Of all the things that Sony and Microsoft have talked about in their next-generation consoles, one aspect of the hardware that almost everyone has noticed is the fact that both PS5 and Xbox Scarlett will make use of Solid State Drives (or SSDs) that make loading screens a thing of the past. This promises to have a concrete impact on the game design.
Game developers are obviously looking forward to the effects of SSD and how they can do new things. One such developer is Will Traxler of Traxmaster Software, developer of the upcoming 2.5D battle platformer Exception. The website GamingBolt recently talked to Traxler in an interview and asked him for his thoughts on the SSDs for PS5 and Xbox Scarlett, and how they could improve the performance of games. According to TraxlerGames like level-based games are not that affected. Other titles like “Open World” will benefit greatly from SSDs.
“I think we’re going to see SSDs have the biggest impact on open world titles that constantly stream textures and models into a scene. Level-based games like Exception may see less of a benefit from SSDs, since most of the assets are loaded up-front and the load times are already brief. I’m sure that developers will come up with some great new uses for SSDs once these become standard in consoles. I’m looking forward to seeing where this goes.”
We’ve already received pointers to methods that developers may implement to leverage SSDs to reduce load times. Not so long ago, we reported on a newly filed patent from Sony that talked about a method for loading game environments by dividing them into sectors and loading those that were adjacent to those in which the player was in the background. While Open World titles have been using some form of this method for some time, it could be taken to another level in conjunction with an SSD.
Exception from Traxmaster Software is expected to release next year on PS4, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch and PC.
