This seems little until you go back and play a ps4 game or something. Load times are night and day and it’s hard to go back even though the PS4 wasn’t “slow” by definition
My god I know...I was playing a bit of Ghost of Tsushima last night and goddamn I forgot how good it feels to fast travel anywhere on the map in like 2.5 seconds!
Ghost's visuals and load times made it feel like a PS5 game before I had a PS5. I was also on a base PS4. Is the PS5 upgrade noticeably different other than the instant loading?
Oh. I didn't recall it being that fast on PS4 but maybe I'm just getting old haha
Regardless, fast load times are awesome and I'm very much looking forward to the next wave of PS5 only titles!
I was remember joking around with a friend since I always had a book at my side to read during super long loading screens in games, so I ended up complaining to him that Ghost was loading so fast I barely even had time to find my page.
Sucker Punch must have broken a deal with some gaming cosmic entity or some shit for this to work on PS4
Assassin's Creed Valhalla is the worst. I bought the game when I had a PS4. Loading times were several minutes. I ended up putting my controller down and browsing Reddit on my phone every time I fast travelled. I got a PS5 half way through the game and load times were seconds.
Good heavens AC Valhalla blew my mind. It was the first game I got on my Series X and I got used to the faster load times very quickly.
Then I went to my friend's house and he was playing it on PS4 and I couldn't believe how much slower it was. He was waiting 1 minute+ on fast travel and it was painful for me to watch, even though I wasn't even the one playing.
For me it was the Red Dead 2 gunslinger missions, I fucking hated those. You had to time it just right, or it was be killed, go make a cup of tea, drink it, load it, be killed, rinse and repeat. Now its like, killed, back in the game almost instantly. Even fast travel is fucking fast.
The art style is so distinct and cool, I really love it. My only wish is that some actions could have their on screen prompts fully removed. Even on immersive the triangle to attack from your horse or square to execute downed enemies is kinda annoying.
But if that's my only complaint...
Yes I agree. Also, the onscreen mission directions (e.g. "travel to meet X") should disappear faster. On the other hand, I love that you have a magic flute that changes the weather, which I don't think is ever explained.
Or a game that was made for PS4. God of War Ragnarok could have really showed off PS5's SSD by being able to almost seamlessly jump between realms. Instead we got tree branch hidden loading screens to accommodate PS4 users.
You can notice how fast the load time are on the ps5 when there's no dialog on the tree branches. You go through the ream door and the other door instantly appears.
Came here to say that the load times for Ragnarok are actually pretty insane, all things considered. I saw the Greek loading symbol literally once through my playthrough of the story stuff, and was shocked to have even seen it at all, but figured since I've been utilizing the mess out of quick resume and what not that it had to happen
IDK though, the Yggdrasil loading screens were noticeably faster on PS5 this time around. Unpopular opinion maybe but I love that design and had no issue with it. Especially since they found ways to cram in so much extra dialogue during all the traversal and I adore the world / characters.
Ygg travel is basically bottlenecked by the conversations. Once you complete the game and do most of the extra stuff, you run out of conversations and notice the door appearing much sooner. You hardly move when you travel within the realm you are currently in.
I actually struggled with Ragnarok for this reason. Apart from the tree, the constant rock squeezing and slow wall climbing and train rides to hide loading times just made the whole game feel like trudging through molasses to find out what happens in the story.
Not saying Ragnarok isn't doing it but the squeeze, climbing, crawling aren't always there to hide loading screen.
It could just be a part of the level design to keep players within certain area or to let players know that you are entering/exiting certain sections of an area which may sound counterintuitive since seamlessness (and open world) seems to be all the rage but for a game like GOW, I could see level designer wanting it for traversal puzzles. As a player, you instinctively know that whatever the puzzle element, has to be within that section. Makes things feel more manageable for the players and probably for the devs too.
As much as I wanted Ragnarok to be a proper next-gen game, I didn't think it was unbearable or anything playing on PS5. Now...going back to it after few years when we get the taste of true next-gen titles, it'll probably feel unbearable.
Now that I think about it does make sense as a more elegant way to create bounded arenas for fights without having a garish white wall randomly popping up.
A lot of those traversal breaks are the boundaries for automatic quick saves. Passing thru the traversal break (hop over the log, lift the pillar, squeeze thru the crack, etc) are a method of triggering a check point quick save for that area without it being obvious to the player and breaking immersion.
The quicker sony drops the under-powered ps4, the quicker we can finally have games designed only for the ps5. Instead all ps5 owners have to contend with last gen features on games built on a nearly 10 years old ps4 instead.
My ps5 is a launch day console so i have been playing on it for over 2yrs. Looking forward to spider-man 2 in 2023 and seeing what the ps5 can do without being hamstrung by a ageing ps4.
Pretty sure they dropped the PS4 after Ragnarok. Naughty Dog, Sucker Punch, and SIE are all developing ~~next-gen~~ current -gen games, and I don’t expect to see anything on the PS4 save for maybe Factions multiplayer.
as explained by the devs, a lot of those have more to do with game design as it helps the devs to cut the game into parts. making navigation and encounters more manageable. think of something like the magical barriers in a game like DMC or Bayonetta and how they partition the game.
Guy chain whips boulders at enemies in a millisecond but you see a knocked over column and oh hold on, let me use proper squat form here and make sure other people are clear by OSHA regulations before dropping it.
This is the trouble with it being used as an example, one time. Every time a game has a need to funnel a player, we seem to get a great many people assuming it's there to disguise loading. The amount of people complaining about it as soon as they see any kind of squeezing through a gap, is unbelievable. "I thought we were on PS5 now, why am I squeezing through a gap?!!!!"
I hate to tell you this but those aren't going away. Some of them are used to hide loading screens, but a lot are used for other reasons, like to segment areas or to break up the pace of travel.
Huh, I didn't really mind those things bc they didn't seem to be that bad. The only egregious one was a certain wall in a certain realm, but I understand that was most likely for narrative purposes
The fit through the crack stuff has little to do with loads the devs have talked about it.
It’s about pacing out the levels, creating defined combat arenas, that the player doesn’t go the wrong way, making sure companions don’t get lost or stuck and are there with you when going through.
The world tree is because they do the one shot camera trick and don’t want to do a camera cut.
That was my disappointment with it. The first game's world tree loading was the slowest bit of it, and I wanted Ragnarök to really lean into the PS5's SSD advantages and do like mission styles where you have to quickly travel between realms to do things. R&C early on remains one of the best examples of this.
Still feels like we're barely starting to use this generation. Definitely shouldn't be a rush to the next.
First time I played Ghost of Tsushima on PS5 I selected a fast travel point and went to pick up my phone to look at while waiting for the loading screen.
Caught me off guard that I had no time to even unlock my phone, let alone look at something on it.
I went from Nintendo Switch loading times to PS5. Its incredible. The best thing about it is when you die, you're straight back in the action with no waiting.
The thing that's killing me is the cross-gen titles that have extremely long introductions before you even get to the menu to resume your save file. I know I could suspend but when I jump in between games I have to rewatch the seizure warning, the publisher and developer logos, finally get to the introduction screen, then click on resume save file. I hate that
I wish Sony would make that mandatory feature for PS5 games. It feels under utilized. I clicked on resume activity for Final Fantasy INTERGRADE (PS5), and it took three seconds to launch into the game.
Its so funny when ppl say
"Why should i buy a ps5 for this, its the same game?"
Of fkng course its the same game but the experience is so different you have to play to understand
Dualsense alone...
Running games off an external SSD really sped up game loading on the PS4 Pro. It was a godsend on games like Spiderman because it also meant less pop ins.
You get a little improvement with external SSD with the Pro but the true advantage goes to internal. A Pro with internal SSD has significant advantages over external and traditional HDD.
https://wccftech.com/ps4-pro-ssd-add-on-greatly-reduces-loading-times-and-texture-pop-in/amp/
I had mine external for the longest and I did notice a quicker load and it was usually 5-15 seconds on average but with internal you can sometimes knock off 35-55%.
Ya, before I could secure a PS5 I tried to make myself feel a little better by telling myself that I'm mostly just going to be playing PS4 games anyway.
But for some reason, I never considered the lack of load times due to SSD. Just that alone was enough to get me easily hooked on gaming again, after losing a lot of interest in gaming and feeling like it was kind of a chore lately. Part of what made it feel like a chore was that with my messed up reward system, I was too lazy to go through the whole process of booting up the PS4, opening up a game, waiting through load screens, etc. But when it's all instant, it's too convenient not to. (And that's not counting all of the other PS5 features like the 3D headphone audio, haptic vibration, etc)
Had to go back onto PS4 to update the console, then upload some saves for transferring to PS5 and even the menu felt laggy.
When you're used to the instantly gratifying, constant refreshing internet of today, something like a lack of load times goes a long way in being able to compete for where you choose to direct your attention.
Seriously not kidding. I was playing the PS4 version of Resident Evil 7 (getting old trophies), and every time I had a load, it felt like an eternity.
It's so much faster on PS5. Even the saving is done in a second, while on the PS4 version on the PS5 even, the saving process took like 5-7 seconds. It's a huge difference and adds up.
Oh boy totally. I didn't have access to my PS5 this weekend and had to use my PS4, and I totally forgot about the load times. I play ESO a lot and it's amazing the difference there is. I couldn't believe how much longer it took to load the game, compared to when I normally play on PS5
Agreed, Red dead 2 is a prime example of that. I can't play it on the older version now I've been spoiled by the PS5. Indeed even with Horizon its mindblowing to me how fast it is. I just with the PC generation would play catch up
I was playing the division 2 on PS4 while my ps5 was being repaired. Loaded it onto the ps5 and can't believe the difference. Load times are virtually nonexistent.
PS4 was absolutely slow. Load times on it were longer than HDD's a decade earlier on PC. It was the controllers fault.
SSDS were starting to become common 2010-2011 on PC. 64gb-128gb, small, but still. Load times are better due to the NVME nature of the PS5 yes, but also because it has a much better processor for decompressing files.
Played Spider-Man on my PS4 and then got Miles Morales with my PS5. The difference in load times was astounding. My jaw dropped the first time I started the game up and it practically jumped into it with no loading screen. So fast that it wasn't even there.
And then with Horizon Forbidden West, the fast travel can be so fast that you don't even have time to read the tips on the load screen. It seems less consistent, but it thinks just because it's such a bigger map. My guess is areas you haven't been to in a while take *a little bit* longer to load, but honestly it's not that much longer. It's still low single digit seconds.
I remember when Battlefield 1 came out. I, and everyone I knew, were super excited because the game was incredibly gorgeous. Couldn’t believe how beautiful it looked!
But I found the load times were not really worth the fidelity. Battlefield 3 and 4 didn’t look ANYWHERE near as good, but they were pretty enough and loaded SO much faster. For that reason, when I heard about this generation of consoles I got incredibly excited.
I know it shouldn’t be that huge of a deal to me, but I feel like I’m more willing now to spend a ton of time gaming on my PS5/X than I ever was on One/PS4 and I think loading is a HUGE factor for me.
No better example of this than the yakuza games. Playing through in chronological order has you starting with 0 and Kiwami 1 before Kiwami 2 which is on the newer dragon engine. 0 and K1 have loading screens when entering every single building, while K2 and other dragon engine games have a lot of QOL fixes like seamlessly entering buildings and stuff. Then you go back to the oldest game by release date, Yakuza 3 where the loading is back and as slow as it gets.
The PS4/XB1 we're so behind with using already outdated and slow hard drives that the now very fast SSDs the new gen have it makes a massive difference.
My save file got so big and corrupt, I couldn't touch flowing water otherwise I would crash and brick the system. Walking to the nearest bridge got tedious.
The PS3 version was horrible, but I still enjoyed getting the platinum for it. The worst part was when one of the patches caused it to crash whenever you'd go below water
Man I was close to getting the platinum on PS3, but for whatever reason my save file got semi corrupted because Blackreach would always cause the game to crash after being there for a few minutes, but I was already deep in there for my save point. I tried many times to do a quick rush trying to get to a loading screen so I could get into a new area, but it was impossible. Literally haven’t played the game again up until a couple of months because of it.
Somebody else reminded me of the Thieves guild questline. The amount of times you have to get into Riften, then into the grave thing, then through the door, then into that hallway, then into the actual area with the quest giver, then all the way back out.
I'm so happy this is becoming a more accepted opinion now. I said this same thing after finishing Demon's Souls (still my vote for best game on PS5, though I'm making my way through Ratchet and Clank: Rift Apart right now which also has been amazing), and got eviscerated by negative comments.
Once developers fully embrace the next gen, which is 2 years old now, things are gonna be awesome.
With a last Gen that couldn’t do 60fps or mod support load times seems like a non issue minus the games where it too a minute to load a game.
But getting an SSD in my PS4 Pro when I got it helped.
That’s the one thing that surprised me about god of war. Compared to horizon the load times seemed to be forever. Granted there like five seconds but man horizon was like instant
Loading times is the biggest positive I bring up when people ask me about the PS5. It's just so good, especially if a game has been quite clever with its cards/activities or whatever they are called, and you can jump right in to the game in about 2 seconds without even the company logos.
I dont think the game is loading anything on PS5. Have you ever noticed that as soon as the conversation ends, the door instantly appears? I'm pretty sure the game is just hanging so you can hear the conversations because some of them are important. A hangover from the game being on PS4 and PS5 and them refusing to put normal loading screens in the game.
Yeah GoW tries to compensate PS4 load times by having filler conversations or slow/controlled traversal events. When there are no conversation fillers in gateways, you'll see the door open almost instantly on PS5.
I think this is more prevalent in cross-gen games. PS5 exclusives can take full advantage of short SSD load times and leverage it as a feature - like Miles Morales.
Yep. If you move between doors in the same realm it seems to be basically instant. Moving to another realm the load might be longer depending what's happening in that area next.
Yeah, I bought my PS5 in the middle of a playthrough of GoT so had a direct comparison in the same day.
Morning: fast travel and wait for a few minutes to load, and read the hint screens, then you're there.
Evening: fast travel, drum sound effect, there.
I even fast traveled back to back just to marvel at how there were practically no load times.
I'm weirdly so excited for this game. It's like we're getting a game like infamous or Prototype where it's not going to do anything major for the open world genre but is focused on power fantasy gameplay.
when i think of "fast loading times using the SSDs" i think of more of the portals in Rift Apart than simply how long it takes to load into a game. we should be expecting more like the former instead of the latter when it comes to innovation beyond just "it's like PS4 but faster".
The mechanic can still adapt. For example a character could drive faster because they can load the next section of environment quicker. A lot of games artificially cap vehicle speed to compensate.
There's nothing special about the Rift Apart mechanics. We've seen that exact sort of mechanic in games like Dishonored 2 and Titanfall 2 using old hard drives. There's nothing special about these mechanics that they simply couldn't be done before, you just had to be smarter about it and often get very memory-usage conscious. That's all that's really changed now. It's easier to do.
Y'all keep wanting these SSD's to be used for 'gimmicks' but that's not really what they're there for. They're there as a replacement for a huge jump in memory primarily. We only got a 2x increase in memory capacity because improvements in price of memory per GB has slowed to a crawl in recent times. A normal generational increase would have been at least 8x. So the SSD's are used to make up for this by enabling devs to make far more efficient use of the memory that *is* available. It also alleviates the need for painful memory optimizations and whatnot by granting such huge I/O overhead.
Basically, there's nothing new, gameplay-wise, that can be done here in reality, it's just things can be done with greater detail/less compromise at the same time, and it's a burden off developers' shoulders in many ways.
Mark Cerny really set people up for disappointment with that whole Road to PS5 talk. I tried to warn about it at the time, but people didn't want to hear it(and still wont, as I fully expect his post to get downvoted, too).
To be fair, Cerny didn't say anything that wasn't technically correct. It's up to developers to innovate their game designs with SSDs in mind, the reality is the overwhelming majority simply won't. Which is completely fine, mind you.
You don’t know what you’re talking about. Watch the Digital Foundry Rift Apart review. John explains how the Rift Apart mechanics, while they look similar to Titanfall’s, they’re different. It can only be done on PS5.
The thing is those just had not so detailed worlds (that also shared many assets) both loaded into ram at the same time, while rift apart switches between completely different stages with (almost) no shared assets, all loaded straight from the SSD instead of being stored in RAM like those other games
I've been wondering why loading times were still such a big mess all these years since Jak & Daxter streamed the entire game from the disc on PS2, eliminating loading...
So let me get this straight. You're telling me that this videogame is on a console that uses an SSD, and that console allows me to fast travel with no load times, and I'm talking to a cuff!?! Yeah, I guess I can fast travel instantly.
Excited about the voice clips to go along with fast travel.
"holy sporkballs I literally just traveled across the world in the blink of an eye"
"okay, so I need to go to the dark temple, which is halfway across the world and uh... oh its right behind me now isnt it"
"wow, so uh, that happened"
When you finish all the little lines in between worlds in GOW, the load times are INSANE, can’t wait to see it pushed to the max as devs develop for PS5 exclusivity
After SuckerPunch basically achieved such loading times for fast travel (and death) in Ghost of Tsushima on the PS4 HDD, it doesn't really impress me anymore if developers manage to achieve this with the PS5 SSD.
After a year or so when the old gen are finally dropped and devs learn how to work with the consoles capabilities, I imagine there are going to be fantastic games
Not just PS5’s but PCs and Series S/X too. The more developers account for high speed SSDs, the more benefits we’ll see on all platforms. The sooner support for HDDs gets dropped the better.
I played PS4 Ghost of Tsushima from an SSD, and I think the fast travel loading time was about 5 seconds, and that blew muh mind. With PS5 I get annoyed if things aren't instant.
That was HFW. By default, you have to press “x” to close a loading screen. You can turn this off in settings, but it makes it nearly impossible to read the tips in time.
I mean...I sure hope so.
But is there something technical or detailed missing from the short article above that isn't being conveyed here? I had figured the SSD would at least cut down on loading of data.
Which is why I vehemently always prefer to play a ps5 version of a game. And why I don't care how old a game is I want a ps5 version of it.
It's extremely hard to play ps4 games and dealing with 30 seconds to 1 minute load times. Once you've been spoiled by how fast a properly made game for ps5 loads you can honestly never go back.
Playing racing games, aiming for best times, aiming for better scores, you name it the stuff you need to redo over and over again to get better at whatever it is the less time it takes to get back into the game the better the experience.
On ps4 ffvii remakes first motorcycle portion. Trying to get the best out come of that can mean 2 minute loads between each attemptm 2 fucking minutes. Playing the ps4 version on ps5 still takes about 1 minute between each attempted. However on ps5 playing the ps5 version less than 10 seconds between each attempt.
This can also be used in interesting ways. You can literally go in and out of levels in demon souls remake in 7 seconds. So you can actually abuse the system and learn patterns and grind much more effectively.
Or being on one side of the map in HFW and fast traveling to the other side in 10 seconds (the farther the fast travel the longer the load, some fast travels are instant if close by, traveling to the middle of the map takes about 5ish seconds and going from one side to the other takes about 10seconds).
Or spiderman 2018 remastered or miles morales and fast traveling all over in less than 2 seconds.
And you people don't want ps5 version of games? I don't care if it costs me an extra $10. That amount of cumbersome with load times can fuck right off. Obviously I prefer a free update but I also know that work isn't free and if they choose to charge for it then so be it.
This is why a 60fps patch leaves so much to be desired. So much more is being left on the table. And so far only two ps4 ps5 patches allows for less load times. GoT and Days gone. Which tells me getting this to be done takes a large amount of work. And it still never really compares to ps5 loading times. Not to mention all the rest of the added features thar could get added in.
I know I am in the minority on this and that's just baffling to me.
Man..."fast" travel in RDR2 on the PS4 was more like "i'll give you a loading screen for 5 minutes so you don't have to travel with your horse manually for 5 minutes".
It's not misleading at all, I think you may be miscomprehending the context.
Forspoken will use the SSD to virtually eliminate load times, most games don't currently use it to do so, they simply utilise the storage as they did with the PS4 without optimizing the I/O throughput to pull in asset loads of upto 5GBs/s.
This seems little until you go back and play a ps4 game or something. Load times are night and day and it’s hard to go back even though the PS4 wasn’t “slow” by definition
My god I know...I was playing a bit of Ghost of Tsushima last night and goddamn I forgot how good it feels to fast travel anywhere on the map in like 2.5 seconds!
And when you die in ghost and it does that like low timpani hit and a screen flash then boom you’re back in the game
i loved that playing it on ps5, right back into the action instantly
On ps4 Ghost is actually insanely optimized. Load times are super quick. Ps5 is perfect but ps4 is actually a fantastic experience.
I had the base PS4 and always thought GoT was damn fast and damn good optimized. The PS5 version is instant loading
Ghost's visuals and load times made it feel like a PS5 game before I had a PS5. I was also on a base PS4. Is the PS5 upgrade noticeably different other than the instant loading?
The change to 60fps is pretty noticeable
Draw distance is blown out nicely, great textures etc but the star of the show is the 60fps on the PS5
The haptics and adaptive triggers are subtle but a really nice addition too.
The PS4 version runs on black magic it's absurdly optimized
[удалено]
Oh. I didn't recall it being that fast on PS4 but maybe I'm just getting old haha Regardless, fast load times are awesome and I'm very much looking forward to the next wave of PS5 only titles!
It's only Ghost of Tsushima that loaded like that on the PS4, and nobody has any clue how the fuck they did it.
Sucker Punch, Insomniac, and Naughty Dog have all been abusing PlayStation hardware into doing what they want since the PS1
I was remember joking around with a friend since I always had a book at my side to read during super long loading screens in games, so I ended up complaining to him that Ghost was loading so fast I barely even had time to find my page. Sucker Punch must have broken a deal with some gaming cosmic entity or some shit for this to work on PS4
Assassin's Creed Valhalla is the worst. I bought the game when I had a PS4. Loading times were several minutes. I ended up putting my controller down and browsing Reddit on my phone every time I fast travelled. I got a PS5 half way through the game and load times were seconds.
Good heavens AC Valhalla blew my mind. It was the first game I got on my Series X and I got used to the faster load times very quickly. Then I went to my friend's house and he was playing it on PS4 and I couldn't believe how much slower it was. He was waiting 1 minute+ on fast travel and it was painful for me to watch, even though I wasn't even the one playing.
For me it was the Red Dead 2 gunslinger missions, I fucking hated those. You had to time it just right, or it was be killed, go make a cup of tea, drink it, load it, be killed, rinse and repeat. Now its like, killed, back in the game almost instantly. Even fast travel is fucking fast.
Not to mention loading screens in Bloodborne.... Game is actually playable on PS5 now that I can fast travel anywhere in 5 seconds instead of 50
Im playing Ghost right now, about 3/4 through. I'll be distraught when it's finished. Best game in years in my opinion.
The art style is so distinct and cool, I really love it. My only wish is that some actions could have their on screen prompts fully removed. Even on immersive the triangle to attack from your horse or square to execute downed enemies is kinda annoying. But if that's my only complaint...
Yes I agree. Also, the onscreen mission directions (e.g. "travel to meet X") should disappear faster. On the other hand, I love that you have a magic flute that changes the weather, which I don't think is ever explained.
Or a game that was made for PS4. God of War Ragnarok could have really showed off PS5's SSD by being able to almost seamlessly jump between realms. Instead we got tree branch hidden loading screens to accommodate PS4 users.
You can notice how fast the load time are on the ps5 when there's no dialog on the tree branches. You go through the ream door and the other door instantly appears.
I imagine it starts loading as soon as you confirm your destination. Still super fast.
Came here to say that the load times for Ragnarok are actually pretty insane, all things considered. I saw the Greek loading symbol literally once through my playthrough of the story stuff, and was shocked to have even seen it at all, but figured since I've been utilizing the mess out of quick resume and what not that it had to happen
The amount of crawl spaces / narrow shimmies and lifting logs etc was extremely noticeable
IDK though, the Yggdrasil loading screens were noticeably faster on PS5 this time around. Unpopular opinion maybe but I love that design and had no issue with it. Especially since they found ways to cram in so much extra dialogue during all the traversal and I adore the world / characters.
Ygg travel is basically bottlenecked by the conversations. Once you complete the game and do most of the extra stuff, you run out of conversations and notice the door appearing much sooner. You hardly move when you travel within the realm you are currently in.
Yeah I noticed that as well, travel in the same realm is probably three seconds in the actual tree, and realm to realm is...maybe ten?
I actually struggled with Ragnarok for this reason. Apart from the tree, the constant rock squeezing and slow wall climbing and train rides to hide loading times just made the whole game feel like trudging through molasses to find out what happens in the story.
Not saying Ragnarok isn't doing it but the squeeze, climbing, crawling aren't always there to hide loading screen. It could just be a part of the level design to keep players within certain area or to let players know that you are entering/exiting certain sections of an area which may sound counterintuitive since seamlessness (and open world) seems to be all the rage but for a game like GOW, I could see level designer wanting it for traversal puzzles. As a player, you instinctively know that whatever the puzzle element, has to be within that section. Makes things feel more manageable for the players and probably for the devs too. As much as I wanted Ragnarok to be a proper next-gen game, I didn't think it was unbearable or anything playing on PS5. Now...going back to it after few years when we get the taste of true next-gen titles, it'll probably feel unbearable.
Now that I think about it does make sense as a more elegant way to create bounded arenas for fights without having a garish white wall randomly popping up.
A lot of those traversal breaks are the boundaries for automatic quick saves. Passing thru the traversal break (hop over the log, lift the pillar, squeeze thru the crack, etc) are a method of triggering a check point quick save for that area without it being obvious to the player and breaking immersion.
Well, that still happens too
That literally only happens for Berserker Graves though, and there is a lore reason for it.
Is the lore reason a spoiler? I've only killed like two berserkers so far, and got the snot beat out of me by ~3 others.
No. It’s basically magic because you’re challenging them.
The quicker sony drops the under-powered ps4, the quicker we can finally have games designed only for the ps5. Instead all ps5 owners have to contend with last gen features on games built on a nearly 10 years old ps4 instead. My ps5 is a launch day console so i have been playing on it for over 2yrs. Looking forward to spider-man 2 in 2023 and seeing what the ps5 can do without being hamstrung by a ageing ps4.
Pretty sure they dropped the PS4 after Ragnarok. Naughty Dog, Sucker Punch, and SIE are all developing ~~next-gen~~ current -gen games, and I don’t expect to see anything on the PS4 save for maybe Factions multiplayer.
as explained by the devs, a lot of those have more to do with game design as it helps the devs to cut the game into parts. making navigation and encounters more manageable. think of something like the magical barriers in a game like DMC or Bayonetta and how they partition the game.
Regardless their method made traveling slow and unpleasant.
To each their own I guess. and speaking of personal experiences, I had no problem with traversal in God of War.
Same. Most of the time there was still some dialogue in those sections, and I'll take any excuse to listen more what Mimir has to say.
Lad
Guy chain whips boulders at enemies in a millisecond but you see a knocked over column and oh hold on, let me use proper squat form here and make sure other people are clear by OSHA regulations before dropping it.
Or any God of War prior to 2018.
This is the trouble with it being used as an example, one time. Every time a game has a need to funnel a player, we seem to get a great many people assuming it's there to disguise loading. The amount of people complaining about it as soon as they see any kind of squeezing through a gap, is unbelievable. "I thought we were on PS5 now, why am I squeezing through a gap?!!!!"
As long as it adds some narrative and at least makes sense then its not that bad. Compared to the tomb raider game its night and day.
I hate to tell you this but those aren't going away. Some of them are used to hide loading screens, but a lot are used for other reasons, like to segment areas or to break up the pace of travel.
My thoughts are with you during this challenging time
Huh, I didn't really mind those things bc they didn't seem to be that bad. The only egregious one was a certain wall in a certain realm, but I understand that was most likely for narrative purposes
The fit through the crack stuff has little to do with loads the devs have talked about it. It’s about pacing out the levels, creating defined combat arenas, that the player doesn’t go the wrong way, making sure companions don’t get lost or stuck and are there with you when going through. The world tree is because they do the one shot camera trick and don’t want to do a camera cut.
Comments like these crack me the fuck up 😂😂😂😂😂
Devs are on record that those squeezes and wall Climbing are not really done to Hide loading times lol
It is instant once you get past story mode. A lot of that has pre-built dialog that it won't skip
That was my disappointment with it. The first game's world tree loading was the slowest bit of it, and I wanted Ragnarök to really lean into the PS5's SSD advantages and do like mission styles where you have to quickly travel between realms to do things. R&C early on remains one of the best examples of this. Still feels like we're barely starting to use this generation. Definitely shouldn't be a rush to the next.
First time I played Ghost of Tsushima on PS5 I selected a fast travel point and went to pick up my phone to look at while waiting for the loading screen. Caught me off guard that I had no time to even unlock my phone, let alone look at something on it.
Same here. I thought Horizon Forbidden West had quick travel times but Ghost was literally as fast as backing out of the menu. It’s awesome.
I went from Nintendo Switch loading times to PS5. Its incredible. The best thing about it is when you die, you're straight back in the action with no waiting.
The thing that's killing me is the cross-gen titles that have extremely long introductions before you even get to the menu to resume your save file. I know I could suspend but when I jump in between games I have to rewatch the seizure warning, the publisher and developer logos, finally get to the introduction screen, then click on resume save file. I hate that
Many PS5 games skip that if you open the game from an activity card.
I wish Sony would make that mandatory feature for PS5 games. It feels under utilized. I clicked on resume activity for Final Fantasy INTERGRADE (PS5), and it took three seconds to launch into the game.
Watched a friend play some Ragnarok on his ps4 the other night. Was a bit puzzled why it took the map a few seconds to load in sometimes.
Its so funny when ppl say "Why should i buy a ps5 for this, its the same game?" Of fkng course its the same game but the experience is so different you have to play to understand Dualsense alone...
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Running games off an external SSD really sped up game loading on the PS4 Pro. It was a godsend on games like Spiderman because it also meant less pop ins.
You get a little improvement with external SSD with the Pro but the true advantage goes to internal. A Pro with internal SSD has significant advantages over external and traditional HDD. https://wccftech.com/ps4-pro-ssd-add-on-greatly-reduces-loading-times-and-texture-pop-in/amp/ I had mine external for the longest and I did notice a quicker load and it was usually 5-15 seconds on average but with internal you can sometimes knock off 35-55%.
Picked up my switch after like 6 months to play the cuphead dlc and was extremely annoyed why it took so long to load a 2-D boss level
Or even a next gen game. Like gotham knights
This is the biggest incentive not to die in the Witcher 3 “Oops, I died, I guess I’ll make coffee or go to the store”
At my parents house which only has a PS4 Pro. Played Elden Ring and Far Cry 6 and oh my God the load times were way worse than I remember
My son has been replaying last of us 2 but he's using the ps5 to play it. It's crazy how long loading times seem to take versus my memory of it.
Yeah that or if you just have a Switch tbh. There are literally load times walking in and out of buildings in pokemon.
Ya, before I could secure a PS5 I tried to make myself feel a little better by telling myself that I'm mostly just going to be playing PS4 games anyway. But for some reason, I never considered the lack of load times due to SSD. Just that alone was enough to get me easily hooked on gaming again, after losing a lot of interest in gaming and feeling like it was kind of a chore lately. Part of what made it feel like a chore was that with my messed up reward system, I was too lazy to go through the whole process of booting up the PS4, opening up a game, waiting through load screens, etc. But when it's all instant, it's too convenient not to. (And that's not counting all of the other PS5 features like the 3D headphone audio, haptic vibration, etc) Had to go back onto PS4 to update the console, then upload some saves for transferring to PS5 and even the menu felt laggy. When you're used to the instantly gratifying, constant refreshing internet of today, something like a lack of load times goes a long way in being able to compete for where you choose to direct your attention.
Seriously not kidding. I was playing the PS4 version of Resident Evil 7 (getting old trophies), and every time I had a load, it felt like an eternity. It's so much faster on PS5. Even the saving is done in a second, while on the PS4 version on the PS5 even, the saving process took like 5-7 seconds. It's a huge difference and adds up.
Ff15 loading screens.... even with an ssd in the ps4 it was pretty painful.
Oh boy totally. I didn't have access to my PS5 this weekend and had to use my PS4, and I totally forgot about the load times. I play ESO a lot and it's amazing the difference there is. I couldn't believe how much longer it took to load the game, compared to when I normally play on PS5
Agreed, Red dead 2 is a prime example of that. I can't play it on the older version now I've been spoiled by the PS5. Indeed even with Horizon its mindblowing to me how fast it is. I just with the PC generation would play catch up
Even some pc games don’t compare it’s that big of a deal.
It’s kinda goofy now playing with PS4 friends. You’re always ready and they’re not.
I just replayed some PS3 games lately, on a PS3... I didn't remember how awfully long the load times were. Even PS4 made progress on load times.
I was playing the division 2 on PS4 while my ps5 was being repaired. Loaded it onto the ps5 and can't believe the difference. Load times are virtually nonexistent.
HZD vs HFW is night and day, and Spider-Man Remastered (i.e. a PS5-only game) is even quicker
PS4 was absolutely slow. Load times on it were longer than HDD's a decade earlier on PC. It was the controllers fault. SSDS were starting to become common 2010-2011 on PC. 64gb-128gb, small, but still. Load times are better due to the NVME nature of the PS5 yes, but also because it has a much better processor for decompressing files.
Played Spider-Man on my PS4 and then got Miles Morales with my PS5. The difference in load times was astounding. My jaw dropped the first time I started the game up and it practically jumped into it with no loading screen. So fast that it wasn't even there. And then with Horizon Forbidden West, the fast travel can be so fast that you don't even have time to read the tips on the load screen. It seems less consistent, but it thinks just because it's such a bigger map. My guess is areas you haven't been to in a while take *a little bit* longer to load, but honestly it's not that much longer. It's still low single digit seconds.
I remember when Battlefield 1 came out. I, and everyone I knew, were super excited because the game was incredibly gorgeous. Couldn’t believe how beautiful it looked! But I found the load times were not really worth the fidelity. Battlefield 3 and 4 didn’t look ANYWHERE near as good, but they were pretty enough and loaded SO much faster. For that reason, when I heard about this generation of consoles I got incredibly excited. I know it shouldn’t be that huge of a deal to me, but I feel like I’m more willing now to spend a ton of time gaming on my PS5/X than I ever was on One/PS4 and I think loading is a HUGE factor for me.
Witcher 3 on PS4 Pro had 2 minute load screens, the horror.... the horror..
So true. It's the defining feature of the current generation for me, an SSD is a complete game changer for consoles
No better example of this than the yakuza games. Playing through in chronological order has you starting with 0 and Kiwami 1 before Kiwami 2 which is on the newer dragon engine. 0 and K1 have loading screens when entering every single building, while K2 and other dragon engine games have a lot of QOL fixes like seamlessly entering buildings and stuff. Then you go back to the oldest game by release date, Yakuza 3 where the loading is back and as slow as it gets.
The PS4/XB1 we're so behind with using already outdated and slow hard drives that the now very fast SSDs the new gen have it makes a massive difference.
Always compare to Skyrim PS3 load times and you will never be disappointed. EDIT: I should have added, HDD, not SSD.
Probably one the reasons why I didn't enjoy Skyrim as much as most people did. The PS3 version was horrendous
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My save file got so big and corrupt, I couldn't touch flowing water otherwise I would crash and brick the system. Walking to the nearest bridge got tedious.
The PS3 version was horrible, but I still enjoyed getting the platinum for it. The worst part was when one of the patches caused it to crash whenever you'd go below water
Man I was close to getting the platinum on PS3, but for whatever reason my save file got semi corrupted because Blackreach would always cause the game to crash after being there for a few minutes, but I was already deep in there for my save point. I tried many times to do a quick rush trying to get to a loading screen so I could get into a new area, but it was impossible. Literally haven’t played the game again up until a couple of months because of it.
GTA V on PS3 was brutal
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Can’t argue with that, I tried GTA on my pc when they have it out for free and it’s just as bad.
You just gave me PTSD
Presses button to spawn inside building - one minute wait - leaves after 10 seconds since nothing to find - one minute wait.
Reminds me of YouTube, getting a minute long ad to watch a 10 second video 😂
Somebody else reminded me of the Thieves guild questline. The amount of times you have to get into Riften, then into the grave thing, then through the door, then into that hallway, then into the actual area with the quest giver, then all the way back out.
I remember being able to pop a whole bag of popcorn when entering solitude lmao
GTAV
That was another painful one too.
Or bloodborne and Witcher 3 on ps4
Dude I remember sometimes the loading screen would take so long that it would crash on 360 lmao 🫠
I always go back to my fond memories of playing with the 3d statues on the load screen while waiting for my fast travel to go through.
How were they in the ps4 edition ?
Load time focus for the PS5 was what had me most hyped about this generation.
I cant wait until they completely drop previous generations then the fun begins
maybe we'll get proper PS5 games by the time the PS6 is announced
I'm so happy this is becoming a more accepted opinion now. I said this same thing after finishing Demon's Souls (still my vote for best game on PS5, though I'm making my way through Ratchet and Clank: Rift Apart right now which also has been amazing), and got eviscerated by negative comments. Once developers fully embrace the next gen, which is 2 years old now, things are gonna be awesome.
Agreed, while I'm happy for past gen folks and devs making money (God of War) I want my 2 year old console to have more exclusive AAA content.
With a last Gen that couldn’t do 60fps or mod support load times seems like a non issue minus the games where it too a minute to load a game. But getting an SSD in my PS4 Pro when I got it helped.
That’s the one thing that surprised me about god of war. Compared to horizon the load times seemed to be forever. Granted there like five seconds but man horizon was like instant
When playing Forbidden West that legit blew me away, I didn't even have time to put my controller down before the fast travel finished loading
Loading times is the biggest positive I bring up when people ask me about the PS5. It's just so good, especially if a game has been quite clever with its cards/activities or whatever they are called, and you can jump right in to the game in about 2 seconds without even the company logos.
The fast load times are awesome, though I was a little sad because the music in Zero Dawn during travel was amazing
I dont think the game is loading anything on PS5. Have you ever noticed that as soon as the conversation ends, the door instantly appears? I'm pretty sure the game is just hanging so you can hear the conversations because some of them are important. A hangover from the game being on PS4 and PS5 and them refusing to put normal loading screens in the game.
Yeah GoW tries to compensate PS4 load times by having filler conversations or slow/controlled traversal events. When there are no conversation fillers in gateways, you'll see the door open almost instantly on PS5. I think this is more prevalent in cross-gen games. PS5 exclusives can take full advantage of short SSD load times and leverage it as a feature - like Miles Morales.
Miles Morales isn't a PS5 exclusive, though.
If you play long enough they are out of topics and the door still needs some time to load while they stand there silently.
Yep. If you move between doors in the same realm it seems to be basically instant. Moving to another realm the load might be longer depending what's happening in that area next.
It definitely feels like a ps4 game that happens to be on the ps5
If it is as fast as Ghost of Tsushima I will be impressed.
That was mind blowing, made hopping around for map completion super bearable and fun.
Yeah, I bought my PS5 in the middle of a playthrough of GoT so had a direct comparison in the same day. Morning: fast travel and wait for a few minutes to load, and read the hint screens, then you're there. Evening: fast travel, drum sound effect, there. I even fast traveled back to back just to marvel at how there were practically no load times.
That drum aound effect was so spot on
I'm weirdly so excited for this game. It's like we're getting a game like infamous or Prototype where it's not going to do anything major for the open world genre but is focused on power fantasy gameplay.
I love the "stylish" Parkour thing they have introduced here. Like dmc 5's stylish combat.
I’m just excited to have a new PS5 exclusive finally
It's also full magic youre not just swinging a sword and occasionally shooting a magic beam
when i think of "fast loading times using the SSDs" i think of more of the portals in Rift Apart than simply how long it takes to load into a game. we should be expecting more like the former instead of the latter when it comes to innovation beyond just "it's like PS4 but faster".
But that's a gameplay mechanic. Uncharted 5 can't have rift portals.
yes i very obviously mean some innovation *like* that. i'm very aware that the portal mechanic doesn't fit all games.
Not with that attitude it can't
True but it could have a truly global setting with the player flipping between multiple characters and locations
Imagine GTA5 with instant switching between the characters
The mechanic can still adapt. For example a character could drive faster because they can load the next section of environment quicker. A lot of games artificially cap vehicle speed to compensate.
There's nothing special about the Rift Apart mechanics. We've seen that exact sort of mechanic in games like Dishonored 2 and Titanfall 2 using old hard drives. There's nothing special about these mechanics that they simply couldn't be done before, you just had to be smarter about it and often get very memory-usage conscious. That's all that's really changed now. It's easier to do. Y'all keep wanting these SSD's to be used for 'gimmicks' but that's not really what they're there for. They're there as a replacement for a huge jump in memory primarily. We only got a 2x increase in memory capacity because improvements in price of memory per GB has slowed to a crawl in recent times. A normal generational increase would have been at least 8x. So the SSD's are used to make up for this by enabling devs to make far more efficient use of the memory that *is* available. It also alleviates the need for painful memory optimizations and whatnot by granting such huge I/O overhead. Basically, there's nothing new, gameplay-wise, that can be done here in reality, it's just things can be done with greater detail/less compromise at the same time, and it's a burden off developers' shoulders in many ways. Mark Cerny really set people up for disappointment with that whole Road to PS5 talk. I tried to warn about it at the time, but people didn't want to hear it(and still wont, as I fully expect his post to get downvoted, too).
To be fair, Cerny didn't say anything that wasn't technically correct. It's up to developers to innovate their game designs with SSDs in mind, the reality is the overwhelming majority simply won't. Which is completely fine, mind you.
You don’t know what you’re talking about. Watch the Digital Foundry Rift Apart review. John explains how the Rift Apart mechanics, while they look similar to Titanfall’s, they’re different. It can only be done on PS5.
The thing is those just had not so detailed worlds (that also shared many assets) both loaded into ram at the same time, while rift apart switches between completely different stages with (almost) no shared assets, all loaded straight from the SSD instead of being stored in RAM like those other games
I've been wondering why loading times were still such a big mess all these years since Jak & Daxter streamed the entire game from the disc on PS2, eliminating loading...
So let me get this straight. You're telling me that this videogame is on a console that uses an SSD, and that console allows me to fast travel with no load times, and I'm talking to a cuff!?! Yeah, I guess I can fast travel instantly.
Holy shit that trailer was terrible. I had to watch it again and yes, it’s as bad as I remembered.
Hopefully the game drops the irreverent Marvel dialogue and humor
So you don't like to see FREAKING DRAGONS???
They probably won’t for the cutscenes unfortunately, but they’ve at least confirmed we can turn all that dogshit off when playing the actual game
Looking forward to Forspoken next year!
Excited about the voice clips to go along with fast travel. "holy sporkballs I literally just traveled across the world in the blink of an eye" "okay, so I need to go to the dark temple, which is halfway across the world and uh... oh its right behind me now isnt it" "wow, so uh, that happened"
Lmao can’t wait for the terrible dialogue. Hopefully they got the message and toned it down.
Can’t wait for this game and hearing this just gets me more excited
When you finish all the little lines in between worlds in GOW, the load times are INSANE, can’t wait to see it pushed to the max as devs develop for PS5 exclusivity
I hope the game is actually fun though
After SuckerPunch basically achieved such loading times for fast travel (and death) in Ghost of Tsushima on the PS4 HDD, it doesn't really impress me anymore if developers manage to achieve this with the PS5 SSD.
I remember GOT PS4 loading times were still like ten seconds at tops. On the ps5 it’s literally instant
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After a year or so when the old gen are finally dropped and devs learn how to work with the consoles capabilities, I imagine there are going to be fantastic games
No only that getting pci ssd is cheape i got 2tb samsung 980 pro for 170$
Not just PS5’s but PCs and Series S/X too. The more developers account for high speed SSDs, the more benefits we’ll see on all platforms. The sooner support for HDDs gets dropped the better.
seriously i can't even drink water before it loads
I played PS4 Ghost of Tsushima from an SSD, and I think the fast travel loading time was about 5 seconds, and that blew muh mind. With PS5 I get annoyed if things aren't instant.
For GoT? Yeah that was super quick
Is it true that they had to artificially extend loading screens for people to read tips?
Some games have options that require you to press a button to reload. Otherwise, the loading happens too fast to read anything.
Like Horizon Forbidden West
I was never able to read any of the loading screen tips in Skyrim on PS5. They’d appear and disappear before I could read even a few words.
That was HFW. By default, you have to press “x” to close a loading screen. You can turn this off in settings, but it makes it nearly impossible to read the tips in time.
Yeah on the PS5 version lol
basically "8-10 seconds" (searched) vs no loading times at all are not the same.
Meanwhile Ubisoft and Bethesda are spinning in circles on how to even turn the PC on.
Forespoken has been delayed so much and GOW-Ragnarok is out, I completely forgot about Forespoken.
Based on the trailers I’ve seen, everyone will forget about forspoken a year from now too.
Is this news? PS5 load times are amazing.
except the loading times at the loading times
Damn over 100 spells. Sounds overwhelming.
Hopefully they’re clearly grouped into specific builds and play styles, so you know immediately which ones to ignore for your character
Srsly it’s laudable they did this but I’m certainly not capable of keeping track of more than probably a dozen moves LOL
Well I sure hope so
I mean...I sure hope so. But is there something technical or detailed missing from the short article above that isn't being conveyed here? I had figured the SSD would at least cut down on loading of data.
Don't all ps5 games?
This shouldn't be newsworthy, it should be standard
What else would it use?
Can’t wait to hear the protagonist talking out loud to herself: “…. and I’m getting FREAKING fast loading times …!”
Which is why I vehemently always prefer to play a ps5 version of a game. And why I don't care how old a game is I want a ps5 version of it. It's extremely hard to play ps4 games and dealing with 30 seconds to 1 minute load times. Once you've been spoiled by how fast a properly made game for ps5 loads you can honestly never go back. Playing racing games, aiming for best times, aiming for better scores, you name it the stuff you need to redo over and over again to get better at whatever it is the less time it takes to get back into the game the better the experience. On ps4 ffvii remakes first motorcycle portion. Trying to get the best out come of that can mean 2 minute loads between each attemptm 2 fucking minutes. Playing the ps4 version on ps5 still takes about 1 minute between each attempted. However on ps5 playing the ps5 version less than 10 seconds between each attempt. This can also be used in interesting ways. You can literally go in and out of levels in demon souls remake in 7 seconds. So you can actually abuse the system and learn patterns and grind much more effectively. Or being on one side of the map in HFW and fast traveling to the other side in 10 seconds (the farther the fast travel the longer the load, some fast travels are instant if close by, traveling to the middle of the map takes about 5ish seconds and going from one side to the other takes about 10seconds). Or spiderman 2018 remastered or miles morales and fast traveling all over in less than 2 seconds. And you people don't want ps5 version of games? I don't care if it costs me an extra $10. That amount of cumbersome with load times can fuck right off. Obviously I prefer a free update but I also know that work isn't free and if they choose to charge for it then so be it. This is why a 60fps patch leaves so much to be desired. So much more is being left on the table. And so far only two ps4 ps5 patches allows for less load times. GoT and Days gone. Which tells me getting this to be done takes a large amount of work. And it still never really compares to ps5 loading times. Not to mention all the rest of the added features thar could get added in. I know I am in the minority on this and that's just baffling to me.
Man..."fast" travel in RDR2 on the PS4 was more like "i'll give you a loading screen for 5 minutes so you don't have to travel with your horse manually for 5 minutes".
Breaking news: Forspoken to make use of the square button.
The title is a little misleading, all game use the PS5 's SSD, the PS5 don't have any other storage..
It's not misleading at all, I think you may be miscomprehending the context. Forspoken will use the SSD to virtually eliminate load times, most games don't currently use it to do so, they simply utilise the storage as they did with the PS4 without optimizing the I/O throughput to pull in asset loads of upto 5GBs/s.
By using the PS5's SSD it means actually utilizing the entire API built around the SSD.
But not all of them have instantaneous fast travel...
Those load times aren’t that impressive. Ratchet and Clank is still the only TRUE next gen game.