It’s no secret that Sony has been working with AMD for years now to help with the development of multiple generations of the PlayStation. It provided custom SOCs (system-on-a-chip) for the PS4, PS4 Pro, PS5, and now the PS5 Pro. The base PlayStation 5 utilizes AMD’s RDNA 2 architecture for graphics, while the Pro variant takes that up a notch – but it’s not quite RDNA 3.

In any case, Sony has now announced it will continue to work with AMD. This time, not just with hardware, but with technology such as ray tracing, machine learning, and other AI technologies as well. This “deeper collaboration with AMD” is codenamed Amethyst – a nod to the blue and red color themes of PlayStation and AMD respectively.

Sony announces ‘Amethyst’ project with AMD

A recent technical seminar for the PS5 Pro, presented by Mark Cerny, gives us a deep dive into the refreshed console’s technology, focusing on aspects such as machine learning, ray tracing, PSSR, and GPU architecture. For reference, the PS5 Pro uses ‘RDNA2.x’ as a base technology which is described as “somewhere between RDNA 2 and RDNA 3” – RDNA being AMD’s GPU architecture (we should soon be moving onto RDNA 4 with the RX 8000 series early next year).

Towards the end of the seminar was the announcement of the Sony and AMD collaboration, aiming to create something accessible by game developers “both for graphics and for gameplay”. Project Amethyst is set on delivering two goals:

• Future hardware architectures for machine learning & AI – bringing machine learning “across a variety of devices”
• CNNs (convolutional neural network) for games – a shared network to draw from to increase “the richness of game graphics as well as enabling extensive use of ray tracing and path tracing”

Cerny also talked a little bit about the project in a recent interview with Digital Foundry. He calls it a “multi-year” collaboration, so don’t expect any massive hardware announcement coming out of it any time soon. Cerny summarizes the first goal as a “more optimal architectures for machine learning”. For Sony, it’s all about a focus on what these improvements can do for the console, particularly when it comes to improving PSSR – its new upscaling tech – and possibly future implementation of tech such as frame generation within the PSSR feature set.

This seems like a massive win for console gaming in particular, drawing from the expertise that AMD can provide through years of experience developing its AI-based tech. We expect to see FSR 4 up next, and with the RX 8000 series just around the corner with an expected launch at CES 2025, it’s an exciting time in the world of game graphics.

About the Author

Jack Goodall

At PC Guide, Jack is mostly responsible for reporting on hardware deals. He also specializes in monitors, TVs, and headsets and can be found putting his findings together in a review or best-of guide.