• 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.

FRIDAYTON MK II: 5.5 million bears and salmon create unholy allliance to sack SONY HQ

B

brandonh83

Banned
The Citizen Kane sequel was done, like mortimer said, with a meager 512mb of RAM, but with only 5GB of RAM we're going to get like, X-Men Origins kind of stuff.
 
P

phosphor112

Banned
i-Lo said:
Final Version:

lol_by_gifsandmore-d6f9zp8.gif
Click to expand...

Oh my God.
LOL
 
M

Man-is-Obsolete

Member
cyberheater said:
This all sounds great until you remember that Sony have been lauding the fact that they have 8Gb of super fast memory and their machine is targeted as a games machine whereas the Xbox One is a multimedia device.
So the the clear implication is that a huge chuck of that amazing memory is going to be used for game developers to make stunning games that couldn't be possible on Xbox One.

If this memory rumour is true then they have lied to us.
Click to expand...

Except no developer at launch will come close to using 7 GBs of RAM, because there are no dev kits with that much available. I think what Mortimer is saying is that Sony knows this and is giving the OS side plenty of room to breath and then can reallocate later as the dev pipeline improves, and the OS gets ironed out.
 
Y

Yoday

Member
famousmortimer said:
I told myself I wasn't going to post in this thread because people are foaming at the mouth and not thinking.... but here I am, which makes me an idiot.


First off, I know all you guys want are hard numbers and I don't have them. But I do know the philosophies in place currently. If you would like to use your brain and think critically about things... keep reading. If you want to get into a 5>4.5 OMG IM CANCELLING MY PREORDER conversation - this thread won't help you, in either direction.


I was told by a couple of Devs in the lead up to E3 that the OS footprint was "bigger than expected" but not a single one of them complained about it. No one is in danger of running out of ram. As some people have mentioned in this thread - games like the The Last of Us are happening with 512mb of ram. Launch titles, of all things, are not going to be pushing the hardware in any sort of way... and that includes ram.

So why is the ram footprint bigger than expected? It's fairly simple - Sony is hedging their bets. They were absolutely caught with their pants down with their OS this gen. Not having the memory overhead to do things like Party Chat gave Microsoft a huge advantage when it came to online gaming, which is obviously a growing sector. So much like $399 as a target price was a reaction to $599 being a disaster... "big OS footprint" is a reaction to "small OS footprint" being a disaster.

But the thing that I'm hearing and I believe there was even a line dedicated to this in the eurogamer article is that these numbers aren't set in stone. The fact of the matter is that high end PC games use around 3gb of ram and use higher res textures (art tends to take up the largest chunks of ram) than the ps4/x1 do. The idea that launch games need 7gb of ram is absolutely ludicrous. 4gbs is fine. Anything more, at this point, is overkill. It won't be overkill forever... but it's overkill for now.

So Sony gets to sit on this chunk of ram, be in 1gb or 3gb - again, I don't know the numbers. I don't know if eurogamer is right (I do know at E3 that some thought more ram would be freed up when the final dev kits shipped... but I don't know anyone working with a final dev kit). But Sony is coming at this from a position of power. They don't need the ram currently so they get to take a wait and see approach before saying "ok, devs, you guys get this." The systems will launch and they will look at what people are doing with their own OS, they will see what features people are asking for, they will see if microsoft or Nintendo (or even steam) come out with some surprise feature that catches fire - and if it does they will have the memory there to be able to do it also. If it doesn't that chunk of ram gets freed up for developers.


This thread is looking at this entire thing like the endgame is the day it launches. That's day one, guys. This is a long term strategic move and, imo, a smart one. They are putting themselves in a position to be able to adapt... something they couldn't do with the ps3. I know as gamers all we want to hear is higher numbers. But find me one developer that thinks the ram available to them on either system isn't enough (and this goes for the x1 as well guys... all this 5gb hurr hurrr stuff is fanboyish nonsense that you can go through my post history and see I never took part in once).


I feel like this post is far to philosophical for this thread of LARGE NUMBER > SMALL NUMBER, but hopefully this info is useful to some of you. Sony have created a nimble system and this is part of that philosophy.
Click to expand...
Pretty much exactly my thoughts on this about 40 pages ago, but everyone was in freak out mode.
 
L

lordchompy

Member
It's pretty obvious that the on the fly recording feature in the OS is what's requiring such high RAM usage. That and Sony wants to make sure there's enough RAM left over for any additional features it may want to implement further down the road.

And to those folks lamenting that the Wii U OS uses only 1GB for the operating system, that's probably why the OS was so clunky and slow when the system launched. I have since sold my Wii U so I can't comment on if it improved yet or not.
 
B

BlazingDarkness

Member
Sony came out and said they pushed for 8GB of RAM to appease developers, and they stood and soaked up the cheers when it was revealed during their PS Meeting presser. And then they continued to push it as a gaming machine built for gamers. So yes, they totally deserve criticism for not making it clear that the pool would have a substantial split to cover OS tasks. 3.5 GB of RAM is a huge number, nobody expected that, and for that Sony is to blame.
 
O

OldAsUrSock

Banned
famousmortimer said:
I told myself I wasn't going to post in this thread because people are foaming at the mouth and not thinking.... but here I am, which makes me an idiot.


First off, I know all you guys want are hard numbers and I don't have them. But I do know the philosophies in place currently. If you would like to use your brain and think critically about things... keep reading. If you want to get into a 5>4.5 OMG IM CANCELLING MY PREORDER conversation - this thread won't help you, in either direction.


I was told by a couple of Devs in the lead up to E3 that the OS footprint was "bigger than expected" but not a single one of them complained about it. No one is in danger of running out of ram. As some people have mentioned in this thread - games like the The Last of Us are happening with 512mb of ram. Launch titles, of all things, are not going to be pushing the hardware in any sort of way... and that includes ram.

So why is the ram footprint bigger than expected? It's fairly simple - Sony is hedging their bets. They were absolutely caught with their pants down with their OS this gen. Not having the memory overhead to do things like Party Chat gave Microsoft a huge advantage when it came to online gaming, which is obviously a growing sector. So much like $399 as a target price was a reaction to $599 being a disaster... "big OS footprint" is a reaction to "small OS footprint" being a disaster.

But the thing that I'm hearing and I believe there was even a line dedicated to this in the eurogamer article is that these numbers aren't set in stone. The fact of the matter is that high end PC games use around 3gb of ram and use higher res textures (art tends to take up the largest chunks of ram) than the ps4/x1 do. The idea that launch games need 7gb of ram is absolutely ludicrous. 4gbs is fine. Anything more, at this point, is overkill. It won't be overkill forever... but it's overkill for now.

So Sony gets to sit on this chunk of ram, be in 1gb or 3gb - again, I don't know the numbers. I don't know if eurogamer is right (I do know at E3 that some thought more ram would be freed up when the final dev kits shipped... but I don't know anyone working with a final dev kit). But Sony is coming at this from a position of power. They don't need the ram currently so they get to take a wait and see approach before saying "ok, devs, you guys get this." The systems will launch and they will look at what people are doing with their own OS, they will see what features people are asking for, they will see if microsoft or Nintendo (or even steam) come out with some surprise feature that catches fire - and if it does they will have the memory there to be able to do it also. If it doesn't that chunk of ram gets freed up for developers.


This thread is looking at this entire thing like the endgame is the day it launches. That's day one, guys. This is a long term strategic move and, imo, a smart one. They are putting themselves in a position to be able to adapt... something they couldn't do with the ps3. I know as gamers all we want to hear is higher numbers. But find me one developer that thinks the ram available to them on either system isn't enough (and this goes for the x1 as well guys... all this 5gb hurr hurrr stuff is fanboyish nonsense that you can go through my post history and see I never took part in once).


I feel like this post is far to philosophical for this thread of LARGE NUMBER > SMALL NUMBER, but hopefully this info is useful to some of you. Sony have created a nimble system and this is part of that philosophy.
Click to expand...
Very true, but what about Bethesda? They might have actually needed the 7GB of RAM.
 
D

daveo42

Banned
famousmortimer said:
I am hearing the numbers are wrong also... but no one has given me any other numbers so I'm just going based off of eurogamer being right - even though I don't believe they are.


I also haven't talked to a single person who thinks that the ram available currently is not ever going to rise. 100% believe the number will rise but that Sony is being conservative currently so they don't get burned and because no one needs that level of ram currently. I have 16gb of ram in my PC but that doesn't mean that when I play The Witcher 2 that 15gbs of it goes into the ram. That's not how this works - even though most of this thread seems to think this way.

Though, J. Blow (that's his rapper name) saying that The Witness uses 5gb hints that 4.5gb number is, in fact, wrong.


They did something similar with the PSP as well.
Click to expand...

I'd go in the opposite direction based on what you know at the moment. You have people telling you the numbers are wrong but not saying what the right ones are is a sign they are stuck behind an NDA and don't want that info slipping out for fear of w/e the consequences might be.

Just speculation on my part btw. I know nothing.
 
LiquidMetal14

LiquidMetal14

hide your water-based mammals
cyberheater said:
This all sounds great until you remember that Sony have been lauding the fact that they have 8Gb of super fast memory and their machine is targeted as a games machine whereas the Xbox One is a multimedia device.
So the the clear implication is that a huge chuck of that amazing memory is going to be used for game developers to make stunning games that couldn't be possible on Xbox One.

If this memory rumour is true then they have lied to us.
Click to expand...

Lied about what? They've noted that this will be a good multitasking machine with a snappy OS. I don't get how you perceive that as lying.

The distinction comes from MSFT revealing Xbone as a tvtvtv device first while Sony's message has been what it's been so far.

You're kidding yourself if you thought the PS4 wouldn't be able to do multimedia ala Xbone. PS3 and PSV do it and they are every bit the gamer machines as PS4 (PS4 looks to up the ante even more).
 
A

Antiwhippy

the holder of the trombone
Odrion said:
Extreme cases like the benchmark for Next-Gen games. :p
Click to expand...

I seriously doubt we're going to see crysis 3 maxed out for next gen consoles, even before this news. Just the amount of art that is needed to be produced would make it a serious bottleneck for most developers.

I feel like going into this gen with those sort of expectations is just setting yourself up for disappointment.
 
C

Corto

Member
NullPointer said:
If its a truly flexible reserve that can be reduced over time and made available to devs I'm completely fine with it.

Not freaking out here, but nor do I think that going from what we thought was 7GB to 4.5-5.5GB isn't meaningless either.
Click to expand...

Historically OS reserved memory decreases through the lifecycle duration of consoles following optimization of resources and freeing up memory from the reserved pool.
 
M

Mung

Member
Is it really valid to say how much RAM is going to be available before final dev kits are available? It could easily change.
 
S

spannicus

Member
I can assure you that many alot of Sony fanboys have shed a tear because of this. Seriously LMAO. Watch the death threats and Petitions start to roll in.
 
B

benny_a

extra source of jiggaflops
lordchompy said:
It's pretty obvious that the on the fly recording feature in the OS is what's requiring such high RAM usage. That and Sony wants to make sure there's enough RAM left over for any additional features it may want to implement further down the road.

And to those folks lamenting that the Wii U OS uses only 1GB for the operating system, that's probably why the OS was so clunky and slow when the system launched. I have since sold my Wii U so I can't comment on if it improved yet or not.
Click to expand...
Okay I think I'm pretty good with spotting who is having a laugh and who isn't but this one I'm not sure.
 
T

ThoughtsOfSpeaking

Banned
famousmortimer said:
I am hearing the numbers are wrong also... but no one has given me any other numbers so I'm just going based off of eurogamer being right - even though I don't believe they are.


I also haven't talked to a single person who thinks that the ram available currently is not ever going to rise. 100% believe the number will rise but that Sony is being conservative currently so they don't get burned and because no one needs that level of ram currently. I have 16gb of ram in my PC but that doesn't mean that when I play The Witcher 2 that 15gbs of it goes into the ram. That's not how this works - even though most of this thread seems to think this way.

Though, J. Blow (that's his rapper name) saying that The Witness uses 5gb hints that 4.5gb number is, in fact, wrong.


They did something similar with the PSP as well.
Click to expand...

And look what happened with the PSP. How many games are written to take advantage of the increased clock speed? Hardly any.

If sony wants to wait and see if the ram is needed, it stands to reason people should wait and see if the console has compelling software over its rivals.
 
M

madmackem

Member
cyberheater said:
This all sounds great until you remember that Sony have been lauding the fact that they have 8Gb of super fast memory and their machine is targeted as a games machine whereas the Xbox One is a multimedia device.
So the the clear implication is that a huge chuck of that amazing memory is going to be used for game developers to make stunning games that couldn't be possible on Xbox One.

If this memory rumour is true then they have lied to us.
Click to expand...

So the machine doesnt still have 8 gig? your being childish. They havent lied to anyone ffs.
 
M

mrklaw

MrArseFace
Er, what were they planning to do when they only had 4GB ram total? Just have games use 512MB?

this is nuts if true and i don't understand how it could be.

even 1GB 'flexible' is more than the entire OS was probably using before
 
E

EvB

Member
Corto said:
Historically OS reserved memory decreases through the lifecycle duration of consoles following optimization of resources and freeing up memory from the reserved pool.
Click to expand...

Indeed, they just have to play it safe, they don't want to be in the same predicament as they were with the in game XMB and voice chat on PS3.
Haven't there even been hardware locks on the CPU's for consoles before, with a firmware updating unlocking more available to the hardware?

The PS4 has 2 CPU clusters reserved for the OS, where was the outrage about that?
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Similar threads

Tom Warren - Sony’s PS5 Pro is real and Sony is asking developers to get games ready over the summer, with a push for ray-tracing support
News Hardware Hype 2 3 4
186
12K
DanielG165 replied
Alone in The Dark Pc Requirements Revealed
Platform
3
509
Elysium44 replied
PS5 Pro Specs Leak are Real, Releasing Holiday 2024(Insider Gaming)
38 39 40 41 42
2K
129K
Perrott replied
Was 8 CPU cores enough for 9th gen consoles? Strix Halo, the prefect console.
Opinion Analysis 2
62
3K
Tertullian replied
Tekken 8 PC requirements: Requires 100 GB available storage space
News Platform
16
2K
Spukc replied
Top Bottom