Sony has not been shy about explaining the proprietary 825GB SSD and the resulting performance gains gamers can expect when the PS5 launches on November 12 But surprisingly, according to one developer tool maker, Sony seems to have cheapened its true potential

Charles Bloom, a data compression specialist at RAD Game Tools, wrote a lengthy blog post explaining that the company's Oodle Kraken technology will give the PS5 "the fastest data load ever for a mass market consumer device" He goes on to say In fact, Bloom continues

The blog post is long and very technical But the main point is that fast SSDs, a CPU-dependent IO stack, and the Kraken hardware decoder combine in such a way that it is more than the sum of its parts: Kraken "acts as a multiplier between IO speed and disk capacity," Bloom writes, which This reduces load times and the footprint of the installation

"Sony has previously announced that they have measured average compression ratios for games at around 15 to 1 and expect SSDs to have 55GB/s and 8 to 9GB/s of decompression bandwidth," Bloom explained

"Kraken is an excellent general-purpose compressor, but we struggled to find usable patterns for an important type of content: GPU textures, which make up the majority of game content Since then, we have made great strides in Oodle Texture to improve GPU texture compression: Oodle Texture encodes GPU textures in such a way that subsequent Kraken compression can find patterns that can be used As a result, we expect to see much better average compression ratios for games in the future, closer to 2:1"

But it doesn't stop there Bloom explains that "better data compression also improves game download times, allowing more games to be stored on disk," and the compression ratio acts as "an effective multiplier between download speed and disk space"

In short? Bloom explains, "A game might use 80 GB uncompressed, but with 2-to-1 compression, you only need 40 GB of disk space and can store twice as many games A small disk with high compression can store more games than a large disk with low compression

The company's latest Oodle Texture technology, which promises the best compression results, is new enough that not all launch titles will benefit However, Bloom states, "In the future, it will be included in the majority of PS5 games"

You can read the full explanation on Charles Bloom's blog, but for most consumers, this headline should be enough In short, the PS5 will feature some very good technology that will greatly improve the way data is stored and accessed The console's storage will be even more expansive, and long load times should be a thing of the past, so look forward to November 12, when the PS5 will be available in the US and Europe