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[Biker19]

I'm SERIOUS as FUCK. Who do you think is paying for that unused 3.5 GB of RAM and 2 cores? Sony? NO - it's the customers! WE have to PAY for that shit so that some "VISIONARY" executive at Sony can maintain "strategic reserves" as he MASTURBATES at his desk!

We want FREEDOM! OPPRESSION of resources must END!

LOL. All companies do this, not just Sony. Nintendo with Wii U: Only has 2 GB's of DDR3 RAM available for the Wii U, & only 1 GB of it is used for gaming.

Same for Microsoft with Xbox One: 8 GB's of DDR3 RAM available, & only about 5 GB's of that RAM are used for gaming.

 

[Portugeezer]

Better to have a 3 GB reserve now than to be sorry later.

However as a gamer I want all dat GDDR5 goodness, get the reserve down to 2GB and give devs 6GB at least.

 

[aY227]

290MB of render targets?!

Edit: oh I was forgetting that'll include shadow maps and stuff. Seen the breakdown of gbuffer now, about 44MB.

Actually its more:
3x RBGA8 - 3*32*1920*1080/8 = 25mb
3x RGBA16 - 3*64*1920*1080/8 = 50mb
1x D32f - 1*32*1920*1080/8 = 8mb
1xS8 - 1*8*1920*1080/8 = 2mb
all of those results ~ 85 mb for G-buffer.

 

[LoveCake]

Maybe there is a restriction on the RAM for games allocation because Sony want the dev's to wring as much out of each byte of RAM available.

 

[le.phat]

I love how this entire thread basically devolved into a elaborate sonytoo lol

 

[maneil99]

Maybe there is a restriction on the RAM for games allocation because Sony want the dev's to wring as much out of each byte of RAM available.

Joke post? Limit the devs so they have to work harder?

 

[FranXico]

I love how thus entire basically devolved into a elaborate sonytoo lol

It is almost as if now that Phil Spencer is the boss of XBox, a certain subset of GAF feels more confident and is thirsty for Sony pony blood...

 

[tokyo slim]

Joke post? Limit the devs so they have to work harder?

Maybe that's what's been happening at Sony WWS lately. PS4 is actually an elaborate ruse to catch and expose "lazy devs": CONFIRMED.

 

[TheCloser]

Maybe that's what's been happening at Sony WWS lately. PS4 is actually an elaborate ruse to catch and expose "lazy devs": CONFIRMED.

i thought that was the ps3....

 

[Krabardaf]

3.5Gb locked because Sony just don't know what they'll come up with and don't want headaches making it work smoothly? That must be incredibly frustrating for the devs.

 

[border]

So how did the operating system become so insanely bloated? Windows 8 only requires 2 gigabytes.

 

[RayMaker]

It should go back the snes/mega drive days when ram was only used for games and the machine only played games.lol.

 

[tokyo slim]

i thought that was the ps3....

No, that doesn't make any sense. If they made the PS3 to trap lazy devs, then why was it a decade long laz dev party with nobody ever losing their jobs?

 

[tokyo slim]

So how did the operating system become so insanely bloated? Windows 8 only requires 2 gigabytes.

We don't know how much memory the PS OS uses currently. Do we?

 

[stonesak]

What happened to Jonathan Blow being able to fit The Witness (5+ GB) entirely into memory with room to spare?

 

[NullPointer]

3.5Gb locked because Sony just don't know what they'll come up with and don't want headaches making it work smoothly? That must be incredibly frustrating for the devs.

4.5GB available at launch on fully dedicated hardware doesn't seem like a serious restriction. And it provides the PS4 some breathing room for new capabilities.

 

[LookAtMeGo]

So is Sonys VR going to need any of that 3.5GB that is reserved for the OS?

 

[RetroStu]

4.5 gb? I thought this thing had 5.5gb Available?

What the fuck is eating up 3.5gb of ram?

The rumour was 4.5gb for games with another 1gb availabe under certain circumstances to make it 5.5gb (circumstances like the game needing it i presume!)>

 

[daman824]

What happened to Jonathan Blow being able to fit The Witness (5+ GB) entirely into memory with room to spare?

It's Jonathan Blow...

 

[shakey]

Couldn't a good chunk of the memory for the OS go towards the constant DVR'ing of games, that has basically 0 impact on the actual performance of what is being played? It seems like there is a lot that the OS does, that not everyone is taking into account of. DVR, Game Suspending, Multiple apps/games running.... There needs to be enough memory there or else it all suffers. Then there are the future ideas that they need to make sure they can do, whatever those may be.

 

[Prelude.]

Couldn't a good chunk of the memory for the OS go towards the constant DVR'ing of games, that has basically 0 impact on the actual performance of what is being played? It seems like there is a lot that the OS does, that not everyone is taking into account of. DVR, Game Suspending, Multiple apps/games running.... There needs to be enough memory there or else it all suffers. Then there are the future ideas that they need to make sure they can do, whatever those may be.

As far as I know the DVR functions are handled by the ARM chip which has 256mb or ram, so those aren't even that demanding.

 

[RetroStu]

It wasn't that long ago that people on here were saying we would get 2gb of ram in the next gen consoles and maybe 4gb if we were damn lucky but anything more was a pipedream.

 

[Prelude.]

It wasn't that long ago that people on here were saying we would get 2gb of ram in the next gen consoles and maybe 4gb if we were damn lucky but anything more was a pipedream.

Well, they were saying that 8gb of GDDR5 was impossible too.

 

[Krabardaf]

4.5GB available at launch on fully dedicated hardware doesn't seem like a serious restriction. And it provides the PS4 some breathing room for new capabilities.

Welp 4.5Gb is certainly more than expected not so long ago. But almost HALF the total memory reserved to the OS on a machine built to run games, that's harsh. You have to wonder how awesome the future capabilities of the system have to be to justify that.
Oh well, in the end devs will deal with it, that's their job.

 

[Biker19]

It should go back the snes/mega drive days when ram was only used for games and the machine only played games. lol.

No doubt. Or just make the consoles in which it's only features outside of gaming are CD, DVD, & Blu-Ray movie playback, MP3 Playback, Cross-Game Chat/Party Chat, & Custom Soundtracks for games. Nothing else. That way, developers will freely be able to use tons of RAM that they want for their games.

 

[serversurfer]

So is Sonys VR going to need any of that 3.5GB that is reserved for the OS?

Probably not, unless they create a "virtual UI" for you to use instead of the Dynamic Menu.

 

[kaching]

Couldn't a good chunk of the memory for the OS go towards the constant DVR'ing of games, that has basically 0 impact on the actual performance of what is being played? It seems like there is a lot that the OS does, that not everyone is taking into account of. DVR, Game Suspending, Multiple apps/games running.... There needs to be enough memory there or else it all suffers. Then there are the future ideas that they need to make sure they can do, whatever those may be.

I have a 5 yr old FIOS DVR that constantly buffers 20 mins of live HD footage and can record from two separate HD streams at the same time, all while offering the standard FIOS service OS, tv guides, etc. As OSes go it's nothing special but the basic HD video recording has been nothing but rock solid. The DVR has a total of 256 MB of RAM.

 

[RetroStu]

Plus 4.5gb is still nearly 10 times the amount of ram available for games than the 360/PS3 and just look at what they achieved with The Last of Us, Halo 4, Uncharted 2 and 3 etc.

 

[LookAtMeGo]

Probably not, unless they create a "virtual UI" for you to use instead of the Dynamic Menu.

I think a virtual UI would be cool, but not at the cost of having less RAM for the games themselves.

 

[smokeandmirrors]

Plus 4.5gb is still nearly 10 times the amount of ram available for games than the 360/PS3 and just look at what they achieved with The Last of Us, Halo 4, Uncharted 2 and 3 etc.

and double what win32 applications can use, although that should change as games are moving to 64bit (Titanfall is one of them iirc)

also people seem to be forgetting you need a buffer to record game content and video isn't terribly small.

 

[Graphics Horse]

Actually its more:
3x RBGA8 - 3*32*1920*1080/8 = 25mb
3x RGBA16 - 3*64*1920*1080/8 = 50mb
1x D32f - 1*32*1920*1080/8 = 8mb
1xS8 - 1*8*1920*1080/8 = 2mb
all of those results ~ 85 mb for G-buffer.

Oops I meant 44 bytes per pixel, sorry. But maybe 41 if stencil isn't using a whole 32bits. ( Are 8bit render targets a thing? )

 

[serversurfer]

I think a virtual UI would be cool, but not at the cost of having less RAM for the games themselves.

If they did do something like that, they'd probably try to fit it in the same footprint as the Dynamic Menu. It can be quite simple, visually.

 

[Caayn]

and double what win32 applications can use, although that should change as games are moving to 64bit (Titanfall is one of them iirc)

You are confusing two separated memory pools which we commonly see in a PC(DDR+ GDDR) with a single memory pool in the current consoles.

also people seem to be forgetting you need a buffer to record game content and video isn't terribly small.

That's done by a small ARM chip with its own 256MB of memory.

 

[Wishmaster92]

4.5gb is already a 10x increase over last gen. Significantly increasing that figure might not help too much if the gpu isn't getting beefed up too.

Re-reading the July thread again, apparently at 30fps the maximum memory allowed per frame is 5.86GB. So as long as Sony gives back 1.5GB we should be getting the maximum performance? And i mean 1.5GB GDDR5 back, not that paging crap.

 

[Alebelly]

I remember well how, after it became known MS is reserving 3 GB on Xbox One, we had here most people complaining about "bloated OS", "stupid MS", "totally non-gaming console", etc. etc.

And now it comes out Sony is reserving even more on their "totally gaming oriented" console.

Oh, the irony.

Sort of, I saw it as having multiple OS made future shrinkage far less shrinkable.

 

[LookAtMeGo]

If they did do something like that, they'd probably try to fit it in the same footprint as the Dynamic Menu. It can be quite simple, visually.

Well I hope they can cut back on the RAM allocation like they did with the PS3. I'm happy with the performance of the PS4 so far but the more horsepower for devs the better. I just can't think of anything that could require so much unless it was something to do with VR since they have known about it since the begining.

 

[aY227]

Oops I meant 44 bytes per pixel, sorry. But maybe 41 if stencil isn't using a whole 32bits. ( Are 8bit render targets a thing? )

Yep, there are two setups D32S8 or D24S8, so 32b or 40b.
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb976074.aspx
Hmm reading more it seems that in D32S8, it actually uses second 32b buffer for stencil that has 24 unused bits.

 

[serversurfer]

Re-reading the July thread again, apparently at 30fps the maximum memory allowed per frame is 5.86GB. So as long as Sony gives back 1.5GB we should be getting the maximum performance? And i mean 1.5GB GDDR5 back, not that paging crap.

It's more complicated than that. Some data may not be accessed at all in a given frame, and other data may be accessed several times.

Well I hope they can cut back on the RAM allocation like they did with the PS3. I'm happy with the performance of the PS4 so far but the more horsepower for devs the better. I just can't think of anything that could require so much unless it was something to do with VR since they have known about it since the begining.

Right now, they're not really doing anything with it, but there was no reason not to reserve it, since MS did anyway. Now, they can add features as they see fit. If they don't need the RAM, they can always return it later, but there's no reason to consider that unless MS give some back or devs start demanding it, neither of which has happened.

 

[SMOK3Y]

Well I hope they can cut back on the RAM allocation like they did with the PS3. I'm happy with the performance of the PS4 so far but the more horsepower for devs the better. I just can't think of anything that could require so much unless it was something to do with VR since they have known about it since the begining.

I think they have as the Dr dude said at GDC "its almost as if the camera was designed for it" with a cheeky smile

 

[Blearth]

I'm glad the consoles reserve so much RAM.

A smooth and fully featured OS is the most important feature of these consoles.

 

[smokeandmirrors]

You are confusing two separated memory pools which we commonly see in a PC(DDR+ GDDR) with a single memory pool in the current consoles.
.

Okay so 2gb of cpu ram and going by steam hardware survey 1gb of ram for the average video card is still less than what's available to the ps4.

 

[serversurfer]

I think they have as the Dr dude said at GDC "its almost as if the camera was designed for it" with a cheeky smile

Keep in mind the initial plan was to do VR on a 4GB platform. The additional 4GB is just gravy.

 

[spwolf]

3.5Gb locked because Sony just don't know what they'll come up with and don't want headaches making it work smoothly? That must be incredibly frustrating for the devs.

yeas, for sure. Almost half of the power locked away, no wonder Infamous is 30fps.

 

[TONX]

Glad they reserved that much ram. They're gonna be happy they did once Project Morpheus drops.

 

[astraycat]

Yep, there are two setups D32S8 or D24S8, so 32b or 40b.
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb976074.aspx
Hmm reading more it seems that in D32S8, it actually uses second 32b buffer for stencil that has 24 unused bits.

For this specific DXGI format: DXGI_FORMAT_D32_FLOAT_S8X24_UINT 24 bits are specified as unused.

However, the PS4 doesn't necessarily use this format. It could just use an 8-bit stencil buffer. Hell, even in D3D the driver underneath could just use 8-bits and we'd be none the wiser. I don't think there's a way to poke at those 24 bits in D3D.

 

[Sucker]

It's bandwidth off the disc when you're neon dashing.

More RAM would have certainly been welcome, of course, because it means you can trade memory for performance more aggressively. But in terms of detail in the game world, the key limit is I/O bandwidth.

Remember, textures went up 4x+ in size (say double resolution on both axes = 4x, then add wetness/gloss/take your pick). Geometry detail is way up too. But HD speeds only roughly doubled--so there's your bottlenck.

 

[Shao Kahn Brewing a Stew]

I'm SERIOUS as FUCK. Who do you think is paying for that unused 3.5 GB of RAM and 2 cores? Sony? NO - it's the customers! WE have to PAY for that shit so that some "VISIONARY" executive at Sony can maintain "strategic reserves" as he MASTURBATES at his desk!

We want FREEDOM! OPPRESSION of resources must END!

Holy shit, dude. Calm down.

 

[Majanew]

The real bottlneck isn't RAM, guys

It's bandwidth off the disc when you're neon dashing.

More RAM would have certainly been welcome, of course, because it means you can trade memory for performance more aggressively. But in terms of detail in the game world, the key limit is I/O bandwidth.

Remember, textures went up 4x+ in size (say double resolution on both axes = 4x, then add wetness/gloss/take your pick). Geometry detail is way up too. But HD speeds only roughly doubled--so there's your bottlenck.

PS4 can access 5.87 GB of RAM per frame at 30fps. This 4.5 GB limit is below that.

 

[serversurfer]

PS4 can access 5.87 GB of RAM per frame at 30fps. This 4.5 GB limit is below that.

You're assuming all of the data accessed in a given frame is unique, but it typically isn't.

 

[mechphree]

I expect the OS foot print will drop when they release the suspend/resume feature and the take over some one else's game. I see Sony dropping at least 1gb of that Ram as soon as they can find out if the OS can run above features fine with it. People need to stop worrying because that footprint is definitely going down in the near future. Which is a good thing because it means we will able to get even better looking and more feature enhanced games,.