007The Big 10
STORIES EVERYONE’S TALKING ABOUT
01
Sony keeps
teasing us
with titbits of
PlayStation 5
news, and on
p54 we’ve
gathered up
all the latest
info on Sony’s next console. But
what does it all really mean for
developers? We catch up with
Control developer Remedy and ask
what the future holds.
“Ray tracing is a fundamental
shift in how to approach computer
graphics,” says Tatu Aalto, lead
graphics programmer at Remedy,
as we jump straight into one of
PS5’s biggest graphics features.
Aalto goes into more detail:
“Gradual improvements in
processing power and
programmability have made it
possible to do very accurate
material shading and effects on the
previous generation already, but for
global connectivity games have used
either precomputed static data, or
relied on incomplete screen space
information. Ray tracing is not just asingle effect, but a leap towards
actually resolving that global
connectivity in real-time.”POWER PLAY
Will PlayStation 5’s specs, such as
a faster CPU, a more powerful GPU,
and an SSD, aid developers in making
better games?
Lead programmer Sean Donnelly
uses Control’s move to a semi-open
world to illustrate how PS5 could
help developers. Control streams
and loads chunks of data as you
move between environments and
this ate into what the CPU could do.
“With the extra burden of a
detailed destruction system, it’s safe
to say we hit the limit on what could
be achieved on older CPUs,” says
Donnelly. “When it comes to the PS5,
faster hardware is always
appreciated and will make life easier
in the short term. But it’s the new
SSD that really stands out;
essentially streaming will become
something that we don’t really have
to worry so much about and it will
free up some extra CPU bandwidth
in the process.”Remedy is in
Control for
PlayStation 5
The Control team discuss the potential
of PlayStation 5’s new features
10 BITE US
Bloodlines 2 gets festive.
14 FLIGHT OF FANCY
We go hands-on with Iron Man VR.
19 PRIVATE-EYE DANCER
Investigate crime in Disco Elysium.