Why Does PS5 Only Give Developers 6.5 CPU Cores To Work With?

[@mantis1412]

We expect to be able to run apple music, discord, game recording, browse the front end and seamlessly drop into the PS store while in game.

[@lordspalse0062]

Rubbish. Give options to toggle off all these irrelevant features so the 8 cores can be fully dedicated to games only.

[@B0obJunior]

@@lordspalse0062 To gain what?

[@sundhaug92]

@@lordspalse0062 That wouldn't work. The OS need some amount of CPU for the operating-system kernel and services. Furthermore it'd increase the amount of testing devs would have to do as now there'd be more settings-variants to support

[@lordspalse0062]

@@sundhaug92 That's a valid point. I wish Sony would give an option to turn off that worthless video recording or at least an option to set the resolution and framerate to 1p 1fps😂

[@Leeki85]

The main reason why console OS uses one CPU core exclusively is for future software updates. Games on consoles can use tight optimizations and new OS feature could break performance of older games, like introducing stuttering because there's less CPU cycles for game when it expects to run on all 8 cores (shared with OS). On PC user has the full control and while this means all CPU cores can be used for software. It also means that user is responsible to configure background tasks in a way to not interfere with foreground application. However currently we use CPUs with way more threads than games are designed to use anyway, so there's plenty of performance to share with the OS.

[@FreshChriss]

Yes Game Mode is still a thing in windows 11. I remember back in early win 10 there were tests by different people and most came to the conclusion that it hurts the gaming performance (with your explanation of the behavior it now makes sense to me why). After that initial game mode hurts your performance news, every year i got more curious why it still exists and if it maybe is working now (as i expect my games to run better if i toggle it on). So yes please test this

[@AnimeUniverseDE]

I'm pretty sure Game mode works now completely different from before and doesn't actually reserve core/threads and ram for the system.

[@Roach22]

It would be good for Oliver to also do similar tests with Apple’s recent iteration of their Game Mode in MacOS Sonoma.

[@Gimpy17]

how dare you mention the absurdity that is Apples software! Blasphemy! @@Roach22

[@ThePgR777]

No, game mode in W10/11 disables notifications and background stuff

[@ThexXxXxOLOxXxXx]

Now that you say it sound's like something that'd preserve stability for windows while running a game rather than the opposite @@AnimeUniverseDE

[@IuriFiedoruk]

Alex IS using antivirus software, makes no mistake. It is just that this was integrated into Windows. People from old days will remember Trumpet Winsock, that allowed windows 3 to connect to the internet because it did not had TCP/IP protocol, while Windows 95 did not need that. Why? because Microsoft bought the company and integrated it into Windows. And believe me, Windows still uses a LOT of resources on PCs, that is why you need more memory for same game in Windows than on a console in most cases.

[@Treblaine]

For years people complained that Windows needed anti-virus, now it has integrated anti-virus and people still install applications which do more hard to their computer's performance than any virus is likely to do.

[@jeffyp2483]

a very important difference is that on PCs you have layers between the game and the metal, not so much (sometimes not at all) on consoles. they need to know that there is cpu time to be had for the os. on pc the OS remains the domain of scheduling. on consoles theyre trying to wring out every slice on the available cpus/cores not leaving anything for something (the OS) else.

[@ifstatementifstatement2704]

My guess is the other cores are running threads that have to be dedicated to system functionalities at all times, that are critical for the device to run properly.

[@No_True_Scotsman]

Yeah, like video encoding for streaming and stuff. They don't want game performance to drop when you turn something like that on.

[@seeibe]

​@No_True_Scotsman I think that's a better answer than anything brought up in the video. On PC you always want max performance no matter what. Console manufacturers want consistent performance even if it means leaving some performance on the table in certain scenarios.

[@ifstatementifstatement2704]

@@seeibe it helps that I’m a software engineer :)

[@sundhaug92]

Yeah, and not sure about the PS5 but on the Xbox online-services are regarded as system-level services. This means that on Xbox the online-services are handled by different VMs than the game (high-level bits like the UX are handled by the SRA, the same VM as apps, low-level networking is handled by the system-VM). I don't think it's unreasonable to assume PSN is handled by that 1.5 core

[@nosmirck]

You forgot to mention that the PS5 uses the main CPU too for recording the last few minutes of gameplay independently if you are sharing or not, also, if you were sharing it uses the same amount of CPU for that. If they allowed all and devs use all of it, whenever you want to share gameplay or record your game you would lose performance. The PS4, I believe, had a dedicated chip for that, the PS5 seems to use the main CPU, which makes sense when talking about only giving 6.5 to the devs.

[@RogerCold009]

The reason is because of the game recording! It saves up to 1 hour of game file in the memory, and that also uses a lot of CPU. It's actually really well optimized on the PS5. Xbox sometimes freezes, even if for a second after recording and screenshoting something, even more if you're using an external drive to record something, which is the only way to record 1 hour of gameplay on Xbox! I believe that's the main reason for the CPU limitation

[@ojonathan]

I thought that PS5 used AMD's VCE for their Recording feature, but I may be wrong. AMD's Instant Replay, which is the exact same thing, does not add any load to the CPU (except for I/O scheduling, but that's an extremely light workload). I think Sony may be leaving some room for any transient loads and background tasks, although 1 core may be enough, they may leave additional room for any further performance needed, the same for games, 6 is enough, but 6.5 leaves extra room for additional performance. If the OS and game shared those processors, OS tasks would hurt the game performance, and the inverse would also be true. We have to account that the OS deals with a lot of things even when you're just gaming, like audio processing, I/O scheduling (and the game depends on the I/O scheduler to load resources), networking and network scheduling - including bluetooth and peripherals and ensuring low-latency communication, part of the graphics stack is also handled by the CPU (drivers and a small part of the scheduling), hardware interrupts, power management, frequency scaling (which can be totally managed by the OS, cooperatively between OS and CPU, or controlled by the CPU and assisted by the OS, like AMD P-States), etc... Also, 6.5 cores means 13 logical processors for games, and 1.5 cores means 3 logical processors for the OS. AMD SMT provides a big performance leap of 20-40%, so those 13 logical processors already provides a very solid performance for games.

[@lordspalse0062]

What on earth is Sony's obsession with Video recording. At least give us a toggle to turn it off. It's an unnecessary resource hog. A Console that can hardly do 1080p 60fps on an actual current gen game forcing 4k 60fps video recording in the background. Nonsense!!

[@Gamingmontel]

Except ps5 cant record 4k in the background. It can only record 1080p in the background ​@@lordspalse0062

[@Gamingmontel]

It can only manually record 4k

[@OwtDaftUK]

The PS5 is always recording your gameplay too while you play.

[@umaryusha5792]

it is?

[@ZratP]

​@@umaryusha5792 yes at any time you can use the share button to get up to your last 1h of gameplay in a single click. For this to work, the PS5 records everything in background

[@lordspalse0062]

Another profound madness from the Lunatics called Sony.

[@MichaelM28]

@@lordspalse0062 Cry harder xbot

[@justinhalen2126]

Even the PS4 always records gameplay. I think it was 720p 30fps and last 15-60minutes of gameplay. (but supported 60fps for streaming to twitch or KZbin) most ppl didn't know they could stream directly or record right from the console back in 2013. Which is kinda of crazy since that means those consoles were always writing the video data to the same 2.5 inch 5400rpm sata drive that were used for running games

[@Kryptix0III]

Last of Us PC at launch automatically reserved 13GB so I'm guessing Sony raised it from 12.5GB to 13GB since launch which something similar happened to PS4 after launch

[@mitchjames9350]

Or that could be for PC for overhead.

[@OctaBech]

Sony Playstation always has reserved CPU, GPU and RAM for future OS features. It's very simple, when a console is released, its OS is not feature complete, there's a road map and there's also the possibility of out of the blue must have features. You'd rather reserve more processing power than you expect to need, because when first the processing power is made available to the game developers, it cannot be taken back, it would hamper the games. Just like with the PS3 and PS4, the reserved resources will be made available to the developers, when Sony Playstation's OS department know they won't be needing it. The DF guys have been in the game long enough to know this, they must not have gotten over the New Year hangover yet.

[@demonreturns4336]

Damn you didn’t have to do em like that 😂

[@ryanh.739]

💯🙌🙌🙌 Could not have said it better. Anyone with half brain knows this. I’m actually shocked DF didn’t mention this. Rich and Alex that’s to be expected, all they care about the latest and greatest tech. But John.. he’s the more grounded one, and actually plays a variety of games. Not just talk about it.

[@7EEVEE]

1:36 YOU FOOL, YOU NEED 7 PROXIES

[@kimpossible4450]

Does NOBODY at DF know that the PS5 is constantly recording in the background while also being able to download and install games as you play?!

[@Nu_Merick]

id assume you'd lose a lot of PS OS features like Party chat, 30-60min video recording of past gameplay, downloads, PSN notifications, suspended video apps, etc. i remember 3DS did this with smash bros 4 on base 3DS systems, it took forever to load, but also you could NOT suspend the game or it auto closes the game bc smash bros took over the OS space. switch does this too with some games too, some games you cant use switch's built in video record feature..

[@skycloud4802]

I think that was one of the things New 3DS improved upon. I think in some games (maybe MH4 Ultimate, I can't remember?) you could suspend the game, whereas on regular 3DS you couldn't (plus extra loading screens).

[@Ozzianman]

​​@@skycloud4802 New 3DS is a decently beefed up 3DS. 2 to 4 cores for both main CPU and co-processor. 128mb to 256mb FCRAM 6mb to 10mb VRAM Dedicated hardware video decoder was added. Face tracking for improved 3D effect in New 3DS models.

[@skycloud4802]

@@Ozzianman very true. That's why I wonder if it should maybe be another benchmark test for reviewers like Russ.

[@Nu_Merick]

@@skycloud4802 yea for sure, it played those games fine and let you suspend them or u could even use the web browser. if only the New 3DS had more benefits bc besides from a couple of exclusives, there wasnt much else besides a faster OS. (like improve older games frame rates, etc)

[@soraaoixxthebluesky]

Simple answer: Consoles have a lot of other stuff aside from just gaming including game chat, screen recording, and the hardest one is game streaming. If developers are allowed to use all the available cores and left only small amounts of process time for OS, let alone the streaming or third party apps, you’ll see that your games will lose performance while doing the other stuff. So the available headroom are there so that your games will always run at it’s expected performance no matter what happens in the background.

An exampe of what happens when resorces are not allocated correctly can be see when one tries to use the PS Store in PS3.

[@soraaoixxthebluesky]

@ I believe they allocate 1 out of 7 SPU for OS function. Maybe that wasn’t enough for the apps.

@@soraaoixxthebluesky I think the main issue started after they gave that store a visual update, before that it was sluggish to use, but after the update, it was easier just to use the webpage and do everything from there. Too bad that when they redesigned it for the PS5 they cut its compatibility with PS3, plus now the page is less useful.

[@glenwaldrop8166]

1.5 cores or 3 threads is ridiculous for background tasks. They probably set the limit for streaming, the system must be capable of streaming whether you're doing it or not. AMD's encoder should handle that soundly but it's the only thing I can think of that would need 1.5 cores. A single thread can handle virtually everything else a PS5 would be doing as a background task. The OS should be taking a nap.

[@mimimimeow]

@ i believe the PS3 store is its own app and basically can use all resources available. The problem is all these new versions are basically modern Chromium running Javascript (like Discord client) and so they dont work very well on the PS3 arch and its limited memory.

[@jonnyc429]

I wonder a solution like Intel's e-cores is something that could be considered in future consoles 4 cores running the machine then 12 performance cores or something.

[@OGRussian]

This solution is so old, it's been used in ARM for a decade at this point

[@1funnygame]

I think that's up to AMD. So whenever they decide to create eco and performance core variants, the console makers will be able to pick them. As far as I know they haven't yet, in the same way Intel has

[@zakhir91]

With AMD revealing their e-core equivalent called zen 4c, I can see that solution being very effective on consoles. Also the fact the ipc between zen 4/4c are indentical, but only has half the cache and a bit lower clock speeds.

[@ibrohiem]

They're better off using a separate arm SOC for the OS and interface. They're wasting resources if they do an Intel style E and P core. You add the Intel style E core , now you're stuck with low end cores with lower ipc and low clocks to process your game codes.

[@1funnygame]

@@zakhir91 4c isn't exactly an e-core in the same way Intel or ARM chip maker do e-cores. It would be more accurate to say its just a die space optimised version.

[@usul573]

It's an 8 core processor right? With hyper-threading? Does that mean games have access to 13 threads?

[@techsamurai11]

yeah, it has 8 cores and 16 threads so 6.5 * 2.

[@usul573]

@@techsamurai11 Thanks. The threads confuse the hell out of me sometimes. The Xbox 360 triple core processor at 3.2 GHz apparently had two threads on each. So it was like two 1.6 GHz threads on the bulk of games. That's why damn near every game said you needed a Core 2 Duo at 2.2 GHz or something. The threads must be very different on Zen 2 though I'm assuming.

[@DanFarrell98]

This is one of the most Digital Foundry Digital Foundry videos out there. I basically have no idea what they're talking about but i find it so interesting and entertaining nontheless

[@May1stBurst]

Im not sure if it is a result of reserving 1.5 cores for OS tasks but the ps5 OS is way smoother than my series x when a game is running. The ps5 downloads games way faster and the ui is snappier.

[@josephdias5859]

its more of the SSD that the ps5 uses that creates the smoothness

[@maegnificant]

why not both?@@josephdias5859

[@Baldur452]

​@josephdias5859 Apps and the OS don't need a super fast SSD.

[@overwatch761]

Highly doubt it.

[@iDontUploadiJustSub]

Bruh getting to messages used to be so fast when i first got my PS5, but now whenever i wanna send some hate messages to someone on the other team it takes forever to load their profile. It used to be instant so i could get some trash talk in and hop right back in the game.

[@MelissaAtwell]

PS5 is also recording video clips of Trophies in the background, along with it’s usual management of in-progress downloads, chat, etc

[@JamesTheFoxeArt]

Well it's recording clips in general, up to 1 hour.

[@Roach22]

I’d actually prefer it if we received a much simpler interface when we pressed the Xbox or PS button on the controller, instead of the full OS / dashboard. Anything to get more resources back from the OS would be great. How many people actually use every single feature of the OS while a game is running in the background on a Xbox or PS5? I’d think most people would exit the game if they were going to (strangely) spend any significant time in the console’s OS.

[@JamesTheFoxeArt]

Some people might just want to leave the game on while going on media to watch a video for some tips or to eat to and then go back on where they left off

[@Roach22]

@@JamesTheFoxeArt That’s where Xbox features like Quick Resume are useful. The OS saves the game state from memory to the hard drive and actually closes the game. So you can go back to the dashboard and watch a video with the game saved in exactly the same spot where you left it. With SSD speeds today you’re waiting 5-10secs to return to the game. Next gen consoles will likely be even faster. There are a lot of benefits that could be realised with more CPU and GPU cores and memory being returned to the game.

[@arnauddurand127]

The video does not really answer the question from the title as it is just a bunch of hypotheses. I can see a some other ones: -Maybe they allow one core to be crippled to increase the yield during manufacturing. Is it confirmed that all 8 cores are enabled and can run at the same speed? -It could be that allowing 6 full speed cores is the sweet spot for maximum performance while meeting the TDP of the system; with the other cores used at a lower speed effectively acting like E-cores. -Security is mentioned in some comments here. I'm skeptical that they would compromise performance for a benefit that is difficult to quantify. I am still puzzled with the non integer core splitting. It would be very interesting to have an answer from a Sony designer.

[@sokarash]

Since non of the guys here has access to Sonys internal documentation, and if they won't be able to share any info since its NDA'd to hell and back, plus probably their programming knowledge on that level is limited (its very different than desktop-level programming), thats probably all they can do. As does most of the comments here ;)

[@fabolousjada5070]

@@sokarashtheir not too good bro thats why they work here and not for a big corp or devs

[@techsamurai11]

Wow, game mode exists and is turned on by default, at least on Windows 11. It's also available on Windows 11 Pro.

[@gearoidoconnell5729]

Is Game OS for window we need not game mode lol.

[@mercuriete]

If you pin process to a CPU, the cache hit is higher. But the scheduler should be smart enough to don't migrate process between CPUs. Moreover, balancing irq is common practice so you will have all processors interrupted by hardware even if you have pinned proceses. Valve choosing Linux as OS for their distro, shows a very smart decision because Linux scheduler is just better than any other OS. I would like to see a ps5 hacked like ps4 was and see Steam running on ps5.

[@Rokabur]

Valve uses Linux because Gabe didn't like where Microsoft was taking Windows in the 90's. Linux is likely lighter on system resources too.

[@sundhaug92]

Few corrections: 1. SteamOS came about in the 2010s (first release 2013), and was more a "anti-Windows Store"-thing than a "what Microsoft did a decade ago"-thing. 2. Linux has multiple schedulers, not just one (and that's before accounting for the fact that there are separate schedulers for I/O etc) 3. The only real alternative to basing SteamOS on Linux would be to do like Sony and base it on BSD, and Valve already had experience with Linux

[@demonreturns4336]

They’re saving the other cores for a rainy day

[@pennywisethedancingclown7139]

Good content guys. Love the DF clips

[@Turniplord]

I imagine the PS5 reserves resources because it's always recording gameplay - that how you can instantly save the last hour of gameplay if you forgot to press record. It'll be interesting if Sony ever gives us the option to disable that in favour of more resources for gaming though.

[@aname3576]

based antivirus take

I just use Defender, on Linux Mint, nothing.

[@TakisEnjoyer]

I mean you still need an antivirus, especially if you are not the most tech savvy user, you just don't need an additional one. Microsoft Defender is more than enough for 99.9% cases

[@bulletpunch9317]

Noob

[@EeekiE]

Also haven’t used antivirus since there was a Windows exploit probably around 20 years ago that made the news and brought the office down, and the AV we were forced to use didn’t have an update to address it for hours, at which point I’d already fixed it and got tasked with fixing all the other machines. Disabled the AV on my own, PC became much more responsive, and never had a virus since. Every now and then I’ll run a check manually and it finds nothing. A boss that showed very interesting browsing history on the INTY server logs used to get viruses all the time, even with anti-virus installed. Don’t download weird shit.

[@almendraman]

Unless you're a pirate

[@guitarmansg499]

Obviously some of that is purely safety factor, probably 1 logical core if I was a betting man. That's what I would do as an engineer. The other 2 logical cores would surely be for ancillary features like chat, video/share, background apps, etc.

[@pgr3290]

R5 3600 has much higher boost clocks and way more cache than PS5's CPU configuration, both of which noticeably improve game code performance. Even if they stripped back console background OS functions it probably would not offer significantly faster CPU performance than a 3600.

[@Lead_Foot]

It also has added memory latency because of the IO die. The monolithic Zen 2/3 chips also support higher infinity fabric speeds. Not everything about the 3600 is better.

[@pgr3290]

@@Lead_Foot When you have 4x the available L3 cache of PS5's Zen cores a little more latency from the I/0 is meaningless, like the X3D chips. Cache matters for modern game code. A lot in many titles. Besides PS5's CPU is hardly latency optimized sharing GDDR6 memory, access times are almost certainly way worse than an R5 3600 with decent low latency DDR4. So I would disagree, and say an R5 3600 is basically better across the board for gaming.

[@potatorigs2155]

it's more like a 4700g

[@mimimimeow]

​@@pgr3290 no surprises there but it's understandable why Sony or any console maker should ditch the extra cache. They take a lot of die space, when you have denser and closer interconnects than any PC on earth you're better off spending that precious mm² on GPU compute and instead give devs the tools to profile their code - so CPU doesnt keep pestering the memory, and data can be fetched in cache on time. If they built the PS5 at a major loss like the PS2 and PS3 (2x giant chips) they could've easily fit 3950X and RX6800 with space to spare for shrunk PS3 SoC lmao.

[@vegetarey]

@@potatorigs2155 yep the closest CPU equivalent of both ps5 and xbox series is an underclocked ryzen 4700g

[@N3xlow]

in geekbench the ryzen 4800s gets 8xxx points and my ryzen 5 4600h only 5xxx a zen2 mobile processor and im absolutely fine with it... of course the 4800s isnt the best cpu right now but it is still a good cpu and can do much things more

[@TwilightMelody]

Alex seems to have the brilliant/passionate people problem of not being able to answer a question without 20 barely related pit stops along the way, lol. It can make things a lot easier to follow in an already technical topic, to kind of focus down on the main thing, no matter how exciting a lot of tangential things are.

[@edwardecl]

Seems to me the real reason would be partitioning of hardware for security reasons. The game probably runs in a semi virtual machine that has no root access to the system itself same with ram. You have to remember the PS5 is using most likely an old hobbled together version of BSD the same as Apple does, and that has massive security problems due to the old kernel they are using, so they need to take a lot of extra steps to make it somewhat secure. Why they don't just move to a modern Linux kernel with all the benefits from the newer CPU schedulers and file system support is beyond me.

[@istealpopularnamesforlikes3340]

money

[@YosukeMatsumura]

I suspect the main reason why Apple and Sony used the BSD kernel is due to licensing. BSD uses a licensing model that allows for derivative works to be proprietary, whereas the Linux kernel's license would require them to open source any derived work. Sony and Apple want to keep their modifications closed.

[@NeothaAndMiano]

Not only is the GPL license used by Linux much more restrictive, it also doesn't provide any actual functional benefits to them. 1) In embedded hardware you're *much* better off just patching out bugs than shipping an entirely new kernel. Switching to Linux doesn't mean they suddenly get to ship a new mainline with every OS update. 2) What makes Linux so great is the sheer amount of hardware and it supports, but that is completely irrelevant for consoles. 3) What's copy-on-write, snapshots etc. gonna do for a console? The only user data this thing is meant to store, is savedata and game installations. 4) Neither developers nor users interface directly with the kernel at all. They interface with all of the tools and modules SCE writes in-house. Whether that stuff runs on a BSD kernel or a Linux kernel, is irrelevant to both parties.

[@kelownatechkid]

@@NeothaAndMiano this is a shockingly ignorant comment. The vast majority of embedded systems use Linux for uncountable reasons, and "wide hardware support" is not one of them because it's almost always a custom build with patches to get the hardware working anyway lol

[@user-qy2wf2lt6v]

​@@kelownatechkid Shocking, indeed ...

[@samgee500]

Next consoles should have two separate SOCs with their own separate pools of unified memory. Gaming SOC is x86 with GDDR memory, OS SOC is ARM with LPDDRX memory. Devs should have access to 100% of the gaming SOC's resources.

[@Pappersbok2]

One would assume they would keep building on that foundation since the PS4 had it, albeit just for downloading games and so on, while the main system was in standby.

[@robreich6881]

Way to expensive

[@ProtectusCZ]

@@robreich6881or use big little architecture with performance cores for games and efficiency cores for OS. Intel and Apple did it. There’s no reason why KZbin/BluRay playback should use over 50W.

[@lockjaw2007]

1000 dollar console is dead gen

[@smtek]

The PlayStation 1 (PS1) and PlayStation 2 (PS2) had separate processors for graphics and overall system management. The PlayStation 3 (PS3) took it a step further with the Cell Broadband Engine architecture, consisting of a main processor (Power Processing Element, PPE) and multiple synergistic processing elements (SPEs). This unique architecture is what makes the PS3 a nightmare to emulate, to the extent that Sony didn't even bother with it. The PS5, on the other hand, follows a more unified architecture with an Accelerated Processing Unit (APU) that combines CPU and GPU on a single chip. This integration not only helps with cost and power efficiency but also simplifies development and optimization for game developers.

[@kelownatechkid]

Turning off Defender is a braindead idea for almost all people unfortunately, the vast majority of your viewers should NOT do that

[@JoseDuarte-vw6uy]

DF, Will PS5 PRO be a overclocked PS5 and give nore Ram and full usage of the 8 Cores of CPU?

[@Azmodaeus49]

Yes it is an over locked variant of vanilla ps5. I mean what else could it possibly be, you can't seriously expect a pro variant to be a completely new console 🤨

[@sundhaug92]

If the Pro wants to give games access to 8 full cores, it needs to have extra cores for the kernel etc

[@NotOrdinaryInGames]

What if a big 2nd reason is to not overheat the CPU too much?

[@ShadowFoxInfinite]

I find it strange that 3 years later, Sony (and earlier, but no longer applicable, Microsoft) is still being vague about the exact specs of the PS5 CPU. We know it isn't desktop class, because it only has 8MB of L3. A Ryzen 3600 has 4x the L3 at 32MB, but has 1MB less than PS5 (3MB vs 4MB respectively). A better comparison would be the Renoir 4900 series with higher clocks, which became the literally binned variants (complete with soldiered CPU and GDDR6) named the 4700S. It's funny Digital Foundry is even giving energy to comparisons between this custom APU design and an off-the-shelf part meant for much bigger workloads, especially considering they got early reveals on the systems in 2020 and they know EXACTLY what I'm saying is true about these chips in both Series X and PS5.🤔

[@MuzdokOfficial]

Yes please test game mode. Theres still a debate currently if its helping or hurting performances with a more modern pc

[@Axtmoerder]

This ps3 xmb slander…John is factual wrong. You don’t need to exit the game to do anything that’s just nonsense. I’ve boosted enough online trophies back in the day to know that the party chat worked excellent while in game, so does the trophy list and messages in general. Background downloads worked too(if you are not in an online game) The store wouldn’t work but you had to close the game anyway if you wanted to install dlc Also if you put an ssd in your ps3, the xmb becomes lighting fast and snappy/ responsive

[@soulsbourne]

*for Other services like having last 5-15 minutes of recording running in background for sharable clips*

[@halofreak1990]

On Xbox, GameDVR is a hardware feature, which works directly off of the video encoder. It does have its limitations, but at least it doesn't take any resources away from the games

[@JoeStuffzAlt]

The Series S has 10 GB of RAM (2 GB of that dedicated to background tasks) + SSD + a CPU over 3 GHz, and for a console, you probably won't be hit too hard with background tasks with those kind-of specs (using Series S as an example since it has the lowest specs). In fact, I would say RAM in that setup would be more of the bottleneck. Seems like the PS5 also has reserved RAM for system. For harder-hitting tasks, you can use non-background updates. I have the feeling that both Microsoft and Sony knew that it would be very hard to use more than 6 cores for a majority of games, and a lot of games will hit GPU limitations first. The 1.5 cores might not be too bad if it's 3 CPU threads. That 1 thread that developers have might have a lot of the CPU resources still. It's probably that the CPU core isn't cut exactly in half (in some cases, like the Xbox 360 CPU, you got vector cores per thread. AMD CPUs aren't likely like this). It just will take a hit, but the other side of this is that if that shared core is hit with background work, the multithreaded work might be dragged down by that one core's limitation because often, multithreaded work has to wait for all threads to finish before it can move onto the next phase. If the Series S|X has a good thread scheduler, then maybe it can distribute small multithreaded loads onto all cores instead of packing them into 2-3 CPU threads. Then again, the PS5 can try to pack the dedicated core first so that the shared CPU could run close to peak The Xbox overall has an advantage, but I feel it will depend on which game / which load / etc. Also, I feel the hit, regardless of Xbox vs PS5, might not be felt by the player for a majority of games. I also feel like the extra thread, if it's 3 CPU threads, are more of a "let's add 1 more thread for safety's sake". There's also a chance that Sony would free up the extra thread later

[@ChrisAzure]

The thing is that Xbox allows developers to enable or disable SMT. IIRC, the difference between SMT on vs off is ~200Mhz. I'm still curious what developers are using 7 cores or 14 threads 🤔

[@JoeStuffzAlt]

@@ChrisAzure That can be interesting. I remember early SMT said it can improve performance by 15-30% for multithreaded, but for gaming, you can often run into a situation where you only need a smaller amount of CPU cores. In fact, there were some benchmarks where someone turned off CPU cores, and turning off 2 cores improved performance (though with 2 extra cores, vs normal the 1% lows were better).

[@fabolousjada5070]

Bro i got every console ps5 is definitely better bro. It looks cleaner the colors are better and frames drops less. I bought it for Halo but series x is disappointing if you got money and can afford to get w.e you want its useless

[@JoeStuffzAlt]

@@fabolousjada5070 Cool. I mostly game on PC since the games are playable for longer. Also, there's a good chance that my next PC will be able to play the games at an even higher frame rate

[@jamiecurnock2910]

​@@fabolousjada5070😂 all these guys talking proper tech stuff about cores and threads etc and you come in with ... Ps5 is better bro, trust me bro. Man, ponies are wild.

[@sinax8283]

Didn't DF do a vid awhile ago about how modern console run games in a "hypervisor" or container like environment to provide strong separation and stop games messing around with other software and the system? I've not kept up but things like Jailbreaking seem less common or at least much harder than they use to.

[@shredenvain7]

I'm not sure about PS5 but that is the way Xbox has worked since Xbox one.

[@halofreak1990]

@@shredenvain7the PS3 and Xbox360 also used hypervisors, but not to the same extent and security hardness as the modern consoles

[@sokarash]

The WiiU always loads the fitting firmware version for every game, I would suspect they use a similar approach for this. Its one of the reason why the initial loading times there are insanely high.

[@moister3727]

I believe Xbox One to Xbox Series works this way, on PS as far as I know this doesn't exist.

[@RetroMythologist]

In the probably 36 years of having a computer, with antivirus running, I have NEVER had antivirus EVER find something.

[@dallacosta2868]

The "I'm behind six different proxys" joke is so old I feel for Alex that nobody laughed, lol.

[@gearoidoconnell5729]

I wonder in future would the has 2 CPU one be weak one just for OS and other gamer.

[@candidosilva7755]

I dont use an anti vírus since Windows xp in transition to Windows 7.

[@V3ntilator]

It totally makes sense, because the SSD have a size that you can't even buy. 825.GB. Sony's weirdness don't stop there. Just look at their heating error messages on phones and even Receivers. LOL

[@mitsuhh]

The 825gb was for a very obvious reason

[@mbc07]

The base PS5 SSD is actually 768 GiB (internally it uses 3 flash chips of 256 GiB each). Sony advertises it as 825 GB to make it look bigger than it actually is, something I don't particularly blame on them as the entire data storage industry has been doing for decades now. With the new "slim" PS5 they moved back to 4 flash chips of 256 GiB, so you now get the more common 1 TiB of raw storage...

[@mitsuhh]

Proof?@@mbc07

[@j_tylor_captylor3822]

​@@mbc07I think you might need to look up a Bit and Byte calculator. -"" most hard disk drive and flash-memory manufacturers define 1 gigabyte as a million bytes (decimal gigabyte, 10 power of 9), while computer operating systems usually calculate drive/file/RAM size in binary gigabytes (2 power of 30). "" Which means the 825GB is 768GB at OS level then formatting takes up a little as well to define what the blocks are. Same as when you buy a drive from the store as a 1Tb drive is 931 Gigabytes of space. And yes all the drive manufacturers changed labeling decades ago. At least is better than on the Series S 512GB storage 465GB add OS and doodads 340GB usable.

[@Azmodaeus49]

​@@mbc07makes a ton of sense

[@timothyhancock8996]

Answer in this video is unclear. in windows all apps are given no guarantee on cores and what is running on a core. Window's scheduler decide what app on the system runs on what core, and the scheduler decides how best to time swap resources between apps. You can not guarantee you are the only application using a core at any given time. On consoles Gaming apps are guarantied resources aka the 6.5 cores (so really 6 cores with half of a core shared by the OS similar to how all of the cores are on Windows, but much more strictly managed in terms of % of cpu utilization is used by the OS), for 6 of those cores it is guaranteed that only the game application is running on those cores (and you can specify what core to use, where on windows its best practice to not do that). This gives the Game application a lot control over the cpu core resources (noticeably L2/L3 Cache!) in addition to Set performance quotas. Memory is the same as well where in Windows you request Memory from the OS and the OS decides how to provide that. PS4/PS5 there is some memory you can request from the OS (512MB on ps4 if I remember right) else the rest is managed directly by the application itself.

[@SilverEye91]

I mean, Alex, you DO use anti-virus software. It's called Windows defender. What you mean is that you don't use any third party anti-virus software.

[@timytimeerased]

Spotify can run durin a game, you can stream on Twitch at anytime, you have youtube on suspend mode if you dont close it, voicechat party, shareplay, checkin trophies, theres a lot you can have runnin.

[@MRBlRB94]

lmao I haven't heard of the "six proxies" thing for ages

[@88oscuro]

Wonder what Sony got in store for the OS if they got so much resources dedicated for it.

[@fredsorre6605]

this went over my and I was not able to understand the whole 6.5 cors things when I listened to this live only when it was over is when I realized the PS5 was actually using 13 threads so in a way it is using 6.5cores so 3 threads is locked to the OS all the time.

[@CLWEric]

Maybe it’s used for PS5 data compression feature that allows fast loading and smaller storage footprint

[@Azmodaeus49]

You mean kraken compression ps5 feature

[@plugpulled]

Data compression is hardware feature of the SSD controller on PS5

[@gooner4life1886]

You can't use 6.5 CPU cores, to say 6.5 cpu cores is just nonsense, you can't allocate half of a CPU core, it's either available and used or it's not, whether the utilisation of it is 100%, 50% or 10% nothing else can use that core while it's available for gaming operations so Alex should really stop trying to discuss thing's he doesn't understand. 7 cores are available for the game execution with up to 15 threads if SMT is turned on but this reduces the clock speed of the CPU.

[@Great-Documentaries]

These people are astonishingly ignorant of how operating systems work, what goes on in Windows while games are running, and anti-virus software. A reminder that there is a huge difference in the average intelligence of IT people and mere gamers.

[@fabolousjada5070]

Exactly

[@Krypterium]

i think this is why PS5 has higher CPU frequency

[@jepulis6674]

Console cpu is clocked well below desktop parts. Max 3.5GHz.

[@alphaomega154]

maybe sony should provide a special settings for user to adjust their own preferences for allocation of CPU cores in PS5. for example, let user define that the background services should only use 1 core, and the rest use for game. so then if users experience bad experiences on certain things, its user's fault. since they dont use the standard config. also memory allocations in the unified RAM. i think sony should give users these settings.

[@sokarash]

They won't. Because a console is not an open system like a PC, but a tightly optimized system. Despite the similar hardware and software (Sony uses a FreeBSD-based system for their OS), their are still very different. Programmers have a lot more control over the hardware in a console than on a PC, where most ist at the end controlled by Windows (or Linux for that matter). You probably won't gain much in terms of performace, but lose features and gain instability. Plus consoles are not designed for tinkers, but for everyday users that don't understand any of that. But if they see a thread on reddit and do some tinkering, they only get mad because it doesn't work. Users will never admit its their fault. Sony will not do that on any case.

[@Azmodaeus49]

Hackers will try to exploit that, Sony will not implement such a feature.

[@Aki_Lesbrinco]

That is not a viable thing to do. It would introduce a lot of unknowns in terms of development and debugging for both Sony and third party developers. Development time for OS updates and game development will balloon since they would need to take into account a pretty big number of different scenarios in terms of resource allocation.

[@alphaomega154]

@@Aki_Lesbrinco sony and the developers should only care about the standard setting. and sony could implement that "unlock" feature with a warning to users that changing the standard ideal config may result in unexpected behaviour that is not covered by sony's warranty and terms. believe me, many PS5 user base will still appreciate the availability of the "unlock" core settings feature.

[@kekethetoad]

Maybe because the remaining cores are dedicated to cryoto mining in the background and spying on you? :P

[@WilliamSmith-hf8um]

This is one of the reasons why a PS5 Pro is justified! A) only 12.5 GB of RAM available for games B) only 6.5 CPU cores available for games. When people are expecting stuff like ray tracing, 60 FPS (or even 120 FPS!) and real 4K resolution, it's just not enough. Bring the PS5 Pro!

[@AzaiaMonota]

PS5 Pro won't be enough for real 4K either and I'm willing to be neither will the PS6 FFS we haven't even perfected 1080p on consoles yet

[@umaryusha5792]

1080p has already been perfected its 4k that hasnt

[@AzaiaMonota]

@@umaryusha5792 Then why are there still games releasing at sub 1080p on PS5 and Series X

[@PurushNahiMahaPurush]

@@AzaiaMonotaask the devs. Sony can hit 1440p 60fps with their first party games with games like Horizon FW, GoW Ragnarok, Spiderman 2 and Rachet and Clank, that graphically blow away most big budget third party games. It’s clearly not the hardware that’s the issue here. QC in AAA games has gone to the shitter in the past 5 years or so.

[@fafski1199]

Good luck on that if it's only a 60 Cu GPU like the rumour mill says. You are going to need a fair bit more clout than that these day's, to be able to hit native 4K 60fps in any game that is remotely demanding. PS4 Pro 4K 60fps, in a nut shell: Upscaled = possibly. Native = is not going to happen in most games RT enabled or a UE5 game = Just forget about it. And that's all dependant on if the PSU inside the PS5 pro can even fully provide the power for that 60Cu GPU. 350W would be required for the GPU alone, due to transient power spikes. My guess is it that it will be limited in power just like laptop GPU's. Which in turn will mean a fair reduction in performance when in comparison to a simular dedicated video card.

[@lumaseed6490]

Common Digital Foundry W

[@PrimaveraOne]

Alex is so Genki in this 😂

[@mwapesamala848]

I know PlayStation OS uses one core and the PS share uses another core and these are always active and locked to these tasks

[@lordspalse0062]

There could be a toggle mode with prioritize OS operations / prioritize game app settings so games can be allowed to maximize the entire 8 cores with minimal OS operations budget.

[@user-qy2wf2lt6v]

I'll juat wait for the next big Sony leak to find it out.

[@potatorigs2155]

so 13 threads r5 3600 is still only 12 threads r7 4700g still a better comparable

[@fabolousjada5070]

One guy. Mark Cerny is a literal genius he told you … “ itll be easy to make games for the ps5 “ he constructed it for the devs

[@alexmaccity]

Thats all you need is six cores

[@mitchjames9350]

Next gen Sony and Microsoft should use for the CPU’s 3D V cache and the Zen C cores alongside the standard Zen cores, that way they can use the smaller C cores for the OS etc and give all of the more powerful cpu cores for the devs to use.

[@balloonb0y677]

I wouldn’t say it matters to much knowing that they made a custom flash controller that would take 12 zen2 cpu cores to run. That would be an entire pc cpu that costs as much as the ps5 itself.

[@braamkotze473]

You have not answered the question, and not even mentioned the fact that PS5 always record an our of past footage. That, with the multitude of processes that can run while playing a game without affecting performance of either OS or the game. PS5 is optimised better than a PC, and far better than Xbox. DF really dropped the ball here

[@Atlas-hu9wk]

You will have to ask Sony or some game developers to get a real answer as this is just pure speculation.

[@iyziejane]

my guess is it's to prevent overheating, using it as software overhead wouldn't make sense for thermals and power consumption

[@fxlltxtsearch]

The ps4 menu and OS might have have been annoyingly slow while playing games but id always rather the game leverage more of the cores in exchange for a slower menu

[@noobdebusca1757]

Cause the other Cores is for the OS

[@ThexXxXxOLOxXxXx]

PS3 was very bad in this regard hell some games didn't even allow you to download in the background

[@Blag_Cog]

Smart shift in the PS5 CANNOT downclock the GPU to increase CPU times. Only the other way around. There is a limit that doesn't exist on the PC version of Smart Shift.

[@marty8370]

Not true

[@longjohn526]

You have a set chip TDP budget you have to work with. In order to keep within that budget higher GPU clocks = lower CPU clocks and inversely higher CPU clocks = lower GPU clocks. You simply can't raise one without lowering the other or you exceed the TDP capabilities of the chip. Generally as a rule of thumb that works well because you are nearly always CPU bound or GPU bound but not both so if you are CPU bound you increase the frequency of the clocks and lowering the GPU clocks has little to no effect in overall performance since it has GPU headroom available. If you are GPU bound you increase that clock and lower the CPU clock and it has little to no effect on overall performance because you had CPU headroom to work with.

[@Blag_Cog]

@@marty8370 I'm sure Mark Cerny was lying when he said that.

[@marty8370]

@@Blag_Cog So your calling the PS5 lead designer a liar, you are dumb. Mark Cerny said PS5 runs maxed out majority of the time.

[@djtomoy]

Linux is better than Windows, everything works better

[@hollyc5417]

Why would people ask you anything. You have no idea how games are developed. You might think you have an idea but you don’t know what you don’t know.

[@wabbit234]

PS5 has no cores for games.

[@user78405]

cause devs are super lazy lately, look how starfield turn out to be ??

[@djayjp]

DRM.

[@LoveLove-cf5oc]

Wow incredible

[@qwerty6789x]

Microsoft Windows is still tr@SH

[@happyatheists9361]

PC rules❤

[@lm_dccxl4078]

"why human heart dont stop pumping blood to the limbs while the body is sleeping if the fish can do it??!!" type of question

[@Plasterman2025]

Could of been 3 minutes 😮😴

[@easyDoes1T85]

PS5 does it again 😎

[@fg1astro824]

Ps5 huffing and puffing to keep up with the xbox 😂☠️🤷‍♂️

[@UlyssesM]

​@@fg1astro824enjoying starfield?

[@fg1astro824]

@@UlyssesM haven’t played it tbh

[@mortalballdc]

Playstation 5 OS sucks even PS4 OS sucks too

[@mitsuhh]

No

[@MichaelM28]

Because that's all developers need as proven by the PS5's superior performance over Trashbox 😂😂😂

[@acevedoaandres]

In your dreams, ps5 trash

[@MichaelM28]

@@acevedoaandres Cry harder xbot

[@NZZN_]

why do you guys even care they're almost identical and both have no games

[@mitsuhh]

​@@NZZN_no games how?

[@JFinns]

PC destroys both who cares

[@happyatheists9361]

Mac os also base on free bsd😂 and mac can't game😂

[@PlaceboHead360]

Becuase the PS5 is shtt hardware

[@wawztzta8296]

imagine using an antivirus lol

[@Pruflas-Watts]

The PS5s OS sucks. I dont need an OS to do a bunch of crap and look fancy. They might as well have kept the PS4 OS. I actually liked better. Sony also sucks with monitor support. No display stream compression support and limiting VRR to HDMI 2.1 crappy VRR is a sin in a pos5 2018 world. Xbox has had 1440p support for a while on top of freesync over hdmi 2.0 and DSC support on top of that. But we get a nice fancy OS? Bring back xbox 360 blades or even a semi limited PS3 cross media bar.

[@Trojance]

I could easily cut and trim a video file on a PS5 faster than I could on my Windows PC with 5900X and RTX 4090 because the software is so streamlined and simple. Your comment is 💩

[@wizzenberry]

ps5 works, pc barely works. lol

[@armanromana1580]

i mean its more complicated than that but yeah. console has to work 99.99 percent of the time

[@phawxhunter]

​@@armanromana1580true, and it's designed to do that specific task. Everything else is just an extra feature or gimmick, like playing Ultra HD Blu-rays, people shouldn't buy a console as their main HT room player.

[@longjohn526]

I was already able to run circles around a PS5 a year before it even released (3700X and a 2080 Super) and it's absolutely no match with my current 5800X3D and a 4070 Ti. Plus with the locked down PS5 you aren't able to mod any games to make them even better. Most games on PS5 use medium and low PC settings and upscaling that's not anywhere close to being as good as DLSS. Granted you do get your money's worth at $500 but better than a PC? Not even close

[@mitsuhh]

​@@longjohn526nice lies😊

[@wizzenberry]

@@longjohn526 law of averages "better than a pc" yes, "better than a gaming pc" yes. better than your pc? no. you can tell a dumb pc fanboy cause they use dlss as a selling point. LOOK GUISE WE HAVE MODS, IGNORE SHADER STUTTERS AND CRASHES AND BAD PERFORMANCE OK

[@professorJorge11]

Redesign a PS5 w 3 year old hardware, they can shove it. PC master race

[@Sand_1995]

But does your PC belong to the master race? Most master race claimers have a GTX 1050 and try to hide behind the master race tag. Nobody with a rtx 4090 would try to flex on a system that costs 1/10th their build now would they?

[@professorJorge11]

@@Sand_1995 Yes Sir, but have You heard the rumor that PS 5 pro will retain the same Zen 2 CPU, it's atrocious !!

[@HeroesLeftInMan]

The irony that I got a PS5 a few weeks ago, and I keep having to fight the OS cause it's just completely buggy and full of errors and slow. My Series S has no issues with navigation, and my Windows 11 gaming PC also has no issues. But man, the PS5 literally chugs if I'm downloading, or playing ps4 games.

[@sklynexd]

Weird, since my PS5 is silky smooth and super fast while my W11 gaming PC is laggy sometimes, but that's W11's issue cuz W10 is much faster and smoother. 5600X, 32GB, 3060 ti and 5gbps SSD is not slow at all but W11 is just buggy, useable but not perfect.

[@glenmcl]

cause it sucks and everyone knows it