Wickerbasket
Member
I have no idea what any of this stuff means.
Still curious as to why both companies are using so much RAM for the OS.
Still curious as to why both companies are using so much RAM for the OS.
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F'DUPTON 3: Back in the Tub with 5.0/5.5/6/7/several Inches of RAM-Flavoured Water
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Silly.Mikey
Banned
You know, when the console specs were first announced, i actually cared about all this. Now, im completely indifferent. I played BF3 on 360 this morning and im still impressed by those graphics and thats using 512mb so i know i wont be disappointing with next gen regardless of the amount of ram used.
Vestal
Gold Member
So that I understand you correctly.
you are saying that the direct memory is that direct with zero intrusion from the underlying OS. That the flex ram is the only portion that the OS acts as a mediator?
A portion of the os ram is purely for future features if they come up.
rbanke
Member
reserved doesn't necessarily mean the OS requires it all. They could be reserving for state switching, apps, future feature needs, all kinds of stuff.
Yes.
Latvian Hitman
Member
Because the numbers are likely not finalized yet. Sony made a pretty big judgement error back in 2006 at this same juncture in the PS3's development, and were too aggressive with the amount of RAM they allocated for games.
The end result was that they weren't able to include things like parties, x-game chat, a fully functioning XMB in-game, etc. I would guess that a lot of the same people shitting egg rolls over yesterday's news complained about the lack of those features during the PS3's life cycle. They want it both ways, but that's not how the world works, kiddies.
Now Sony's playing it smart and making sure they leave enough resources set aside for UX and future features. You can always give devs access to more of the memory pool down the road as your OS and app footprints shrink. They're once again showing that they've learned from the mistakes they made with the PS3. The console warz kidz may be crucifying them for it right now but, in time, they'll come to learn what a smart move this was.
It's not just the OS. MS and Sony are both leaving plenty of overhead to make sure that the entire UX is smooth and app-driven. They want you to be able to suspend games and apps to RAM and quickly be able to switch between them. They want you to be able to record or stream what you're playing in real time in the background. All of these things require memory overhead.
Bam Bam Baklava
Member
As someone who has played video games for quite a while I think I know what's best for a new console.
BibiMaghoo
Member
How much RAM does a dev need to do this?
That is the only amount I care about.
That is the only amount I care about.
NoirVisage
Banned
you'll never be able to fathom how absurd your words are.
Playsation_
Banned
OP, please change the title to this xD
BibiMaghoo
Member
Skull Leader
Banned
I don't know if you know anything about game development, but I happen to be an expert, and
thats the problem. i'm sure all the app switching and "play while you download" is cute, but the big fuss seems to come from a crowd that would rather have that memory reserved for games and not apps.
Latvian Hitman
Member
Just because flexible memory is 100% usable by a game if requested, doesn't mean it has no impact to the OS. In fact I'd argue exactly the opposite is the most likely
If the OS never needed it, then it would just be allocated as direct memory. Therefore there must be situations where the OS may want to use it.
My guess is that - if a dev needs it, it is allocated to the game and the OS doesn't touch it - potentially causing the OS to have to reload some things, page some others. If the dev doesn't need it, then it is 512Mb extra that the OS can use to improve performance
(God knows why, the amount it has should be more than enough, but oh well)
from the article
this is exactly what I am thinking.
176GB/s at 60FPS = 2.93GB
if this is the case, they have additional overhead as it is if they want to swap textures on the fly.
if the case is they have more textures to swap, say a level is 6 gigs, they can maybe use that 1 gig of virtual address space to apply this with little interference to performance?
this seems like a long term solution, since the threshold for RAM will always be finite, but if you can manage swapping on the fly, you can reduce a lot of headaches.
Please be gentle, I'm on the security side of design and implementation, not so much the granular functionality and specs.
this is exactly what I am thinking.
176GB/s at 60FPS = 2.93GB
if this is the case, they have additional overhead as it is if they want to swap textures on the fly.
if the case is they have more textures to swap, say a level is 6 gigs, they can maybe use that 1 gig of virtual address space to apply this with little interference to performance?
this seems like a long term solution, since the threshold for RAM will always be finite, but if you can manage swapping on the fly, you can reduce a lot of headaches.
Please be gentle, I'm on the security side of design and implementation, not so much the granular functionality and specs.
ethomaz
Banned
I think that was already confirmed months ago.
Zombie James
Banned
No, it was mentioned months ago.
Microsoft is using so much because they are a bloated media box.
Sony is using it to future proof the machine. Which is good.
Seriously? If the OS didn't have those features, far more people would complain about it than the minority who currently think they know what's best when it comes to console development. The only people who actually care about this news are GAF and GAF-like communities. The people that care about OS features are everyone that ends up using it.
MS at least has something to show for it
Skull Leader
Banned
It should be noted that a vast majority of this crowd have no idea what they are talking about. Regarding either the Bone's memory allocation or the PS4's.
Developers, the people who actually make the fucking games we all play, have seemed pretty stoked overall with the capabilities to the upcoming consoles. I would defer to them on how well these resources are working out, rather than listening to some reactionary concern troll shit-posters on an internet forum somewhere. Even if it is NeoGAF.
Haha lol. I love it.
iamshadowlark
Banned
Thanks for clarifying.
This makes a lot more sense now. It seems to me that Sony is guiding developers to take advantage of GCNs virtual addressing features by allocating an always dedicated adress space. Smart if true. Should allow for some nice virtual textures and maybe even some HSA functions.
Playsation_
Banned
How much RAM does a dev need to do this?
That is the only amount I care about.
I fell in love with that game the first time I saw it. It came off to me as a more graphical superior Skyrim. I really hope it's below 4GB.
i dont think sony lied at all.
its the sony fans hyping up thier console into something that it wasn't and at the same time putting down the xbone.
Now that reality has set in it probably feels like the end of the world hence all these 5000 post threads
Never realized how much that second picture looks like Zaeed with elf ears. Robin Sachs would have been the PERFECT voice actor for that character
Zombie James
Banned
How much RAM does a dev need to do this?
That is the only amount I care about.
They showed it off at the Feb event so it would be 4GB minus whatever the OS overhead was before.
Obscene Jester
Banned
Sony failing to comment on the exact numbers can only mean the following:
A: They are still working out the details and have yet to finalize the numbers.
B: They have some as of yet unannounced features that may be using extra RAM.
C: The OS is indeed a bloated mess and they are hiding the numbers.
D: The world is ending.
Seriously though, I think remote play of every game is very ambitious and may be accounting for a good chunk of this.
A: They are still working out the details and have yet to finalize the numbers.
B: They have some as of yet unannounced features that may be using extra RAM.
C: The OS is indeed a bloated mess and they are hiding the numbers.
D: The world is ending.
Seriously though, I think remote play of every game is very ambitious and may be accounting for a good chunk of this.
In hindsight its not bloated. But with those old rumors of PS4 only using 1 GB vs 3GB it really did seem bloated.
But most people here have no clue what they are talking about.
Dat bias.
I haven't paid much attention to this lunacy.
From what I can gather we basically went from
7GB GDDR5 for games, 1 GB for OS
to
5GB GDDR5 for games, 3 GB for OS
If my highly advanced mathematical calculations are correct.. 7 - 5 = 2
So essentially all this incessant bitching is over 2 fucking GBs of GDDR5....
Am I missing something?
From what I can gather we basically went from
7GB GDDR5 for games, 1 GB for OS
to
5GB GDDR5 for games, 3 GB for OS
If my highly advanced mathematical calculations are correct.. 7 - 5 = 2
So essentially all this incessant bitching is over 2 fucking GBs of GDDR5....
Am I missing something?
How much RAM does a dev need to do this?
That is the only amount I care about.
since Sony upped the ram amount from 4 to 8 at pretty much the last minute, I think we are pretty safe in terms of those visuals being possible on the ps4 with a minimum of 5 gb available to the game.
3/10
I blame suspend states. Means whatever you use for games can never be used for the OS because you might have a game suspended. So even foreground apps like the PSN store or Netflix or whatever can never use that ram.
I'd have perhaps preferred a 3DS approach where small apps can run in parallel, but big apps require you to quit your game and could therefore use more memory
Latvian Hitman
Member
That's fine, and all. But that crowd also needs to keep in mind that we're still very early in the game, here. Sony and MS can (and likely will) make more of the system memory available over time as they refine their respective OS's and overall UX's.
And, as I've said a few times before, the mid-tier GPU's in these boxes will show their age long before a lack of memory becomes a limiting factor. If the complainers wanted something practical to complain about, they should have been demanding more capable CPU's and GPU's for these machines long before worrying about memory allocation.
I think it is for the best that the OS has a few GBs reserved. We have all seen how many problems the PS3 had with the OS, because of the limited amount of RAM.
Nowadays, a console is much, much more than a box that plays videogames. It does video. It does music. It does photos. It does awesomeness. It does multimedia.
I hear what you are thinking: a console should be about games, and not multimedia, right? I disagree.
Nowadays, a console is much, much more than a box that plays videogames. It does video. It does music. It does photos. It does awesomeness. It does multimedia.
I hear what you are thinking: a console should be about games, and not multimedia, right? I disagree.
You're missing the part where Sony never mentioned any numbers, but we made up the 1GB OS part. So people are pissed that a made up number based on nothing isn't correct.
(To be fair they're also confounded as to how either machine could possibly need such a large OS)
JonathanPower
Member
MS managed to implement these functionalities with just 32MB of RAM, much less of what Sony reserved for the OS. Thus, memory reservation wasn't really the problem I guess. It was probably hardware related.
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