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8GB of RAM for Xbox One: OS vs Games? [5 games, 3 OS]

Ultimately the difference will be of little relevance beyond first party published titles, but even then, that didn't really sway the PS3 into the top of the sales charts despite Santa Monica Studios and Naughty Dog offering arguably two of the prettiest franchises on a games console.

The real exposure will be in third party comparisons. The question is whether or not developers will take advantage of the PS4's hardware advantage and leave Microsoft in a difficult position. I can't see that scenario happening, but then again neither can I envisage Sony accepting developers purposefully stifling their content in order to appease Xbox executives.

Realistically speaking, I think the most likely outcome will be the differences we see -- rather than what we may be possible to achieve on screen -- wont be an issue. So, much like previous gen.
 
3GB reserved for the OS is dumber than thinking Allison Brie is common looking. Which is why i think it's total bullshit.

Even if it was 2Gb (coz 2 and a bit OSes, hurr durr), the DDR3 will still be a handicap. I also doubt developers would get much use out of 32Mb of embedded RAM.
 

Ardenyal

Member
One thing that i'm curious is how much bandwidth do the background operating systems take on XBone. As they said in the presentation these tasks will run in tandem with the game so if you have stuff going on in the background how much BW do they reserve for this.
 
One thing that i'm curious is how much bandwidth do the background operating systems take on XBone. As they said in the presentation these tasks will run in tandem with the game so if you have stuff going on in the background how much BW do they reserve for this.

The other question is how is the 32MB of additional being used? Is it used for games or to manage the two VM running on the master OS?
 

Scrooged

Totally wronger about Nintendo's business decisions.
Gemüsepizza;58554877 said:
Only 8GB DDR3 RAM and 32MB eSRAM. No GDDR5.

The GPU is so gimped.

Then again, GDDR5 is not ideal for non-graphics memory usage because of latency. So the PS4 could suffer in other areas in terms of performance. AI routines and the like.
 
Is everyone forgetting that certain calculations can be offloaded to the cloud, or did I watch the wrong stream?

This, especially if MS is using cirrus fibratus type clouds that like 8x power increase.

The GPU is so gimped.

Then again, GDDR5 is not ideal for non-graphics memory usage because of latency. So the PS4 could suffer in other areas in terms of performance. AI routines and the like.

You mean those same AI routes that are going to the cloud which has way more latency than GDDR5?
 

nomis

Member
The GPU is so gimped.

Then again, GDDR5 is not ideal for non-graphics memory usage because of latency. So the PS4 could suffer in other areas in terms of performance. AI routines and the like.

Does anyone ACTUALLY think that this will happen? 95% of AI in games is a joke. These companies have been talking big game about using horsepower in the form of extra CPU cores to revolutionize AI since 2005. If their "labor" has born fruit, I haven't seen it. It's all basic path finding and target acquisition, and in the case of Cauladooty we don't even get that.
 

i-Lo

Member
The GPU is so gimped.

Then again, GDDR5 is not ideal for non-graphics memory usage because of latency. So the PS4 could suffer in other areas in terms of performance. AI routines and the like.

Actually I wouldn't really call it gimped, although it's less powerful than PS4's GPU. It's been designed in balance with the eSRAM and the devs will have turn a twist a bit but they should be able to eke out desired performance.

It's important to remember that these are custom built machines created to maximise performance of each part and remove bottlenecks at the same time.
 

nib95

Banned
The latency argument is rubbish. Ddr2 has less latency than ddr3 and ddr3 less than ddr4. Like wise with gddr iterations. But you know what, it makes no difference at all to negate performance because the bandwidth/speed differences more than make up for the latency differences.
 

Dirtbag

Member
just show me the games. Neither has shown me anything I really must have yet.
All that's on my radar right now is Destiny and Watch Dogs. Both multiplats.
I need to see exclusives I actually care about to make a decision.

And I really hope its new IP exclusives. I'm bored with this never ending gen and the sequel farms
 

mhayze

Member
Even if it was 2Gb (coz 2 and a bit OSes, hurr durr), the DDR3 will still be a handicap. I also doubt developers would get much use out of 32Mb of embedded RAM.

Embedded ram is essentially a cache. It's used today by developers on the 360. If it's properly implemented, you can't not use it.
 
Way to use an overused term that doesn't even apply.

Divert efforts towards looking up "confirmed" ?

If you still don't think it is confirmed after reading the spec sheet and that video interview with a lead designer of the system you are in it to eat a lot of crow.

just show me the games. Neither has shown me anything I really must have yet.
All that's on my radar right now is Destiny and Watch Dogs. Both multiplats.
I need to see exclusives I actually care about to make a decision.

And I really hope its new IP exclusives. I'm bored with this never ending gen and the sequel farms

I really hope more people give Infamous Second Son a chance. It's saddening how little love this great franchise gets.
 

Scrooged

Totally wronger about Nintendo's business decisions.
You mean those same AI routes that are going to the cloud which has way more latency than GDDR5?

Uh what? We don't know any specifics of that yet, but I seriously doubt any games will offload their computations online. SimCity didn't even do that to any meaningful degree.


Does anyone ACTUALLY think that this will happen? 95% of AI in games is a joke. These companies have been talking big game about using horsepower in the form of extra CPU cores to revolutionize AI since 2005. If their "labor" has born fruit, I haven't seen it. It's all basic path finding and target acquisition, and in the case of Cauladooty we don't even get that.

Well this is next gen. I sure hope AI gets better along with everything else. Regardless, my point stands for other types of computation as well. Pretty much anything non-graphics related can be done more efficiently with DDR3. This is because the data used in those calculations usually doesn't require the bandwidth that GDDR5 provides, and there is a tradeoff with getting that bandwidth.
 
Uh what? We don't know any specifics of that yet, but I seriously doubt any games will offload their computations online. SimCity didn't even do that to any meaningful degree.

Microsoft sure hopes they do, and I bet EA wants to as well to disguise Always Online DRM just like they did with Sim City.
 

sant

Member
They didn't really talk about specifics when it came to hardware specs, so it must be weaker than the PS4 by some measure.
 

i-Lo

Member
Well this is next gen. I sure hope AI gets better along with everything else. Regardless, my point stands for other types of computation as well. Pretty much anything non-graphics related can be done more efficiently with DDR3. This is because the data used in those calculations usually doesn't require the bandwidth that GDDR5 provides, and there is a tradeoff with getting that bandwidth.

This is true. However, as aforementioned, these are custom built machines. I can't remember exactly but Cerny mentioned that they are trying to eliminate redundancies resulting in wasted cycles when CPU and GPU try to retrieve info from RAM and into the cache (and then delete them rise repeat) by bypassing the cache altogether or somesuch thing by tagging the data.

In essence, given the obviousness of greater latency being a part of GDDR5 in contrast to DDr3, Sony have made modification to mitigate its effects.
 

fallagin

Member
Honestly, based on this news I hope that sony reserves around 2 gbs for the ps4 os so that they can put more into features. It could be pretty valuable so that they don't pigeonhole themselves in terms of services.
 
Honestly, based on this news I hope that sony reserves around 2 gbs for the ps4 os so that they can put more into features. It could be pretty valuable so that they don't pigeonhole themselves in terms of services.

Well realistically how many services do you want running while playing a game? 1 GB is plenty for a closed system. Also if they do it like the Vita when suspending apps or the game you are playing they can shrink and expand memory usage, especially since it all comes from one shared pool.

In Cerny we trust.
 

Scrooged

Totally wronger about Nintendo's business decisions.
The latency argument is rubbish. Ddr2 has less latency than ddr3 and ddr3 less than ddr4. Like wise with gddr iterations. But you know what, it makes no difference at all to negate performance because the bandwidth/speed differences more than make up for the latency differences.

The point is that non-graphics memory doesn't need the high bandwidth. So those operations would inherently be more efficient with memory that has lower latency.
 

i-Lo

Member
Honestly, based on this news I hope that sony reserves around 2 gbs for the ps4 os so that they can put more into features. It could be pretty valuable so that they don't pigeonhole themselves in terms of services.

Unlike the Xbone, PS4 will not be running 3 separate but cohesive OSs. It'll only have one (afaik) and so expecting it to go beyond 1GB is highly unrealistic.
 

squidyj

Member
Unlike the Xbone, PS4 will not be running 3 separate but cohesive OSs. It'll only have one (afaik) and so expecting it to go beyond 1GB is highly unrealistic.

i don't understand seperate but cohesive OS's, they have 3 separate kernels with separate schedulers running? I guess you have 1 primary kernel that manages the two other kernels?

Like, it doesn't make any sense to me whatsoever.
 
Unlike the Xbone, PS4 will not be running 3 separate but cohesive OSs. It'll only have one (afaik) and so expecting it to go beyond 1GB is highly unrealistic.

Especially on a closed system running a tried and true lightweight OS (BSD). Who knows what the demands of the Windows kernal of the Xbox will be.

i don't understand seperate but cohesive OS's, they have 3 separate kernels with separate schedulers running? I guess you have 1 primary kernel that manages the two other kernels?

Like, it doesn't make any sense to me whatsoever.

To my knowledge there ONE OS and it handles two Virtual Machines. One for games and one for Apps and Windows kernal. Yea, it sounds like a hot mess.
 

artist

Banned
3GB reserved for the OS is dumber than thinking Allison Brie is common looking. Which is why i think it's total bullshit.

I don't think people really understand what "confirmed" means.
The very definition of moving goal posts right here.

Straight from the horse's mouth and still looking for "confirmation".
 

Afrikan

Member
Unlike the Xbone, PS4 will not be running 3 separate but cohesive OSs. It'll only have one (afaik) and so expecting it to go beyond 1GB is highly unrealistic.

PS4's other OSs are your T.V.'s Input buttons......free of charge. (processing wise)
 

kevm3

Member
If this is true and the Xbox 1 releases with noticeably less power than the PS4, has there ever been a generation where 3 consoles have a significant gap between them? Wii U is around ps3 and 360's league, and the Xbox1 is like a halfway mark between the Wii U and PS4. This is very bizarre.
 

RdN

Member
To me it seems like they were really expecting Sony to use 4GB GDDR5. So they would have 5GB of slower memory, which could balance things out.

But Sony changed up things on the last minute, and MS couldn't (or didn't want to) upgrade their offering.. And that's a problem.
 

onQ123

Member
If this is true and the Xbox 1 releases with noticeably less power than the PS4, has there ever been a generation where 3 consoles have a significant gap between them? Wii U is around ps3 and 360's league, and the Xbox1 is like a halfway mark between the Wii U and PS4. This is very bizarre.

Dreamcast , PS2 , Gamecube & Xbox.
 

diehard

Fleer
The very definition of moving goal posts right here.

Straight from the horse's mouth and still looking for "confirmation".

Yes, PR talk with no confirmation and talking about "experience" the One will provide, clearly confirmation from the horses mouth.

People who are reading between the lines are "moving the goalposts" to mean confirmed. Please learn the term.
 

nib95

Banned
The point is that non-graphics memory doesn't need the high bandwidth. So those operations would inherently be more efficient with memory that has lower latency.

What do you mean doesn't need? There's always an advantage to the extra speed, that's why new DDR releases have been sacrificing latency for speed for several years now.
 
Yes, PR talk with no confirmation and talking about "experience" the One will provide, clearly confirmation from the horses mouth.

Did you watch that video? That GI guy mentioned only 5 GB of RAM available to games 2 or 3 times and there was not correction or denial made! Then at the Architecture panel after the reveal a different architect mentioned that 5 GB or RAM was more than enough, and that even 4 GB would have been enough, but they decided to go with 8 GB so that could deliver this All in One expurrrrience! They are not EVER going to say straight up 3 GB is reserved for OS because it doesn't benefit them from a PR perspective to do so.
 

artist

Banned
Did you watch that video? That GI guy mentioned only 5 GB of RAM available to games 2 or 3 times and there was not correction or denial made! Then at the Architecture panel after the reveal a different architect mentioned that 5 GB or RAM was more than enough, and that even 4 GB would have been enough, but they decided to go with 8 GB so that could deliver this All in One expurrrrience! They are not EVER going to say straight up 3 GB is reserved for OS because it doesn't benefit them from a PR perspective to do so.
He would like an official MS letter issued directly to dIEHARD of NeoGAF. But then who will verify that the letter has indeed been issued by Microsoft and not by Kaz's fake twitter account?
 

diehard

Fleer
Did you watch that video? That GI guy mentioned only 5 GB of RAM available to games 2 or 3 times and there was not correction or denial made! Then at the Architecture panel after the reveal a different architect mentioned that 5 GB or RAM was more than enough, and that even 4 GB would have been enough, but they decided to go with 8 GB so that could deliver this All in One expurrrrience! They are not EVER going to say straight up 3 GB is reserved for OS because it doesn't benefit them from a PR perspective to do so.

Oh so basically you are.. reading into things not being said or denied?

Sounds like a confirmation to me.
 
There is one advantage here MS has over Sony that few have mentioned and probably fewer understand. The fact that the Xbox 1 has 2 OS VMs running on a hypervisor is potentially huge. With this, each OS VM resources and processes are partitioned for each other effectively making each OS independent. The hypervisor will even suspend CPU and memory resources in one VM to allocate to the other if needed.

If Sony is not using a hypervisor and is only running 1 OS, it will be relying on multitasking and all background processes will always be resident in memory and can take CPU cycles and memory resources away from games.

To put it simply, VMs running on a hypervisor are just more efficient then traditional mutitasking.
 
Oh so basically you are.. reading into things not being said or denied?

Sounds like a confirmation to me.

Ok so where did GI get this idea of 5GB for games only then? They put it in a specs chart and mentioned it in that interview WITH A LEAD ARCHITECT! Yet no correction has been made, why?
 

RiverBed

Banned
It's not a fault, it is not a mistake. Both MS and Sony made their vision clear:

Sony: a gaming console, then some (i.e., a games machine first then do whatever nifty things you can cleverly use as a side).
MS: You're entertainment hub.
 

diehard

Fleer
Ok so where did GI get this idea of 5GB for games only then? They put it in a specs chart and mentioned it in that interview WITH A LEAD ARCHITECT! Yet no correction has been made, why?

Why did only GI get this idea that 5GB for games only?

I never said it was confirmed, the burden of proof is not on me.
 
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