-
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.
Wii U has 2GB of DDR3 RAM, [Up: RAM 43% slower than 360/PS3 RAM]
- Thread starter Horse Armour
- Start date
Um they've already done this with the 3DS, freeing up memory and cpu resources. Force an update when you insert the game, pretty simple, just like how they forced Wii updates.
There's a difference between the RAM being slow and the RAM having low bandwidth. DDR3 is the latter.
Rumours are Microsoft will be going with a similar setup, albeit with a lot more GBs of RAM.
I know that's whats being said but what I'm trying to pin down is where is the info coming from that each interface is 16bit? Nobody's said they've found that on the board AFAICS, in the op it says:
I'm just wondering how the 256x16 bit implies 16bit I/O per DRAM? Obviously it being an implication means its being assumed based on the RAM configuration of 256MBx16, and I'm not sure how that works. RAM bus configurations aren't my strong point.
I'm not trying to say anyones wrong by the way, I just like to understand things
From what I understand from samsungs site and a simular module being produced by another company it's basically a tweaked version of GDDR 3 that's designed for low power requirements. So it's nearly as fast but runs much cooler. So there's no real mystery to it now. The part number tells us exactly what itis.
Anyway this type of memory is going to be used heavily in low power laptops in the future. It's pretty new tech.
http://www.xbitlabs.com/news/memory...R3_Memory_with_Lowered_Power_Consumption.html
This is SK hynix's stuff and it's only just began mass production. It seem's simular to samsungs stuff.
So it's not old tech blah blah blah, it's nice and new.
StrangeADT
Banned
Isn't the system update 1GB? How big is the WiiU disc?
Edit: 25GB as per wikipedia. Hmm.. Well I guess that would be okay.
I don't agree with the sentiment that 3rd parties should be a backup initially, and not be important afterwards. It's the same reason why a lot of us stayed away from the Wii: the neglect of 3rd party support is unacceptable, and I couldn't imagine only playing Nintendo first party titles today, your just missing out on so many great experiences.
It's not GDDR3, I believe it's standard DDR3 found in all current PCs
Pie and Beans
Look for me on the local news, I'll be the guy arrested for trying to burn down a Nintendo exec's house.
The lowercase 'g' will get confusing for some. But whoop de doo, portable device intended ram in a home console system. The quest for small form factor has reached a cutting off nose to spite face scenario really.
I don't think any culture would have banished a box moderately bigger than the current Wii U if it meant getting more longevity out of such a tech purchase. But then I guess Nintendo also wouldnt want to drop any cash on further cooling methods. Scrooge McIwata.
I don't think any culture would have banished a box moderately bigger than the current Wii U if it meant getting more longevity out of such a tech purchase. But then I guess Nintendo also wouldnt want to drop any cash on further cooling methods. Scrooge McIwata.
Its not GDDR3 no, its gDDR3:
http://www.samsung.com/global/business/semiconductor/product/graphic-dram/overview
Yep, it's on the same page description as GDDR ones. The title should be edited.
As I said, they either have a filesystem that doesn't actually cache blocks (unlikely), or they have released a DEBUG build of the OS (unlikely : )) or the Flash is really, really slow (I'd put money on this one of the three)
He said g (lowercase) which is different to G (uppercase).
Well lets not forget that it does have a latency advantage as well (although if power was no issue I suppose they could have gotten nearly as low latency using 1000Mhz GDDR3 with 32GB/s bandwidth).
Zoramon089
Banned
This is a strawman if I've ever seen one
The questions regarding gDDR3 have already been answered in this thread. See below for the question answered by Durante:
EDIT: Here's the original explanation by AlStrong:
EDIT: Here's the original explanation by AlStrong:
Reallink
Member
I'm sure this has been covered somewhere in 21 pages, but my nonsense searches aren't really turning up anything specific. In dirt simple terms, what exactly would the benefit of faster RAM be? Would it make it much easier to do things like reach higher frame rates, attain higher render resolutions, and stream higher res textures? If so, how much of a difference would you really be talking about--significant, marginal, minor? On a similar note, what is your standard DDR3 RAM used for in PC gaming?
Sure they can but 100MB up or down don't matter that much.
And textures used for PC releases are different to console ones .... not. 1GB for console is actually worse than 1GB vram on PC because on PC you can offload a lot of things in normal ram pool which consoles don't have.
GTA4 was badly optimized because most of PC didn't have as good CPU as in consoles back then. Shadows, textures are the one which takes most of ram. When fully loaded on veryhigh spec it is above 1GB. No amount of trickery will shrink it.
As of Crysis. I'm not talking about tesselation but Ram. Fully loaded Crysis2 with max textures even without tesselation is above and beyond 1GB.
Close platform has benefits but you can't make 1GB of compressed already textures 500MB without any quality downgrade.
You mean you can experience how Wii would have been if Nintendo had got their hands on technology from the future?
Except it doesn't. Absolute CAS latency of Samsung's current GDDR3 is 11.5 ns, vs 13+ns for gDDR3.
This memory was chosen because it was cheap. No other reason or logic ever entered the picture.
welcome to the past!!!
LabouredSubterfuge
Member
Pie and Beans
Look for me on the local news, I'll be the guy arrested for trying to burn down a Nintendo exec's house.
It's very unlikely it's cheap as it's only just started mass production. It's been chosen for it's power consumption.
Who said anything about 100MB? PS3's OS usage more than halved within a year or so of its release.
They aren't different no but they are treated differently.
Erm, 1066Mhz gDDR3 vs 700Mhz GDDR3, you're telling me the later will have lower latency?
Graphics cards have to deal with large amounts of data (like texture data), which is why they use GDDR. Also they have ways to negate the higher latency somewhat.
The DDR3 in your PC is your system/CPU memory. It doesn't make much sense to use GDDR for OS functionality, which is why Microsoft and Sony will more than likely go with DDR3 over GDDR instead. Unless they use a split memory pool.
That is what we have here. It's modern low-end design. Size of Wii U just tell you that this is low-end hardware because they do not need spacious box for heat distribution.
256Mbit DRAM macros x16.
In regard to a similar question this explanation was given earlier in the thread:
Hilarious, but the fact is technology advances in efficiency as well as in raw performance and many of the features supported by WiiU were nowhere to be seen in 2005.
As I said, they either have a filesystem that doesn't actually cache blocks (unlikely), or they have released a DEBUG build of the OS (unlikely : )) or the Flash is really, really slow (I'd put money on this one of the three)
yeah, if it's the 3rd one, i will be sad. one of the main benefits of flash memory over having a hard drive is that it's faster.... it should have been a priority to make the user experience of the system software less frustrating, especially considering they're positioning this console as a multi-media device in addition to a game console
Honestly, in a closed system every single MB counts. Which is why I am hoping for the sake of third and Nintendo's 1st parties that the size is reduced with further updates to OS. It's all the more critical because WiiU as is evident by this thread doesn't have quite the type of RAM most were expecting.
Barack Lesnar
Banned
The issue here is why the hell does Nintendo care so much about efficiency and being low wattage? To me it sounds like an excuse to cheap out and make the console less powerful. People say it's for the Japanese because they like smaller consoles but Japan is only 1 of the 3 big territories, and probably the smallest of the 3. So this makes no sense. This is a home console, not a portable, so the size shouldn't be a big deal.
Yes.
edit: actually ... not at 700MHz, no.
Taken from the Samsung's own data sheets, allowable CAS latency for GDD3@700MHz is 10 clocks ( => 14.3ns delay), while it is 14 clocks for gDDR3@1066MHz ( => 13.1ns delay). So whoop-de-doo, at gDDR3's maximum allowed clock frequency, at least one latency figure is better than GDDR3 at its absolute lowest frequency anyone even still cares documenting.
... but then again, the GDDR3 chips can go up to 1300MHz, and start posting lower latencies starting at 1000MHz. 12 clocks. 12ns. Only gets better from there. GDDR5, don't even ask.
Who said Wii U even use whole 1GB for system ? We don't know what is Wii U os memory footprint. It could be that Wii U Os is something like 200-300 mb and rest is used for apps and it's multitasking same as Vita has 128 game vram and 512ram for apps and multitasking.
No way in hell Wii U os is 1GB that doesn't make any sence since more advanced and way bigger Os like Win 7 is like 700-900MB.
Sure but consoles need to more things than just textures in their memory and that is - not a +. What i said about GTA and Crysis2 is that Vram on PC is used mainly for textures, shadows effects etc and yet without all other things it is way beyond 1GB.
vanilla High texture pack for GTA4 is alone almost 600MB and don't ask what is size of Crysis2highres texture size...
By your logic people should be happy to have really hot and powerhog CPU:s like the Phenom II vs the cool and effiecient i5-2500k? Where people have to invest on a really large fan that sounds like a aero plane?
Gemüsepizza
Member
That's not what he said.
Reallink
Member
Yea my moronic searches managed to turn that tidbit up, but he didn't really mention specifically what faster RAM might do (e.g. high frame rates, high resolutions, better textures, ect...).
Well I can't say exactly why Nintendo do what they do but I don't think spending lots of time to make things as powerful as possible at a very low power usage and small form factor is the best way to save money. You could do it cheaper if you targeted the same performance without worrying about size or power usage.
Anyway my post earlier was just a flippant way to point out that we really can't claim this is "Just what Wii would have been if Nintendo put out a competitive console". Because firstly the technology wasn't available back then(DX10.1 ect) and secondly we don't know anything about the GPU and not much about the CPU yet.
Of course people want quiet, cheap, and small. But at the expense of power? That's what he's saying.
What are you even talking about?
I start to think that Nintendo did a good job with introducing only DDR3 ram type.
When you have only 1GB ram for games you won't use high quality assets like high res textures so Ram speed don't matter that much.
If case was different like it would have 2GB or more for very high quality assets high speed ram would be crucial to system.
When you have only 1GB ram for games you won't use high quality assets like high res textures so Ram speed don't matter that much.
If case was different like it would have 2GB or more for very high quality assets high speed ram would be crucial to system.
mpl90 got banned?
Relevant to the discussion: GDDR3 for both the VRAM and the OS functions is good news as opposed to DDR3?
edit: http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost.php?p=44482409&postcount=1022 explains it thoroughly. (the question, not the ban)
edit: http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost.php?p=44482409&postcount=1022 explains it thoroughly. (the question, not the ban)
Even though there's a loss per console, I think uh....Nintendo actually wants to make some money in the very near future. "State of the art tech" and we are looking at PS3/360 losses. It might not be an bad idea to make a "not so powerful" console for this cycle, since it's so uncertain where the console market is heading in this new generation.
Of course the OS won't take 1GB, the 1GB will be reserved to ensure that Nintendo can add to the OS and add other apps if needed without effecting games. Once they've nailed everything down they could then look at freeing up some of the RAM they don't end up using. Nintendo are very conservative so I wouldn't be surprised if 1GB is far more than they're actually using for the OS (including apps) currently.
There's also a completely different level of optimisation that goes on in a console, which is very much a plus.
Not sure if joking.