Yesterday, PlayStation dropped an intriguing video where Mark Cerny hosted a PS5 Pro Technical Seminar at Sony Interactive Entertainment HQ. As the system architect, Cerny delved deep into the new hardware of the PlayStation 5 Pro, taking the opportunity to dispel a few rumors swirling around the console. He specifically addressed the term “FLOPflation,” which emerged from an inaccurate rumor of a “33.5 TFLOPs” computation. This number made its rounds due to a leaker’s misinterpretation of the hardware, mistakenly believing the system used a more extensive RDNA 3-inspired architecture.
In reality, the PS5 Pro pumps out 16.7 TFLOPs, a significant jump from the PS5’s 10 TFLOPs. Among the leaks that did hit the mark, one suggested the PS5 Pro could reach 300 TOPS with 8-bit calculations and 67 TFLOPS with 16-bit calculations. As Cerny explained, the console uses a customized AMD RDNA 2 architecture dubbed RDNA 2.X. It incorporates several RDNA 3 features but still stays close enough to its predecessor to avoid requiring developers to rewrite code for the new hardware.
Mark emphasized the most noteworthy improvements in the PS5 Pro, which are found in its new Ray Acceleration framework utilizing BVH8 (Bounding Volume Hierarchy), and an enhanced “stack management in hardware.” This refers to more efficient graphics shader code management, ensuring it runs smoother and faster on the upgraded hardware.
Bounding Volume Hierarchies (BVH) play a critical role in 3D rendering for tasks such as calculating reflections. While the PS5 used BVH4, grouping bounding boxes in fours for ray tracing calculations, the PS5 Pro upgrades to BVH8, allowing it to handle eight boxes. This enhancement extends to the Ray Intersection Engine, which now checks against eight boxes and two triangles compared to the four boxes and one triangle setup in the original PS5.
These advancements in ray tracing hardware with the PS5 Pro, thanks to its finely-tuned variant of the RDNA 2 GPU architecture used in the PlayStation 5, significantly boost performance for rendering curved and textured light reflections. However, improvements in rendering shadows and flat reflections are only moderate.
For those who are keen to dive even deeper into the technical details, the full 37-minute video is a must-watch. It offers a wealth of insights into the console market and the technological innovations essential for staying competitive.
