We've heard plenty about the PS5's technical brilliance from Sony and its associated developers. Another testimonial from a senior staffer at Epic Games has emerged, this time full of praise focused on the new console's SSD.
VG247 (via TechRadar), speaking to Epic Games' VP of engineering Nick Penwarden, reports that the custom SSD storage offered by the next-gen PlayStation is "truly special".
- PS5: Release date, price, specs, games and more
- All of the PS5 games we know about
- Plus: PS5 could get the one remaster you really want
“The ability to stream in content at extreme speeds enables developers to create denser and more detailed environments, changing how we think about streaming content" continues Penwarden.
"It’s so impactful that we’ve rewritten our core I/O subsystems for Unreal Engine with the PlayStation 5 in mind."
The claim that developers are needing to rethink how to create games and game engines for the PS5 vindicates what Sony talked about in its Road to PS5 presentation. While this was a highly technical talk that left many gamers cold, it made some bold claims about how the speed of the PS5's SSD would revolutionize level design.
With increased loading speeds, devs will in theory not need to use arbitrary pieces of environment such as elevators or narrow corridors to break up graphically intensive areas, but can build levels exactly as they want to.
Penwarden is full of praise for the other parts of the PS5's hardware too, saying the console "provides a huge leap in both computing and graphics performance." While this is certainly true compared to the PS4, the PS5 has been confirmed to have a lower compute output compared to the Xbox Series X. Sony will be relying on its console's other features such as 3D audio and the haptic abilities of its new DualSense controller.
Xbox fans needn't get jealous though. Epic Games founder and CEO Tim Sweeney posted on Twitter that the changes to Unreal Engine will help improve the Xbox Series X and other platforms too.
There has been a massive effort to upgrade Unreal Engine loading and streaming to ensure CPU doesn’t become the bottleneck. PS5 has provided much of the impetus, but the work will benefit all platforms.June 3, 2020
Both the PS5 and Xbox Series X will go head-to-head when they hit retailers' shelves around November, but until then we have a series of events revealing more about the consoles and their launch titles in store. Sony's upcoming PS5 games event, which was delayed in solidarity with the Black Lives Matter movement, should give us an idea of what we'll be playing on the PS5 by the end of the year. And Xbox will follow up with a July exclusives event that will showcase hotly anticipated titles, including Halo Infinite.
