• Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.

F'DUPTON 3: Back in the Tub with 5.0/5.5/6/7/several Inches of RAM-Flavoured Water

Status
Not open for further replies.
Darklor01

Darklor01

Might need to stop sniffing glue
xenorevlis said:
Not in today's world, but when the press is just a rumor and falls in line with what the competition is doing, this kind of debate simply means more people will be interested in chatting about the PS4, regardless of which side of the fence you're on (or even if you're perched on top of it).
Click to expand...

Except for those claiming that due to this they're going to or are canceling preorders. I think that is a very small percentage, but, you do not want people canceling preorder based on potential misinformation.
 
K

Kyoufu

Member
Nightengale said:
Being better than Xbox One doesn't mean anything. Dev-tools early in a console's life is always 'rough around the edges.' Just because it's a new, friendlier architecture doesn't magically make them super tools.

And you think Sony can say "hey our tools are better than Xbox's?" They can't.
Click to expand...

I have no idea what you are trying to say. Perhaps this is the result of you trying too hard.
 
J

jayu26

Member
Vestal said:
its not. My only issue with this whole thing is the flex memory I am extremely curious about why they set that up. Without any context it makes no sense.

only two reasons I can come up with.

1. If devs want to use the flex memory some OS features cannot be used or are limited in functionality

2. (tinfoil hat) there is some architectural limitation on the amount of memory games can directly address.
Click to expand...

Might want to read the article, flexible memory is 100% for games and has nothing to do with OS reservations.

Although you can frame the question like: why is it flexible not direct to begin with (if it is indeed 100% for games)? Why are they doing it that way? And what are the advantages/disadvantages of this?

Nightengale said:
Being better than Xbox One doesn't mean anything. Dev-tools early in a console's life is always 'rough around the edges.' Just because it's a new, friendlier architecture doesn't magically make them super tools.

And you think Sony can say "hey our tools are better than Xbox's?" They can't.
Click to expand...

Actually, I believe some third party devs said that Sony's tools are more "mature", for the time being anyway.
 
X

xenorevlis

Member
Darklor01 said:
Except for those claiming that due to this they're going to or are canceling preorders. I think that is a very small percentage, but, you do not want people canceling preorder based on potential misinformation.
Click to expand...
This is NeoGAF. Only a few people would seriously consider cancelling their pre-order based on unconfirmed rumors. If they really want the system, they will get it. I doubt Sony "cares" either way, considering the mountain of existing pre-orders that currently stand above the One's numbers.
 
B

BleachAndPepsi

Banned
Darklor01 said:
Except for those claiming that due to this they're going to or are canceling preorders. I think that is a very small percentage, but, you do not want people canceling preorder based on potential misinformation.
Click to expand...

Plus, with the sour mood brought on by this news, it puts a shadow over the PS4 launch. It's the shadow that had been sitting firmly over the Xbone. Sony needs to change the focus fast, or the whining going on among the few will leak out to the many and may change public perception about which console is the one to buy.
 
N

NoirVisage

Banned
Aquamarine said:
Any press is good press, huh?
Click to expand...

xenorevlis said:
Not in today's world, but when the press is just a rumor and falls in line with what the competition is doing, this kind of debate simply means more people will be interested in chatting about the PS4, regardless of which side of the fence you're on (or even if you're perched on top of it)


Sorry I don't follow. Do you mean the fact that the DRM rumor/news that came out and then was confirmed by Microsoft themselves at E3 or?
Click to expand...

Skin-Burn-Treatment1.jpg


yeah, go home and be a salary man.
 
S

Snakeyes

Member
xenorevlis said:
I have some news for all of you.

While I cannot make comment on the actual numbers (and the OS / features are probably still being developed anyway) I can tell you why Sony isn't going to "end this nonsense" that is going on within this thread and potentially a few others.

You're talking about the PS4. Even though most of it is uninformed speculation, you're talking about the PS4. The more you discuss it, the bigger it becomes in the mind's eye.
Click to expand...

And it has the added bonus of making Sony look better in the public eye after they finally dispel the rumors.
 
Vestal

Vestal

Gold Member
jayu26 said:
Might want to read the article, flexible memory is 100% for games and has nothing to do with OS reservations.

Although you can frame the question like: why is it flexible not direct to begin with (if it is indeed 100% for games)? Why are they doing it that way? And what are the advantages/disadvantages of this?
Click to expand...
that is exactly my point. It makes no sense for the existence of flex memory without some of the reasons I posted
 
Darklor01

Darklor01

Might need to stop sniffing glue
xenorevlis said:
This is NeoGAF. Only a few people would seriously consider cancelling their pre-order based on unconfirmed rumors. If they really want the system, they will get it. I doubt Sony "cares" either way, considering the mountain of existing pre-orders that currently stand above the One's numbers.
Click to expand...

Well, I'm not disagreeing it's a very small percentage of cancels based on this, but no company wants cancels based on misinformation. This is something they can address if they care or are actually listening. I generally agree with you though.
 
J

jayu26

Member
Vestal said:
that is exactly my point. It makes no sense for the existence of flex memory without some of the reasons I posted
Click to expand...

Again, just because we don't understand it does not mean it make no sense. Obviously they did it for a reason. Wait for a tech savvy person to analyze this properly.
 
A

AlphaDump

Gold Member
Vestal said:
that is exactly my point. It makes no sense for the existence of flex memory without some of the reasons I posted
Click to expand...

I was thinking 512/512MB, or 1 gig in total, so that flex RAM can perhaps act as a buffer in swapping out game data, since there is a 4.5 gb ceiling.
 
L

LunaticHigh

Member
My assumption:

Sony haven't finalized the amount of reserved RAM for the OS.
Because of this, they've given devs 4.5GB to work with, flexibile to 5GB (because they are sure about the 512MB system) and will give a better update later.

Though, because I'm not a sensationalist, I'm going to wait until I hear concrete numbers.
 
N

Nightengale

Member
Kyoufu said:
I have no idea what you are trying to say. Perhaps this is the result of you trying too hard.
Click to expand...

Why should Sony market to non-devs about the superiority of dev tools? It only matter to developers.

In terms of comparison with competition, no company will use variable elements like dev tools to compare because it's something that changes.
 
R

RayMaker

Banned
Seems weird there going with 3gb for OS, i would of thought they would of planned the OS partition with 4gb of total memory in mind, so when they new they could have 8gb the extra 4 gb was free space that could be used for games.
 
Meus Renaissance

Meus Renaissance

Member
  • "Direct Memory" is memory allocated under the traditional video game model, so the game controls all aspects of its allocation
  • "Flexible Memory" is memory managed by the PS4 OS on the game's behalf, and allows games to use some very nice FreeBSD virtual memory functionality. However this memory is 100 per cent the game's memory, and is never used by the OS, and as it is the game's memory it should be easy for every developer to use it.
So why isn't Flexible Memory part of Direct Memory if both are used for games and not the OS?

It's interesting that they're willing to explain the nuances between the two but unwilling to offer a figure of the OS footprint; the subject of the entire debate.
 
P

PdotMichael

Banned
LunaticHigh said:
My assumption:

Sony haven't finalized the amount of reserved RAM for the OS.
Because of this, they've given devs 4.5GB to work with, flexibile to 5GB (because they are sure about the 512MB system) and will give a better update later.

Though, because I'm not a sensationalist, I'm going to wait until I hear concrete numbers.
Click to expand...

Well, good luck getting some concrete numbers.

Either we will hear developers complain about not enough ram or they are happy with the amount of ram they got.
 
E

ElTorro

I wanted to dominate the living room. Then I took an ESRAM in the knee.
Vestal said:
its not. My only issue with this whole thing is the flex memory I am extremely curious about why they set that up. Without any context it makes no sense.

only two reasons I can come up with.

1. If devs want to use the flex memory some OS features cannot be used or are limited in functionality

2. (tinfoil hat) there is some architectural limitation on the amount of memory games can directly address.
Click to expand...

Nope. They explicitly stated that "flexible" memory is memory that is managed by the OS' memory system by a process called "paging". This is a stoneage-old feature of operating system. It basically means that memory address space is abstracted from physical memory. While your memory address for individual data is immutable, the actual physical memory holding the addressed data might change depending on the employed (in this case by the OS) management strategy.

That allows virtually coherent memory to be physically fragmented and/or distributed between many physical memory devices. One common use case is to extend the memory space to include physical memory on the hard drive. The operating system can then swap data between main memory and memory mapped onto the HDD without the application even noticing it since the memory addresses stay the same and are transparently managed to always refer to accessible data. Hence, the application can access more memory than the main memory alone actually provides.

That mechanism being provided by the OS is a huge benefit since the developer does not need to implement such paging strategies himself, while the OS can manage and optimize paging for a multitude of clients.
 
T

Tom Penny

Member
RayMaker said:
Seems weird there going with 3gb for OS, i would of thought they would of planned the OS partition with 4gb of total memory in mind, so when they new they could have 8gb the extra 4 gb was free space that could be used for games.
Click to expand...

Yep. Makes no sense that the OS suddenly got so much more enormous after a surprise upgrade in ram.
 
I

iamshadowlark

Banned
Meus Renaissance said:
  • "Direct Memory" is memory allocated under the traditional video game model, so the game controls all aspects of its allocation
  • "Flexible Memory" is memory managed by the PS4 OS on the game's behalf, and allows games to use some very nice FreeBSD virtual memory functionality. However this memory is 100 per cent the game's memory, and is never used by the OS, and as it is the game's memory it should be easy for every developer to use it.
So why isn't Flexible Memory part of Direct Memory if both are used for games and not the OS?

It's interesting that they're willing to explain the nuances between the two but unwilling to offer a figure of the OS footprint; the subject of the entire debate.
Click to expand...
It's not physical memory, which is why they provide the distinction.

OS footprint has never been a public detail and I don't see why now it's magically supposed to become something we must know.
 
D

Dambrosi

Banned
So it's still just a rumour, after all this wailing and gnashing of teeth, and we're still nowhere nearer a resolution to this shitstain. And, even if it's true, it just means that the amount of memory devs can use is the same on both XBOne and PS4. So it's meaningless, since the PS4 is still superior to XBOne tech-wise and for other reasons, one of which is the lack of Ryse as a platform exclusive
HAH BETCHA THOUGHT I WAS GONNA SAY KINECT HUH

...

I've said it before - console wars never fail to bring out the full retard in GAF.
 
S

SeaOfMadness

Member
LunaticHigh said:
My assumption:

Sony haven't finalized the amount of reserved RAM for the OS.
Because of this, they've given devs 4.5GB to work with, flexibile to 5GB (because they are sure about the 512MB system) and will give a better update later.

Though, because I'm not a sensationalist, I'm going to wait until I hear concrete numbers.
Click to expand...

IMO, if Sony hasn't finalized the amount of RAM available to the games by now, they have major issues. These games need to be done around October. That's 2 months away. Any change (either way) to the amount of RAM at this point would cause problems for them.

So I would say that they have finalized it (probably long ago) but aren't disclosing it because they know it would be controversial.

The average gamer doesn't need to know how much RAM their favorite game is using, so why talk about it publicly? From Sony's perspective, all gamers should care about is if the games they love look and play well.
 
E

ElTorro

I wanted to dominate the living room. Then I took an ESRAM in the knee.
iamshadowlark said:
It's not physical memory, which is why they provide the distinction.
Click to expand...

No, it is 512MB of real, unshared main memory. It is flexible, because this portion of main memory is managed by the OS to implement paging and, thus, allow the application's memory address space to be larger than 5GB.
 
L

LunaticHigh

Member
SeaOfMadness said:
IMO, if Sony hasn't finalized the amount of RAM available to the games by now, they have major issues. These games need to be done around October. That's 2 months away. Any change (either way) to the amount of RAM at this point would cause problems for them.

So I would say that they have finalized it (probably long ago) but aren't disclosing it because they know it would be controversial.

The average gamer doesn't need to know how much RAM their favorite game is using, so why talk about it publicly? From Sony's perspective, all gamers should care about is if the games they love look and play well.
Click to expand...

Allocating more ram than they need would not cause them any problems. The OS footprint can shrink and more ram can be allocated as they improve it.

Launch games very typically work with lower than final specifications.
 
X

xValentine

Member
Why would anyone praise Sony for making a weaker system, especially one with even less of an advantage when it comes to multiplatform games than it had before? Developers CANNOT have been complaining about a missing 1GB of RAM. It makes no sense for Sony to make a huge deal about doubling the PS4's RAM, then turn around and only make 1GB of that actually usable. They got scared by Microsoft's 'goods and services' model and now we're paying for it with a weaker console.
Click to expand...

PS4 is weaker now compared to the Xbone? ??

KuGsj.gif
 
D

Durante

Member
Meus Renaissance said:
  • "Direct Memory" is memory allocated under the traditional video game model, so the game controls all aspects of its allocation
  • "Flexible Memory" is memory managed by the PS4 OS on the game's behalf, and allows games to use some very nice FreeBSD virtual memory functionality. However this memory is 100 per cent the game's memory, and is never used by the OS, and as it is the game's memory it should be easy for every developer to use it.
So why isn't Flexible Memory part of Direct Memory if both are used for games and not the OS?

It's interesting that they're willing to explain the nuances between the two but unwilling to offer a figure of the OS footprint; the subject of the entire debate.
Click to expand...
I haven't read the entire thread (it seems terrible), just this page, but from those 2 points you are posting the difference and "nuances" seem clear enough. "Direct Memory" is what you get on embedded systems and previous consoles, but usually not on e.g. a modern PC: an address space which is guaranteed to reside physically in memory.

On the other hand, "flexible memory" seems to be what you would normally get if you allocate memory on any general purpose computer running a modern OS: A set of virtual pages, for which the operating system decides where exactly they manifest physically.
 
Vestal

Vestal

Gold Member
ElTorro said:
Nope. They explicitly stated that "flexible" memory is memory that is managed by the OS' memory system by a process called "paging". This is a stoneage-old feature of operating system. It basically means that memory address space is abstracted from physical memory. While your memory address for individual data is immutable, the actual physical memory holding the addressed data might change depending on the employed (in this case by the OS) management strategy.

That allows virtually coherent memory to be physically distributed between many physical memory devices. The common use case is to extend the memory space to include physical memory on the hard drive. The operating system can then swap data between main memory and memory mapped onto the HDD without the application even noticing it since the memory addresses stay the same and are transparently managed to always refer to accessible data. Hence, the application can access more memory than the main memory alone actually provides.

That mechanism being provided by the OS is a huge benefit since the developer does not need to implement such paging strategies himself, while the OS can manage and optimize paging for a multitude of clients.
Click to expand...

every modern OS has always managed paging. If it truly is for paging then its really not "fully accessible" to the game.
 
I

iamshadowlark

Banned
ElTorro said:
No, it is 512MB of real, unshared main memory. It is flexible, because this portion of main memory is managed by the OS to implement paging and, thus, allow the application's memory space to be larger than 5GB.
Click to expand...
Oh ok so it's a virtual address space, in contrast to plain old swap style VM?
 
E

ElTorro

I wanted to dominate the living room. Then I took an ESRAM in the knee.
Vestal said:
every modern OS has always managed paging. If it truly is for paging then its really not "fully accessible" to the game.
Click to expand...

Why would that be the case? The memory is not "for paging", it is allocated to the game. But the management of it's fragmentation is managed, and, in addition, it is extended virtually to include virtual memory backed by the HDD.

But it is real memory dedicated to the game. It is not "bad memory" by any means.
 
C

Can Crusher

Banned
Sweep14 said:
Remember : TLOU was using 512 Mb - 50 Mb (OS Footprint ) = 462 Mb of RAM on PS3...

Now imagine that the Last of US could benefit of eleven times more ram, had it been available on PS4...

Ram amount will not be a problem with both consoles. Nothing to worry
Click to expand...

Man just imagine how incredible TLOU would look on 1GB of Gddr5. Hell imagine it in 6.5 GB of gddr5, or 12 or even 17!

It would look much better on more RAM no doubt!
 
Status
Not open for further replies.

Similar threads

Immortals of Aveum set to receive HDR and FSR 3 console frame generation (High dynamic range imminent, frame-gen "in just a few short weeks")
Game Dev 2
64
3K
winjer replied
  • Locked
  • Poll
Exploring The Complications Of Series X's Memory Configuration & Performance
Opinion Analysis Hardware 2 3 4 5
218
16K
Corndog replied
  • Poll
PLAYSTATION 6: Potential Innovations, Features, Business Strategies & More (Speculation)
Opinion Analysis Platform 2 3 4
180
12K
Loxus replied
[PC Gamer] How Cyberpunk 2077 clawed its way back from disaster to complete one of the greatest redemption arcs in gaming history
Opinion News 2
99
6K
EDMIX replied
Persona 3 Reload | Review Thread
Analysis Review Hype 2 3
106
7K
Ferdimage replied
Top Bottom