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[IbizaPocholo]

PS6 Likely to Use 1TB SSD with No Disc Drive; Game Size Could Be Reduced with Neural Texture Compression

PS6 leaker believes Sony is planning a disc-free console with a 1TB SSD, potentially offset by Neural Texture Compression technology.

wccftech.com

NeoGAF user asked the leaker what configuration was included in that estimate when it comes to drive and disc, and the reply was: 1TB SSD with no disc. The response surprised and worried other users, especially because of the rise in game sizes, but Kepler_L2 has now clarified why that's the likely choice Sony is going to make:

It's the most obvious area to cut costs, and if PS6 SDK supports neural texture compression, game sizes could even be smaller than PS5.

Here's where it gets interesting. It is unclear whether the leaker is referring to AMD's own Neural Texture Block Compression technique or NVIDIA's similar Neural Texture Compression. You'd think the former, since the PS6 is powered by AMD hardware, but that's not necessarily the case.

Firstly, there's been no further news about NTBC since the original paper was released in July 2024. On the other hand, NVIDIA has already publicly shared the SDK of a pre-release version of Neural Texture Compression, and critically, it supports AMD (and Intel) hardware, too. It's possible Sony might choose it for its new console simply because it's actually ready. NTC would indeed help a great deal in reducing game sizes: early testing shows that it saves up to 7X more than the current compression standard (BC7). A 150GB game could weigh just 21-22GB.

Is that with 1 or 2TB SSD?

1TB Gen5 SSD and no Disk Drive

God, a "next-gen" box with 1TB of storage. I mean with SSD prices becoming almost as insane as RAM it is kind of understandable but 1TB in 2027/2028 would be crazy.

So basically $800+ BOM with 2TB, throw in additional costs for packaging/shipping/retailer surcharge and unless Sony subsidizes it's going to be $900+ .

It's the most obvious area to cut costs and if PS6 SDK supports neural texture compression game sizes could even be smaller than PS5.

 

[Felessan]

Price mentioned is wo disk drive
Console itself will use detachable like Slim/Pro
And actual SKUs depends on packaging and market demand

 

[viveks86]

Even if that's true, I can't see NTC becoming a standard by launch. It's such a fundamental change to how textures are optimized and stored. It will be a few years before it gets full adoption. Even intermediate stuff like NTBC (Neural Texture Block Compression), where you store NTC textures on disk but convert to BC textures in RAM is still in research phase with no way to go mainstream until next gen hardware is in dev's hands, because the decompression currently has too much overhead without cooperative vectors, which makes it cost prohibitive for practical use. Perhaps they can start building it assuming it all works out, using Nvidia hardware to hit the ground running, but I don't know how many devs would operate on the bleeding edge like that.

The first few years will be painful, especially for pro users who would see a downgrade in capacity. But given the ballooning costs, may be that's what we should prepare for...

 

[evanft]

Did you really create a thread based on an article based on something Kepler said here?

 

[viveks86]

Did you really create a thread based on an article based on something Kepler said here?

 

[Seomel]

Did you really create a thread based on an article based on something Kepler said here?

And?

 

[Hyper_hyper]

So, this better than Oodle Kraken and Oodle Texture pack on PS5?

 

[cafecat]

So what about disk game size, PS5 disk now 100gb/disk, what PS6 disk capabilities？Game install in PS6 console will be compressed?

 

[vaibhavpisal]

As expected.

2TB would be overkill for me. Being a 1 game at a time person. But 512 can be too restrictive in keeping next games ready.

 

[Bojji]

So, this better than Oodle Kraken and Oodle Texture pack on PS5?

Developers switching to neural textures will take - years. Games are already 100GB+

PS6 for sure will have NVME slot so I guess low storage is non issue.

 

[kikkis]

I thought neural texture compression had really poor bandwidth utilization and ps6 only has 160bit interface

 

[winjer]

Developers switching to neural textures will take - years. Games are already 100GB+

PS6 for sure will have NVME slot so I guess low storage is non issue.

With dram and nand being so expensive, it's going to be an incentive to developers to adopt the tech sooner, rather than later.

 

[Bojji]

I thought neural texture compression had really poor bandwidth utilization and ps6 only has 160bit interface

Universal compression will help with low BW but that's for "standard" stuff, how it will work with NTC - I have no idea.

With dram and nand being so expensive, it's going to be an incentive to developers to adopt the tech sooner, rather than later.

Yeah, but when one game takes 5-7 years, developers are ultra slow with this stuff.

Mesh Shaders appeared in 2018 and first game using them was AW2 from 2023 I think? And there are just few games using them at this point.

There is also tech called SFS (also from 2018) that was supposed to limit VRAM usage but no one is fucking using it, lol.

 

[winjer]

Yeah, but when one game takes 5-7 years, developers are ultra slow with this stuff.

Mesh Shaders appeared in 2018 and first game using them was AW2 from 2023 I think? And there are just few games using them at this point.

There is also tech called SFS (also from 2018) that was supposed to limit VRAM usage but no one is fucking using it, lol.

Most studios will go through the path of least work, to save on cost. So a lot of cool tech gets ignored.
But other tech never had the pressure of having a 5x price increase of ram and 2x for nand.
Studios will have to implement compression tech, or risk having their PS6 games look like PS5 games.

 

[Vr46]

lol no...nvme 5 gen is pointless, even the 4 gen in full force is not only enough but pointless too LMAO.
No disc drive? LMAO

 

[Bojji]

lol no...nvme 5 gen is pointless, even 4gen in full force is not only enough but pointless too LMAO

True, no game even came close to utilizing that 5GB/s SSD speed in PS5.

But standards are changing, so no wonder they will use PCIE5. But the worst thing is that they will require Gen5 SSD to play PS6 games (even if games themselves won't even be able to use PS5 SSD speeds).

 

[Thebonehead]

I thought neural texture compression had really poor bandwidth utilization and ps6 only has 160bit interface

Not really an issue as NTC is designed to save bandwidth. It will be pulling considerably less texture data from the vRAM

DirectX has had it in preview for nearly a year now - https://devblogs.microsoft.com/directx/cooperative-vector/ - Also see https://developer.nvidia.com/blog/neural-rendering-in-nvidia-optix-using-cooperative-vectors

Nvidia shows compression of around 90% on their published source code - https://github.com/NVIDIA-RTX/RTXNTC - Looking you'll probably see 60-70% in real life though

So the tech is there, and it's demonstrably working but.... It's a long way from engines implementing it into their pipelines. You just have to see how long DLSS took to be adopted, and NTC is in a much earlier state than that.

Just need Nvidia to flex their financial deep pockets with a couple of flagship titles to demonstrate the tech

 

[Xyphie]

lol no...nvme 5 gen is pointless, even the 4 gen in full force is not only enough but pointless too LMAO.

They can just use 2x PCIe 5 lanes instead of 4x if they don't want 15GB/s.

 

[Three]

He was only clarifying his BOM estimate not claiming no disc drive is happening (though it would probably make sense considering the PS5 Pro).

Also disk drive or disc drive? Kepler used disk but I assume he meant disc drive.

 

[Bojji]

He was only clarifying his BOM estimate not claiming no disc drive is happening (though it would probably make sense considering the PS5 Pro).

Also disk drive or disc drive? Kepler used disk but I assume he meant disc drive.

Fully optional disc drive means massive decrease of physical releases next gen...

I hope we will still see 2 SKUs, disc drive is one of the cheapest components anyway (price difference between PS5 DE and PS5 is just 50$).

 

[squallbr]

1TB, no DIsc Drive and NINE NINE NINE HUNDRED US Dollars

 

[SegaSnatcher]

1TB only works if you only play a few games. 2TB should be the standard for most consistent players.

So, start saving now for the disc drive add-on and another 1TB stick.

 

[J Required]

lol no...nvme 5 gen is pointless, even the 4 gen in full force is not only enough but pointless too LMAO.
No disc drive? LMAO

We don't need planes! Traveling by horses is more than enough! LMAO

 

[Bojji]

We don't need planes! Traveling by horses is more than enough! LMAO

PS5 SSD speed is overkill for this gen and would be plenty for next gen as well.

 

[HerjansEagleFeeder]

I wouldn't be surprised if the European and North American SKU launch without a disc drive, and by that I mean without the option to add a drive to the machine yourself at all. They have a historical opportunity right now to force everyone into digital only.

 

[Famipan]

Perhaps developers eventually will have to pay Sony for how many GB their games are.

 

[Vr46]

PS5 SSD speed is overkill for this gen and would be plenty for next gen as well.

you know what is NOT OVERKILL, that fucking gpu....160 bit LMAO, the minimum for me is a rtx 5090 performance for november 2028

 

[TrebleShot]

The whole ssd speed thing was a bit of an overhyped thing tbh, most of these games run just fine on a steam deck with SD Cards.
But I think it will be cool to see it advance if possible.

They will push away from disk drives as they likely want more of a revenue cut from their digital store where games are significantly more expensive than physical, at least here in the UK.

Personally I am all digital but starteing to lean physical for consoles as its less permannent.

 

[Cyborg]

As long as my MM2 SSD works I am fine.

 

[kazuyamishima]

I wouldn't be surprised if the European and North American SKU launch without a disc drive, and by that I mean without the option to add a drive to the machine yourself at all. They have a historical opportunity right now to force everyone into digital only.

Just like Steam then, their revenue would increase since no more second hand physical games.

 

[balls of snow]

Disc drive understandable with the detachable module for the ps5 pro.

Storage as long as our current add on ssds in our ps5 are compatible with ps6 then its fine.

 

[Fabieter]

Isnt ntc basically dlss 5.0

 

[BennyBlanco]

Just like Steam then, their revenue would increase since no more second hand physical games.

Just like Steam except no 3rd party stores that sell keys for cheaper.

 

[Fabieter]

I wouldn't be surprised if the European and North American SKU launch without a disc drive, and by that I mean without the option to add a drive to the machine yourself at all. They have a historical opportunity right now to force everyone into digital only.

No you don't do that. Alot of people are locked in because of their physical libary. It wont happen at least not with the ps6.

 

[StereoVsn]

No you don't do that. Alot of people are locked in because of their physical libary. It wont happen at least not with the ps6.

Yeah, people have games back to PS4 on physical. Sony would be crazy not to offer a physical option for PS6.

 

[MCH2024]

We don't need planes! Traveling by horses is more than enough! LMAO

Bro you'd be lucky to get a controller at 749$. Lower your expectations.

Sony might go for a PCIe 5.0 SSD but that would obviously be a mistake.

 

[Mr.Phoenix]

Even if that's true, I can't see NTC becoming a standard by launch. It's such a fundamental change to how textures are optimized and stored. It will be a few years before it gets full adoption. Even intermediate stuff like NTBC (Neural Texture Block Compression), where you store NTC textures on disk but convert to BC textures in RAM is still in research phase with no way to go mainstream until next gen hardware is in dev's hands, because the decompression currently has too much overhead without cooperative vectors, which makes it cost prohibitive for practical use. Perhaps they can start building it assuming it all works out, using Nvidia hardware to hit the ground running, but I don't know how many devs would operate on the bleeding edge like that.

The first few years will be painful, especially for pro users who would see a downgrade in capacity. But given the ballooning costs, may be that's what we should prepare for...

If NTC is true, and is in the PS6 SDK (which, us unlikely being that Cerny is going with Universal compression, albeit nothing stops them from also using the neural arrays for their own NTC equivalent)

EVERYONE will use it. Immediately. In fact, it would even be a requirement. A compression factor of 6 - 10x, is impossible to ignore. The PS6 will likely use the inference-on-load variant, which amounts to a 6x compression factor. Being able to store 18GB of textures using only 3GB of space... is too much to ignore, and this approach almost comes at no cost at all.

However, what sony seems to be going with is UC, not NTC. they could do both though.

 

[Mr.Phoenix]

Developers switching to neural textures will take - years. Games are already 100GB+

PS6 for sure will have NVME slot so I guess low storage is non issue.

No, it won't.

Neural textures are just a compression format. If PS6 is using the low-cost version, inference on load, then what that means is that devs take a normal texture, convert that to an NT, and then store that on the drive. This is the one that gets you a 6x compression factor. Then, when playing a game, that compressed NT is loaded into RAM and then decompressed back to a normal texture and then accessed by your engine like its a normal texture.

This is akin to using Kraken.

Sony might go for a PCIe 5.0 SSD but that would obviously be a mistake.

Why?

Do you realize that it's not like they even have a choice? The Zen6 CPU, which is what the PS6 is using, is a PCIE 5 CPU, meaning its PCIE lanes have native support for PCIE gen 5 hardware. So if it's already there for free, Why should Sony not use it?

Isnt ntc basically dlss 5.0

Well its an Nvidia monicker is thats what you are asking.

What Sony and AMD are doing is UC (universal compression), basically this is a successor of Kraken, and has dedicated hardware for the decompression. The difference being that Sony's approach doesn't just work on textures, it works on everything, textures, audio files, data files...etc and in a way that it's invisible to the rendering hardware. It has a lossless compression factor of about 3:1. NTC, on load variant, has a CF of 6:1. Albeit it only works on textures, and is a lossy format.

 

[TAS]

Do we know if 'no disc drive' means no option for seperate disc drive like PS5? Because that would seriously suck.

 

[Sethbacca]

The first few years will be painful, especially for pro users who would see a downgrade in capacity. But given the ballooning costs, may be that's what we should prepare for...

Hopefully we'll be able to just move our extra NVME storage over directly and eliminate a lot of those worries. Most of us own 2-4tb extra anyway.

 

[MCH2024]

Why?

They are currently being slaughtered on the BoM for PS5/PS5 Pro for SSD. If they chose a PCIe 2.0 SSD that can't be used on server it'd have been a lot less bad.

And all those PS5 games aren't actually using the SSD's speed that much (yes even ratchet and clank). They could have gotten away with XSX speeds.

Cerny's vision for a PS5 with constant max throughput data streaming from SSD just didn't happen. (Thanks Jensen and Xbox)

The Zen6 CPU, which is what the PS6 is using, is a PCIE 5 CPU,

clueless.

PCIe is not inherent to the CPU Core, it's a different IP block you put on the die depending on what you need. This is a semi custom chip, so Sony can have wtv they want.

Also Medusa Point 1/2/3 are all PCIe 4.0. Womb womb.

Sony could put a PCIe 5.0 SSD but it won't really matter.

 

[dolabla]

Something's got to give. These games are getting larger and larger and people (especially now) can't afford to keep buying new hard drives. If true, that's not enough for anything. It will probably never happen, but I'm ready to go back to reading off the disc. I do not care about waiting for load times that are usually not that long anyways.

 

[DeepEnigma]

Did you really create a thread based on an article based on something Kepler said here?

Gaf > Internet > Gaf

 

[Bojji]

Do we know if 'no disc drive' means no option for seperate disc drive like PS5? Because that would seriously suck.

Separate disc drive 100% will be there.

I wonder if this console will launch like PS5 (both DE and DD edition) or DE only (with disc drive sold separately), if it's DE only we can say goodbye to physical games few years into the generation...

 

[Brucey]

Did you really create a thread based on an article based on something Kepler said here?

Does it all the freaking time lol.

 

[diffusionx]

I recall that ps5 games were smaller than ps4 because of ssd. The difference was substantial in some games. So, the size of the drive matters less than how much you could fit on it. PS5 drive still was too small. All things being equal it should be 2TB.

 

[KeplerL2]

Do we know if 'no disc drive' means no option for seperate disc drive like PS5? Because that would seriously suck.

Tom Henderson already reported PS6 will have an attachable disk drive https://insider-gaming.com/exclusiv...ed-to-have-a-detachable-disc-drive-on-launch/

 

[Tiago Rodrigues]

I wasn't expecting 2TB like the Pro. 1TB is what i expected. Same for the fact it won't have a disc drive out of the box.

 

[TAS]

Tom Henderson already reported PS6 will have an attachable disk drive https://insider-gaming.com/exclusiv...ed-to-have-a-detachable-disc-drive-on-launch/

That's great. Thanks!

 

[Mr.Phoenix]

They are currently being slaughtered on the BoM for PS5/PS5 Pro for SSD. If they chose a PCIe 2.0 SSD that can't be used on server it'd have been a lot less bad.

And all those PS5 games aren't actually using the SSD's speed that much (yes even ratchet and clank). They could have gotten away with XSX speeds.

Cerny's vision for a PS5 with constant max throughput data streaming from SSD just didn't happen. (Thanks Jensen and Xbox)

You honestly legit cannot say whatever Cerny was trying to do didn't happen. You just can't know that. And theer is absolutely nothing wrong with having more throughput.

clueless.

PCIe is not inherent to the CPU Core, it's a different IP block you put on the die depending on what you need. This is a semi custom chip, so Sony can have wtv they want.

Also Medusa Point 1/2/3 are all PCIe 4.0. Womb womb.

Sony could put a PCIe 5.0 SSD but it won't really matter.

The Zen6 architecture is PCIe Gen 5 for consumer and gen 6 for enterprise. What you are suggesting is that Sony, for whatever reason, goes and tells them not to use the gen 5 architecture... which makes no sense because nothing stops you from pairing those PCIe lanes to a controller for whatever Gen SSD you want. Esepcially when you consider that those lanes arent even just for the SSD, those lanes also feed teh USB ports.