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PlayStation 5 detailed, includes backward compatibility

Lead system architect Mark Cerny has discussed the hardware of Sony's next console, detailing what we can expect.

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Sony's lead system architect Mark Cerny has, for the first time, gone into detail about some of the more technical aspects of Sony's next generation system. Although no names have been dropped, release periods discussed, or launch line-ups looked at, we do have confirmation of a few things, significantly at a hardware level.

Speaking to Wired, Cerny confirmed that the PlayStation 5 will see massive updates and improvements to its CPU, moving it to the third generation AMD Ryzen tech. In theory, this allows for greater AI systems, and more seamless open worlds. The GPU will support ray tracing, which to date has only been seen in more high-end PC graphics cards. The combo chipset will also contain a custom unit for 3D audio, which Cerny was keen to emphasise as an area which needed improvement over the current generation.

"It's been a little bit of a frustration that audio did not change too much between PlayStation 3 and PlayStation 4. With the next console the dream is to show how dramatically different the audio experience can be when we apply significant amounts of hardware horsepower to it."

Beyond the new CPU/GPU chipset, we're also looking at solid state drives (SSDs) to drastically improve load times. When Cerny and the team began looking forward to the next generation, one request kept cropping up from developers; "I know it's impossible, but can we have an SSD?"

The team have now implemented the new drives and in practice, this means that Spider-Man running on the new devkit slashed load times from 15 seconds on a PS4 Pro, to a mere 0.8 seconds on the new setup.

An area that Sony fell behind this generation due to Microsoft's software emulation was backward compatibility. Due to the awkward nature of the Cell processor in the PS3, Sony wasn't able to emulate those games on the PS4 system. Thankfully the next generation of PlayStation follows on from the PS4 architecture and will support PS4 games natively.

What do you make of Sony's next-generation plans?

PlayStation 5 detailed, includes backward compatibility


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