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Sony/AMD Project Amethyst Update - Next-Gen Tech Revealed - DF Direct Special + Mark Cerny Q&A (Patreon)

Published:
2025-10-11 14:53:00
Imported:
2026-06

Content

Hi everyone, this was originally going to be the main news topic for the latest edition of DF Direct Weekly. On reflection, as it contains new information from Mark Cerny, the Direct would have almost certainly leaked, so we spun out this segment as a standalone video running now. We'll be getting Direct #235 to you as quickly as possible.

The blurb: could this be the foundational GPU technology for the PlayStation 6? Mark Cerny's latest Project Amethyst update describes the building blocks of future graphics technology, with a strong focus on ray tracing and machine learning capabilities, along with bandwidth-enhancing features designed to reduce the need on massive memory controllers. John, Rich and Oliver discuss the tech and share more information from Mark Cerny via an email Q&A conducted in the wake of the video's publication.

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Sony/AMD Project Amethyst Update - Next-Gen Tech Revealed - DF Direct Special + Mark Cerny Q&A

Digital Foundry is now fully independent! Join the DF Supporter Program and support the team: https://bit.ly/3jEGjvx Could this be the foundational GPU technology for the PlayStation 6? Mark Cerny's latest Project Amethyst update describes the building blocks of future graphics technology, with a strong focus on ray tracing and machine learning capabilities, along with bandwidth-enhancing features designed to reduce the need on massive memory controllers. John, Rich and Oliver discuss the tech and share more information from Mark Cerny via an email Q&A conducted in the wake of the video's publication. Go here to check out DF merch! https://store.digitalfoundry.net Subscribe for more Digital Foundry: http://bit.ly/DFSubscribe 00:00 Three innovations: Neural Arrays, Radiance Cores, and Universal Compression 09:41 PS6 games and cross-gen enhancements 15:55 PS6 hardware and release timing 24:14 Concluding thoughts

Comments

Fendera

I was literally thinking about when DF is going to release the video analysis talking about Mark Cerny's AMD presentation a couple of minutes ago, and boom, it's here!

BespokeEP

I think the big thing that nobody seems to be considering is, PlayStation was ready to completely abandon PS4. "We believe in generations.". But who could have predicted the extent of the pandemic, so they had to pivot. Notice how every cross gen game was a sequel to a late gen PS4 game. PlayStation has said they have struggled to get everyone to move to PS5, and MLiD has claimed he has documents that say Sony is targeting a very affordable price for PS6. And the best way to get people to move to PS6 is affordable price and exclusive games. And it's not as if 3rd party, sports titles, & live service won't still be cross gen for a time. But it is Sony's job to convince people to move forward and if they can do it 3rd party will move forward quicker as well. I think having full RT or PT in games, using AI for lip sync, etc., will get the industry back to 2-4 years dev time instead of +5

Dan Matte

“Reduce the need on massive memory controllers” doesn’t make any sense. The actual problem is it’s insanely expensive to add DRAM to BOM/COGS since memory bit cell scaling has been horrible for many years. With costs made worse recently by the AI boom.

Wotans Cry

i still struggle to imagine that Microsoft gets to use stuff that came out from that whole amethyst project. Why would Sony allow that?! They are in no position where they need to make ANY concessions towards MS... edit : also was there not a big leak by MliD revealing that MS Magnus will use a NPU? So already points out that they dont go the Sony way with their integrated ML...

Eric Benoit

Knack 3 should be stunning indeed.

earthb

What do you mean? How can Sony stop AMD from licensing their HW IP?

Samson

its not their technology... thats why... Sony can only request their specific design within AMD's x86/GPU offering. AMD provides economy of scale, something Sony could never accomplish with just going to TSMC. They don't have the demand or even the licensing. If they want their own tech, let them go bankrupt and create the Cell Processor 2 that no dev will be familiar with.

Wotans Cry

I talk about the fruits of the amethyst co op. That's different than Sony going alone again. And still i don't see it that MS is allowed to harvest something Sony developed with AMD. Thats PS6 Tech what we talk about here. I believe it when i see it. And if the rumors are true with the magnus npu then it makes even less sense. Why would MS use an NPU for its ML if sony developed with AMD something much better?? Ah and here is the next thing - what do you think for how long is Magnus in development already? By believing that MS has all that stuff that was talked about here in the console then they would have to have access to the early Sony and AMD research data of the project... The leaks about Magnus do not point to any of this being a part.. So still a No for me. Magnus will not have anything that was talked about here. But the AMD Desktop PC Cards will have that

Chicken Point

Cerny stated in a previous video that the technology resulting from their collaboration is not proprietary. This implies that AMD can use it however they want. What's in it for Sony? 1. Sony get to pick AMD's brain about stuff: it's a two-way street. 2. Sony *wants* the technology to be widely deployed. If no one is familiar with the tools/architecture, they are less likely to exploit those features in their games. (This is potentially an issue with PSSR -- the lack of dev familiarity).

BespokeEP

You gotta understand Mark Cerny(PlayStation) and AMD are working together to advance tech quickly, it's the only way they will ever come close to catching Nvidia. The work being done is essentially for AMD. And Sony likely benefits by getting a say in the direction and focus they take with the tech and a better price for their chips. But similar to this current gen where both Xbox and PS used the exact same AMD tech, they will do the same next gen

BespokeEP

You do realize that the cell was developed by Sony, Toshiba, and IBM right? They didn't do it alone. And if they could figure out how to make development easier it would likely be the best CPU on the market