PRT already on PS4 tool set. Like meow.

PS4 Games Could See Increased Visual Fidelity, Lesser Load Times, Granite’s Texture Streaming Detailed

Graphine’s CEO Aljosha Demeulemeester explains how hardware virtual texturing works using Granite SDK.

22nd, Apr. 2014 | Posted In News | By Rashid Sayed| Follow This Author @GamingBoltTweetTweet102

PlayStation 4 features PSSL [PlayStation Shader Language], a custom shader language which is a mix of DX11 and OpenGL 4.4. Many of you must not be aware that the PlayStation 4 is capable of supporting Partially Resident Textures, which is roughly equivalent to tiled streaming using DirectX on the Xbox One.

So what are Partially Resident Textures? As the name suggests, Partially Resident Textures are the only texture portions that needs to be placed in the GPU at one time. John Carmack’s famous ‘Megatexture’ technology in RAGE is an excellent example of Partially Resident Textures. In short this method improves the cache and memory bandwidth. So if the developer does not want to render an entire texture, he/she can load only the relevant bits resulting into better texture streaming and cutting down the amount of redundant texture processing.

This is where Graphine Software comes in. Graphine focuses on delivering texture streaming and texture compression middleware for the games and visualization industries. Using Graphine Software’s Granite SDK, even more better looking games with reduced load times can be made possible on the PlayStation 4.

Aljosha Demeulemeester, Graphine CEO confirmed to GamingBolt that Partial Resident Textures for the PlayStation 4 is aimed at doing the same thing as the Tiled Resources feature of DX 11.1+ using Granite SDK.

“Sony has announced that Partially Resident Textures (PRT) is available for PS4. This is aimed at doing the same thing as the Tiled Resources feature of DX 11.1+. We sometime refer to both using the term ‘hardware virtual texturing’,” he said to GamingBolt.

So how does Granite SDK actually works with ‘hardware virtual texturing’ and how it can improve graphical fidelity and cut down load times? Aljosha gave a very in-depth explanation for the same.

“We call Granite SDK a fine-grained streaming system because we load very small tiles of texture data. This is happening in the background while playing the game. The size of the tiles is configurable but a commonly used setting is 128×128 pixels. When using virtual texturing, you will only load the texture tiles into memory that are actually viewed by the virtual camera. The main benefit is that you can save on the amount of video memory that you need for you texture data, but there are a bunch of side benefits. Loading times are reduced and disk access is more constant and predictable. The bottom-line is that you can really increase the graphical fidelity of games, while staying within the limited of the current hardware,” Aljosha stated to GamingBolt.

But due to slightly different architectures of the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One [the former has unified and the latter has embedded memory architecture], is the process of texture streaming different across the two consoles? This question could easily come up for a developer who is working on a multiplatform game using the Granite SDK.

That is actually not a problem, according to Aljosha. “Granite SDK indeed takes care of all the platform specific stuff and makes sure that you’re up and running quickly on both platforms. Granite exposes a set of configuration parameters like the size of the texture cache in main memory, the amount of threads used for decoding, the maximum allowed throughput of texture data per frame, etc.”

However a game developer will still need to tweak the parameters according to the game’s needs.

“A game developer will want to tweak these parameters depending on the behaviour of his/her own game, and based on the capabilities of the hardware of a specific platform. We provide fast implementations of the Granite runtime for both platforms so that only the values of these configuration parameters might change on the different platforms(from the game developer’s perspective that is),” Aljosha added.

Granite SDK currently supports PC, Mac, Linux, PS4 and Xbox One.

This is just a snippet of our interview with Graphine Software and we will have the complete interview this Friday.

What was that? You're still waiting for DX12-Sauce self folding origami texture magic on ESRAMz?

Damn, I remember getting torched for "being afraid" of the DX12-sauce a few days back. Now what? It's already on XBone as well. Where's the massive leap forward going to come from now?

Real kicker? PS4 is better at it. Hence, games like Trials Fusion which uses a somewhat similar super texturing technique runs native 1080p on PS4. Ruh-roh.

You feeling insecure super cow? Seems like it with all the pro PS4 threads you've been writing and you have the nerve to say you were a lem bahahahahaha so pathetic

pretty interesting that it does run on mac, but not on the wii u.

Aww, there there. I'm sure you guys will come up with something new to rally behind. No need to take your anguish out on lil ol me.

There are things that Xbox One does better than the PS4... One is physics. Second is tiled streaming, third is multasking. Don't believe me check it out.

Better physics, you say?

As for tiled streaming, jury's out on that. There's not exactly a huge need to squirt texture assets from a limited memory space. Multitasking? Sure, whatever. Bust out the bubbly and crackers yo.

@Shewgenja I've been telling the Xbox fanboys this for the longest time now. I guess they just refused to accept it. "PRT" is essentially the same thing as Tiled Resources; it's just another name for it. But they always got defensive and started quoting crap from "Misterxmedia" ...

Good. Maybe everyone can stop talking about Tiled Resources/PRT now.

EVERYTHING Xbone can do, PS4 can do it faster.... that is FACT...

Upload to youtube?

did @tormentos: just killed those wanabee devs the other day in the devs react to dx 12 doubling xbox one thread ? ohh yes he did

TLHBO

bbbbut the dx12

Bu bu but my misleading screenshots!!!

pretty soon the ps4 will start doing quantum computing

this will undoubtedly double or I daresay triple the ps4's power.

@handssss: no wrong ps4 will quadruple in power think 4k all without dx12 and da cloud

Already spotted a lot of insecure lems in here. They use deflection methods and type out comments to go after the user personally. Standard lem tactics when they have nothing of any relevance to say and/or feel threatened by certain information that affects their console's power.

@remiks00 said:

@Shewgenja I've been telling the Xbox fanboys this for the longest time now. I guess they just refused to accept it. "PRT" is essentially the same thing as Tiled Resources; it's just another name for it. But they always got defensive and started quoting crap from "Misterxmedia" ...

OT: This was known for a while now but lems didn't want to believe it. What a surprise aye? :) ^

Scratch 'Tiled Resources' off of the Xbone chalkboard.

bb bb bbb bbbb but ps4 has no tiled resources!

Really...

Can it Skype

Twitch at 720p

Suspend and resume games

Sort your files

Play CD music

Control your TV guide

See when friends come online

Snap apps while still playing games

Truly perform multi-Tasking

The ability to change your GT/PSN id

Turn off the light gimmick on the controller to extend battery life past 4 hours

Upload to Youtube...or even have Youtube.

Release at least one true Firmware ... I'm talking to you v1.7.

Have as good wireless connections to your network with its weak sauce NIC cards.

Can it NFL or ESPN

Last but not least.....Has it seen Titanfall?

Sony PR at its finest. Of course AFTER Microsoft debuts DX12 with a live demo, Sony just releases some catch up fluff. Yawn.

@sts106mat:

I was holding back. That list is painful. I am reminded every time I turn on my PS4.

I like how not one single thing you mention is directed at gaming performance which is what the thread is about.

And lol at the ryse video. looks almost PS2 quality.

@killzowned24:

The guy did say EVERYTHING

PRT has been mentioned for months and was demonstrated on PS4 at GDC in 2013 lol.

@killzowned24: yeah right pal! *gives hand job motion*

I'm only LOLing with you Killa.

Where do you think the slide posted above came from? Here's another from GDC 2013.

Things will get very interesting as the battle continues to wage on between the Xbox One and PlayStation 4... that's all I'm going to say.

powerpoint

@killzowned24 said:

@FoxbatAlpha said:

@killzowned24: yeah right pal! *gives hand job motion*

I'm only LOLing with you Killa.

Where do you think the slide posted above came from? Here's another from GDC 2013.

yeah, nothing will come of this. They are just pissing around knocking on doors with no one in there.

@remiks00 said:

@Shewgenja I've been telling the Xbox fanboys this for the longest time now. I guess they just refused to accept it. "PRT" is essentially the same thing as Tiled Resources; it's just another name for it. But they always got defensive and started quoting crap from "Misterxmedia" ...

PS4 does not do PRT at the harware level so it has limitations compared to Tiled resources. Tiled resources is the same idea without the limitations of PRT. Where is Sony's extra hardware for Tiled Resources. Last line says allows for not all the texture to reside in memory at a time so where will it reside on PS4 if it's not in main memory. eSram? Lol. With tiled resources on Xbox you put all your textures in eSram and the system only uses the textures needed on screen at that time. Prt is software bound Tiled resorces is hardware bound so you basically just admitted that PS4 will have to work harder to acheive what Xbox can do with it's hardware. PS4 is doing a lot of stuff now that xbox already knew about, if this trend continues less and less resources will be available on PS4. eSram = 6gb textures and still have 5gb ddr3 to use for whatever. PS4 Gddr5=4.5+1 gb flex

LOL!

@Shewgenja Who torched you for being afraid of DX12? I want to get to the bottom of this.

@slimdogmilionar said:

@remiks00 said:

@Shewgenja I've been telling the Xbox fanboys this for the longest time now. I guess they just refused to accept it. "PRT" is essentially the same thing as Tiled Resources; it's just another name for it. But they always got defensive and started quoting crap from "Misterxmedia" ...

PS4 does not do PRT at the harware level so it has limitations compared to Tiled resources. Tiled resources is the same idea without the limitations of PRT. Where is Sony's extra hardware for Tiled Resources. Last line says allows for not all the texture to reside in memory at a time so where will it reside on PS4 if it's not in main memory. eSram? Lol. With tiled resources on Xbox you put all your textures in eSram and the system only uses the textures needed on screen at that time. Prt is software bound Tiled resorces is hardware bound so you basically just admitted that PS4 will have to work harder to acheive what Xbox can do with it's hardware. PS4 is doing a lot of stuff now that xbox already knew about, if this trend continues less and less resources will be available on PS4. eSram = 6gb textures and still have 5gb ddr3 to use for whatever. PS4 Gddr5=4.5+1 gb flex

Love this guy.

@slimdogmilionar said:

@remiks00 said:

@Shewgenja I've been telling the Xbox fanboys this for the longest time now. I guess they just refused to accept it. "PRT" is essentially the same thing as Tiled Resources; it's just another name for it. But they always got defensive and started quoting crap from "Misterxmedia" ...

PS4 does not do PRT at the harware level so it has limitations compared to Tiled resources. Tiled resources is the same idea without the limitations of PRT. Where is Sony's extra hardware for Tiled Resources. Last line says allows for not all the texture to reside in memory at a time so where will it reside on PS4 if it's not in main memory. eSram? Lol. With tiled resources on Xbox you put all your textures in eSram and the system only uses the textures needed on screen at that time. Prt is software bound Tiled resorces is hardware bound so you basically just admitted that PS4 will have to work harder to acheive what Xbox can do with it's hardware. PS4 is doing a lot of stuff now that xbox already knew about, if this trend continues less and less resources will be available on PS4. eSram = 6gb textures and still have 5gb ddr3 to use for whatever. PS4 Gddr5=4.5+1 gb flex

If there was hardware for it on the XBone, then what was all this malarky about needing an update to do it?

Riddle me this, riddle me that. Some of ya'll need Jesus.

Tehe, nada, DX12 + Cloud + SecretSauce GPU w/eSram = Gonna poop all over Teh Bore.. Bank baby. :P

@Shewgenja said:

@slimdogmilionar said:

@remiks00 said:

@Shewgenja I've been telling the Xbox fanboys this for the longest time now. I guess they just refused to accept it. "PRT" is essentially the same thing as Tiled Resources; it's just another name for it. But they always got defensive and started quoting crap from "Misterxmedia" ...

PS4 does not do PRT at the harware level so it has limitations compared to Tiled resources. Tiled resources is the same idea without the limitations of PRT. Where is Sony's extra hardware for Tiled Resources. Last line says allows for not all the texture to reside in memory at a time so where will it reside on PS4 if it's not in main memory. eSram? Lol. With tiled resources on Xbox you put all your textures in eSram and the system only uses the textures needed on screen at that time. Prt is software bound Tiled resorces is hardware bound so you basically just admitted that PS4 will have to work harder to acheive what Xbox can do with it's hardware. PS4 is doing a lot of stuff now that xbox already knew about, if this trend continues less and less resources will be available on PS4. eSram = 6gb textures and still have 5gb ddr3 to use for whatever. PS4 Gddr5=4.5+1 gb flex

If there was hardware for it on the XBone, then what was all this malarky about needing an update to do it?

Riddle me this, riddle me that. Some of ya'll need Jesus.

Because it new technology that has never been seen in the industry. Have you not been paying attention to the articles about eSram and tiled resources aka tiling tricks like cows like to call them when they bash lems about it, aka the reason no xbox games have been in 1080 yet because devs aren't as comfortable with it as they are with its predecessor eDram found in 360. The update is to take full advantage of the eSram which devs are not using atm, now it's not the hidden hardware everyone is "talking" about but you should Google Xbox one and esram, then watch M$ 2013 keynote where they and the Granite developers talk about tiled resources and the advantages and the limitations of PRT vs Tiled resources. You riddled yourself on that one, I can't believe you actually didn't know about this stuff by now.

We're going to need to update the chalkboard.

BU BU BU BU DX12 is the real secret sauce!!!111

For some reason, I found this priceless.

Do you have a link to substantiate that? Cuz, I'm hearing clicks and whistles bro.

I'm confused

Either

The PS4 can already do it and this explains some of the performance differences in games (720p to 1080p just isn't representative of actual power difference). Therefor the Xbox One will indeed catch up quite a bit going forward.

or

The PS4 hasn't got it and Xbox One will catch up using this but if PS4 gets it the gap may appear again.

According to all the posts about PS4 already having it, the Xbox One still has some catching up it will do when this comes out.

All fanboy stuff aside, articles like this are why I feel the first true next-gen games are coming this fall as these new techniques are slowly being enabled. If PS4 and One would have debuted this fall and my God the differences would be dramatic in terms of graphics quality. Great to see tool sets improving rapidly.

don't even know how lems can still advocate for the xbone and say that it'll somehow surpass the PS4 on sales graphics or anything. lol

I remember when Moogenja said he was not a cow. At least insecure threads like this prove he is one.

Good for the easier to develop for PauperStation4.

No matter when the consoles would have been released, people would still bitch about them. Both consoles are better off since their updates but nothing earth shattering. Game could possibly benefit, but it seems like start of gen is always like that and games naturally get better as time goes by.

Big time agreement here.