The collaboration between AMD and Sony is yielding first results, we will see new technologies in PS6

It’s been about a year since Sony and AMD announced the Amethyst project, a mutual collaboration on the hardware and software level that will lead to major innovations in both areas. One of them was Upscaling FSR 4, which should also be based on the new PSSR version UPSR for the PS5 Pro console, which should arrive sometime next year. However, both companies are looking even further into the future and today unveiled three big innovations in a special video through AMD Vice President Jack Vigneault and PlayStation Chief Console Architect Mark Cerny.

Neural Arrays

The above scaling relies heavily on machine calculations. However, Cerny says the neural networks required are very demanding on the graphics chip, both in terms of overall performance and the need for fast memory access. Essentially, there is a problem with the concept of the graphics chip itself, which is divided into thousands of small cores solving small problems, which is inefficient for the needs of AI computing.

AMD and Sony came up with a new idea called. Neural Arrayswhich we could translate as neural fields. Thanks to them, each computing unit is its own, but instead of being sticking together into a larger wholewithin which they can Cores for data exchange and joint processing. Companies promise to do this larger models, higher efficiency and significantly greater scalability. Czerny then specifically mentions the use Next generation scaling and noise reductionbut other technologies are also being prepared.

Radiance Cores

The second innovation concerns ray tracing, which has now replaced older methods and can take care of shadows, reflections or global illumination. However, this is a very demanding calculation because, according to Cerny, shaders (programs running on the graphics chip) must take care of both ray tracing in complex data structures and shading the scene itself using textures and lighting information.

According to Vigny, AMD spent the last two years completely disabling the entire pipeline, taking care of ray tracing, and the result was the so-called. Radiance Cores. It’s brand new Special cores specifically designed for ray trackingwhich relieves both the processor and the classic cores of the graphics chip. Thanks to all this they should be like this RT calculations are significantly faster.

Universal compression

The latest introduced technology is associated with a large shortage of today’s graphics chips – low throughput. In short, access to all new technologies is not fast enough for all new technologies, so developers have to make concessions. But that may change.

Until now, AMD has used Delta Color Compression (DCC) to maintain permeability. Basically, the idea is that instead of storing the entire color value for each pixel, it is stored only for blocks of pixels and each pixel contains the difference (i.e. delta) from the block’s orientation value, which is already significantly smaller, therefore saving space.

Now the company has introduced a technology called Universal compressionthat is, universal compression. As the name suggests, it applies compression not only to colors, but also to All other datawhich feeds into the graphics chip, significantly reducing the amount of data that must pass through the narrow opening. According to Cerny, we could see it. less consumption, better asset And at the same time, benefits for both the above mentioned technologies, i.e. Radiance Cores and Nerual Arrays.

Technology for PS6?

At the end of the video, Cerny mentions that all three technologies are still in development. early stagesessentially they only exist on paper and in simulations. However, he added, and this is by far the most interesting thing, that we will see them in a future console in a few years, of course, strongly indicating that it will be PlayStation 6which is expected to hit the market probably in 2027 or 2028.

But it’s not just PlayStation, Huynh notes that new technologies will lead I’m for other platforms. Apparently, they will become part of the future graphics architecture. RDNA 5 Or whatever the final title is. Video cards based on it should be released in 2027.

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