'm sure it will do way more than RTX IO but I doubt game developers will employ compression to all assets, especially not tiny ones that's why I put more instead of all.

[thesoftware730]

Wow, just wow..the Sony brigade is in full swing without much logic or knowledge. I cannot believe some people actually think that way and believe it..mind boggling.

Anyway this is great news , I just made it in with a RTX 2060 Super..excited to see how it works.

[yeahokwhatever]

the headline is super misleading. It's just using VRAM instead of RAM to store certain things the developer wants it to. with only 6gb available in a 2060, dont expect much. this doesnt change the IO for the whole computer, just specific assets in specific directStorage supported software. Its probably the reason they have the 3090 with 24GB of vram.

[thesoftware730]

Thanks for the clarity, so I can expect a very slight boost.

My excitement is tempered but I welcome any improvements and will be nice when I do upgrade.

[Bladesfist]

@yeahokwhatever That is not what this does, re-read it.

[yeahokwhatever]

from nvidia's website in the how it works section: "the streamlined and parallelized APIs, specifically tailored for games, allow dramatically reduced IO overhead and maximize performance/bandwidth from NVMe SSD to your RTX IO-enabled GPU."

Basically, Bladesfist, right now software goes from HHD/SSD to RAM to VRAM via the CPU. This allows VRAM data to go straight from SSD to VRAM, skipping the CPU and system ram, which are both bottlenecks. They include pictures and everything...

If you have a texture you need to load, currently the CPU would get it from the hard drive, then decompress it and send it to system memory where it would then be passed again to the GPU and then copied into VRAM. this allows you to bypass all of that. its great and makes tons of sense. but it wont make load times non existent like the ps5 is sort of aiming to do, just because PCs have more flexible configurations. 32GB of system ram is cheap, 32GB of video ram is not.

[HarmonyFirth]

perfect

[snoopgg]

Oh, I get it, the hyped performance will now be available on pc"s as well as the ps5.

[anubusgold]

It already was for pcie 4.0 motherboard owners its been there for a year now.

[yeahokwhatever]

false! article is really misleading. go to nvidias site for actual information. the tech is great, but not a complete game changer like the PS5.

[nitus10]

Of course, the graphics card will be impressive however it would be nice to know what the price is going to be and compare that to the price of the PS5.

With the PS5 you effectively get everything to play games, however, this graphics card requires the purchaser to plug it into a PC motherboard that has a bus that has a similar or better data transfer rate otherwise you are going to have performance issues.

[akaFullMetal]

Whatever it takes to improve I/o sounds great.

[XxINFERNUSxX]

Samsung also showed their 980 Pro at CES back in Jan. It was already faster than the PS5 back then: 7,000 MB/s sequential read speeds as well as up to 5,000 MB/s sequential write speeds.

[Mr_Luke]

Well, these are good news :D

[Wikkid666]

No... it actually brings Xbox's tech.

[Wikkid666]

"NVIDIA RTX IO plugs into Microsoft’s upcoming DirectStorage API, which is a next-generation storage architecture designed specifically for gaming PCs equipped with state-of-the-art NVMe SSDs, and the complex workloads that modern games require."

https://www.nvidia.com/en-u...

[mkis007]

It's a first step. It's not so simple though.

[Tetsdah]

This is an interesting point. Are they comparing theoretical speed or comparing average speeds. Theoretically, the PS5 drive can handle 22 GB/s in indeal conditions according to Cerny's deep dive.

[yeahokwhatever]

nvidia + marketing = theoretical everything

[Miacosa]

This tech is a game changer and the more machines that can take advantage of it the better.

[yeahokwhatever]

nay. it will help for SOME things, specifically things that are stored in VRAM. for everything else, its business as usual, which is very much unlike the PS5.

[UltimateOwnage]

“Magical”, “Hyped” hyperbole article incoming. Sounds like a bit of envy there that heaving forbid a dedicated device may sometimes outperform general purpose PC hardware. Not often, but it’s not some holy grail thing either. The bigger question is what games would even bother using the tech on PC any time soon and with any sort of quantity to justify the much higher price of entry? All PS5 games will benefit, likely from day one.

[Yppupdam]

Yeah, that 1500.00 video card really blew away the consoles....

[QUIMICOMORTAL]

At what cost?

[yeahokwhatever]

this article is super misleading.