I’ve Disappointed and Embarrassed Myself.

[James]

Buy Playstation stuff:

On Amazon (PAID LINK): https://geni.us/fAcMLB

On Newegg (PAID LINK): https://geni.us/rloH0

 

Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney recently stated that the upcoming Playstation 5 would feature a storage architecture "far ahead of anything you can buy on anything on PC for any amount of money right now". Linus initially attacked Sweeney's statement, citing existing SSDs with faster read/write speeds. In this video, Linus explains how he misunderstood Sweeney's statement, apologizes for spreading misinformation, and discusses some of the cool tech that makes the PS5 truly exciting for gamers of all stripes.

 

 

 

[Haro]

All of this because of a proprietary nvme drive 

Really

[RAM555789]

Do wanna point out that link for Newegg is out of stock, and Amazon is not much better. (charging more than full price on used PS4 1TB just because its the last one)

[Lord Vile]

7 minutes ago, TofuHaroto said:

All of this because of a proprietary nvme drive 

Really

All of this because you should check your facts before attacking someone 

[Haro]

Just now, Lord Vile said:

All of this because you should check your facts before attacking someone 

Attacking in this case is a strong word 

I can't agree or disagree with it either way really

[DaveBetTech]

Great video. It's exactly in line with what I would expect Linus to do when caught in a situation like this. Pretty respectable response, if not just hard to watch. It was nice that he cleared the air.

 

Also, no more cognitive dissonance because I remember hearing one thing from the Sony preso vs what many people were saying about the PS5's storage (nothing special).

 

Thanks.

[kelvinhall05]

Says a lot about Linus when he feels the need to make a 12 minute apology because he was wrong one time 

 

 

Bruh we're all wrong at one point or another, just tweet an apology or something and move on.

[FullThrottle099]

Good man. Takes a lot to make a video like that. This is why I have been watching your videos for 11 years.

[Zodiark1593]

29 minutes ago, TofuHaroto said:

All of this because of a proprietary nvme drive 

Really

There’s a bit more to it than just an NVME drive. Sony had put together a custom storage controller. I believe the idea is for the drive to act similarly to cartridges of old, in that data can be accessed in a similar fashion to RAM instead of copying data into RAM in advance. 
 

In this case, even if the quantity of RAM remains at 8 GB, the console would be better suited to portraying larger worlds as the data residing in storage is just as accessible for use as it would be were it to reside in RAM. 

[PhantomTates]

36 minutes ago, TofuHaroto said:

All of this because of a proprietary nvme drive 

Really

It's not the drive, it's the software and fixed function compression/decompression hardware that enables more direct I/O between storage and video memory.

[Haro]

Just now, Zodiark1593 said:

In this case, even if the quantity of RAM remains at 8 GB, the console would be better suited to portraying larger worlds as the data residing in storage is just as accessible for use as it would be were it to reside in RAM. 

Getting the custom controller and the custom way of compressing files etc is super cool 

But that's not the point (I don't want to sound like a fan boy ) but blaming your self for well effectively an nvme drive is a little over kill 

At the end of the day no one got hurt and it wasn't the end of the world

Plus everyone makes mistakes 

I like the video but just wanted to at least say that for the most part it's not a big deal 

[SansVarnic]

Linus did the honorable thing here. He apologized and then he explained to the public why he did what he did.

Good move Linus.

[spartaman64]

6 minutes ago, Zodiark1593 said:

There’s a bit more to it than just an NVME drive. Sony had put together a custom storage controller. I believe the idea is for the drive to act similarly to cartridges of old, in that data can be accessed in a similar fashion to RAM instead of copying data into RAM in advance. 
 

In this case, even if the quantity of RAM remains at 8 GB, the console would be better suited to portraying larger worlds as the data residing in storage is just as accessible for use as it would be were it to reside in RAM. 

i still dont quite understand how this is useful couldnt they have spent the rnd cost to just have more ram or is using the storage going to be faster than ram

[Lord Vile]

37 minutes ago, TofuHaroto said:

Attacking in this case is a strong word 

I can't agree or disagree with it either way really

Was using the language in the OP

[SteveGrabowski0]

@LinusTech thanks for explaining this SSD. Also you gotta keep rocking that epic beard man. 

[kakik09]

This is what happens when you take your whole half-hearted, do it for fun attitude too far. Linus, you've been really sloppy lately. Whether it's careless journalism, or making fun of your viewers for telling you to put thermal paste on the recommended way or even recommending you to put better memory on your upgraded personal rig, you really should be more careful how you present yourself, especially if you're branding yourself as an tech enthusiast. 

 

I respect that you were big enough to owe to your mistakes. Definitely a candidate for best Youtuber apology.

[Pitboy64]

“In the course of my life,
I have often had to eat my words,
and I must confess that I have always found it a wholesome diet.”
― Winston Spencer-Churchill

[kelvinhall05]

Just now, VegetableStu said:

20 seconds in

My point still stands. Feels to me like instead of dumping water on the fire to put it out, he is blowing on it to try and put it out which is just increasing the fire. I didn't even know he made these accusations, I certainly can't be the only one. Now, I couldn't care less about what he said or that he was wrong, but I somehow doubt this is going to completely clear things up or whatever.

[Senzelian]

It's a nice gesture to upload an apology, but I think it was way too dramatic.

This is not the first time he talked a bit of nonsense on the wan show and tbh I don't want to see a whole video everytime he does.

It's normal for us to sometimes turn our brains off and only afterwards we notice that we made a mistake.

 

[melete]

To be fair, Linus is far from the only person to not really understand the PS5's storage solution and how it's different from a plug-and-play NVME drive in someone's rig.

[Haro]

Just now, melete said:

Linus is far from the only person to not really understand the PS5's storage solution and how it's different from a plug-and-play NVME drive in someone's rig.

no one understood it until they actually explained it 

 

[Nystemy]

On 6/5/2020 at 9:40 PM, spartaman64 said:

i still dont quite understand how this is useful couldnt they have spent the rnd cost to just have more ram or is using the storage going to be faster than ram

Adding more RAM adds additional cost to the product in manufacturing.
Spending money on R&D and getting more our of the hardware one already has means that the hardware cost is the same.

Its a bit like increasing the range of an electric car, one can either make it more aerodynamic, or put in a larger battery.
One solution requires a bit more R&D effort, but doesn't add more expensive batteries to the vehicle. Though, adding batteries is way simpler.

Just the same, we could build a console with way more RAM, but RAM costs about 10x more than Flash storage does.
And depending on data we load and how we use it, reading it from Flash can be sufficiently quick for it to not matter much that it weren't in RAM to start with.
Unless we have a bunch of things slowing this down, like OS and file system overhead, non standard compression, etc.

So the solution is to clean up and standardize and provide dedicated hardware for decompressing files. (Adding decompression hardware does increase costs, but this is fairly marginal compared to the cost of RAM. (When one spins an ASIC, then making hardware features is relatively simple, RAM on the other hand is expensive since it eats transistors for breakfast. Even 1 GB of RAM needs just over 8 billion transistors.))

In the end, it's simply a more cost effective solution.

Edit:

I could also add some number here.
DRAM currently costs 0.97 USD per GB.
So If Sony were to put in an extra 4GB of RAM, that would be about 4 dollars per console, + assembly time, + PCB verification costs + lower manufacturing yield + logistics.
If they sell 20 million consoles, that adds up to 80 million dollars for just the RAM chips, not to mention the other costs. (that usually outweigh the cost of the raw components themselves.)

If the development costs of the IO controller's hardware decompression system were a steep 10 million dollars, then its obviously cheaper.

And considering that more responsive storage and faster decompression means that we can more actively shuffle about what resources we do have in RAM, meaning that we don't need to use as much of our RAM for assets that we might potentially need later, but we can instead use that RAM for stuff that we are actively using at current.

Meaning that for a given application, our need for RAM can be reduced while still providing the same end result.

Edited June 5, 2020 by Nystemy

[GDRRiley]

The only reason I know which drives are actually fast (some not all of them) is based on which ones will work for 4k+ high bitrate video recording.

sounds like most of this is just consoles getting what PC should have got years ago, onboard hardware compression and decompression for data. AMD already has this tech if they built it into the PS4 so it would be amazing if ryzen 4000 had it or at least ryzen 5000 got it added. would make a ton of sense for every chips IO die to have that.

 

Some of this also falls on microsoft for not improving their software stack.

 

half of it is hardware optimizations the other is software.

 

I'll I'm happy for now is I got a spare m.2 PCIE slot  and a small 2.5in SSD so I can add a drive when games start to need them.

[RejZoR]

Despite not being a console owner (my last and only console was PS2), I understood what Cerny was talking about and was actually raising my eyebrows when Linus was boasting about the faster NVMe SSD he had (especially as I was working with tweaking of Killing Floor 2 which runs on Unreal Engine 3.x and I had close encounter with data streaming and it's specifics as well as witnessing game breaking issues in Need for Speed 2015 when ppl were running it with too slow drives and streaming wasn't catching up with actual ingame happenings). Good to see Linus is owning the mistake.

 

And like he said it in this video this time, the problem is really more about OS and software than SSD itself. PC games are designed to fetch everything into RAM and VRAM and past that point, it basically becomes irrelevant. Sure some assets streaming is still involved, but developers consider it to work even on HDD's, even though badly.

 

I think one of ways to deal with this is to benchmark the IO of storage device and if it meets certain criteria, it'll stream assets directly like on consoles. If it doesn't, it'll do the old preloading in memory. Assuming you have enough in the first place. This might be the first time massive requirements jump will come from storage, memory, CPU and GPU requirements for new games and not just graphics and partially memory like it was for past many years. Coz in order for massive leaps in game fidelity, you'll need all 4. Hell, I'm fairly certain if games were designed with SATA SSD's in mind as the baseline, I think we could have much more rich on-the-fly streamable environments than with preloading.

 

This might be the first time consoles will kick PC's into a higher gear. Until PC's catch up and that's where those absurd fast SSD's will again reign supreme under PCMR flag. When OS, drivers, and entire IO hardware stack will work together, sticking that insane SSD will probably be faster than any console. But we can't have that until software is written for it. That includes Windows and games themselves.

[3rrant]

Really happy that @LinusTech took his time to dive into this matter. As a long time viewer I was really upset by how this whole thing wasn't discussed properly and how bashed Tim was in the wan show. It was embarrassing to watch and led me to think "can I actually trust this source anymore?" On the videos I watched next. Being honest and addressing issues is the best way to make up for mistakes and I'm glad that Linus did it.

 

 

Whether or not Sony will push the industry forward again like they did with PS1, we'll see and I surely hope so cause it's the best for everyone.