Control Ultimate Edition Is 42% Smaller On PS5 Than XSX Thanks To Better Compression Tech

Control Ultimate Edition has a smaller file size on the PS5 and this is one of the best examples of Kraken Compression, especially if we compare it to XSX.

[waverider]

Cerny is really a step ahead of the competition. The PS5 is a amazing machine hardware wise and software wise.

[neutralgamer1992]

Exactly mark Cerny is a legend he knew what developers and gamers wanted for next generation. He and his team took the custom route on many of decisions while ms went like always for raw power because 12TF sounds more than 10TF and that was their selling strategy

[blackblades]

Hopefully he works on ps6 as well.

[neutralgamer1992]

He will unless he himself steps down just look at the success of ps4 and now amazingly high demand of ps5

[shuvam09]

This will be the closest console wars we've seen till date. Both trade blows with each other. People will be fighting on a single pixel with of difference. In truth, both are should pieces of engineering. Xbox went out of their way to do things differently, things that won't pay off in the near future. Considering it was rushed to the market, I'll save my verdict for year post launch. PS5, on the other hand, did what was traditional. More power, more oomph without straying from traditional development practices, which we can see with the early benefits. It's like 360 vs PS3 to some degree, just that the tides have reversed.

[RazzerRedux]

That PS5 SSD doesn't look so small anymore now does it?

[GamerRN]

Yes it does... Available space on the internet drive is about 40 percent smaller than the X

[RazzerRedux]

Just not true. PS5 has 667 GB of free space available. XSX has 802 GB of free space available. That's a difference of 18.3%.

But you missed the point. If the tech PS5 allows developers to cut the size of game nearly in half vs what the size of the same game on XSX then that effectively allows PS5 more space for games than XSX.

[SullysCigar]

Do you even math, bro?

[The_Sage]

What the hell is an internet drive?

[Lighter9]

Mathematical!

[CaptainHenry916]

😁😁

[Nuvem]

Spoken like a true Xbox fanboy XD XD XD

[StoneyYoshi]

Dude... you need to double check and think about what you typed up before you click send. 🤣

[Atticus_finch]

Lol

[BlaqMagiq1]

This was a really dumb comment man. Just sayin.

[waderae]

@GamerRN

its 16.83% smaller.... (667/802) x 100 -100 = -16.83

doubled check 100-16.83 = 83.17 therefore 802x0.8317 = 667.02

done it twice for you.... :)

[ecchiless]

the math is sad, but not as sad as the ppl who up vote you... lmao

[waderae]

@ecchiless

sssshhhhh..... adults talking now.

[RedDevils]

Go back to school.

[gamer7804]

It’s still too small, the SX has about 140gb of useable extra space than ps5, but I love having all of my games stored locally that’s why I have a 1tb nvme expansion card on my series x and an 8tb hdd. But as soon as ps5 has nvme drives approved for use I’ll definitely be buying one of those too . It is great that some games can save extra space this way. with multiplayer games where I only need the single player so I uninstall the multiplayer part

[amazinglover]

Still too early to tell this is last gen game with last gen features.

We will need to wait until we start getting current gen exclusives built from the ground up for current hardware before we can say one way or another.

[Tacoboto]

This is a port of a last gen game to an updated engine optimized for current gen with clearly-current-gen features like Ray Tracing. And it takes advantage of Sony's new tech.

Yes, Sony's drive is smaller, but this makes that matter quite a bit less. If Microsoft has an equivalent feature, it's either not as good or they've really gotta update those tools...

[amazinglover]

Too all the down voters its still a last gen game built on the framework of previous generations. Until we get a game built from the ground up too take real advantage we won't know how adequate the hard drive space is.

Yes it may be a port but its still got a last generation frame work under the hood and until we start to get games not built for last generation we wont know how big these games actually are.

[DaGR8JIBRALTAR]

Its still small and Sony needs to put a rush on their expandable SSD situation.

[mechethegoat]

Its still small. Im still low on space.

[ScootaKuH]

Tbh it is pretty small, but it's still more than enough for me. I'm not playing more than a couple of games at any one time and when I'm done I delete them, so I don't think the stock 825gb ssd will ever be a problem for me, regardless of the compression

[masterfox]

Playstation is always better, console design, tech , games, controls, etc :D

[Gunstar75]

The PS5 is not a better design that the series x.... c'mon

[RazzerRedux]

lol.....are you saying masterfox's opinion is wrong?

[darthv72]

^razzer, of course his opinion would not be wrong.... if fox actually stated "in my opinion". But he didnt, so it comes off as his word speaks for all (which it does not).

[Christopher]

Pedantry ho!

[x_xavier_x]

@darthv72

Do we really need to include "in my opinion" whenever we make a statement? It's obvious to anyone with even a minuscule iota of intelligence that Gunstar75 is expressing his own personal viewpoint.

It's interesting, I've notice that you typically don't incorporate the phrase "in my opinion" when posting comments on N4G. So, according to your theory, practically everything that you're ever said is wrong, on the grounds that you don't speak for everyone.

[darthv72]

@xav, perhaps we are all guilty of forgetting to preface an opinion but most of the time I do. Otherwise you get ones like gunstar who will try and make your words against you. By using good language skills you can discern when someone is stating opinion vs fact.

Using such phrases as IMO, from my experience, from what I have read and heard... you get the idea.

[RgR]

@darth

Actually he doesn't have to say it's in his opinion. Obviously what a person writes or says is always their opinion unless stated otherwise.

That's why you don't ever write an opinion piece or essay and start with "in my opinion"

An opinion can of course be wrong if there are facts that contradict said opinion.

[x_xavier_x]

@darth72

"we are all guilty of forgetting to preface an opinion but most of the time I do"

I just looked at the last 100 or so of your comments and not one of them includes the phrase "in my opinion" or a reasonable facsimile. But, you know what? I can still easily recognize that you aren't making any ubiquitous assertions. I can do this because I understand that you don't speak for me, or anyone else for that matter.

I would like to say that I retain some kind of intellectual advantage which allows me to decipher your intent, but to be honest it's just common sense. A person doesn't necessarily have to possess "good language skills" to distinguish an opinion from a universal truth. Even a child can decipher the difference between an opinion and a hard fact.

[RazzerRedux]

I don't know how else anyone would read what masterfox said. Unless he says....

"Playstation is FACTUALLY always better, console design, tech , games, controls, etc :D"

....then he is expressing an opinion. This isn't hard to figure out.

[waverider]

The Word design imply curves for me. Not a box. Design out of the box.

[cooperdnizzle]

PS5 is factually better,

People need to learn that your opinion doesn’t make anything of any sort true. You can have an opinion on certain things, but just because you prefer some “thing” with no objective facts or anything that you can express with a logical thought or idea. Meaning actual reasoning behind one is factually better ... Just saying buzz words and declaring you prefer such Thing means absolutely zero.

M$ has done factually worse than Sony, when it comes to gaming. They haven’t made a hit game in over 10 years, they produce far far less new IP’s the new games they have made have not been critically acclaimed have been sub standard.

When it comes to new console. M$ has had zero going into next gen. They have released one new game to date, and that is “medium”which is proven to be just an okay game.
There console is not stronger or more powerful any expert will tell you this, games have shown this, developers have never backed up this claim, in fact many claim the Ps5 is future proof /well thought out console. That is custom and actually what they “the professional” people/developers prefer.

Last and not least. M$ has been claiming wait until next year for the past 10 years. They have shown to not be willing to do the basic thing that is required from a gaming console. Make games.

I own all console but Xbox has been nothing but underwhelming for far to long and if they insist on being in the market than they should really start contributing to it...

[ScootaKuH]

But it is. Series X looks like a PC tower. It's nothing special

Plus, that's his opinion, so you can't tell him he's wrong

[OneLove]

You wish😂

[hanuman2]

Troll much?

[potatoseal]

That's amazing

[elazz]

If only games like Call of Duty could do that. Going from 150GB +/- to less than a 100GB for Cold War would already be great and I'm sure it could be far less than that.

[ocelot07]

This I hope they go back and compress it

[akaFullMetal]

Getting close to half as small as before, going from 42 GB to 25 is great to hear for next gen.

[OMGitzThatGuy]

Is there any source saying that is the reason the size is smaller?

[Atticus_finch]

It says it on the title.

[StoneyYoshi]

Do you have any theories as to what else it could be? This is basically common sense and Mark Cerny (the source) even explained these benefits with the compression technology around this time last year when they did the road to PS5 video and you would understand if you watch that. So why else do you think the storage size is reduced? Because it's definitely not due to cut content or anything like that.

[Zhipp]

It's speculation. The title should say "likely" due to the PlayStations Kraken tech or some such.

@StoneyYoshi
We're all ignorant here of a) the details of the technology at play and b) the specifics of why this game is the size it is. Common sense doesn't come into play because we don't have the technical background nor insider knowledge to give any realistic analysis of the situation. The same applies to the author.

[DJStotty]

I think the reason the size is smaller is PS5 version is using Kraken compression technique.

Series S|X version is not using their BCPack solution (or velocity) as the game size is exactly the same as the steam version.

For clarity, my opinion and assumption.

[Espangerish]

Big win given the cost of the drives and their space restrictions

[Evan_Beezy]

It’s interesting bc the consensus was that the XSX with its inferior SSD was actually the one ahead in having better compression tech with bcpack and all that...oh well

[Kados]

It is. Kraken gets a compression ratio a little under 2:3 (60% more data), The SX allows for both the traditional LZ compression, as well as BCPack to be used at the same time for a combined compression ratio of 2:1 (100% more data).

https://news.xbox.com/en-us...

Either this article writer is just making crap up for the sake of his narrative (there is nothing in the article that implies Controls devs have claimed it is due to better compression, it seems to be entirely the writer making the claim), or they are just using LZ on its own, and ignoring BCPack.

[Zhipp]

Whatever solution is being used on the PC is probably what's being used on the Xbox would be my guess. That would explain why the sizes are the same.

There's no official statement from Remedy, so, even if BCpack is in use, it could be that there is another reason for the smaller size on PS5. Maybe the Xbox+PC versions have a lot more redundant data. Who knows.

[r2oB]

@ Kados

You seem to be forgetting the benefits oodles has on compression ratios along with kraken.
Kraken beats out zlib. And as far as I am aware Kraken+oodle is more efficient than zlib+bcpack.

[Kados]

@r2oB:

I forgot to mention it, but i was actually already factoring it in. The PS5s overall compression is around 1.6x, the SX overall is 2x. SSD compressed thoughput directly correlates to compression volume. 5.5GB/s > 9GB/s = ~64%. 2.4GB/s > 4.8GB/s = 100%

[Kados]

@utopiancat:

Official statement from Oodle dev in comment section of your link.

"Oodle Texture works great for the Xbox as well, and we are working with a lot of game companies that are using it on Xbox, so consumers should see lots of games with those huge size and speed savings on Xbox as well. It's up to the individual game developers, as it's not been licensed platform-wide at this time."

The SX also has a dedicated hardware decompression chip.

https://news.xbox.com/en-us...

"Hardware Decompression – Hardware decompression is a dedicated hardware component introduced with Xbox Series X and Xbox Series S to allow games to consume as little space as possible on the SSD while eliminating all CPU overhead typically associated with run-time decompression."

[Kados]

@utopiancat:

I didn't ignore anything. You seem to misunderstand how independent processing works. The hardware decompression block is simply a dedicated processing unit that is assigned to decompression through whatever software requests it. Oodle and BCPack are just software instruction sets for encoding the data before it is sent to the decompression block. Sony does not have any magic hardware that makes Oodle work any differently from how it would work on the SX. It would be able to use the SX's decompression block just as BCPack does.

The 3:1 ratio mentioned passingly in the article was also only a theoretical potential. They clearly said the instruction set as it is currently applied gets around 1.6:1, and they are working towards reaching 2:1 soon.

"It would be silly for developers to choose Oodle over the hardware decompressed BCpack and Zlib on SX"

and yet, according to Oodles devs, as already quoted, MANY 3rd party devs are infact choosing to use Oodle on the SX. They can use Oodle+BCPack or even Oodle+Kraken if they want to (Oodle+Kraken is already being used on PC games, according to Oodle). Doing so will not invalidate the hardware decompression. What Sony and MS have chosen to internally licence and automatically provide to developers, does not effect what those devs choose to independently licence and utilize in their games. The hardware is NOT specialized for any one or more instruction sets.

"I am fairly certain he was just being diplomatic and not trying to take sides or burn bridges when he was talking about Oodle on xbox."

So you are saying he was straight up lying when he said "we are working with a lot of game companies that are using it on Xbox"?

[Kados]

@utopiancat:

Provide an example of this mythical processor that can be optimized for a specific encoder. It does not exist. It cannot exist.

The SX's 2:1 ratio is already fully realized, and usable by 3rd party devs right now. the 3:1 ratio mentioned for Oodle+Kraken is not, and likely never will be. It is currently only optimized to achieve 1.6:1, with Oodles devs working to further enhance it to 2:1, as stated in the article.

Yes, he does. "we are working with a lot of game companies that are using it on Xbox" That is a direct quote from Cbloom. One which you yourself already re-quoted from my previous reply. Do you just not do English?

I did not "COMPLETELY ignore the fact that PS5's SSD is twice as fast " I actually listed the speeds of both systems SSDs, both raw and compressed, in my reply to r2oB. Regardless, it does not invalidate the one and only point i was initially trying to make, that the SX currently has superior compression, and should allow for smaller file sizes if properly utilized. I was never arguing the final post compression I/O of each systems SSD. You seem to be making a habit of using secondary details to try invalidating unrelated points.

I did add the second part, in my first reply to you. It is also (this is getting old) not relevant to the point. How exactly does reiterating that it is up to the individual devs to licence and utilize it, negate the fact that individual devs are infact choosing to licence and utilize it? You basically just said, "they are not doing this, because they have to choose to do this". The Logic is so mind numbing, even my budgie is pulling a spock eye having seen it.

[Destiny1080]

phil also forgot to update the compression tools

[TheProblem]

Burn!

[343_Guilty_Spark]

Couldnt MS just implement Kraken if they wanted?

[Futureshark]

They could, but then they'd lose potential revenue on those proprietary memory cards they sell for upwards of £200 to the Series S owners.

[343_Guilty_Spark]

The expansion memory cards have nothing to do with their decompression methods...all they serve as is a mean for storage.

https://venturebeat.com/202...

And how much is PS5 storage? Is it even available?

[Futureshark]

Oh dear 343_Guilty_Spark, you rather missed my point.

I meant why would MS compress their games to allow a Series S owner to hold say 10 new gen games when currently they'd be lucky to hold 5?
That would mean every memory card would be 5 game purchases further away for each Series S owner, reducing revenue opportunities on those units within that 5 game sales timeframe.
It's one of the ways MS is hoping to gain money back on its 'bargain' console.

[MetroidFREAK21]

Glad I was planning on getting this for PS5. Waiting for that physical version in March

[JEECE]

But it's free with PS Plus right now...I mean I understand if you still want the physical version for your collection or just because you want to support the devs, but you don't have to wait to start playing it.

[MetroidFREAK21]

Oh I know. I'm gonna download it tonight

[thesoftware730]

Is this the only game that has this major difference in file size?

[StoneyYoshi]

Days Gone also lost half its file size with the PS5 patch from what I've heard but I cant confirm that right now since I'm at work.

[boing1]

Miles Morales was also around 5gb smaller than on PS4 Pro. First thing I checked after installing PS5 version.

[ajax17]

Sony making Microsoft look like Hooli

[Zool 08]

HEY I'M 12 Tflops AND DONT YOU FORGET IT 🤣🤣

[KingofGambling]

ALWAYS BLUE ALWAYS BLUE ALWAYS BLUE.

[Orchard]

Good - this is essential since months later, Sony, despite having less storage built-in, still haven't given us the ability to expand storage or even backup to slow storage.

[0rbital71]

series x man haha, best to have a PC, switch and a ps5

[ARESWARLORD]

Only reason to have the PS5 is the fact they don't put their games on PC

[RazzerRedux]

Exclusives, awesome controller, and incredible audio are what differentiates PS5 from PC for me. I still game primarily on PC, but PS5 has its advantages.

[ARESWARLORD]

PS5 definitely a cool machine.

I own one along with my gaming PC but I think the best graphics console wise will be on the series X this generation.

They both have their pluses and minuses

[purple101]

Hmm..

next gen starts when Kratos says so.

My man

[ARESWARLORD]

Lol 🤣

[purple101]

42gbs on Xbox 25gbs on ps5.

"PS5, powering Microsoft's dreams".

Or nightmares.. hehe

[Neonridr]

Nintendo level compression.

[brewin]

Cool, graphics and small file size... too bad the game is kinda meh. It just never grabbed me the way some of Remedy's other stuff did. Its good they figured out a way to make the files so much smaller! Im just ready for these true next-gen games instead of slightly enhanced last gen games. Both XS and PS5 are guilty on this front. Sure there are some gems at launch, but I am oh so ready for the new stuff. True generation defining experiences are so close I can smell them. Even though its going to be on last gen as well, I think the new Horizon will truly kick off these next gen experiences.

[BlaqMagiq1]

Huge win. The more multiplats that are capable of this the better. I find it funny people are trying to downplay this as if it means nothing.

[wolf581]

Wow wow wo.... Nice Shooting there tex....

[talocaca]

I was honestly surprised to see it is only 25GB. That's some badass compression tech!

[Thundercat77]

Overall, PS5 is the best next Gen console out there.

[QuePasa87]

Impressive

[SpineSaw]

Its not all gloom and doom for Xbox fan. They can look forward to in a year or 2 when Microsoft will release another "worlds most powerful console" that will have a proper next gen controller and maybe be able to match all the current PS5 power and might.

[karinasu]

Very impresive this game trailer made my day... LoL~

[YourMommySpoils]

Phil: Wants to know if xbox gamers would like that on their system.

[garos82]

ive said this before, game file sizes will get smaller going forward. 42% is a HUGE difference

[Beekay83]

But whyyyyy cant i transfer my save to ps5?! That seems so odd?!?

[DJStotty]

Chances are Sony have made it a requirement to utilize the new compression for PS5 games, whereas Microsoft have not. Not much news here. That most probably explains the difference, as far as i can find control is not using Microsoft's velocity architecture.

Hence why there is no "optimised for series S|X" on this game.

[RazzerRedux]

"Hence why there is no "optimised for series S|X" on this game."

Incorrect.

https://i.ebayimg.com/image...

[DJStotty]

Like i said, i was not 100% on it, "chances are" and "as far as i can find" kind of gave that away.

I looked at the game on xbox.com, and there was no optimised for series x tag listed under capabilities on the game :-

https://www.microsoft.com/e...

Unlike Forza Horizon 4 :-

https://www.xbox.com/en-us/...

So i apologize for that assumption Razzer, still the game is not using the Velocity architecture.

Games that are normally optimised have the green stamp on the front like Yakuza :-

https://www.game.co.uk/en/y...

This does not :-

https://www.game.co.uk/en/c...

So again apologies for the assumption, but given what i could find (and the fact i did not have the reverse of the game case) you can understand where i got my assumption from?

I will work harder in my future endeavors in research, so that i am able to make an accurate and factual judgement, in order to please fans from both sides.

P.s. is that the standard edition? date stamp is 2020? Maybe the cases were made way last year, and they have yet to optimize? I don't know, a game case does not inherently mean the optimization patch is released. I will install this game off gamepass later today, and refer back to this comment to see if there is additional optimised data in there, i am guessing as the file size is exactly the same as xbox one, there is no optimisation.

[RazzerRedux]

No need for an apology. Microsoft maintains of list of games that are "optimized".

https://www.xbox.com/en-US/...

"still the game is not using the Velocity architecture."

How do you know the game is not using VA again?

" I will install this game off gamepass later today"

The Game Pass version is not the Ultimate Edition and is not optimized for XSX.

[DJStotty]

"The Game Pass version is not the Ultimate Edition and is not optimized for XSX."

The image you posted is not the ultimate edition either is it?

"How do you know the game is not using VA again?"

With Control (base) and Ultimate Edition being exactly the same storage amounts across the board of consoles and PC (xbox one, series S, Series X, Steam) you can reasonably surmise, that all editions are using the same file system, decompression/compression techniques.

If Series X was using a completely different decompression technique (velocity) there would be a discrepancy between the storage amount between the versions.

"No need for an apology. Microsoft maintains of list of games that are "optimized".

And yet in that list itself, it says that optimization is "coming soon"

[RazzerRedux]

"The image you posted is not the ultimate edition either is it?"

Of course it is. I got the picture from this ebay listing:

https://www.ebay.com/itm/CO...

"With Control (base) and Ultimate Edition being exactly the same storage amounts across the board of consoles and PC (xbox one, series S, Series X, Steam) you can reasonably surmise, that all editions are using the same file system, decompression/compression techniques."

Maybe, but those are also assumptions.

"And yet in that list itself, it says that optimization is "coming soon""

That is referring to the availability of the game.

[DJStotty]

"That is referring to the availability of the game."

So Halo master chief collection is also "in development"? And how come control is not listed as "available"? No, that column is for the availability of any enhancements for the games as detailed above the list when they say they "will update the list as and when there are any updates to their capabilities"

Why would you have a "coming soon" and "in development" if it was down to game release schedule lol.

Ghostrunner is also listed as "in development" and that was launched in may 2020, it is the schedule of the optimisations.

"Maybe, but those are also assumptions."

I'll say again, that is what i made in the original comment, an assumption, which is more or less correct.

[RazzerRedux]

"So Halo master chief collection is also "in development"? And how come control is not listed as "available"? No, that column is for the availability of any enhancements for the games as detailed above the list when they say they "will update the list as and when there are any updates to their capabilities""

Apparently Microsoft isn't doing a good job updating that list. The Optimized for XSX version of Hallow MCC has been available for a while.

https://twitter.com/Xbox/st...

"I'll say again, that is what i made in the original comment, an assumption, which is more or less correct."

Maybe, maybe not, but you later made a definitive statement:

" still the game is not using the Velocity architecture."

We've established that you do not know if that is true or not. Good. Done here.

[DJStotty]

I never claimed anything to be true, i simply made an assumption that it is not using the velocity architecture as the file size is exactly the same as the xbox one and steam versions.

Common sense would come to the conclusion, they are the same compression techniques.

I can not find anywhere, either xbox, nor the control developers state they are using the velocity architecture for the Series X version, whereas they have stated they are using the Kraken/oodle architecture for the PS5 version, therein lies the reasonable assumption there is no velocity architecture usage.

[RazzerRedux]

" whereas they have stated they are using the Kraken/oodle architecture for the PS5 version,"

Where did Remedy state their usage of Kracken/oodle for PS5?

Edit: The article took the usage of Kracken/oodle from a reddit post, but googling I'm not seeing a thing from Remedy about this. Out of posts so link whatever you have that says otherwise.

[DJStotty]

https://www.psu.com/news/co...

https://twitter.com/PSUdotc...

And the Reddit post, if it is not using Kraken, then i am stumped as to why the file versions between xbox Series X and PS5 are so different, this will imply that both are not using the new techniques.

It is either :-

1 - both are using new techniques, but not Sony/Remedy/Microsoft will confirm (highly unlikely)
2 - Sony is, Microsoft isn't resulting in the massive difference in file size (most likely)
3 - Neither are, but then what explains the difference in the file size? (highly unlikely)

If it is not using Kraken, then PSU post fake news.

[DJStotty]

Ok, after further investigation, control ultimate edition is NOT optimised for series s/x. The game listing through the xbox dashboard does not list it as optimised.

Optimised games have a green xs on the game thumbnail, with the optimised logo when you look at game details.

Control ultimate edition has neither, therefore the game is not using the new compression (velocity), and this will explain the increased file size in comparison to PS5.

[Mr_Luke]

Nice, i didn't know about that compression thing. :D

[Father__Merrin]

Ps5 has better...

Compression
Graphics
Audio
Controlls
Faster SSD
Games & Exclusives

...........

All for £359 complete. Compare that to a Pc your getting a tremendous deal 🤝

[Blaze929]

So how come no other multi plat games utilize this feature?

[Weapon_of_choice]

It’s getting embarrassing how much PS5 is owning this gen.

[Donnie81]

Y not use the better velocity ? Kraken it’s even named badly.

[Mulando]

Oh, FUD again.
Yes a 10-15% better compression tech will result in ~50% smaller files, makes totally sense.

This has more to do with the packaging process itself, than the compression tech.