PS5 Game Compression Shrinks Tales of Arise by 20GB

Honestly can't wait to jump into this, been craving a new Tales game for a while.

Well that’s welcome news. I just caved in and pre-ordered it this weekend, but my SSD is a bit overstuffed. Now I won’t need to do any pre-download tidying up.

Thats crazy can't remember what game it was but one of my games was 13gb on PS4 and PS5 version was 4GB lol

@Ssimsim Subnautica?

I almost forgot that Arise is coming out soon. Unfortunately, I'm saving up for some other games so I might pass and wait for at least a few months.

Anyway, very impressive compression there

@Rjak yeah that's it, I love file sizes can be smaller on some games because I have the digital ps5.

And the Xbox fanboys were laughing about the PS5's smaller SSD. 🤔

This compression tech is extremely impressive. There are many games that have seen reduction is file size by 40 or 50%, and some games have seen reductions of up to 70% when going from the PS4 to PS5.

When taking this into account, you realize that the 825GB SSD is actually not as small since it can't really be directly compared to the PS4 storage.

Even if we take an extremely conservative estimate of around 25% savings in file size, it turns that 825GB SSD into a 1TB SSD if it was installed on the PS4.

The reality is that the file size savings are even greater, so I'm pretty content with the PS5's 825GB SSD.

This was always my argument against those saying that the PS5 hard drive is too small. Most games will be smaller than last gen and the hard rice is larger. Once cross gen gas past the situation will improve further.

Is that how much digital and psychical taking up?

@thefourfoldroot Mmm hard rice. Lol

@Deathnote93
Lol, walking while typing again. I’ll leave it there so you still make sense though

@Lando_ The hard drive is still extremely small, and the Xbox drive isn't any better. Both console storage isn't gonna last anyone who isn't mass deleting and downloading games, or some one who only buys games once a year...

My understanding from Cerny's original presentation of the PS5's specs was that the reduction in file size of games was not due to compression (even if it may still have some effect), but to the fact that with a fast SSD, the console is able to go and pick whatever element is needed wherever on the drive extremely fast. With HDD, the devs had to copy each element as many time as it was needed to make the loading fast and manageable.

Example : you have a texture for window
The same window can be found in 5 different areas of the game.
With the PS4's HDD : you have to copy the texture 5 times, one for each area, to physically place it next to the other elements of each area
With the PS5's SSD : the texture is only present once on the SSD, and the console just fetches it whenever it's needed.

Any correction to what I've just said would be welcomed, as this is only what I gathered from Cerny's presentation...

Edit : for those interested, here is the part of the presentation I'm talking about : https://youtu.be/ph8LyNIT9sg?t=323

Nice that's good compression, cant wait the graphics look amazing ordered physical so can't preload unfortunately

File sizes have seen more and more bloat thesedays.

I haven’t played an Arise game before. I recently played Scarlet Nexus and although I enjoyed most of the fight mechanics the story telling and writing was truly awful and cringeworthy. This is a problem I have with a number of JRPGs. Based on previous games in the series, does the writing hold up?

I will definitely wait for reviews before jumping on this but interested to hear other people’s thoughts on the writing in Arise games.

@Olmaz
Yes and no. He actually said both. The ps5 has a dedicated compressor and decompressor built into the hardware meaning it uses none of the console resources to compress and decompress and the console does it incredibly fast. So while yes the stuff like duplication of last Gen to keep speeds up is a factor. It's also the compression because the console can do all that work at the same time as everything else as it has dedicated hardware for it.

That's why the amounts saved on size generally start at about 25%. Most ps4 titles have forms of duplication but some are games that don't use it since they're not large and still save a good amount like Worms I believe was about 50% saving on size. Crash 4 was too I think.

This is a very pleasant surprise for me! As someone who owns a PS5 and likes to keep as many of my favorite games installed (even if I’ve finished them) as possible, I really appreciate that I’ll be saving an extra 20 gigabytes of storage with Tales of Arise.

Given compressed file sizes, my almost complete avoidance of AAA third party stuff, and the fact that I've managed pretty well with the PS4's default 500GB of storage, I'm inclined to think I'll be OK with the PS5 800+ GB of space when I get one.

Forgive me if I'm being stupid, but I thought the max capacity of a PS4 disc is 50GB? Does Tales of Arise require a day-one download to play for physical purchasers?

@Lando_
Well Xbox version is around 40GB(from Xbox store), so it's not PS5 way smaller, it's something went wrong with PS4 version.

@Olmaz I would also add that the PS5 SSD is a 12-channel single-layer SSD, so devs can pull whatever they want whenever they want to with no other requirements. Which is also what makes this SSD so special. Most SSDs are something like 6 or 8-channel and dual-layered, so there are requirements for reading and writing data to those two layers that could potentially slow up the SSD, or at minimum make the devs have to get creative, like they have to do with HDDs, just not as much so.

@Ward_ting - there is a demo available on the store if you haven't checked that out yet. Doesn't have a heap of dialogue in it, but there are 'skits' in which the characters back stories are revealed during certain parts of the demo. If you are interested, I recommend checking it out.

@Lando_ what are you talking about. the series X an PS5 have the same internal storage capacity. when did that ever creep in.

they're still both insanely low. both my PS5 and my X are always just capped out.

anyways, tried the demo of arise on both PS5 and series X. think i'll nab it on my X. image looked cleaner an ran better there. been waiting for a new tales game for a long time.

@Air-Dog yea I did play the demo a little bit but I really hate demos that drop you half way in a game with all the characters and all your skills unlocked and very little context so I stopped playing. Perhaps I’ll watch some YouTube vids on release to get a better sense of the writing.

@Ward_ting - I agree, I can understand that a demo wants to show your more of the mechanics of the game than at the start - but at least it gives you bit of an idea. I enjoyed the demo and am looking forward to reviews of the game. I’ll probably wait for a sale though.

@Nalverus

I’ve also played both demos on Series X and PS5. Since I prefer the Dual Sense over the Xbox pad, I’ll get it on Sony’s console. Also, I couldn’t spot any graphical and performance differences between both versions on my 37” 4K Panasonic TV.

@Lando_ ps5 ver runs at an average of 15 frames slower than series X.

hovers around the 40-45 range while X is 50~ range.
it sucks and very unfortunate but for the average person, such a thing won't even matter.

graphical assets are identical but whatever the PS5 does to the image, it looks muddier to me.
that is an absolute personal gripe though.

also note, both do 60frames fine so long as they're not running at 4k.

Can't wait for the game, I tried the demo, it's really good

@Nalverus

I see. I’m not too sensitive when it comes to visual differences between Xbox SX and PS5 (or PS4 Pro and Xbox One X), as long as it’s not a Switch-port-kinda downgrade like Witcher 3 and Doom.

@Floki I dont believe a console of more then €700 would have been accepted though.

@Ward_ting tales games*

@Sladey69 oops that’s absolutely what I meant haha

@Nalverus There is a small difference, easily researched. On paper, XSX has 1TB storage. PS5 has 825GB.

Useable space XSX = 802GB
Usable space PS5 = 667GB

Does this matter much? Not in the slightest, as both are tiny.

@Lando_ Don't be that guy. Always a guy that rebukes a statement with "oh yeah well I own one too and I disagree". You are either blind or don't actually own both because when played on the same 4K tv the difference between PS5 and XSX is very noticeable.

@Flaming_Kaiser It wouldn't have been accepted of it was the only model. They could have easily launched a "base" 824 GB PS5 and 1TB Xbox Series X. While offering a high storage model for people who has the money, and willing to spend.

Phones do this, cars do this, computers do this... Consoles also did this during the Xbox 360/PS3 era with the Xbox 360 "Core/Arcade" and Xbox 360 Pro and the PS3 20GB and 60GB models.

@Playstation4eva

Okay, time to repeat myself: I own the Series X and a PS5. I play on a 37” 4K Panasonic TV, sitting at 1.5m distance from the screen. No, I can’t spot any differences playing the Tales of Arise Demo on both consoles using graphic quality mode. Ask me the same about The Witcher 3/Doom/any third party port on Switch compared to PS4/Xbox One, and yes, the difference there is like night and day.

@Floki how many options where there even that would have kept the console at a reasonable pricerange i think none and it would have only resulted in bad press.

@Flaming_Kaiser Like I said, if Sony/Microsoft kept the base $500, and focused solely on marketing that as the main option. While offering higher storage options as secondary option.

There would be no bad press since there is the option for people who don't want to spend crazy money.

If you want to talk about bad press. The current way Sony handled things created nothing but bad press with their SSD being smaller than Microsoft with no way to expand it. Due to them locking the expansion drive for almost a year. To only find out that an extremely slower drive than what Sony recommends works just as fine, and that we could have added more storage since launch.

But clearly the bad press from that isn't nearly as bad as if they created a $800 or $1000 PS5 SKUs with higher storage while still offering the $400 and $500 SKUs.