Developer: PS5 SSD Combined with Unreal Engine 5 Could Mean 'Big Changes to level Design' - News
by William D'Angelo , posted on 02 November 2021 / 5,390 Views
White Paper Games Pete Bottomley, who is the game designer on Conway: Disappearance at Dahlia View, in an interview with GamingBolt says when you combine the PlayStation 5 SSD with Unreal Engine 5 will allow developers to make some "big changes to level design."
"There’s a dual approach we can take advantage of as developers not only with the faster SSD’s but also in combination with Unreal Engine 5," Bottomley said.
"When you’re creating the larger 3D games that we tend to design at White Paper, streaming the content for the player and knowing how to approach the design of the levels to get them to the most optimal performance takes a lot of time. With quicker loading times, you have less need to design features into loading screens along with the streaming of the content at runtime.
"Unreal Engine 5 removes the need for this side of development and instead ‘chunks’ the content under the hood. I think you’ll see some big changes to level design with these two upgrades in the development pipeline."
Conway: Disappearance at Dahlia View will launch for the Xbox Series X|S, PlayStation 5, Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC this fall.
A life-long and avid gamer, William D'Angelo was first introduced to VGChartz in 2007. After years of supporting the site, he was brought on in 2010 as a junior analyst, working his way up to lead analyst in 2012. He has expanded his involvement in the gaming community by producing content on his own YouTube channel and Twitch channel dedicated to gaming Let's Plays and tutorials. You can contact the author at wdangelo@vgchartz.com or on Twitter @TrunksWD.
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We have been hearing this for what, a year and a half?
Show us the goods!
COULD and IS are very different things.
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Or maybe level design will just evolve with the hardware as appropriate for the type of game?
Ok, I'm confused here. Nowhere in that quote the developer mentions the PS5 specifically. What am I missing here?
"PS5 SSD... Could Mean 'Big Changes to level Design"
"Conway: Disappearance at Dahlia View will launch for the Xbox Series X|S, PlayStation 5, Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC this fall."
Pick one.
Only a few PC games took advantage of the headroom offered by SSD's and faster CPU's and are pushing things into new and interesting directions so far. I.E. Microsoft Flight Simulator and Star Citizen.
The PS5 isn't going to be an exclusive platform that has access to these "features".
But we have a taste of what is to come, that is for sure.
Excited to see how games look in a few years time on my Playstation 5. Bring it on.
Doesn't say much when the Series X is a step up on Memory Bandwidth, GPU performance, CPU Performance.
These differences in SSD/GPU/CPU/DRAM are ultimately redundant, it's not going to result in different gameplay experiences, more so for multiplats which are going to constitute the bulk of each respective platforms game libraries.
Each platform has it's Pro's and Con's... But if it's a tech war... The PS5 doesn't hold a candle to my PC with it's Ryzen 12 Core 5Ghz processor, 64GB of Ram and 14GB/s of SSD bandwidth. (Raid Samsung 980 Pro).
I don't care about brand loyalty. I really don't.
No, not really, because your lot seem to tout this time and time again and market data has proven this false.
PC tech has proven this false, but again, your lot only ever really put focus on some AAA sales and exclusives.
High end gamers are still in the millions, not a few hundred thousand, mind you.
If you want to know what holds tech back, it's those closed boxes that refuse to evolve until 6-7 years pass, instead of an open platform that's evolving constantly every year. Can't afford that high end part?, diligaf, it's still adding to the evolution of the platform.
I know Pem knows much more about the platform than you do, to make a typical statement and then dig your heels back into it with the twisting statement.
Right now, the PC is the largest next-gen platform. There are more high-end PC's than Xbox Series X and Playstation 5 consoles sold currently.
The PC definitely puts it's tech to good use before the consoles...
During the PS2 era with it's flat undefined surfaces and lack of any minute detailing... The PC was enjoying pixel-shader effects everywhere.
While people were gawking over the 7th gen Halo/Uncharted games... The PC was enjoying games with Tessellation which didn't become a console hardware standard until the Xbox One/Playstation 4.
Before the Playstation 5/Xbox Series X had released, PC gamers were enjoying Ray Tracing thanks to RTX GPU's and the modding community.
The PC is where innovation and technology happens and gets used first, it always has.
PC Hardware requirements constantly get higher, not because of consoles, but because of new graphics techniques.
When the Xbox 360 launched for example Oblivions minimum requirements were:
CPU: Pentium 4 2ghz Single Core.
Ram: 512MB
GPU: Geforce (5) FX/Radeon 9500
Fast forward to Skyrim and it became:
CPU: Core 2 Duo 2Ghz Dual Core.
Ram: 2048MB
GPU: Geforce 7 7600GT/Radeon x1800.
Same console hardware... But PC requirements are several multiples in capability.
Jump forwards to the Xbox One...
Ryse:
CPU: 4 threads 2.8Ghz.
Ram: 4GB
GPU: Radeon 7770/Geforce GTX 560.
Read Dead Redemption:
CPU: Quad Core 3.3Ghz.
Ram: 8GB
GPU: Radeon R9 280/Geforce 770.
Again... If consoles dictated PC hardware requirements... Hardware requirements would actually remain static over an entire consoles lifetime... But that simply NEVER happens.
Minimum and Recommended requirements constantly increase as better hardware comes available and PC games continue to look better and better with better effects... Unlike consoles which typically use cheaper, lower quality effects.
You are trying to change the narrative.
I am picking apart your statement (And I quote): "There is a reason why PC minimum requirements for games see a significant jump with every console generation. The lowest common denominator starts shifting not long after the arrival of new consoles."
I have already proven that PC game requirements already took a several-fold increase during the 7th gen console cycle... And that is without ANY change in console hardware.
Don't let the facts get in the way, I've provided them in my prior post.
Fact of the matter is, PC game requirements never take a sudden leap in requirements, it's a constant, gradual thing as technology continues to improve. (Software and hardware.)
I still have a 14~ year old PC still running the latest games for crying out loud.
But because you don't seem to be getting it (still)
Assassins Creed 1:
CPU: 2.6Ghz Pentium D/Athlon 64 X2.
Ram: 1GB
GPU: 256MB Geforce 6/Radeon X1600
Assassins Creed 3:
CPU: 2.7Ghz Core 2 Duo.
Ram: 2GB
GPU: Radeon 4850/Geforce 8800GT.
That is a doubling in DRAM, massive increase in CPU requirements (Jump from a Dual-Core Pentium 4 to Core 2 Duo is significant)... And a generational leap in GPU requirements, not just in terms of performance... But graphics feature set as well. (Consoles never had a DX10 equivalent rendering pipeline!)
At the end of the day you painted the target, I merely fired the arrow. You don't want me to fire the arrow, don't paint the target.
Also no, I'm not agreeing with you, nice counter "twist" to that though, but no. I disagree and find you wrong for it, and pem's gone and proven it for me.
"PS5 just happens to be the better platform in an area everyone is excited about."
Before this gen, barely anyone knew what an SSD was, the only reason people are excited about the SSD is because its the only advantage Sony had over the Series X and was heavily marketed, much like when the PS4 launched and everyone was talking about the Teraflop advantage and majority still don't understand what a TF is.
If the rolls were reversed and PS5 had the better specced machine and Xbox had the faster SSD, you could bet Sony would be touting the GPU/CPU advantage while Xbox would be touting the SSD. Its traditional on corps trying to hype up their machines and get people excited, even if they heavily mislead. If it generates sales, they will try to claim it and use it to promote their brand.
In saying that, there nothing wrong with companies doing it, and their is definitely no issues with the tech in gen 9 console as they are quite amazing. But lets not get too carried away.
Developers are also trying to sell you the hardware because that benefits their sales as well. You are talking about a business that revolves around handshaking, even MS and Sony work as a team to help push console sales, even if it means having the other outsell them, because they all want a bigger market with more potential buyers. The more popular consoles become the more software they can sell.
Every generation i hear some type of secret source, Genesis Blast processing, PS2's Emotion Engine, PS3's Cell processor, XB1's Power of the Cloud, PS4's teraflops and now we have super SSDs that can redefine video games while also completely removing load times, while we still have load times and not seen one game that has reinvented the wheel. I will wait and see because i hear this crap all the time. Show me don't tell me.
Have they figured out the weather harnessing features of the Emotion Engine yet?
