PlayStation 6 Machine Learning Ecosystem Targets 4K 120 FPS Visuals Through AI Ray Tracing and Advanced Frame Interpolation
The divide between home consoles and PCs is likely to close substantially in the next hardware generation. Reported in detail by the media reporting platform Moores Law Is Dead, Sony is circling the PlayStation 6 with a complex work ecosystem of machine learning algorithms. If true, the machine will not only be overclocking graphics unit, it will be used Video Frame Interpolation, PlayStation Spectral Super Resolution, and innovative AI assisted ray tracing to reach a continual 4K graphics at 120 frames per second.
Generating artificial frames through software is already commonplace for the PC world with the likes of Nvidia DLSS and AMD FSR. PlayStation 6 allegedly will implement software to put in machine generated transition frames between the native renders to further smooth out the visuals. This has the gaming community divided over whether or not an algorithmic frame generation can be termed a hardware performance, however this implementation provides a way for Sony to circumvent the physical and thermal constraints posed by modern day graphics chips. Experts in the industry anticipated the software stack will build on customized AMD designs working with Sony own scaling algorithms to improve image and motion quality respectively.
Further advanced lighting techniques will also rely on the use of software. Ray tracing is the most processing heavy task present in modern game engines. To try and keep 120 frames per second on hardware that is mooted to arrive 2027 Sony will be using the AI to take control of the denoising and rendering paths for the lighting pipeline. This is just a trend that seems to be emerging where software efficiency is increasingly having to make up for the ever increasing manufacturing costs of the cutting edge silicon.
In order to minimize latency and avoid the delay of a network call to a remote cloud server, Sony apparently intends to run a local AI model concurrently on the same hardware as the PlayStation 6. Offloading all computations directly to the local system means accurate calculation times for frame synthesis and light simulation at that hardware level, but presents a heavy hardware trade off. Running a complex, fully capable offline network is likely to require an entire dedicated chunk of memory space from approximately 4 GB to 8 GB for system RAM reducing that portion of the machine's total memory available for general applications and necessitating more sophisticated memory management by game developers to efficiently stream large textures at high resolution.
The game heavy strategy is all about having software support that directly correlates to market price of the console. If Sony can provide a consistent 120 FPS experience while at the same time ensuring the retail end cost of its console remains below $1000, it will be an astonishing hardware feat. The industry learned the hard way that pricing too high with poorly optimized software doesn't appeal to the masses, as evidenced by the botched Valve Steam Machine. Through careful hardware development costs, software scaling and Sony's foundation of hardware software knowledge, I believe the company is set to have a leg up at launch of hardware, if my 2027 window is still to be considered.
