I wouldn't be surprised if only 4.5-5 GB of RAM are available for developers to use in games, with the rest reserved for the OS (similar to the Durango rumors). Actually, I pretty much expect this to be the case.
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I wouldn't be surprised if only 4.5-5 GB of RAM are available for developers to use in games, with the rest reserved for the OS (similar to the Durango rumors). Actually, I pretty much expect this to be the case.
Arent rumours saying 512mb set a side for the os.
I think the old rumors were 512 MB - 1GB for the OS when the system only had 4 GB total. However, I think the increase in RAM was done in part to make the PS4 competitive with the Durango in the application/multitasking space. Also, I would expect them to be reserve more RAM for the OS at launch as a cautionary measure, even if they don't use it immediately. It's not hard to reduce the OS footprint down the road and open up more RAM to developers later on (as they did with the PS3), however it would be impossible to go in the other direction.
JohnnySasaki86
Member
No the rumors were 512mb when it was 4gb. Now the rumors are 1gb for the OS.
The most likely thing is that these 1st gen launch games don't need that much RAM. Its an excessive amount. The devs don't have enough time to take advantage of it. It will come into play much more with the 2nd and 3rd gen games.
The most recent rumor is 1 GB for the OS.
http://ps4daily.com/2013/04/playstation-4-developers-7-gb-ram/
I would be very surprised if sony needed 3GB or more for the OS. I mean, just what are they going to add that needs that much space?
1GB sounds about right and would allow them to do a lot of stuff.
Codeblew
Member
No. The rumors were 512mb for OS when it was 4GB for system. After the 8GB announcement, people speculated that they would increase the OS allocation to 1GB and eventually decrease that allocation over time if it is not needed.
I'm not saying they need it now, per se, I'm just saying that they know Microsoft is reserving a sizable chunk of RAM, which would allow the Durango to be more proficient at running background applications and multitasking. If Sony were to say at this point that they were only reserving 1 GB of RAM, and then down the road they needed to add features to compete with Microsoft's offerings, they would be unable to do so because they strapped themselves down so early. Like I said, it's easy for Sony to reduce the OS footprint and give developers more RAM down the road, but it's impossible to go in the other direction. It just makes sense from Sony's standpoint. They already have the graphical advantage with higher memory bandwidth and a more powerful GPU, so they should position themselves to compete in the area that Microsoft is aiming to have an advantage in, which is applications and services.
Hydrargyrus
Member
IMO, spend 3GB of GDDR5 only for the OS is a waste of RAM...
nelsonroyale
Member
It doesn't really make sense from Sony's standpoint. It works both ways, if you lock the OS down with 3GB it is not useable for games. They are selling the PS4 primarily as a games machine, as they should of course.
They can always give more memory back to developers if they decide later that they don't need it or reduce the size of the OS. They did this with the PS3. However, they cannot get more memory for the OS later if developers have already made games that require that memory.
I agree that it wouldn't make sense IF Microsoft was not also doing it. The safest move for Sony is to ensure that they can compete with Microsoft's offerings in the future. Like I said, either way, they already have the graphical advantage. And in that context, it would make perfect sense.
nelsonroyale
Member
Well that is if they need to/want to match MS. Right now we have no clue if MS is reserving 3GB and why. Sure, Sony obviously have better intel than us, but if it is something to do with Kinect function, they may feel it is not needed. Personally, I expect them to reserve 1.5gb max, but we will see. As you say, they could shrink it, but even on Durango, 3gb sounds excessive.
- It makes no sense to increase ram (expensively) by 4Gbs and then reserve 3 for the OS.
- the OS will have been designed back when they were only expecting 4GB and therefore will be designed to be fairly lightweight (rumours were 512MB). Now they might increase that to 1Gb which - compared to before - would give them reasonable headroom just in case *and* the possibility to reduce it if it isn't needed.
- what the hell is MS needing 3Gb for anyway!? Maybe windows running in the background, but we don't really know. You really don't need that to run apps in the background. WiiU has 1GB and can run a full, decent browser in the background. PS3 has around 50MB for the OS but can download in the background, record TV shows via an accessory tuner in Europe and Japan, and remote play games to PSp/vita.
IonicSnake
Banned
I'm not familiar with BSD which the PS4 OS is based on, but wasn't it supposed to be very good without using much resources?
-It makes sense to increase the RAM to counter what your competitor is doing. Do you have any doubt that the PS4 would have 4 GB of RAM right now if Microsoft didn't have 8? Knowing that Microsoft is going to place a heavy emphasis on applications, services, and multitasking, it makes perfect sense for Sony to respond by ensuring that their system is capable of competing with their primary competitor in that area. You would see diminishing returns in games with 5GB vs. 7GB of RAM, but by assigning more of the added RAM to the OS, they are giving themselves more flexibility, and making certain that they are technologically capable of countering Microsoft's offerings. Basically what I'm saying is that the extra 4GB of RAM was added to the PS4 in response to competition, and know Microsoft's strategy, the most valuable allocation of that memory to address said competition is to give a fairly large chunk of it to the OS.
-I doubt the OS footprint itself is very large. I think the primary concern is running other applications and services while playing games. For example, if you want to livestream, chat with your friends, and use a web browser all without quitting your game, it starts to add up. Also keep in mind how Sony emphasized that they want to eliminate the time required to start up and play a game by preserving the game state in RAM. In this case, all of the other OS features (like listening to music, watching video, viewing photos, using the store, etc.) should be available while the game is still in memory. All of this still wouldn't add up to 3GB (although probably more than 1 GB), but it makes sense for them to keep their options open for more memory intensive applications in the future, knowing that Microsoft is positioning themselves to do so.
-We don't really know what the specifics of Microsoft's plans are, other than that they will likely have a focus on being an all-in-one "entertainment hub." My guess is that they simply want to leave ample space for seamless, fast app usage that can run while a game is in memory.
Eh, no. If Sony was keeping 3 gigs of RAM away from developers we would've heard something by now. It'll be 1 gig or less reserved for the OS.
This exactly.
On the Wii U you can have a game open, fire up the web browser, go to Gamefaqs, then go right back to your game, then go right back to the web browser. Based on the speed these are both clearly resident in memory at the same time.
If on PS4 you are playing a game and launch an app what happens? The game stays in memory? In that case both the game and the app need to fit into memory at once. The game is written to hard drive or internal storage? If the game takes up 5 gigs of memory that is going to be very slow. So I assume the design is that both the game and any apps stay in memory, which means you need a decent amount of app memory.
512MB of room for a separate app as well as stuff like OS menus and overlay graphics and such doesn't sound like enough to me. I'd be pretty surprised if it isn't at least 1 GB reserved. Now that said 3 does sound a bit ridiculous.
Coulomb_Barrier
Member
Yeah prepared to be blown away by their secret 'new ip'.
I wonder what it is? Open-world?
It's astronomical. It's basically arguing that the console OS will be more bloated than your average Windows 7. I'm not buying it.
But again, the "OS" for a console includes space reserved for apps, not just space for the actual OS.
Now if the PS4 doesn't allow you to launch apps while a game is running that can be very small. But I don't see that happening.
One option that might work would be to notify games when an app is being launched and put them in a suspend state that dumps out some memory, similar to how in DirectX you can lose surfaces and reclaim them. In that case a game could free up all the memory for things like intermediate buffers and reconstruct them when the game became active again. So in that case Sony could say "while your game is running it has access to 7 gigs, but when it is suspended it has to slim down to 6"
That's basically how Wii games work when you bring up the home menu.
this game was developed having in mind that the ps4 was 4gb total.
now they can expand it a bit but the game all those years took into account the known specs for ps4.4gb ram
Evolution_1ne
Banned
Zoator there are different types of RAM
that is all
that is all
Ok, now I'm confused. What does this have to do with any of my posts?
Coulomb_Barrier
Member
Reserving 3GB of fast GDDR5 memory for OS functions makes absolutely no sense at all.
Canis lupus
Member
3GB for OS? PS4 will run Windows 7 Ultimate?
Applications and services are still going to require the same quantity of memory regardless of whether it's DDR3 or GDDR5...
Canis lupus said:
Please read my other posts.
Developers have been told to originally work with a target amount of ~3.5GB (assuming the previous reserve for OS is 512MB). Do you really think Sony would spend more on expensive RAM at the developers' request just so to lock more of it away?
Coulomb_Barrier
Member
Yes exactly, hence why using a massive amount of GDDR5 for those functions would be silly.
Anyway 1 GB reserved for os/other functions is the rumour.
Ok, I'm just going to copy and paste what I said a few posts up:
It makes sense to increase the RAM to counter what your competitor is doing. Do you have any doubt that the PS4 would have 4 GB of RAM right now if Microsoft didn't have 8? Knowing that Microsoft is going to place a heavy emphasis on applications, services, and multitasking, it makes perfect sense for Sony to respond by ensuring that their system is capable of competing with their primary competitor in that area. You would see diminishing returns in games with 5GB vs. 7GB of RAM, but by assigning more of the added RAM to the OS, they are giving themselves more flexibility, and making certain that they are technologically capable of countering Microsoft's offerings. Basically what I'm saying is that the extra 4GB of RAM was added to the PS4 in response to competition, and know Microsoft's strategy, the most valuable allocation of that memory to address said competition is to give a fairly large chunk of it to the OS.
Coulomb_Barrier said:
The increase in RAM was clearly in response to competition from Microsoft. Sony wasn't going to compromise their single unified pool of memory advantage by fragmenting it with two different types of memory, thus why you have the same memory for both functions.
The Jason
Member
Plus, this logic of 3GB or whatever would also suggest that before going from 4 to 8, only 1GB would be available to devs, which is just crazy.
Dev's will have at least 6-7GB usable
1st Course
Member
It really all depend on whether the PS4 will support multitasking or not. Is 1GB enough for a "multitaskable" OS? I'm not sure tbh.
No, we know the devs had at least 3-3.5 GB available before the bump. My argument is that the extra memory was disproportionately allocated to the OS in order to compete with Microsoft in applications, services, and multitasking.
The Jason
Member
Even so, developers would have said something about it by now. It's unlikely that more than 2GB will be reserved.
SniperHunter
Banned
3gb for os is absurd
ThoseDeafMutes
Member
Of course not, but they might want you to be able to run multiple applications in the background simultaneously, which on top of OS functionality could easily push multiple gigabytes. It depends on what they want you to be able to do, obviously.
If that was the purpose, then why didn’t they just make a second, cheaper 2-4GB DDR3 memory pool?
What's the benefit of having an unified memory pool for OS reserved RAM?
What are you basing 3GB OS reserved RAM for in the first place?
Is it because GG is only using 4.5 GB for Killzone?
TheRagnCajun
Member
I disagree. Rumour is MS has a form of Windows 8 on Durango for cross platform functionality. Sony is going in a different direction, they're focusing on the game experience, not applications. Adding 4GB RAM to a console just for overhead is crazy talk.
CassidyIzABeast
Member
http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2011-08-19-why-the-ps3-cant-do-cross-game-voice-chatM°°nblade;57841508 said:
This actually explains why it doesn't need a unified RAM pool since the Vita does cross-game chat as an OS feature using separate memory pools (RAM + V-RAM).
CassidyIzABeast
Member
M°°nblade;57842462 said:
True, you don't need unified memory, but its infinitely better that splitting up the ram. I used cross game as proof of that because PS3 has the same amount of RAM as the 360 but the split memory kept them from implementing it.
M°°nblade;57841508 said:
Sony was already taking the unified pool approach, and the extra RAM was obviously a late addition. Additionally, as I said earlier, Sony could always reduce the memory they're reserving for the OS later as they did with the PS3. In which case, they wouldn't want to give more RAM to developers from a separate pool.
I'm basing the 3GB number on the rumors that MS is doing a 5/3 split, combined with the memory usage from GG (although the latter is less relevant at this stage). The point I was making in this thread is that if you believe that Sony's upgrade to 8GB was in response to Microsoft's specs (which I do -- if Microsoft had 4GB, I think Sony would still be at 4GB), then from a competitive standpoint it makes more sense to use the extra resources to counter the advantages that your competition may have. Sony already has the graphical advantage even with 5GB of RAM for games, thanks to higher memory bandwidth and a more powerful GPU. Sure they could give 7GB of RAM to developers, and we would see some marginal graphical improvements over a 5GB split. Or, they could use the additional memory to ensure that their system is equipped to compete with Microsoft's application, service, and multitasking offerings. Personally, I think the latter is a wiser decision competitively speaking. They have very little to lose by being cautious early. As I said, if they later decide that the memory isn't needed or would be better used elsewhere, they can always give it back to developers. However, they can never take the memory away from developers once they have it.
Right, but non-game apps overhead wasn't the competitive advantage they were trying to counter. Their primary goal is to counter any reason for multiplats to be downgraded on the PS4 relative to the XB3. Even with faster memory, asking devs to downsize their memory usage for games by 1.5 GB (5GB pool available on 8GB XB3 vs 3.5GB pool available on a 4GB PS4) and still maintain parity would have been a tall order during the first year or so of these consoles' releases. Probably even beyond that. I think they're far more sensitive to avoiding the PS3 multiplat downgrades situation than they are about being beaten in the apps/services space. There's certainly no rumors suggesting that Sony has dramatically expanded their ambitions in that area, following the 8GB announcement.
If at best Sony has planned for how to use 512MB - 1 GB of memory for OS, apps and other background services, then reserving another 2GB just because "maybe, who knows?" kind of reasons and leaving it fallow for who knows how long when devs could be putting it to good use right away, is wasting competitive advantage.
But I'm not saying they put all of the additional RAM into the OS. By adding an additional 4GB, they could match Microsoft's RAM for game usage, and still counter their application and multitasking advantage. Why just counter one with diminishing returns when you can ensure that your system will be competetive with all of your competitors offerings? And it's not a "maybe, who knows" proposition. There are tangible applications for increased memory reserves. If Sony wants a thriving non-game application marketplace on their system that's as seamless and easy to use as what Microsoft has, they would be wise to position themselves for such. Of course this is all speculation regarding Microsoft's intentions, but the rumors have suggested they are likely to pursue a very integrated entertainment hub approach.
Why?
I understand the benefit of having a unified memory pool for both CPU and GPU tasks which the PS3 lacked (because the load isn't static).
I ask why it would be beneficial to have a unified memory pool for both OS and game tasks.
The article doesn't say that cross game chat is kept from implementation because of the split memory.
It says Sony can't free memory that's already dedicated to games to give it to the OS for the cross game chat feature.
Finally getting a chance to catch up on all of this. Some great stuff in here. Hopefully I'll be able to check it all out during lunch today.
I think the larger OS footprint on the PS3 is keeping them from implementing it. If they could slim it down further, I don't see why they couldn't include the feature.
I think the larger OS footprint on the PS3 is keeping them from implementing it. If they could slim it down further, I don't see why they couldn't include the feature.