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[IbizaPocholo]

New PS5 Patent Says One of the Most Annoying Gamer Gripes Could Disappear

This common gamer gripe may no longer exist after next-gen consoles.

www.inverse.com

Looks like the PS 5 will attempt to make loading screens a thing of the past. This is according to a recent continuation patent filed by Sony and which was granted by the United States Patent and Trademark Office on Tuesday. The latest version of the patent describes how a future gaming system could split up game environments into various segments to enable smooth loading transitions.

If it performs as described, then gamers could smoothly move to any in-game area without having the game pause to boot up another map.

Sony’s new system achieves this by splitting games up into a kind of jigsaw puzzle. Whenever a player steps into one of the pieces, or areas, the adjacent pieces will load automatically in the background in case the player chooses to travel in that direction.

A loading screen means one of a few different things. Sometimes, it means that the console is transferring data from the hard disk memory to the console’s random access memory (RAM), which may be what renders your graphics. It might also mean the console is freeing up used RAM to use in the next level or stage. Current consoles and games have already come a long way toward eliminating wait times, but Sony promises to optimize this loading process even further.

 

[mitch1971]

loading reply.....

 

[mejin]

fast loadings would be great for next gen

 

[Nymphae]

As a smoker (well I vape and smoke joints), I actually appreciate reasonable loading times.

Everyone's been complaining about CTR loads, but to me they are just long enough and correctly spaced for me to get in some vapes before and after each race. If I had to pause the action manually, maybe I'd take longer or check my phone or something, but small little load times are perfect for me to just grab a quick vape and get back into the action.

 

[Dee Dah Dave]

We are into “super charged PC architecture” territory again with this Sony SSD stuff.

 

[Starfield]

Well. If you got more power, more everything, faster everything of course it will mean faster loading times.

It's not like Sony is re-inventing the wheel or something....

 

[Gavin Stevens]

Basic math time.

If 10mb takes 10 seconds to load at 1mb a second, then on a 10mb a second SSD it would take 1 second. That’s faster. So older games with smaller memory requirements will of course load much quicker. Doesn’t even need to be an SSD, just needs to be faster memory and a better HDD.

However...

Next gen machines not only have faster memory, but also more of it. You will be getting larger textures, and more of them.

So now, you have to change the statement... if 10mb loads in 1 second at 10mb a second, then what does 100mb load at, for the same scene but with higher visual fidelity.

Obviously these are not real numbers, lol. But the point stands... You will essentially be taking a normal scene and increasing its memory usage by a hell of a lot with higher resolution assets and denser meshes.

So yes. It will indeed load quicker. But you won’t see a massive increase for every day random games. You will see better masked loading type situations, sure. But don’t expect to load a map of the real made for next gen COD in a second.

Think of it the same as the iPhone battery. Every time they make a new iPhone the battery gets a lot better. But they also add higher clocked CPU’s and memory, and as such the drain also increases. The end user sees very little gain from their battery life, even though going back just a few generations, the battery is far better.

This isn’t just for PlayStation btw, this is Xbox and pc too. An asset takes up a predefined allocation of memory regardless of platform, and a higher quality/resolution asset will take longer to load. So assume all early games will load very quick indeed while we transition over to real next gen asset creation.

 

[alabtrosMyster]

It's not like Sony is re-inventing the wheel or something....

Fancy asset streaming is voodoo magic AND alien technology!

Seriously, there has to be some platform level api/library to take good advantage of the underlying tech, this was already a focus on the PS4, and it showed given the hardware available, just compare how installs and background updates go on ps4 compared to any other platform I know of (windows is the worse offender here). Obviously it stands even more with exclusive titles, or at least titles that try to take advantage of the platform.

Can't wait to see how it will turn out on a fast SSD with some more RAM.

 

[Dante83]

Appreciate fast load times, but can they make the download speeds faster though? I am on the same connection, and XBX downloads updates and full games a lot faster wirelessly than my ps4 pro wired...That's my gripe.

 

[Fuz]

Not gonna happen.

 

[bitbydeath]

Basic math time.

If 10mb takes 10 seconds to load at 1mb a second, then on a 10mb a second SSD it would take 1 second. That’s faster. So older games with smaller memory requirements will of course load much quicker. Doesn’t even need to be an SSD, just needs to be faster memory and a better HDD.

However...

Next gen machines not only have faster memory, but also more of it. You will be getting larger textures, and more of them.

So now, you have to change the statement... if 10mb loads in 1 second at 10mb a second, then what does 100mb load at, for the same scene but with higher visual fidelity.

Obviously these are not real numbers, lol. But the point stands... You will essentially be taking a normal scene and increasing its memory usage by a hell of a lot with higher resolution assets and denser meshes.

So yes. It will indeed load quicker. But you won’t see a massive increase for every day random games. You will see better masked loading type situations, sure. But don’t expect to load a map of the real made for next gen COD in a second.

Think of it the same as the iPhone battery. Every time they make a new iPhone the battery gets a lot better. But they also add higher clocked CPU’s and memory, and as such the drain also increases. The end user sees very little gain from their battery life, even though going back just a few generations, the battery is far better.

This isn’t just for PlayStation btw, this is Xbox and pc too. An asset takes up a predefined allocation of memory regardless of platform, and a higher quality/resolution asset will take longer to load. So assume all early games will load very quick indeed while we transition over to real next gen asset creation.

This isn’t talking about SSD. It’s talking about detecting how to break games down into smaller parts so it continually loads as you play. (Like what God of War/Uncharted does but on a global scale)

 

[Gavin Stevens]

This isn’t talking about SSD. It’s talking about detecting how to break games down into smaller parts so it continually loads as you play. (Like what God of War/Uncharted does but on a global scale)

That’s not next gen, that’s not even current gen. Thats a practise that’s been in use for a very long time, and is even something that one of the big three (MS) said they want to try and eliminate. That’s just smart use of loading assets, loading stuff in the background. The issue comes when you are not in a cutscene and instead are ingame... suddenly you are forced to walk slowly, take an elevator or wait for a door to open. That’s what they want to try and eliminate.

 

[LordOfChaos]

Can't wait.

Just finished God of War 4, it was amazing, but my single biggest gripe was all the stuff it does to hide the massive levels it has to load in (go to gate, go back to brocks shop, use world tree, wait for realm to load, repeat etc). To fundamentally rethink games without building in such interruptions would make pick-up-and-playability far more appealing, i.e I never game at lunch when I can go home because I'm not inclined to spend 30 minutes of gaming with several minutes of load times.

 

[bitbydeath]

That’s not next gen, that’s not even current gen. Thats a practise that’s been in use for a very long time, and is even something that one of the big three (MS) said they want to try and eliminate. That’s just smart use of loading assets, loading stuff in the background. The issue comes when you are not in a cutscene and instead are ingame... suddenly you are forced to walk slowly, take an elevator or wait for a door to open. That’s what they want to try and eliminate.

Yeah, but now being combined with SSD it will work without elevators or slow walking so they’re looking to implement the solution for all games and not just ones that specifically code for it.

 

[MiyazakiHatesKojima]

As a smoker (well I vape and smoke joints), I actually appreciate reasonable loading times.

 

[Javthusiast]

Believe in nothing the console makers promise for their new console till the shit is out and tested.

 

[deriks]

Loading will always exist, but you can mask it. Resident Evil did with the doors, Metroid Prime with the corridors, Horizon ZD with the 2D rendering and transforming into 3D as you walk closer...

 

[MDSLKTR]

Cant wait, every fighting and racing game this gen has been a pain in the loadings department.

 

[ZywyPL]

In 1st party titles only - if they succeed and patent it, XB2 and PC won't have the tech, so the games will have to have streaming/loading screens/cut-scenes anyway to hide the loadings. And GIven Sony 1st party games take 5-6 years to make, it won't be a huge loss/benefit anyway.

 

[clem84]

This is weird because "splitting games up into a kind of jigsaw puzzle. Whenever a player steps into one of the pieces, or areas, the adjacent pieces will load automatically in the background" sounds like software technology that's already being implemented in open world games.

Also, if the faster load times are made possible by better hardware, SSD or faster RAM or something else, then why the patent? This has to be technology designed to tackle the load times problem in a new way. Hopefully they'll share more about it in the coming year.

 

[Dunki]

I thought we were talking about feminism in gaming...

In the end its just load times....

 

[mckmas8808]

As a smoker (well I vape and smoke joints), I actually appreciate reasonable loading times.

Everyone's been complaining about CTR loads, but to me they are just long enough and correctly spaced for me to get in some vapes before and after each race. If I had to pause the action manually, maybe I'd take longer or check my phone or something, but small little load times are perfect for me to just grab a quick vape and get back into the action.

Maybe the PS5 will help you kick your smoking habit.

 

[Closer]

Oh yes! Now games are gonna be way more linear! Thank GOD!

 

[dorkimoe]

I was actually thinking about this the other day. Loading times will always exist because developers will constantly push the boundaries. So the launch games may not have loading times, but by the end of the generation those games probably would because they are more advanced, and this would probably always be the case in a lifecycle.

Just make every game have suspend resume (looking at you Tomb Raider)

 

[FranXico]

This doesn't sound that revolutionary to me. Sounds like something even God of War 2 on the PS2 did.

 

[zeorhymer]

Watch some dev will break the loading system because of either over ambitious design or plain bad coding.

 

[Pimpbaa]

Well, anyone with a PC and a fast ssd will tell you that some games still take some time to load (still much faster however). Although I don't think there has ever been a game built from the ground up for fast SSDs. Either way we will know the truth next year.

 

[sendit]

Guys...they're literally talking about loading scenes without the pseudo in-game transitions (Long elevators...doors...etc...).....Whether or not they execute on this remains to be seen.

 

[nkarafo]

I always wondered if it's possible to just load the whole thing in RAM at the start, assuming there is enough of it, appart from the graphics since those are loaded in the VRAM but even those could be in RAM so the graphics card can stream them faster. On PC at least, with current ones being in the 16-32GB range, it seems like a possibility for many games? There could be an option for users with lots of RAM to cache the whole game or a large part of it.

 

[Pachi72]

Well. If you got more power, more everything, faster everything of course it will mean faster loading times.

It's not like Sony is re-inventing the wheel or something....

Doesn't matter how fast your CPU is, you using HDD the loading will still be a problem

 

[JareBear: Remastered]

I think honestly expecting to never see a loading screen again is unrealistic, but loading a save file from games like Spider-Man and Witcher 3 will take just a few seconds rather than a minute.

 

[shark sandwich]

Thanks OP for copying the article.

I’ve made it a point to never click on a click bait headline.

 

[Deleted member 752119]

Less or no loading times will definitely be an improvement for things like fighting games that have been super plagued by them this generation.

Most other games have less frequent loads these days as things load behind the scenes in a lot of open world games and what not, but I'm all for any improvement that reduces wasted time and increases time spent actually playing.

That said, the advent of smartphones made load times a lot less annoying as it's a lot easier to browse forums or whatever during loads, waiting on matchmaking etc. than in the old days when you had to have a laptop on the couch, move it off your lap once the loading was done etc.

 

[DonF]

this method is new? I always believed that this is the way things game were programmed.

 

[Wonko_C]

This is gonna be a boon for PSVR2 and likely the main reason they're doing this for. Loading screens are the biggest immersion breaker. Some games mask it very smartly like Astro Bot where they make the matrix-y scene transitions part of the world, but in other games you're stuck surrounded by complete darkness for half a minute or more, which must be unsettling for some people because it's like you went blind or something.

 

[Krappadizzle]

So did Sony just find out about SSD's or something? Or is this a "never before seen" kinda tech that hasn't shown up in the PC space yet? SSD's make most loading screens all of 5 or 6 seconds.

 

[belteshazzar]

Would be dope if it actually worked as advertised, but it probably won't.

 

[Daymos]

Well until the playstation came along I didn't have to deal with load times on consoles.. sure is nice that they are finally taking care of the problem they created.

 

[Wonko_C]

Well until the playstation came along I didn't have to deal with load times on consoles.. sure is nice that they are finally taking care of the problem they created.

It's easy to forget the Tubografx CD, Sega CD, 3DO, Sega Saturn, etc. Some hidden gems on those platforms, especially TGCD and SCD

 

[Rest]

I was hoping for a promise that there would be no light bar.

 

[FranXico]

Well until the playstation came along I didn't have to deal with load times on consoles.. sure is nice that they are finally taking care of the problem they created.

Sega CD - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Once again, SEGA were the innovators.
And you can thank Nintendo considering copying them for the birth of PlayStation.

 

[cireza]

Loading screens are already a thing of the past, except that Sony was not making consoles back then.

 

[base]

Yeah, let me reload TW3 again.

 

[PumpkinPie]

I thought this was going to be about the analog stick being in the wrong place.

 

[FranXico]

I thought this was going to be about the analog stick being in the wrong place.

The title of thread says PS5, not XBox.

 

[somerset]

Wow- a 'patent' for things code has been doing since the very first computer was built. X64 processors even have instructions (pre-emptive loads) that do exactly what this patent claims to invent.

But now all those lawyers that belong to the cult of Israel will sue anyone whose game uses pre-emptive loading.

Software patents are pure satanic evil. Any natural born coder will spontaneously *invent* the methods of any of these types of patent when coding an appication that needs such solutions. So software patents are 100% a means of corporate warfare, mostly benefiting said lawyers. And did you know most organisations that gather up software patents are run and *owned* by lawyers. It is all one big shake-down.

Yes, there can be *pre-emptive* patents that you file to prevent other patents being used against you. The problem is, sooner or later these patents are sold to cultist patent troll lawyers, who then use them to cause havok and enrich the cult at the same time.

You know those insanely expensive game controllers? You know why they are so expensive? Patents. Patents on things like vibrators. Patents that pay off patent trolls a dollar plus per controller per patent.

Years ago, one of the consoles 'patented' the idea of a small flash-like game playing in place of the loading screen (like 30 seconds of space invaders where you push to beat your high score)- and sued its competitors when they tried to do the same. You could not have a greater abuse of the patent system (and early homecomputer british games had actually first done the same thing years before during the slow tape loading sections).

 

[Insane Metal]

Oh yes Sony give it to me.

 

[Chozofication_]

I wonder if this will work for ps4 bc games or just ps5.

 

[Xenon]

I'm surprised Sony hasn't patented patenting yet. This shit sounds so basic Ryan and Kelly should do a segment on it.

 

[manfestival]

Only thing I hate about loading screens is that they are liars. All of them are liars. Giving me some fake progress bar.