New PS4 Details: Automatic Caching Games Not Install

[+Audioboxer Subscriber²]

Yoshida first confirmed that Playstation 4 does automaic cashing to games, and its not the mandatory install. This is really huge news for Playstation 4, it basically mean, if you want to play CoD Ghosts and Killzone, you won't need 100GB of space (50GB each,) you'll just need 50GB to cache them. That's so cool!

 

 

 

http://www.gamepur.com/news/12566-new-ps4-details-automatic-caching-games-not-install-voice-commands-without-.html

[D. S. Veteran]

Yes, but you still need 50GB free either way. "Oh no, I installed Frogger HD. Now I only have 48GB and can't play CoD :/"

[HawkMan]

So instead of a streaming install that's fully installed the next time you play it, unless you choose to uninstall it. This will stream the game all over every time.

[vcfan]

not forgetting the amount of noise the optical media drive is going to make.

[D. S. Veteran]

I'm sure the game will have an install, just not a 50GB one. Maybe it installs 15GB of compressed assets on the HDD and the 50GB is to cache them while the game is going on.

[HawkMan]

What compressed assets? 3d models are computationally very heavy to decompress and would hinder performance significantly, textures are already pre stored compressed by the artists and are loaded into graphics memory as compressed, game audio is generally either lossy compressed or just played as a no. Lossy compressed format, no need to uncompressed it.

The cache is for disk streaming

[trooper11]

Ok I'm a bit confused.  This opens up more questions.

 

So does this mean that PS4 games no longer require any kind of install and that the 'cache' is only used while your playing the game?  He says its automatic, implying that the user has no control over that right?

 

Does that also mean that you have to wait for the game to 'cache' to the hard drive before playing?  Such as what was mentioned for Killzone, where you have to wait for so many GBs to cache before you can start playing?

 

Does that also mean that users no longer have the option to install to the hard drive if they wish in order to avoid the caching delay every time?

 

Of course, none of this applies to digital downloads, which will still require you to have the space available for each game, unless this caching thing also applies to digital downloads.

 

We need more info.

[spenser.d]

Ok I'm a bit confused.  This opens up more questions.

 

So does this mean that PS4 games no longer require any kind of install and that the 'cache' is only used while your playing the game?  He says its automatic, implying that the user has no control over that right?

 

Does that also mean that you have to wait for the game to 'cache' to the hard drive before playing?  Such as what was mentioned for Killzone, where you have to wait for so many GBs to cache before you can start playing?

 

Does that also mean that users no longer have the option to install to the hard drive if they wish in order to avoid the caching delay every time?

 

Of course, none of this applies to digital downloads, which will still require you to have the space available for each game, unless this caching thing also applies to digital downloads.

 

We need more info.

 

I assume you can choose to install if you want.  As far as the Killzone thing - that was only for digital downloading.  I imagine you wouldn't have to wait for caching to start playing as those can happen simultaneously, and I'm betting that's what was meant by 'automatically'.

 

I think it just means, if you don't want to install the game but have space on your HDD, it will cache the game while you play it so that you can get the benefits of an installed game while you're playing without having to permanently take up space on your HDD and that the PS4 does it automatically - you likely won't know it happened.

[trooper11]

I assume you can choose to install if you want.  As far as the Killzone thing - that was only for digital downloading.  I imagine you wouldn't have to wait for caching to start playing as those can happen simultaneously, and I'm betting that's what was meant by 'automatically'.

 

I think it just means, if you don't want to install the game but have space on your HDD, it will cache the game while you play it so that you can get the benefits of an installed game while you're playing without having to permanently take up space on your HDD and that the PS4 does it automatically - you likely won't know it happened.

Hmm, well if that's the case, then I would very much prefer to use the cache method over installing. If it can really give me all the performance advantages of installing it without the negatives of using the space long term and it doesn't delay starting the game, then I see no reason at all to install it.

[firey]

I assume you can choose to install if you want.  As far as the Killzone thing - that was only for digital downloading.  I imagine you wouldn't have to wait for caching to start playing as those can happen simultaneously, and I'm betting that's what was meant by 'automatically'.

 

I think it just means, if you don't want to install the game but have space on your HDD, it will cache the game while you play it so that you can get the benefits of an installed game while you're playing without having to permanently take up space on your HDD and that the PS4 does it automatically - you likely won't know it happened.

That's my assumption too.   You can either install (takes up the most space, least performance hit) or run from disk with caching.  It is probably used to reduce load times, allow for full cities/zones without loading.  I assume that thing such as audio, cutscenes, etc will remain on disk.. but any of the larger assets that real-time require will be cached to the hdd.

[DPyro]

Killzone will only take 15 seconds to boot from disc.

[McKay]

Christ I find it hard to believe these games are legitimately 50GB, that's just lazyness. PC Games are nowhere near that, even ones with 1080 textures etc. Even when I mod games with 4k resolution textures. Sounds like laziness to me. 

[HawkMan]

Hmm, well if that's the case, then I would very much prefer to use the cache method over installing. If it can really give me all the performance advantages of installing it without the negatives of using the space long term and it doesn't delay starting the game, then I see no reason at all to install it.

There's one major disadvantage, the whine of a constantly running high speed BD drive. PS players who complained about the noise of the first models of the 360 should really hate this, as the DVD drive was the primary cause of the loud 360s.

[firey]

Christ I find it hard to believe these games are legitimately 50GB, that's just lazyness. PC Games are nowhere near that, even ones with 1080 textures etc. Even when I mod games with 4k resolution textures. Sounds like laziness to me. 

Well, they have the media space (bluray), and I'm sure that most of it is uncompressed too.

[HawkMan]

Christ I find it hard to believe these games are legitimately 50GB, that's just lazyness. PC Games are nowhere near that, even ones with 1080 textures etc. Even when I mod games with 4k resolution textures. Sounds like laziness to me.

They're not. What does 4k resolution have to do with games size anyway? At any rate most games aren't even going to be half that, most will probably be at most 15 but some MMOs and open world games might hit 25-40

[firey]

There's one major disadvantage, the whine of a constantly running high speed BD drive. PS players who complained about the noise of the first models of the 360 should really hate this, as the DVD drive was the primary cause of the loud 360s.

Is there any audio of the drive? I mean.. if it IS loud then users can install if they want, if they don't mind the drive.. they could use the cache.

[HawkMan]

Well, they have the media space (bluray), and I'm sure that most of it is uncompressed too.

I wish people would stop imagining that game resources are uncompressed.

Audio will always be lossless compressed or a lot of the time lossless, not doing it is pointless.

Textures will also always be pre compressed from the artists as graphics cards for the last many many generations have supported compressed texture in memory. And by pre compressing the artist has full control of the quality of the compressed texture. Even with the gigabytes of video memory today, there's not enough memory for uncompressed textures today. Textures are high res today, and they're HUGE data wise.

Sound and textures are both the biggest data resources in a game. 3d models/levels are often compressed (no so much on BD disks where the data is streamed though, but on DVD computer games or digital downloads) since they can be compressed a LOT, but they're CPU intensive to dock press so they're uncompressed when you install.

[McKay]

They're not. What does 4k resolution have to do with games size anyway? At any rate most games aren't even going to be half that, most will probably be at most 15 but some MMOs and open world games might hit 25-40

 

4K because the textures filesize will be huge. Heck even my Skyrim 4k Textures were about 10-12GB. I remember Konami bragging they'd "almost filled a Blu-Ray disk" during the development of Metal Gear Solid 4, it was discovered to be 35GB, due to vast swathes of uncompressed 1080p video and uncompressed audio. I saw someone mention earlier in the thread Killzone was 50GB etc.

[firey]

I wish people would stop imagining that game resources are uncompressed.

Audio will always be lossless compressed or a lot of the time lossless, not doing it is pointless.

Textures will also always be pre compressed from the artists as graphics cards for the last many many generations have supported compressed texture in memory. And by pre compressing the artist has full control of the quality of the compressed texture. Even with the gigabytes of video memory today, there's not enough memory for uncompressed textures today. Textures are high res today, and they're HUGE data wise.

Sound and textures are both the biggest data resources in a game. 3d models/levels are often compressed (no so much on BD disks where the data is streamed though, but on DVD computer games or digital downloads) since they can be compressed a LOT, but they're CPU intensive to dock press so they're uncompressed when you install.

Of course not EVERYTHING is uncompressed but things can have different compression rates for different quality/color counts.  Sounds can be compressed with varrying levels of degredation.   I've been doing a lot of studying with videogames, and I have seen many many ways of doing things.  I've seen raw levels where each tile has all 4 coordinates as individial integers, I've seen them as a a single 8byte integer, i've seen levels compressed with base 64 encoding, and ones not compressed at all.

I've seen 10+ individial images, and I've seen 1 image with 10 images embedded.  It's 100% up to the developers and how they structure their assets, it's also 100% possible to have very basic compression all the way up to very compressed.

[HawkMan]

Lossless compressed audio only has one quality setting, lossless :p

And textures generally aren't compressed because of disc/download storage size, but to fit the, in system memory.

As for 4k textures, most games today use textures far beyond 4k quality. Of course when you walk into a wall to study the detail of the mortar between the stones, ANY pre compiled texture will be pixelated.

For 4k the only real solution is to use procedural textures. Not exclusively, but in a mix with pre drawn textures. I do this a lot on the textures on my 3d models with great results. But procedurals, especially when your texture/material is a mix of multiple drawn textures and multiple procedurals with differnt procedurals used to blend all this crap together. Some of my materials have a severe impact on rendering time, much more so than intricate geometry details and poly counts.

[vcfan]

I saw someone mention earlier in the thread Killzone was 50GB etc.

well then get ready for multi disc releases in the near future  :laugh:

[firey]

Lossless compressed audio only has one quality setting, lossless :p

And textures generally aren't compressed because of disc/download storage size, but to fit the, in system memory.

As for 4k textures, most games today use textures far beyond 4k quality. Of course when you walk into a wall to study the detail of the mortar between the stones, ANY pre compiled texture will be pixelated.

For 4k the only real solution is to use procedural textures. Not exclusively, but in a mix with pre drawn textures. I do this a lot on the textures on my 3d models with great results. But procedurals, especially when your texture/material is a mix of multiple drawn textures and multiple procedurals with differnt procedurals used to blend all this crap together. Some of my materials have a severe impact on rendering time, much more so than intricate geometry details and poly counts.

Don't get me wrong, I do think that they are going overkill with space.. I think a lot of it is the bigger the better mentality.  Personally.. I've seen amazing looking games as sub 10gb.. I don't think they need to use 15,20, 25 gb let alone 50gb.. But I think a lot of it is:  We have the space.. lets use it.

[trooper11]

So I guess we will have to wait and see how much a performance hit is noticeable when using the cache method vs installing to the drive.

I would think caching would still be inferior due to the BluRay speed compared to a hard drive, but by how much?

[DPyro]

So I guess we will have to wait and see how much a performance hit is noticeable when using the cache method vs installing to the drive.

I would think caching would still be inferior due to the BluRay speed compared to a hard drive, but by how much?

 

Blu-ray read speed is 6x (216Mb) vs. SATA III hard drive @ 5400RPM (125Mb)

[firey]

Blu-ray read speed is 6x (216Mb) vs. SATA III hard drive @ 5400RPM (125Mb)

Hmm.. so caching should actually be better performance than installing..  I guess it would be like a pro/con sort of thing.

Caching

Pro:  Better Performance*,  Less space on HDD Required

Con: Louder console

Installing:

Pro: Quieter, No need for Disk*

Con: More HDD space is used.

* Denotes things I don't know for sure