Early PS5 Tests Suggest Xbox Series X Is Faster At Loading Old Games

Yeah, definitely playing my multiplats on Xbox Series X when I get one eventually. Not that a few seconds really matter, just hoping for a performance boost.

I can't wait for comparison videos, interested to see how one game runs on Series X vs PS5 side by side.

Something tells me this is going to be a fun comments section.

It seems that they will have to be programmed to take advantage of that SSD, which lets be fair loads the new Spider-Man save file in little over a second. The other thing PS5 doesn't have is quick resume so if you're playing a few older games then switching between them is going to be significantly longer

I still remember how a 🦄 troll account in wccftech posts in every articles about how ps5 has better and efficient software when now that the cat is out of the bag, you can already see the diminishing return (in cost).

A lot of people are also claiming how these titles don’t have patches but the whole idea of backcompat is not about that to begin with. Microsoft also has DirectStorage API which is a part of Velocity Architecture in its upcoming Gamecore next-gen development platform. In all fairness, when the backcompat games do get patches, Series X will also run at locked 60fps with better resolution, 16x anisotropic filtering (another fps hog) and auto HDR.

Calling spade a spade, Microsoft has done an incredible amount of job with not just a very balanced hardware but also a more efficient and optimised backcompat software layer along with laying grounds for next gen Gamecore development platform, DirectX 12 Ultimate API and all the next-gen optimisation features that are part of Velocity Architecture.

@Medic_Alert I doubt its down clocking the CPU as it runs some back compat games better than Series X due to the lower resolutions of the PS4 Pro versions of those games.

Also Unity seems to be GPU limited as its drops were at times with lots of alpha effects, so could be the PS4 configuration

Just mental. I honestly expected the PS5 to be loading games quicker as the word ever since the initial specs was that the PS5 had a far superior SSD. At the end of the day, it’s the end product that matters.

@nessisonett The fabled superior SSD is only superior on architecture, not on raw read/write speed. Games not build for PS5 are just on a regular SSD. Faster loads but not the fastest.

Interesting curve ball, on both fronts. Since the PS4 Pro was weaker and almost always just did 2k checkerboarded, the PS5 has an easier time achieving 60fps on games than the Series X. Sure, lower res, but most people might not care on BC titles.

Funny how the machine with the slowest SSD has better BC load times, and the machine with the weakest gpu has the steadiest BC frame rates.

@carlos82 Did you forget how the “fanboys” and “journalists” chest thumping about the gamechanger double RAW unoptimised SSD I/O speed difference? Now those same people are claiming on Twitter about how loading speeds suddenly don’t matter now.

@Senua I do remember all the fuss over that SSD and it still does seem to be very impressive based off what Mile Morales can do with it but clearly not the significant advantage over Xbox it was lauded to be. Quite the opposite for what is essentially 99.9% of games playable at launch.

I do wonder if it can genuinely make a difference in game or whether Ratchet and Clank would be perfectly playable on Series X

@Medic_Alert Did you see the video? They running games on the gamechanger internal SSD.

Spider-Man loading from dash in 4 seconds then to game in 2 is impressive, there’s no doubt imo that the PS5’s SSD is pretty great. When it comes to backwards compatibility though it seems the series X allows the games to take full advantage of that extra power available, even without a patch. While the PS5 is just emulation of a ps4 pro isn’t it? Could explain it I don’t know.

@carlos82 Few months ago a Sony dev has confirmed in a podcast that there’s absolutely no real reason as to why a tech demo like R&C won’t run on Series X.

@Medic_Alert Sony themselves seemed to suggest the thing in their deep dive woth its legacy modes but you wouldn't be getting 60fps in that Hitman stage with clock speeds anywhere near the PS4 Pro. My guess would be games having to be programmed for that 12 channel interface to take advantage of its speed and without that its just a standard SSD

@Fenbops While the PS5 is just emulation of a ps4 pro isn’t it? No it is NOT, atleast in storage department as it enjoys the double the RAW SSD speed before even any optimisation.

@Senua fair enough, it seems more and more likely that they jumped on pushing their SSD because they knew they were outmatched in every other department

@carlos82 It doesn’t work that way. Both PS5 and Series X backcompat titles are enjoying the RAW SSD speed without even any DirectStorage/Velocity Architecture (for Xbox) SSD decompression/optimisation.

@Senua so I’m confused!? If the PS5 is using emulation to run backwards compat games is it not feasible that they’ll play just like they did on PS4 pro, hence the slower loading times? I didn’t think they would be taking advantage of the SSD in that case.

@Fenbops No the ps5 can still load faster than ps4 pro enjoying the RAW internal SSD speed bump. The same is with Series X backcompat games which are not optimised for SSD decompression and it’s Velocity Architecture but can still load faster than One X due to huge RAW SSD speed bump.

@Medic_Alert apart from loading speeds, I can’t see much of an advantage anywhere from the PS5 going forward. It’ll be interesting to see where we’re at in a couple of years.

@Medic_Alert same and there are lots of older games such as Daytona that I still like playing which PS5 simply won't be able to

@Senua oh wow thanks for clearing that up. It is interesting as on paper Sony’s SSD should be at least 2x faster than the Xbox.

I expected this when Sony detailed their BC as just "running in PS4 mode" on an SSD. Compared to Microsoft actually building a system wide base for things like BC, auto HDR, etc

@Medic_Alert I forgot about the controller you’re completely right, that thing is meant to be impressive!

And I feel the same way, the Xbox feels safe, while the PS5 is a bit of an unknown entity and I’d say I’m more excited about it too.

I'm curious to see loading times of next gen games compared between ps5 and series X.

@Senua yes but in his deep dive Mark mentioned the PS5 SSD has 6 levels of priority for streaming data as opposed to just 2 in an NVME drive, so these drives would have to be faster than the PS5 SSD to be compatible and match performance. So would this not be where the advertised PS5 speeds come from in the first place? Then with these games not coded for that interface they are just using the lower raw number of the drive, whatever that maybe

@carlos82 That doesn’t really make sense. APIs like XVA are only there for writing the next-gen games using the decompression block, texture compression algorithms like BCPack and overall designing the levels more optimised for better random access I/O of SSDs (for ex without the need store redundant assets on nearby sectors of HDD). But the whole 12 channel thing is already there at hardware architecture level and the RAW speed of each modules were supposed to make a difference (atleast according to the past claims of fanboy journalists) or otherwise it’s just a diminishing return.

Both consoles (Xbox and PS) are such beautiful machines capable of so much more, that it is really sad that people are only obsessing over how well they perform in running old games that should be outgrown over the first year of new systems lifespan.

Series X is a beast, definitely living up to the most powerful console moniker!

@carlos82 there was a YouTube interview with some Sony fan and a developer from Ratchet and Clank and he asked him that exact question while praising the masterpiece of an SSD that Sony had and the developer said it could absolutely work on the Xbox....the host just looked so depressed. Hilarious fail.

Both boxes will be fantastic but yeah Sony and it's trill army need to be called out for making this a big deal on the past and now going silent. I can't wait to start playing and stop reading the Twitter battles online. People care so much about plastic...its actually kinda depressing...on all sides.

I think this may just be an example of how much more care and attention MS put in to their BC software, as opposed to just trying to raw power it with hardware.

I've found all this very surprising after expecting the PS5 to load the games quicker. I watched the Digital Foundry video on the PS5 backwards compatibility and it showed several games able to run at 60fsp where the Series X wasn't able to match it which also surprised me, considering its a more powerful machine (believe its the difference between checkerboard and native resolutions).

On the face of it the faster PS5 ssd loads slower than the Series X, while the more powerful Series X under performs on framerate vs the weaker PS5. Crazy!

Final take away from the video was both these machine sound like they're amazing and I've stopped playing any games so I can wait for these.

Could it have something to do with the Series X CPU being better than the PS5's

@Cikajovazmaj

People love “old” games. Hence why Xbox has invested so much in backwards compatibility & Sony is trying to play catch-up in that area.

Do you only watch brand new movies? Or only listen to brand new music? 🙄

This is hilarious. All we heard about was that “amazing SSD” in the PS5 like it was going to cure cancer or bring us world peace. But it can’t even load faster than the XSX SSD?

😂🤣

The differences because the bottleneck is decompression by the CPU not the SSD speed. Single threaded performance for the Xbox series X is 3.8 GHz whereas the PS5 is 3.5 GHz. That allows the series X to decompress for data faster and therefore have short loading times. We should have a different outcome on NextGen games when the velocity architecture is pitted against the PS5’s hardware decompression.

@Ryall The question then is, at its best, PS5's SSD solution is twice the speed as XB's. But what we don't know currently, then, is twice as fast as what, when CPU bottlenecks are removed in general and not single threaded on either console? Compression will be even more important with limited storage space. Yes, PS5 does that in hardware, but we don't know how significantly that matters depending on how loaded (or not) the CPU is.

I'm kind of tired of hearing all the "hype" around the SSD on the PS5. The selling point here is PS5 is NVMe4 and XSX is NVMe3, and yes that does matter, but the custom SSD is a smoke and mirrors work-around to get to market with a cobbled together solution to use NVMe3 to get something similar to NVMe4 performance before NVMe4 is commercially available. An expensive end-run just to launch sooner than was practical for their design and comes at the cost of reduced user storage space and inferior BC. Using NVMe4 is a big differentiator, but so much of the talk about it is Marketing Enhanced(TM) Along with "Velocity Architecture(TM)"

"but with more titles" Didn't know 3000 was more than 4000

@nessisonett for this very reason is why I've said the numbers don't matter. Its how it is leveraged and MS have built the velocity architecture with this in mind. It doesn't surprise me that MS are better at backwards compatability than Sony. They've been doing it longer.

The more news that comes out about the PS5 the more it sounds like they are shipping out beta units. Some thoughts below.

Underpowered so got boosted to reduce power gap on paper.
BC is put a game in and see how it goes...not yet tested.
Memory extension....a slot is there...but it doesn't work...not yet tested
External storage....can't store PS5 games...not play just store...wtf? Not yet tested?
No sales in store's due very limited stock. It's not covid at all...just didn't want to have empty shelves all the time.

Honestly what did they do? I'm so happy i switched to Xbox for this gen but so dumbfounded as to what's going on over there.

I hope it works out for everyone who got one but i highly recommend some type of extended warranty cuz this beta unit is likely...not yet tested.

@Krzzystuff IMO PS5 is "The Cyberpunk of hardware."

They had a very ambitious idea of what they wanted to do. So ambitious it wasn't actually possible to release it yet. But business imperative of having a 7 year old console and a resurgent Nintendo and Microsoft mandated they do something sooner than later. They didn't want to abandon their ambition, so they had to hack together some kind of PS5 touching on that ambition and working around the inability to deliver it yet.

Couple that with terrible leadership, internal power struggles, the leaders that revived a half dead PS division all heading for the exists as fast as possible to get away from a control freak numbers-guy running the show, and that guy turning into a one-man-policy maker lead to...this.

I think there will definitely be highlights out of the PS5, I think the ambition remains to a degree inside, and developers are enthusiastic for it....they'll come up with great uses of whats there.

But the bottom line I think is the "real" PS5 doesn't exist yet....this is a concept car, a prototype. I didn't fully realize until yesterday that the SSD isn't a high concept innovation, it's a taped together stop-gap because the actual tech they needed doesn't exist yet. It's impressive they pulled that off, but it comes at a cost in terms of their losses on selling the hardware, the amount of storage you get, etc. The OS, and even the website, are clearly still works in progress.

they'll rely on marketing to make the best of that, and it will probably work, coupled with excited devs making use of it. But the real weakness of the PS5, I don't think comes down to the CPU or GPU which each have their own up sides and downsides. I think it comes down to all the little things adding up. BC, storage, etc, etc. It's just kind of a pain to use, and designed for a 1990's way of play: Pop a disc in, boot it up, delete the data, swap a new disc in. For a console that physically was clearly designed around the all-digital edition, they really, really didn't think the digital ecosystem out at all.

@KelticDevil actually, I do mostly watch only new movies, but that is beyond point (and sort of due to the fact I'm a cinema fan and watch a ton of it).
I have about 7-8 consoles, ranging back from NES, and realistically only one I play is last gen. I love the idea of having all of them, but I never ever use them. I just think it's one of those things people cling on to, because it makes them feel they are going to get more out of an investment that has already passed it's prime. (in this case games that should have been played through years ago but ended up in a backlog)

@Cikajovazmaj

Well, we completely disagree on this & I have been playing games since the Atari 2600 days.

I love backwards compatibility & how Microsoft is handling it. I love how I know my purchases going forward will always be there & even improved from when I played them the first & it’s a huge thing to millions of people.

As a “cinema fan”, I would think you would appreciate this too since it’s always nice to watch an old movie or to see it given the respect it deserves.

@Kefka2589 honestly i would avoid the launch consol if you're not 100% sold on it. Over time quality will only go up and maybe the storage inside as well. I was personally pumped for the cool controller but then everything else just started turning me off of it...that was before the reveal. Now comparing the two nothing is drawing me to the PS5. Half naked console with expensive ass games that can be played on PS4. There's gona be some crazy deals on the PS4 I'd imagine this black Friday so that's the time to get one.

-Are there bc games that load faster for the ps5?
-Were these chosen cause they are graphically intensive? Or favored the xbsx.
-How do the load times of nextgen version of games, differ? Legion, Valhalla, nba2k21, etc.

Regardless, I'll be getting both consoles in due time.

@Kefka2589 sorry for jumping in, but just wait for a ps5 bundle. By then demon's souls might be a ps hit.

@Kefka2589 just like @PhhhCough said hold off on buying it. Quality will improve overtime, you might even get a larger hard drive and there will be more games to play. Most titles will be cross gen anyways so it's only a few you'll be missing out on. And like the add for Demo Souls said it will be on PC soon as well.

@Senua his name is GenXGamer

@Gosol Now he calls himself 'Xbot seal of disaster'

@Kefka2589 Yeah... I'm still getting my ps5... Probably "because I can" and "because i put so much work into getting the preorder (hopefully) ". But a lot of wind came out of the sales over the past month and worryingly the past week. I keep hearing about the potential, and i do believe it to a degree, but as of 11/6/20, I'm definitely a lot more excited about xsx. Though my target order still hasn't billed so i might be excited about my ps5 "consolation prize" by the end of next week

@carlos82 smoke and mirrors. What's the point of their magical CernyDrive if NVMe4 that's much faster than it at a raw level meets or exceeds it without the multichannel special handling...... And said NVMe4 drives will be bigger, and make up the mainstay of game loads once people inevitably upgrade? Their drive can't do anything those can't do, otherwise they couldn't support those for the same functions. We all got suckered into that marketing hole, fans and anti fans alike. It's just a back door bespoke way of delivering NVMe4 speeds before NVMe4 is ready. It hit me yesterday while reading the ps5 reviews. By their own design they admit their drive offers nothing the new NVMe4s won't. Otherwise they'd need proprietary drives. They just have an awkward solution that requires the game be built for it that they turned into a marketing plus. I bet load times even of bc improve greatly with the expansion drives once supported.

@Kefka2589 Golden Week isn't now, silly....oh...golden....I saw weeb and just assumed......nevermind

Haha, yeah, I keep getting Cell flashbacks myself. I trust those devs on PS who have explained the advantages and why it's a good platform....I do believe them. I realize it's not Cell. But I hadn't realized that in this case, it wasn't so much about custom bespoke hardware they really believe is special.....but that the bespoke custom-ness is just a kludge to get an "equivalent" of the real deal before the real deal is ready from other vendors. I both commend and reproach them for it. On one hand it's impressive they were able to get NVME4 level performance with a hackneyd NVME3 solution and some custom software. It's very impressive. But OTOH they want us to pay for a really creative kludge that has no actual purpose whatsoever other than beating the real product to market by a few months.....they could have waited, launched in May, and just run NVMe4 off the shelf and had the same - OR BETTER - performance.

Even then I could almost forgive them. But they marketed a frenzy and had even me believing it was a bespoke thing with its own merits....

At the end of the day, if we ignore the custom hackjob, they still have a console powered by NVMe4 storage while Microsoft has a console powered by NVMe3 storage. If we think about it that way, there is some cool value to what PS5 can do. And maybe (supposedly) an easier dev kit. But Microsoft has more raw grunt. The NVMe4 and simpler dev kit is really the strengths PS5 has. "Everything else" is the strengths XSX has......

BC games' loading speed on the PS5 is disappointing, I won't lie. I was expecting games like FFXV unpatched to load in 10 seconds at WORST, let alone a whole minute.

It's obvious that this won't happen on PS5 games (it's already been proven), but it's ironic to see a half-as-fast SSD beat the PS5's and by quite a few seconds, too.

That isn't to say there aren't exceptions - Witcher 3 so far loads a lot faster on the PS5 than the XSX, which means that there are some last-gen games which have an architecture that takes advantage of that speed a lot more than other games.

Here's hoping the day 1 patch will fix some of that.

@KelticDevil I was just expressing my opinion, and it is obvious most people are disagreeing with me. Which is totally fine.
Movies, just as games, travels and everything else in life for me have the same effect: I like the idea of revisiting, but with my limited "free" time I always choose to have new experiences than refresh old ones.

What I find off putting is this whole thing about how it performs playing old games and no generation exclusives. It’s all an underwhelming system so far

I wonder if some actual coding needs to be done to take full advantage of the PS5 SSD?
You see Spiderman MM loading in 5 seconds and yet most BC games are slower to load on PS5.
Very strange.

I'm getting a Series S, faster than both on B/C!

So much for that expensive PS5 SSD.

The plot thickens ...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XcUtEQ_zFnI&feature=emb_logo&ab_channel=GameSpot

In this Gamespot video, most PS5 games load faster than their XSX counterparts. Something weird is going on ...