There are always PS5 news periodically. A developer has now explained why Kraken could make gaming much faster.
Where does the information come from? On his YouTube channel, Yan Chernikov explained how Kraken, a new decompression technique, works on the PS5. Chernikov had previously worked for DICE and was involved in the Frostbite engine.
What does the developer say about Kraken? In his YouTube channel, Chernikov explained that this form is something specific to consoles:
This is the kind of progress that consoles can have, in my opinion, which PCs in general cannot achieve because what we are talking about here, as far as I can understand, is specific hardware. The decompression is done in hardware, not on the CPU or graphics processor,” Chernikov said. There is literally a unit responsible for decompressing this Kraken format, which works like zlib [a free decompression library, note from the editors] – just a bit better.
And he is not the only developer who holds the new console in high regard. Epic also stated that they adapted the Unreal Engine 5 for the PS5.
You can watch the entire video where Chernikov talks about the Kraken technique in the embedded video:
PS5: Kraken could make gaming faster
How does decompression work so far? So far, decompression is mainly solved on the software side. The processor (CPU) does the most work here. On the PlayStation 4, the graphics unit on the processor (iGPU) also supports this work.
This is the disadvantage of the current method: The larger and more strongly compressed the data is, the longer the processor takes and cannot take care of other tasks.
PS5: Kraken decompression explained simply
What is Kraken actually? Kraken is a special file format developed by RAD Game Tools. Kraken follows on from the Blink format, which also comes from RAD Game Tools. If any of you look into a game directory, you will notice the .bik files: these are the compressed data.
This is the advantage: If a hardware component does the work of decompression, then both the CPU and GPU are relieved and can take care of other tasks. Here, completely different priorities can be set.
Gaming PCs will not benefit from this: As Chernikov explains, this is a very unique method that only applies to the PS5: On the PC, hardware-based decompression in this way is not yet possible. However, PC players could certainly benefit from other things, such as the very fast SSD of the PS5.
If you want to learn more about Sony’s new console, we have summarized the most important information about the PS5 for you and keep you updated here on MeinMMO.
