Sony and AMD Tease Next-Gen GPU Tech for Future PlayStation Sony has released a significant new video featuring Mark Cerny, the lead architect for the PlayStation 4 and PS5, in conversation with AMD’s Jack Huynh. The nearly nine-minute discussion outlines a collaborative effort called Project Amethyst, a set of technologies being developed for the next PlayStation console and future AMD GPUs. While Cerny clarified that these technologies currently only exist in simulations, their goal is clear: to dramatically improve the next PlayStation’s capabilities in ray tracing, upscaling, and other machine learning-driven rendering tasks. This partnership signals a major shift in strategy for AMD, which has historically lagged behind rival NVIDIA in ray tracing performance on its graphics cards. For years, AMD attempted to compete by offering superior rasterization performance, essentially brute-forcing traditional rendering. However, the company now admits this approach is no longer sufficient for modern, graphically demanding games that rely heavily on advanced lighting and upscaling. Huynh stated that trying to brute force ray tracing with raw power alone does not scale effectively. AMDs proposed solution is a completely new GPU architecture built on two key hardware innovations: Neural Arrays and Radiance Cores. The first, Neural Arrays, addresses a fundamental design in older AMD GPUs where compute units operated largely independently. This worked in the past, but with modern games dependent on upscaling techniques like FSR and Sonys PSSR to maintain performance at high resolutions, this independence can create inefficiencies. Neural Arrays are designed to allow these compute units to work collaboratively and share data. Huynh explained that AMD is not linking the entire GPU, which would be impractical, but is creating a way for the silicon to process a large portion of the screen at once. This is intended to unlock a new level of machine learning performance, leading to faster and higher-quality upscaling and improved ray regeneration, a feature similar to what NVIDIA offers with DLSS Ray Reconstruction. The second innovation, Radiance Cores, appears to take direct inspiration from NVIDIA’s successful RTX core technology. These are dedicated hardware blocks designed specifically to handle the complex mathematics of ray tracing and path tracing. Huynh called it a brand-new rendering approach for AMD. A key benefit of these specialized cores is that by offloading the intensive ray tracing work, other parts of the GPU, like those handling shaders and textures, are freed up, leading to greater overall efficiency and performance. Finally, the companies are collaborating on new software called Universal Compression. This builds upon the existing Delta Color Compression technology found in the PS5 and PS5 Pro. The theoretical advantage is that it would allow the next console to compress all data passing through its graphics pipeline. This reduces the demand on memory bandwidth and could also lead to lower power consumption. Cerny was careful to note that it is still early days for all these technologies. However, the collaboration provides reassurance that Sony and AMD are deeply focused on solving the core challenges of next-generation graphics. Making advanced techniques like ray-traced global illumination more efficient to run would be a significant win, potentially making more immersive and visually stunning experiences accessible on future consoles.
