Streaming of assets is a big beneficiary.

It means that a developer can reserve a chunk of Ram for models/textures rather than load everything into Ram at once and just stream those assets on-demand.
One of the most notable games that did this during the 7th gen was actually Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2... And some games even took it a step further and would stream from both the hard drive and optical disk in tandem.

The games themselves wasn't processing those textures/assets on the hard drive so the hard drive never acted as a type of Ram, it was just a better use of limited resources... I mean, there is zero point in adding a texture for a rock if the player isn't going to see said rock, might as well keep it ready to stream into Ram rather than have it sitting in Ram.

I think some individuals see the SSD as a sort of "extended Ram" which is pretty far removed, but one thing is for certain it will mean that we can be more aggressive with streaming from storage, making better use of limited Ram pools... That way it's just lots of reads from NAND and won't make unnecessary writes to NAND which will reduce the life of the drive.

Not to mention that DDR4 3200mhz isn't even the fastest Ram... And we are about to have DDR5 enter the market.

Years ago though... You would have a Western Digital Raptor as a games drive which could do 100MB/s of sustained reads easily enough... For comparative sake Ram bandwidth back in 2005 was dual-channel DDR2 800 memory with 12.8GB/s of bandwidth in most gaming rigs... Or roughly a 128x fold increase over the base storage.

The Original Xbox had a mechanical Disk which was a 8-10GB Seagate, those drives would typically top out at around 40MB/s... And that console had 6.4GB/s of memory bandwidth or a difference of 160x.

Fast forward to the 8th generation consoles... And something like the Xbox One has a 5400rpm HDD which tops out at 50MB/s and performance would plummet with any random read transaction, but system memory jumped to 68.3GB/s or 1,336x fold increase over base storage. - Suddenly streaming data from disk doesn't look so attractive. It still happened, but only a smaller amount of comparative data.

But fast forward to next-gen... With the Xbox Series X we are staring at 3.7GB/s SSD's with 560GB/s of Ram bandwidth or... A differential of 151.35x difference... And the ratio for the Playstation 5 looks even better.

Basically hard drives stagnated for years in terms of throughput, the only way you could really increase HDD bandwidth was to make higher density disks.. And improvements on that front typically stalled and moved slowly.. And sometimes there was even performance regressions. (I.E. Shingled.)

Basically next-gen just brings things back into line if Hard Drives improved at roughly the same pace as Ram, it just took the console space a whole console generation to catch on.

And although the SSD's might be able to match DDR2 memory in terms of bandwidth... I would still opt for DDR2 due to latencies.

Neat. 2028 can't come soon enough.

But how would that gain actually look like in gaming? Reduce pop ins? We already basically don't have those on PC. Reduce loading times that are already barely present on PC?

I would really like to know a use case that could sell me on a game specifically designed around faster storage load times as opposed to every other game.

Longer draw distances with reduced pop-in and higher quality assets.

It allows for an uptick in fidelity especially with distant assets.

For example... For near-sighted objects like rocks, buildings, barrels and so forth... We can actually have a very high degree of fidelity on those objects... With complex shading and high polygon counts.
But often for distant assets we employ techniques like "impostering" which is the method of replacing a 3D distant model like a high-rise building with a 2D one... And sometimes they can look rather jarring and low-resolution in some games. (Depends how good the developer is I guess and how good your eyesight and display is.)
That removes that issue entirely.

It also allows us to create world-sized databases that can be constantly and heavily updated with lots of scripting... Potentially allowing for the tracking of significantly more assets in real-time... Think bigger scales than even the largest Battle Royale games.

I am sure there are other aspects I haven't though of... But initially we are only going to see incremental improvements over 8th gen titles until we are entrenched in the 9th gen and developers start to experiment, the main advantage is going to be load times though. - And that isn't always going to be eliminated either.

In saying that, the Nintendo 64 is probably the best example of where storage (Cartridge) had an insane amount of bandwidth relative to Ram, which meant that developers were actually using the cart as a read-only section of memory, it didn't solve the Nintendo 64's memory limitations in regards to fixing the low-resolution, stretched textures because of the Ram limitations, but when GPU rendering wasn't a limitation we could have lots of assets and long draw distances relative to other systems with the same memory amounts but slower storage. (I.E. PC)

https://blogs.windows.com/devices/2020/05/06/introducing-surface-go-2-surface-book-3-surface-headphones-2-and-surface-earbuds/

Dang it MS, no Ryzen 4000 cpus, no Thunderbolt 3 and no RTX gpus for DLSS. Quad core cpus in 2020 for those prices are a hard buy.

It's Wednesday and these are the news:

SALES & DEALS

Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order has more than 10 million unique players
https://www.dsogaming.com/news/star-wars-jedi-fallen-order-has-more-than-10-million-unique-players/
Electronic Arts has announced that Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order has more than 10 million unique players on all platforms. Do note that the number of unique players does not equal with the number of sales. So yeah, the game did not sell 10 million units (in case you’re wondering).
Furthermore, EA has also revealed that FIFA 20 has more than 25 million unique players to date. Not only that, but in every quarter of fiscal 2020, monthly average players in The Sims 4 were higher than the comparable period in the prior year.

Call of Duty: Warzone has over 60 million players worldwide on all platforms
https://www.dsogaming.com/news/call-of-duty-warzone-has-over-60-million-players-worldwide-on-all-platforms/
Activision has announced that Call of Duty: Warzone has over 60 million players worldwide on all platforms. That’s almost two months since the game’s release. In addition, the publisher claimed that it will keep supporting Warzone even when newer Call of Duty games come out.
It’s worth noting that Call of Duty: Warzone has increased its player base by 10 million gamers in a month. In its first month, Warzone had over 50 million players worldwide. So yeah, the game’s growth has slowed down.

Evil Genius is free to own for a limited time
https://www.dsogaming.com/news/evil-genius-is-free-to-own-for-a-limited-time/
Rebellion has announced that the first Evil Genius game is free to own. Unfortunately, Rebellion has not revealed when this free giveaway will end. However, we do know that this free offer is for a limited time.
To claim your free Steam copy of the original Evil Genius, all you have to do is click this link. Alternatively, you can enter http://reb.to/EvilGenius into your browser and follow the instructions.
>> Both links end at the same place, and you'll need a Rebellion account to claim the game.

GOG has three new deals:

• The first one is the new Midweek Sale, "Games for a one*night Stand", with up to 90% discounts during the next 3 days: https://www.gog.com/promo/20200506_midweek_sale
• To celebrate the launch of Close to the Sun on the store, both this game and Deliver us the Moon are 25% off until May 12: https://www.gog.com/news/release_close_to_the_sun
• And Wintermoor Tactics Club has also released on the store, and will be 10% off until May 19: https://www.gog.com/game/wintermoor_tactics_club

Steam has several new deals:

• For the 17th anniversary of EVE, the EVE Online: Starter Pack is free for the next 24 hours: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1308110/EVE_Online_Starter_Pack__17_Birthday_Celebration/
• The Hong Kong Massacre is 55% off until May 11: https://store.steampowered.com/app/741510/The_Hong_Kong_Massacre/
• And these are the two (so far) Midweek Madness deals:
  • The Naruto franchise is between 50 and 81% off until the 7th: https://store.steampowered.com/sale/narutofranchise/
  • Publisher Good Shepherd has put its games up to 90% off until May 8: https://store.steampowered.com/sale/good_shepherd/
  • And Destiny 2 has its expansions on sale until May 12. They're 40% off each one or 33% off the pack with both of them: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1085660/Destiny_2/

There's a new Humble Bundle with classic Sierra games to grab for the next 13 days: https://www.humblebundle.com/games/sierra-the-3rd

Fanatical has four new deals:

• Borderlands 3 - Super Deluxe Edition (for Steam) is 55% off for the next 48 hours: https://www.fanatical.com/en/game/borderlands-3-super-deluxe-edition
• The former is part of a 2K sale, with up to 81% discounts for the next 7 days: https://www.fanatical.com/en/publishers/2k-games
• THQ Nordic has its games up to 80% off for 6 days: https://www.fanatical.com/en/publishers/thq-nordic
• And Team 17 also has its games on sale, up to 90% off during 12 days: https://www.fanatical.com/en/publishers/team17-digital-ltd

SOFTWARE & DRIVERS

-empty-

MODS/EMULATORS

This mod allows you deform in real-time the maps/levels of classic Doom games
https://www.dsogaming.com/news/this-mod-allows-you-deform-in-real-time-the-maps-levels-of-classic-doom-games/
Sunbeam has released a pretty cool mod for the classic Doom games. This mod allows you deform in real-time the maps/levels of classic Doom. As such, you can basically transform some of the maps in order to give the game a longer longevity (without even downloading new maps).
According to the modder, there are three main ways via which you can deform the levels. These three was are: Trapezoid, Wave and Swirl. The modder has added options for these three deformation ways, meaning that you can deform the levels while playing them. However, you can deform a level only one time. In order to re-deform it, you’ll have to reload the map/level.
>> Sorry if it's not the deformation you were expecting, but if you still want to give it a go, you can download it from Mediafire.

These mods bring Final Fantasy 7 Remake’s Sephiroth, Aerith & Tifa to Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice
https://www.dsogaming.com/news/these-mods-bring-final-fantasy-7-remakes-sephiroth-aerith-tifa-to-sekiro-shadows-die-twice/
Last month, we informed you about two mods that allowed you to play as Cloud and Jessie from Final Fantasy 7 Remake in Sekiro. And today, we are happy to report that there are three additional character swap mods for FromSoftware’s action adventure game.
As the title suggests, these three mods bring Sephiroth, Aerith and Tifa to Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice. These three characters were exported from Final Fantasy 7 Remake by dddkhakha1 and RisingAlyx. Then, Victor_Gopher and Forsakensilver brought the models to Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice.
The Sephiroth mod replaces Genichiro’s model. On the other hand, the Aerith mod replaces Emma’s model. Lastly, Tifa’s mod replaces the character that players use.
Do note that there are some minor issues with these mods. For instance, Tifa’s elbow, calf and shoulder look a bit weird. Moreover, her shirt does not appear to have proper physics. Also, Sephiroth’s weapon appears twice in some cut scenes.

First Nude Mods released for Trials of Mana, completely stripping Angela and Riesz
https://www.dsogaming.com/news/first-nude-mods-released-for-trials-of-mana-completely-stripping-angela-and-riesz/
Well, we all knew this was going to happen, right? The first nude mods for Square Enix’s latest RPG, Trials of Mana, are now available for download. These two nude mods completely strip Angela and Riesz.
Now as always, we won’t allow direct links to these mods. However, it’s really easy to find them. Moreover, you can find a “blue-ish” artistic take on the Angela NudeMOD by oscateexor that is currently present on NexusMods.
Unfortunately, these mods are not “perfect” yet. For instance, there aren’t any boob physics yet. As such, both Angela and Riesz feel too robotic with these mods. Still, I’m certain that newer versions of these nude mods will add soft body breast physics.
Lastly, there is also a nude mod for Harpy. However, that mod is still in an early development stage and introduces very polygonal boobs. I mean, it would be cool in a retro game like the first Tomb Raider, however, it does not look great in Trials of Mana.

GAMING NEWS

Red Dead Redemption 2 May 4th Update released, brings numerous PC improvements & bug fixes
https://www.dsogaming.com/news/red-dead-redemption-2-may-4th-update-released-brings-numerous-pc-improvements-bug-fixes/
Rockstar has released a brand new update for the PC version of Red Dead Redemption 2. According to the release notes, the May 4th Update brings numerous improvements and bug fixes.
Going into more details, this new patch improves texture rendering at the Medium and High quality settings. It also increases the maximum range of the TAA Sharpening graphics setting.

Halo 2: Anniversary is officially coming to the PC on May 12th
https://www.dsogaming.com/news/halo-2-anniversary-is-officially-coming-to-the-pc-on-may-12th/
Microsoft and 343 Industries have announced that Halo 2: Anniversary is coming to the PC on May 12th. As with previous Halo games, Halo 2: Anniversary will be a part of the Halo: The Master Chief Collection.

The first major update for Rune 2, Lazarus Update 1.1, is now available for download
https://www.dsogaming.com/news/the-first-major-update-for-rune-2-lazarus-update-1-1-is-now-available-for-download/
Ragnarok Game has announced that the first major update for Rune 2, Lazarus Update 1.1, is now available for download. In order to celebrate this announcement, the team has also released a new trailer that you can find below.

NASCAR Heat 5 is coming to the PC on July 10th + Official PC System Requirements
https://www.dsogaming.com/news/nascar-heat-5-is-coming-to-the-pc-on-july-10th-official-pc-system-requirements/
704 Games Company has announced that NASCAR Heat 5 will release on the PC on July 10th. Moreover, the publisher has unveiled the official PC system requirements for this latest NASCAR game.

Ghostrunner demo is now available on Steam until May 13th
https://www.dsogaming.com/news/ghostrunner-demo-is-now-available-on-steam-until-may-13th/
Publisher All in! Games has announced that a demo for Ghostrunner is now available on Steam. This demo will be available until May 13th. Moreover, the publisher released a new CGI trailer teasing the mysterious plot and showing off the Killing Blink ability.

Part two of the Wednesday news:

Hardspace: Shipbreaker dev diary showcases zero-g spacecraft surgery
https://www.pcgamer.com/hardspace-shipbreaker-dev-diary-showcases-zero-g-spacecraft-surgery/
Hardspace: Shipbreaker is getting close to its Early Access release on June 16—and as a bit of prep, developer Blackbird Interactive was nice enough to give us an early look at a new dev diary taking you behind the scenes.

CD Projekt teases Cyberpunk 2077 event in June
https://www.pcgamer.com/cd-projekt-teases-cyberpunk-2077-reveal-event-in-june/
E3 2020 was scheduled to run June 9-11 before the whole thing was scuttled by the COVID-19 outbreak. But even though E3 is gone, June 11 will still be a day worth paying attention to, because that day will bring us... Night City Wire.

Overwatch Hero Pools are being dropped for most players
https://www.pcgamer.com/overwatch-hero-pools-are-being-dropped-for-most-players/
In January, Blizzard announced the addition of "Hero Pools" to Overwatch Competitive Play, which is essentially a ban system—except that instead of players selecting characters for exclusion at the start of each match, Blizzard would pick them on a weekly basis. The idea, director Jeff Kaplan explained at the time, was to "prevent players from stagnating on any one meta too long," and as with all things Overwatch, he said that the system could be changed up if it proved necessary.

Valve is releasing the music of Half-Life: Alyx in an 'episodic' soundtrack starting today
https://www.pcgamer.com/valve-is-releasing-the-music-of-half-life-alyx-in-an-episodic-soundtrack-starting-today/
Valve released the official Half-Life: Alyx soundtrack today on Steam, and you might think this is a joke, but's I assure you it's not: the soundtrack is episodic. Chapter 1, entitled Entanglement, features nine tracks in 320K MP3 and FLAC formats, and will (hopefully) be followed by ten more, featuring "industrial, electronic, experimental and orchestral cinematic pieces, alternating between abstract environmental, emotional soundscapes and direct action oriented cues."

A new Call of Duty and World of Warcraft: Shadowlands are still on track for this year
https://www.pcgamer.com/a-new-call-of-duty-and-world-of-warcraft-shadowlands-are-still-on-track-for-this-year/
Like other game companies, employees at Activision's various studios have been forced to work remotely over the past several weeks by the COVID-19 outbreak. During a post-earnings financial call today, company executives said that the transition has been challenging, but major releases including the next Call of Duty game and World of Warcraft: Shadowlands remain on track to come out this year.

Blizzard president says World of Warcraft is still as social 'as the day we launched'
https://www.pcgamer.com/blizzard-president-says-world-of-warcraft-is-still-as-social-as-the-day-we-launched/
Last week, Blizzard co-founder and former president and CEO Mike Morhaime said he thought that increased accessibility in World of Warcraft had the unintended side effect of making the game less social. Not accessibility in the sense of assistive devices and settings that open games to more players, to be clear, but through an easing of the learning curve and need to grind: "The reasons why you needed to play with the same group of people over and over," as he put it.

EA still plans to release 14 games over the next 11 months
https://www.pcgamer.com/ea-still-plans-to-release-14-games-over-the-next-11-months/
Earlier this year, EA announced that it had 14 games coming in its 2021 fiscal year, which started last month (it's confusing, but yes, it's currently 2021 as far as EA's financials are concerned). During today's investors call, EA restated that figure. Despite many of its employees working from home due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the publisher still plans to release 14 games before this fiscal year ends next April.

Rainbow Six Siege's new limited mode turns Hereford Base into a 1920s British crime den
https://www.pcgamer.com/rainbow-six-sieges-new-limited-mode-turns-heresford-base-into-a-1920s-british-crime-den/
The newest limited time mode for Rainbow Six Siege re-imagines Hereford Base as the headquarters of a brutal 1920s era British crime gang. Not only that, but The Grand Larceny also introduces a new game mode, albeit one that doesn't stray too drastically from its source material.

Total War's free-to-play collectable card game gets its first gameplay trailer
https://www.pcgamer.com/total-war-is-getting-a-free-to-play-collectable-card-game-spin-off/
Creative Assembly has announced that its grand strategy series Total War will be getting a free-to-play card game spin-off titled Total War: Elysium. A release date has not yet been announced, but the collectable card game will first launch on mobile and then make its way to PC at a later date.

I guess you won't buy it.

I think the SSDs in the next gen consoles will initially have a lot of quality of life benefits for game devs. I have been playing FFVIIR and one of the things that happens is. Lets say you are in a town doing a side quest and once you finished it, you have to go back to the person who gave you the quest and then it will load a cutscene. What happens a lot of times in this game is if you run to them and you press the talk button, your characters and them just stand there awkwardly while the cpu/gpu waits for the hard drive to catch up and load the cutscene.

I think one of the main benefits are going to be seemly endless levels. Like right now you have open world games and you also have linear games. Generally linear games have a lot more detail in their confined areas but they need to mask sections that need to load in and have loading screens. I suspect those will become less and less common to almost non existent. Not saying the crawling sections will go away since some of those are meant for padding and not just masking but ones that are there to mask and serve no other purpose will.

With that being said, it might end up initially being like "Ray Tracing" going from this gen to the next where outside of the obvious loading improvements, it might not be as easily apparent since devs have gotten so good at masking and open world games. Also not to mention there is a GPU limitation at some point, specially at 4k but we will see how much that is mandated by the companies and things like VRS and DLSS competitor might make it a less of an issue.

Urghh the thing is, I do need a "work" laptop that can occasionally play games. The job I work in as a good amount of downtime where there is not much to do, specially in the weekend where we are allowed to play games (and other things) assuming our tasks are done. Currently I carry my Asus gaming laptop with an i7 + 2070 but it's not ideal to carry it to work as it weighs 7 pounds and has no USB-C charging. So something like the Surface Book is what I would want cause it's GPU is really good even if it's not RTX. But it feels like this is going to be similar to the Surface Book 1 where it came with a meh i7 dual core and 965M at the top end where as the Surface Book 2 came with an i7 quad core and 1060 at the mid-top end which actually was a killer setup at the time of it's release. Compared to Surface Book 2, it's competitors generally came with i7 quad core + MX150 or Vega 8 graphics and even if you get the normal laptop model instead of the 2 in 1 like the XPS, that would have came with a 1050.

So while still very expensive, it would have given you some pretty killer specs and 10-13 hours of battery life when not gaming. So I was pretty hyped but it feels like the Surface Book 4 is the one that is gonna be fap worthy like the Surface book 2 was.

I see.

Well, looks like you'll have to keep your current laptop or find an alternative elsewhere.

By the way, this seems like a very MSoft thing to do, right? They nail a gen and miss the next one. They've done it with the Surface, they did it with their consoles and they also do it with their OSs. It's like their signature.