TheExecutive
Member
It means ram won't be a bottleneck. Geometry, framerate, and AI among other things are beholden to the CPU/GPU. Textures should be top notch though.
-
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.
PS4 has 8 GB OF GDDR5 RAM
- Thread starter Log4Girlz
- Start date
JohnnySasaki86
Member
How so? You can have way bigger worlds, higher resolution, and higher Rez textures? It also allows more complex AI routines and other things cause your not limited by space. I understand that the CPU and GPU affect things like lighting and AI, but your not going to be bottlenecked by the RAM when it comes to these things, but only by your cpu/gpu processing power.
dr. apocalipsis
Banned
1. This is a console forums, where people can argue and discuss about gaming companies. But where is difficult to not agree with some thoughts about certains devices without being attacked at personal levels.
2. I said that having more memory instead of a better GPU is bad for gamers. And my opinion have not changed.
3. Do you agree with that statement or are you just trying to mock at me knowing I'm right about my thoughts?
I'm not changing my argument. I say Xenos+Xenon are better tech than Cell/RSX for a gaming machine.
Your computer isn't a gaming machine, but could do better than current consoles. There is no contradiction in there.
dr. apocalipsis
Banned
double post.
Simply put, this is the first time that the console does not look like it is limited by the amount of memory.
I am sure that the developers will find a way to max out the memory usage and start complaining, but this certainly looks better than all previous consoles came before, RAM wise.
I am sure that the developers will find a way to max out the memory usage and start complaining, but this certainly looks better than all previous consoles came before, RAM wise.
ALBOFIGHTER
Member
It means you can fit more data in the memory, so more enemies, bigger worlds, less loading. The high bandwidth means you can fit a lot of data in a frame. Ps4s ram has enough bandwidth to fit about 3 gb/s if I recall. The rest can be used for cache and whatever else techniques devs think of.
When Sony said yesterday that ps4 is like a canvas, they really meant it. Devs can make next gen graphics with big levels, lots of characters, probably no loading, etc. the only thing that will limit them is budget and imagination for the most part which is a HUGE accomplishment. As a gamer, you should be very very happy with what the ps4 is capable off.
We can finally relax and stop worrying about the hardware and start focusing on the games for the next decade.
When Sony said yesterday that ps4 is like a canvas, they really meant it. Devs can make next gen graphics with big levels, lots of characters, probably no loading, etc. the only thing that will limit them is budget and imagination for the most part which is a HUGE accomplishment. As a gamer, you should be very very happy with what the ps4 is capable off.
We can finally relax and stop worrying about the hardware and start focusing on the games for the next decade.
8GB GDDR5 means faster loading, nicer more detailed textures, more complex AI running, more assets running on screen eg enemies, seamless multi-tasking, no more slow to load XMB while game is running, higher quality music.
8GB pretty much means no moaning devcos.
The fact that no one knew about the extra 4GB means the OS is probably efficient enough to only use 512mb which is fair enough as XMB uses 50mb and a 10x increase for the same team should sort out the overheads for the new features.
We have never seen a game made from the ground up with over 4GB of Vram in mind so PS4 with 8GB of GDDR5 opened up a door that even the PC devs haven't been through yet & it might be awhile before the PC devs can go through that door at full speed because not too many people will have GPU's with over 4GB of ram in the next 2 years so they will be still working with about 2GB of Vram as a base & piling on more effects to take advantage of the systems with better specs.
for example
"Crysis 3 Minimum System Operating Requirements for PC
* Windows Vista, Windows 7 or Windows 8
* DirectX 11 graphics card with 1 GB Video RAM
* Dual core CPU
* 2 GB Memory (3 GB on Vista)"
someone making a game for the PS4 don't have to worry about the game running on a low spec system like this & they can make the game from the ground up with 8GB of GDDR5 Ram , 8 1.6GHz Jaguar core CPU & 1.84 TFLOP GPU in mind from the start.
in 2007 you needed 2X as much ram in your PC as the 360 & PS3 to even run Crysis at it's lowest setting, now picture a game needing at least 16GB of ram to run on a PC.
The GPU & CPU of the PS4 are not pushing the boundaries like the PS3 & Xbox 360 did before but 8GB of GDDR5 is.
ColonialRaptor
Member
I want to she'd some light / perspective on how important this fact about the RAM is for some people.
I personally believe that for a modern gaming console, putting max RAM like this in the console is the single most important hardware feature needed and that Sony have done it has convinced me that I am a fan of their direction for the next gen.
The PS3 has 256mb of RAM.
My current Gaming PC has a total of 4GB GDDR5 in my two 7970s and 16GB DDR3. Sony have doubled the video memory of pretty much the "max" enthusiast PC setup (in terms of ram amounts) of current times it is astonishingly awesome. But I'll believe it when the console actually releases with that amount of ram because its almost too good to be true.
However even after how much this has blown me away, the key factor really is not the amount of RAM but the speed of it. The system is sharing the GDDR5 RAM as total system RAM, it's going to be a monster.
Just thinking of what this tech is going to allow devs to do with even only current software is sickeningly awesome and then the second gen games when the devkits and engines are really starting to be focused on the new hardware, we will see some amazing shit.
Guys you've got to start thinking about how graphics / world / IQ can improve gameplay, interactive worlds (and by interactive I mean completely dynamic and changing), physics physics and more physics, the gpu is a physics monster. Think BF3 on steroids.
I am excite for this. I just really REALLY hope they don't do what they did last gen and half it just before release.
I personally believe that for a modern gaming console, putting max RAM like this in the console is the single most important hardware feature needed and that Sony have done it has convinced me that I am a fan of their direction for the next gen.
The PS3 has 256mb of RAM.
My current Gaming PC has a total of 4GB GDDR5 in my two 7970s and 16GB DDR3. Sony have doubled the video memory of pretty much the "max" enthusiast PC setup (in terms of ram amounts) of current times it is astonishingly awesome. But I'll believe it when the console actually releases with that amount of ram because its almost too good to be true.
However even after how much this has blown me away, the key factor really is not the amount of RAM but the speed of it. The system is sharing the GDDR5 RAM as total system RAM, it's going to be a monster.
Just thinking of what this tech is going to allow devs to do with even only current software is sickeningly awesome and then the second gen games when the devkits and engines are really starting to be focused on the new hardware, we will see some amazing shit.
Guys you've got to start thinking about how graphics / world / IQ can improve gameplay, interactive worlds (and by interactive I mean completely dynamic and changing), physics physics and more physics, the gpu is a physics monster. Think BF3 on steroids.
I am excite for this. I just really REALLY hope they don't do what they did last gen and half it just before release.
I asked this earlier but didn't really get an answer. Did they really cut PS3 specs like that before launch? I hardly followed technical stuff back then so Im genuinely curious. I remember differently but Im probably wrong.
Kung Fu Grip
Banned
You're wrong there. When the first hints were giving that Durango was going to have 8GB everybody was shocked. Then the leaked specs came out and confirmed that. There was not one negative post about that RAM setup. Sony fans were even hoping the PS4 would be upgraded to that level. Then the experts started telling everyone that sony's high bandwidth 4GB GDDR5 setup was better than Durango's and it would be a wash in graphics. You even had some saying that MS's decision to go with 8GB was smarter because more RAM is better. Everybody was sort of content with the rumored RAM setup for both consoles after awhile.
That's until sony announced the PS4 would actually be using high bandwidth 8GB GDDR5. Something that everybody said would never happen. Oh boy, now everyone has a different tune; "8GB GDDR5 is a waste", "8GB is too expensive", "developers will never use that much anyway", "what the fuck is sony thinking", "it's going to get downgraded", "PC is still better", "the GPU should be upgraded."
Every excuse in the book is being said now.
Can't be a stupid decision if developers are happy- https://twitter.com/mrengstad/status/304418354351988736
FalsettoVibe
Member
Can someone answer this......
I know GDDR5 is better, faster, etc, but what about power consumption? Will it run hotter and draw more power than DDR3?
I know GDDR5 is better, faster, etc, but what about power consumption? Will it run hotter and draw more power than DDR3?
CadetMahoney
Member
Those two where the highlights of the day tbh.
Significantly so. http://www.guru3d.com/articles_pages/radeon_hd_6670_review,1.html
Looks to be about 7W more power for every 1GB of GDDR5 over DDR3.
This post just reeks of a lack of understanding of how modern, game focused hardware works.
RAM is always a bottleneck in computing. Especially in fixed hardware platforms like consoles. Not just quantity of RAM, but bandwidth too.
Who cares most about RAM? Developers. If you have been following the progress of the PS4, it was initially designed with 2GB or RAM, and after pressure from devs, was upped to 4GB. Then recently, from further pressure from the likes of Epic and internal studios, increased again to 8GB.
And there are two big differences between the 8GB of RAM in the next Xbox and the 8GB of RAM in the PS4.
Xbox is using slow DDR3 RAM, which is better suited for general purpose computing. It has a low bandwidth, meaning you have a bottleneck as to how much data can be read/written into RAM each frame. PS4 is using GDDR5, a much more expensive RAM type designed for graphics (the G in GDDR stands for graphical). It has a blazing fast bandwidth, meaning a fuckload of data can be transfers in/out of it per frame, which has serious benefits in rendering. The next Xbox does also have a small cache of fast EDRAM to mitigate its slow main RAM, but even that has a bandwidth far below the RAM in the PS4.
The other point is the Xbox is reserving 3GB for the OS, so only 5GB is available for games. The PS4 is rumoured to reserve 0.5GB, so 7.5GB of RAM is available for games.
Whatever way you look at it, the 8GB of unified GDDR5 is a seriously impressive spec to have, and a massive improvement over what is rumoured to be in the Xbox.
1. Putting in same post MS,Nintendo, SNES, NES is constructive talk to you ?
2. They say it i don't need to know your whole post history.
3. Does resolution dictate which game look better ? I don't agree that additional RAM will make console better than PC in therms of pure power but we don't know how developers will use that especially since it will be standard feature in every box.
Point is you are trying to spin 8GB like it is some waste of ram. 8GB is amazing hardware achievement and something that developers will love. In fact many developers already said that they love Sony choice.
Here are 3 developers comments:
@ID_AA_Carmack: I cant speak freely about PS4, but now that some specs have been made public, I can say that Sony made wise engineering choices.
Randy Pitchford ‏@DuvalMagic
Thanks for the great event in NY @playstation - Very pleased with the commitment to 8gb of GDDR5 memory. Other specs are beautiful too!
Tiago Sousa ‏@CRYTEK_TIAGO
8 GB unified mem as baseline for next tech iterations makes me very, very happy. Fun times coming ^_^
Earlier you tried to spin it by saying that In MS console this isn't something amazing completely missing point that this is GDDR5 memory not "peasant" DDR3 memory which we can buy in shops for few bears price.
Sorry but i don't see your point or what are your trying to spin. 8GB GDDR5 in PS4 is fucking fantastic thing for developers and totally unified memory pool in addition to that is icing on that cake.
Freedom of simply dumping things into ram is for developers more important than just few FPS better. The less time they will spend on memory juggling the more time they can spend on other things. Indie devs will especially love this since most of them are just few people.
Again, you're wrong at a technical level.
There is no point having a beast of a GPU if you don't have the quality and type of RAM to feed it. This has easily provable real word metrics. Look at the range of AMD cards and their various rendering scores. You see better results with the same card moving from DDR3 to GDDR5, then you do going up to the next card (better GPU) and still use DDR3. And better performance by increasing the RAM
The reality is, the PS4 would gain more rendering performance increasing the RAM from 4GB to 8GB, than they would adding a couple more CUs to the GPU. Likewise, MS would see better performance improving the RAM to GDDR rather than giving the GPU clock speed a boost or adding a few more CUs.
I remember Sony got bashed for PS3 RAM a lot.
People were saying the reason a lot of multiplat titles look better on 360 because of the RAM difference. I don't know how true this is though.
But anyways I think its a great move by Sony for the developers and core gamers, but its a risky move at the same time
People were saying the reason a lot of multiplat titles look better on 360 because of the RAM difference. I don't know how true this is though.
But anyways I think its a great move by Sony for the developers and core gamers, but its a risky move at the same time
BlackGoku03
Member
Then his statement is infactual. They won't code to the lowest denominator.
Mikey Jr.
Member
Ok, honest question. I am not bashing the xbox or anything like that. But just an honest question.
Lets say the xbox has 8gb ddr3 and ps4 has 8gb ddr5.
What can Sony realistically do with that "extra" ram that the xbox can't? Third party games will be pretty much parity probably. First party games might look better?
But outside that? Honest question. If xbox goes ddr3, then I have to question it, because MS usually gets the jump on Sony. Xbox having an ethernet port and HDD, Xbox 360 having PC parts and dvd (which worked better for that time period).
Lets say the xbox has 8gb ddr3 and ps4 has 8gb ddr5.
What can Sony realistically do with that "extra" ram that the xbox can't? Third party games will be pretty much parity probably. First party games might look better?
But outside that? Honest question. If xbox goes ddr3, then I have to question it, because MS usually gets the jump on Sony. Xbox having an ethernet port and HDD, Xbox 360 having PC parts and dvd (which worked better for that time period).
BlackGoku03
Member
It's like I'm feeding you, making you stronger!
dr_rus
Member
On PS4 with it's GPU? More detailed textures, more textures in general and more objects in each scene. Bigger worlds as in less pop-in while loading them. That's pretty much it - but it's still huge, make no mistake about that. +4 GB of RAM will make a hell of a difference to how detailed all the textures will be.
JohnnySasaki86
Member
It was somewhat "meh" cause it was 8gb of ddr3 at 68gb/s. this is a completely different thing than 8gb's of gddr5 at 176gb/s.
Jokes and Riddles
Neo Member
How many bits = fun?
Mikey Jr.
Member
Hell yeah!
Battlefield 4 with 64 players in one map slugging it out?
Super fucking fun.
dr_rus
Member
Durango's RAM architecture is quite different. It is much slower in general while providing the same RAM amount. That means that at the very least third party games will run faster on PS4 with the same quality. Or they'll run the same but with added bandwidth-heavy effects. It'll be much easier to pull more from RAM in each scene on PS4 thus with currently rumored Durango specs I expect PS4 1st party titles to be much more rich on content in each frame - more textures, more detailed textures, more objects.
Boss Man
Member
What a silly thing to say. Obviously technology has a huge impact on games and our ability to experience them.
Nizz
Member
Just the thought of that, mmmm!
I get your point that the funniest experiences depend more on the developer's creativity and drive to make the gamer have fun every second they turn the console on, but in the absence of games design brilliance, a more powerful console can deliver a better standard experience.
JohnnySasaki86
Member
They both now have the same amount of RAM. its the bandwidth that gonna play a huge role. From my understanding it means higher resolution and better AA and AF.
That's what people have said on here at least. I would think it would help with framerate too, but that could still be bottle necked by the GPU, but at least it wont be from the bandwidth of the RAM.
Wouldn't higher bandwidth memory helped caching from RAM as well? Hopefully someone with more know how can answer this question.
seattle6418
Member
If Sony is doing this them i guess they are sure on getting stacked memory somewhere in the future, so that GDDR5 is only used on the first year or so... stacked will be a lot cheaper and cooler.
I'm still stunned.
The one huge thing they could have done and they did it. It's future proofing that PS4 doesn't get steamrolled by PC's in less than three years.
I liked, the PS4 needed to be strong, because as easy as is it to defend PC's, there are many games that i can only get on a console, so i'm glad it's not gonna be a weak one.
I'm still stunned.
The one huge thing they could have done and they did it. It's future proofing that PS4 doesn't get steamrolled by PC's in less than three years.
I liked, the PS4 needed to be strong, because as easy as is it to defend PC's, there are many games that i can only get on a console, so i'm glad it's not gonna be a weak one.
Is this shared RAM that, somehow, significantly improves graphical performances and helps the CPU/GPU?
PC memory is more or less capped at 4gb ddr3 in terms of actual performance, with diminishing returns after 2gb. Well, unless you want to do stuff with several programs open at once.
I don't know why Sony would buy so much expensive memory, unless the closed system lets developers take advantage of RAM to an extreme degree. But does it really work that differently on a closed box, even? A console also, most likely needs far less RAM for the OS, so it might need even less than 2-4gb.
Or is it graphical memory? If so, wouldn't the PS4 cost like 1,000$ atleast?
PC memory is more or less capped at 4gb ddr3 in terms of actual performance, with diminishing returns after 2gb. Well, unless you want to do stuff with several programs open at once.
I don't know why Sony would buy so much expensive memory, unless the closed system lets developers take advantage of RAM to an extreme degree. But does it really work that differently on a closed box, even? A console also, most likely needs far less RAM for the OS, so it might need even less than 2-4gb.
Or is it graphical memory? If so, wouldn't the PS4 cost like 1,000$ atleast?
Probably not to leak to MS. Smart move, actually brilliant if true. So most of the games were targeting 4GB. Amazing.
not really. How much will eat Kinect 2 that is supposed to be bundled and always on?
sleeping_dragon
Banned
who are the blind fanboys that suggest 8GB Gddr5 is bad ?
when you are fanboy anything makes sense so in their world it's bad....
painful fart
Member
I still can´t really believe Sony went all in with 8 GB of GDDR5 memory.
Ken must be smiling in secret.
Ken must be smiling in secret.
I still can´t really believe Sony went all in with 8 GB of GDDR5 memory.
Ken must be smiling in secret.
Well Mr.Greenberg they did, deal with it ;P
JohnnySasaki86
Member
yea I forgot about that. They are rumored have a much bigger OS overhead. My point was that the bandwidth was the main difference.
There have been some who question the benefits of 8GB of RAM. In another thread one person was complaining about how he believed half a gig would be dedicated to the OS and that was a waste, yet Wii U having HALF of its total RAM dedicated to the OS was a-okay.
Not a blind fanboy...But while it's awesome for GPUs which need high bandwidth and don't mind latency, it actually has higher latency than DDR3, which affects CPU performance more. Yes it doesn't matter much between DDR3 latency values, but GDDR5 is quite higher.
Not the biggest deal and I think the unified pool is more beneficial than the latency will hurt since RAM pool swapping was the big bottleneck to GPGPU, but it's not 100% awesome in every regard.
Just 95% awesome.
That guy in the comments is so salty, I mean how can anyone be pissed instread of recognizing sony had the cojones to include that much GDDR5 RAM in the system..
Maybe if Sony would have announced another $599.00
Honest question, did the latency issue was discussed back in 2004-5 when the xbox360/ps3 specs were announced?, I don't really remember..
Somewhere ken is smiling while the nurse changes his straight jacketI still can´t really believe Sony went all in with 8 GB of GDDR5 memory.
Ken must be smiling in secret.
I don't remember either, but that may be the reason cache misses on the 360 are so painful?
In any case, Sony obviously thought it was worth it for a dedicated gaming machine, and the APU has 4MB L2 cache most likely, and maybe other mechanisms to help. Might not be an issue. I was just pointing out that GDDR5 isn't 100% good for everything. Even if we could get it for our home desktops, it probably wouldn't be that great for CPUs, as after awhile bandwidth stops improving performance of CPUs, while super high latency can hurt it.
LiquidMetal14
hide your water-based mammals
I'm sure you read many posts like I do but some of the irrationality at these things is confusing. As was noted earlier, when it was 4gb GDDR5 for PS4 and 8GB DDR3 for Durango, everyone was ok. Now we see these posts spinning this in a negative light.
I guess new systems bring a further enhanced outlook on these console wars. What I don't like are some who say things about one platform and ignore the same faults on their own platform of choice.
I'm actually really excited for PC right now since we will finally start seeing our modern HW taxed properly. 8GB of GDDR5 is going to really be big and I would bank on many of the 2GB GPU's like the 2 SLI 670's I have being really bottlenecked in the next year or two.
This is why I am looking at something like 2 Titan level GPU's with at least 4GB of memory for my next upgrade.
RustyNails
Member
How dare you.
cyberheater
PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 Xbone PS4 PS4
So it has to be said. Will multi platform games that are on PS4 and PC be gimped because of PC?
The average PC running steam games is currently a 2 core intel machine running at around 3.0Ghz with 4gig of memory.
Even if you upped that to a quad core and added a reasonable graphics card. It's not going to get anywhere near what PS4 is capable of.
The average PC running steam games is currently a 2 core intel machine running at around 3.0Ghz with 4gig of memory.
Even if you upped that to a quad core and added a reasonable graphics card. It's not going to get anywhere near what PS4 is capable of.