PS5 spec reveal: everything announced during Sony's first PlayStation 5 event

PS5 spec reveal: everything announced during Sony's first PlayStation 5 event

By Vic Hood, John McCann

Sony gave us a detailed PS5 spec deep-dive



Sony's first PS5 reveal provided us with a huge amount detail on the technical side of the next generation console. The PS5's lead system architect Mark Cerny provided us with a deep dive into the PS5 specs and system architecture.

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All times in EST (US Eastern Standard Time)

12:55 - Jeez, that was a ride. The PS5 reveal event stream is officially finished. No games, no features really, no design, but a lot of intense specs revealed.

12:52 - Apparently everyone will hear the 3D audio differently. For some it's not as great as it is for others, of course for Mark Cerny it sound amazing.

12:51 - So what about audio devices? Rolling support for this 3D audio out to existing audio hardware is going to be rough, but headphones are ready for it now. TV virtual surround sound is being worked on right now, but apparently isn’t ready.

12:49 - Remember this was due to be a developer panel during GDC, that's why its quite spec-intensive.

12:47 - Tempest 3D AudioTech has been built by Sony and will power the PS5's 3D audio. It runs on the 3D Tempest engine, is built on AMD technology and boasts SPU-like architecture. No Dolby Atmos.

12:45 - Mark Cerny is talking about ears...

12:44 - This great audio will be built into the console and won't be a peripheral.

12:43 - Goals for PS5 audio were: great audio for all, support hundreds of advanced sound sources, and taking on the challenge of presence and locality. Sony is really pushing immersive audio.

12:41 - Time to talk 3D audio.

12:40 - “We expect the gpu to spend most of its time at or near max boost of 2.23GHz," says Cerny.

12:39 - Pretty much, the PS5 should give off less heat and be quieter. Welcome news.

12:37 - PS5 will have variable frequency, similar to how PC works. The clock speed will depend on demand and temperature. This is a risky move, especially as console ages and temperatures often get higher due to factors like dust.

12:36 - Onto power consumption, Sony has previously said the PS5 would be its most eco-friendly console.

12:35 - This is very spec heavy, but don't worry, we'll have a spec analysis shortly after the live stream ends.

12:33 - PS4 games will be supported natively on GPU silicon. The GPU seems to be emulating the PS4/ PS4 Pro graphics chip.

12:31 - "Almost all of the Top 100 PS4 games will be playable at launch," Cerny says. We kind of new that anyway but it's good to get confirmation from Sony.

12:30 - RDNA 2 GPU, but we already knew that.

12:29 -  "If you see a similar discrete gpu available as a PC card at roughly the same time as we release our console, that means our collaboration with AMD succeeded in producing technology useful in both worlds," Cerny says.

12:27 - Backwards compatibility will be supported through GPu architecture somehow, but we're hoping to hear more on that.

12:22 - The PS5 SSD reaches 5.5GB/S - that is fast. It's also expandable via an HHD (external hard drive). Only certain M.2. SSDs can be used and they need to be as fast as the PS5's internal SSD. So only PCIe 4.0 SSDs - which are expensive right now.

12:20 - The PS5 will use Kraken decompression which will allow for 10% better compression than what’s found on PS4.

12:16 - Game streaming, and loading will be 100x faster. This could mean less texture pop-in in open world games, for example. In huge open world games, it could eliminate or massively reduce load times when fast traveling, for instance. This is one powerful machine, on par with a gaming PC - as we expected.

12: 15 - On PS5 the SSD is more like RAM. "Most of RAM is working on the game's behalf," says Cerny. In other words, SSDs will allow system memory to be used more effectively. SSDs have more bandwidth, so that data can be loaded from the SSD when it’s needed, rather than a bunch of potentially needless data being loaded into RAM.

12:14 - SSD's don't just load faster, they allow for bigger worlds theoretically. Developers don’t need to make games with smaller worlds due to the limitations of mechanical hard drives.

12:11 - An ultra-fast SSD "gives the game designer freedom", according to Cerny. That's the primary reason for including it in the PS5.

12:10- How long does it take to load 1GB of data? Well on PS4 it took about 20 seconds, but (thanks to the SSD) the PS5 will take a quarter of a second to load 2GB. Mark Cerny has called it "blindingly fast". If that's true then it's a game-changer (literally).

12:08 - The last topic on today's agenda is that fancy new 3D audio.

12:07 - "We need to judge for each feature what value it has" - Mark Cerny

12:05 - The PS5 is built with developers in mind. What they wanted most? An SSD. Cerny will be deep-diving into that soon.

12:03 - Mark Cerny has specified that this talk will be about PS5 hardware - not games.

12:00 - The PS5 reveal event is live now (well, kind of, a countdown is saying two minutes). We're providing expert analysis and opinion on everything that's announced right here. So stay tuned.

Source: techradar.com