It seems like only a short time ago that Mark Cerny, Sony’s hardware architect, began discussing the features of what would come to be known as the “PS4 successor,” highlighting its advanced ray-tracing capabilities driven by new AMD technology. Now, as we approach five years into the PS5 generation, both Sony and AMD are gearing up to reveal more about the upcoming hardware that Cerny refers to as “a future console in a few years’ time.”
In a brief nine-minute video released on Thursday, Cerny engaged with Jack Huynh, senior VP and general manager of AMD’s Computing and Graphics Group, to discuss “Project Amethyst.” This initiative represents a collaborative engineering effort between the two companies, first hinted at back in July. Although the hardware for Project Amethyst currently exists only in simulation, Cerny expressed optimism about the “promising” results so far, noting that the project is still in its early stages.
Advancing Machine Learning
At the core of Project Amethyst is an ambition to move beyond conventional rasterization techniques, which may not effectively scale with sheer computational power alone, according to Huynh. The new architecture emphasizes the efficient operation of machine-learning-driven neural networks, akin to AMD’s FSR upscaling technology as well as Sony’s corresponding PSSR system.
In a shared reflection on their partnership, Cerny and Huynh likened their journey to two pieces of amethyst split from a single stone, highlighting the collaborative spirit of Project Amethyst. Huynh noted this initiative as a co-engineering venture between @PlayStation and AMD pic.twitter.com/De9HWV3Ub2
Cerny indicated that the current approaches to GPU upscaling face challenges when pushing for real-time 4K graphics, with the GPU’s architecture necessitating that calculations be divided into subproblems processed in parallel, which can lead to inefficiencies. To overcome this challenge, Project Amethyst integrates “neural arrays” that enable compute units to share data, functioning collectively like a “single focused AI engine.” While not every compute unit will be interconnected, forming smaller groups allows for more scalable shader engines capable of enhancing larger areas of the screen simultaneously, leading to increased machine learning integration in visual output, as emphasized by Huynh.
Enhancing Efficiency
Cerny also highlighted existing inefficiencies in current GPU ray-tracing pipelines. He stated that the existing method of using shaders for both ray paths and standard texture shading has reached a plateau.
To improve efficiency, Project Amethyst leverages a system patented by Sony in 2022, which features specialized “radiance cores.” This dedicated hardware is aimed at handling the demanding task of ray traversal—determining which light rays intersect with polygons in a scene—thereby allowing the CPU and GPU to concentrate on traditional shading based on textures and materials, according to Cerny.
One of the critical bottlenecks that Sony and AMD aim to address with the new chip pertains to memory bandwidth limitations seen with current GPUs. AMD’s chips have long utilized Delta Color Compression to minimize the size of certain texture data before processing. In the case of Project Amethyst, this approach will be extended to a “universal compression” for all data sent to the GPU. Cerny expressed hope that this innovation will lead to “effective bandwidth [that] exceeds its paper spec.”
While it’s premature to gauge the performance capabilities of this new architecture without a prototype available to evaluate, the insights into how PlayStation’s chipmakers are approaching the ongoing challenge of delivering enhanced, realistic real-time graphics are certainly intriguing.
