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[Oblivion]

In 5 years, 512 MB of RAM has to be ****ing dirt cheap, right? RIGHT?!

 

[djkimothy]

The ps3 doesn't even have as much unified ram as the 360, which is 512.

It doesn't have unified ram. Yeesh!

 

[tenchir]

In 5 years, 512 MB of RAM has to be ****ing dirt cheap, right? RIGHT?!

That depends, what kind of RAM are we talking about in 5 years? DDR? GDDR? XDR? T1-RAM? PC9999 ABCXYZ-RAM? What??? You have to keep in mind the price-performance ratio of RAM. Sure, 512MB of GDDR would be dirt cheap in 5 years, but by then it would be horrendously slow compared to <insert tech name>-RAM.

 

[Particle Physicist]

does this mean that the wii is not as powerful as the 360?

 

[Oblivion]

According to IGN, it still has that 16MBs of slow D-RAM:

"Revolution will build on GameCube's configuration of 24MBs 1T-SRAM and 16MBs D-RAM (40MBs) by adding an addition 64MBs of 1T-SRAM. The result is a supply of memory in Revolution that totals 104MBs."

This article is the most recent and has it at:

Our most up-to-date specs promise 16MB of eDRAM (integrated in NEC's LSI chips) and 88MB of 1T-SRAM (the "additional external memory chip"), for a total of 104MB of system RAM, not counting the allegedly accessible 512MB of Flash RAM or the ATI Hollywood GPU's on-board memory, which is said to amount to 3MB.

Dunno which one's true, though. :/

 

[TheIkariWarrior]

Is 88mb more or less than the Gamecube had?

Gamecube had 43 MB (actually 43.12 MB) of RAM in total

24 MB 1T-SRAM
3.12 MB embedded 1T-SRAM on the GPU
16 MB of slow DRAM


so there are conflicting reports about how much total RAM the Wii has, 88 (91) MB or 104 MB total

the 104 MB would come from that 16 MB of slow DRAM that was in GCN

then the same pools that were in GCN (24 MB main 1T-SRAM + 3.12 embedded 1T-SRAM)

plus 64 MB of either 1T-SRAM or GDDR3.

the cool thing is, regardless if that 16 MB of slow DRAM and 104 MB total is true,
assuming 88 MB of 1T-SRAM/GDDR3 for main memory, thats over 3x the amount of fast main memory as Gamecube (24 MB) !!

sorry for making this so confusing.

 

[Oblivion]

That depends, what kind of RAM are we talking about in 5 years? DDR? GDDR? XDR? T1-RAM? PC9999 ABCXYZ-RAM? What??? You have to keep in mind the price-performance ratio of RAM. Sure, 512MB of GDDR would be dirt cheap in 5 years, but by then it would be horrendously slow compared to <insert tech name>-RAM.

GDDR3 I guess. Or whatever the hell PS3 and 360 use.

 

[BlueTsunami]

GDDR3 I guess. Or whatever the hell PS3 and 360 use.

The PS3 has a pool of XDR and GDDR3. I believe the PS3 is all GDDR3 (Obviously)

 

[Discordian_taco]

88 megs no more no less. Got the docs in front of me.

 

[Oblivion]

88 megs no more no less. Got the docs in front of me.

And what kind is it?

 

[TheIkariWarrior]

88 megs no more no less. Got the docs in front of me.

ok then please tell me none of it is slow DRAM that was in Gamecube... tell me it's all 1T-SRAM or a combo of 1T-SRAM and GDDR3.

 

[chespace]

If the Wii pulls a DS on the PS3, people are going to kill themselves, aren't they.

Probably the best hardware sales threads in the history of threads.

 

[Suikoguy]

Probably the best hardware sales threads in the history of threads.

Yep, it will (?) be legendary

 

[D.Lo]

Umm...

Doesn't the PS3 only have 256 megs of RAM?

 

[MegaTen]

Yes, but it's 88MB of Ferrari RAM.

Gold plated, I bet!

 

[HomerSimpson-Man]

Umm...

Doesn't the PS3 only have 256 megs of RAM?

No.

 

[BlueTsunami]

Umm...

Doesn't the PS3 only have 256 megs of RAM?

Errrummm. It has two pools of RAM 256 in Each pool both should be accessible too Cell and RSX

 

[RuGalz]

And what kind is it?

24 MB 1T-SRAM
3 MB GPU
Rest GDDR3

 

[Jive Turkey]

If the Wii pulls a DS on the PS3, people are going to kill themselves, aren't they.

It'll be like the stock market crash but with nerds.

 

[∀ Narayan]

I wish the Wii had a bit more balls.

Spoiler

Believe.

 

[Pimpbaa]

Is 88mb more or less than the Gamecube had?

A LOT more. the GC only had 24 megs of "main" ram. It had another 16 megs of very slow ram that was usually just used for sound data and disc buffer (the reason why GC games loaded fast). For comparisons sake, ps2 had 32 megs of ram and the xbox had 64.

 

[dirtmonkey37]

i think you mean underkill :lol

i was thinking the same thing when i heard there was 4kb in the Wiimote. Just 4kb? couldn't bump it up to 16mb for (probably) the same price and give it a few options in the future?

Oh well.

lol. I meant something in the vein of "it's overkill in how they totally went overboard in keeping the system as last gen as possible"


But my statement was questionable to say the least.

 

[dirtmonkey37]

It doesn't have unified ram. Yeesh!

But it does have a system total of 512.

256 MB GDDR 3 Memory. (don't ask me what kind of memory this is, I only remember names. I know what RAM etc. is and all that other stuff, but GDDR3 sure beats the hell out of me)

256 XDR Memory.

i.e.

256 in the CPU
256 in the GPU

for a split up total of 512. Not unified, which is the big problem

 

[Syb]

Umm... Doesn't the PS3 only have 256 megs of RAM?

256MB XDR RAM
256MB GDDR3

 

[BlueTsunami]

which is the big problem

Not really

 

[Oblivion]

24 MB 1T-SRAM
3 MB GPU
Rest GDDR3

I see. Damn, I know it's double the RAM of GC, but hell it's over 5 years later. Doesn't give me much hope for Wii 2.

 

[Pimpbaa]

256 in the CPU
256 in the GPU

for a split up total of 512. Not unified, which is the big problem

Not necessarily a problem. It's actually better in some ways, each pool of ram having their own bandwidth (rather than the cpu and gpu sharing bandwidth with unified memory).

 

[Miguel]

 

[BlueTsunami]

Not necessarily a problem. It's actually better in some ways, each pool of ram having their own bandwidth (rather than the cpu and gpu sharing bandwidth with unified memory).

Yep and if the scale needs to be adjusted as far as RAM usage for RSX or Cell being screwed towards itself, there are ways to go about that I'm sure. FlexIO etc

 

[Tchu-Espresso]

I see. Damn, I know it's double the RAM of GC, but hell it's over 5 years later. Doesn't give me much hope for Wii 2.

Nintendo tight like anoos.

 

[JCBossman]

4kb in the Wii remote, I think my Cell phone Sim card has more:lol

 

[goomba]

4kb > 0kb

 

[Oblivion]

Nintendo tight like anoos.

Guess we have to wait til Wii3.

 

[BlueTsunami]

4kb > 0kb

4kb < 0kb

ALLIGATOR EATS THE SMALLER NUMBER RIGHT?

Spoiler

I"M WRONG

 

[CrushDance]

Can you back that up with recent Nintendo documentation or are you just unsuccessful at being funny all the time?

Of course not, he's just a damn troll.

 

[StingerNLG]

I just want to know how they came up with such a goofy RAM amount?

88mb?

 

[DSFan1970]

I just want to know how they came up with such a goofy RAM amount?

88mb?

Budget reasons. They probably budgeted exactly that enough to be profitable. Lowered spec = lowered cost = passed on savings. VALUE ADDED.

 

[FiRez]

I just want to know how they came up with such a goofy RAM amount?

88mb?

at first "Revolution" wasn't supposed to be a console, just a GC peripheral that was going to longer the life of the GameCube until 2010

I remember that announcement like it was yesterday.

 

[HomerSimpson-Man]

Of course not, he's just a damn troll.

I think he was just being sarcastic. It doesn't take a genius to figure out that Nintendo wouldn't put in less even less RAM than the Dreamcast let alone the GC.

 

[Pimpbaa]

I just want to know how they came up with such a goofy RAM amount?

88mb?

The amount they added to the wii wasn't goofy (64MB), but the amount the GC had was definitely odd (24MB).

 

[CrushDance]

I think he was just being sarcastic. It doesn't take a genius to figure out that Nintendo wouldn't put in less even less RAM than the Dreamcast let alone the GC.

Still he always goes and says stuff like that. Anyways can someone explain to me why systems such as PS3 and 360 use ~512mb of RAM? I mean its a lot but why a gig? I hear people talk about how games would be better in all aspects but that doesn't make sense to me. I.E. In PC"s the more RAM you add the faster you go, access times etc, but it doesn't make your AGP card suddenyl become a Geforce 8800. So whats the "huge" deal? I don't understand >.<

 

[Mrbob]

If the Wii pulls a DS on the PS3, people are going to kill themselves, aren't they.

Hope not, because that means its pulling a DS on the X360 too, and with all big 3rd party games on X360/PS3 we are talking about an industry crash.

 

[Grampa Simpson]

Guess we have to wait til Wii3.

September 14th?

 

[Calidor]

But think about the low power consumption!!!

 

[Marathon]

But it does have a system total of 512.

256 MB GDDR 3 Memory. (don't ask me what kind of memory this is, I only remember names. I know what RAM etc. is and all that other stuff, but GDDR3 sure beats the hell out of me)

256 XDR Memory.

i.e.

256 in the CPU
256 in the GPU

for a split up total of 512. Not unified, which is the big problem

Wrong.

It is by design to enable both Cell and RSX to operate in parallel on data without having to fight each other over memory access/bandwidth. The fundamental principal of getting high performance out of console hardware is to have as many computational units being fed as much data independently with as little latency as possible.

 

[Adagio]

Wait...what kind of Pikmin are known as RAM? Are they shaped like a phallus?

 

[donny2112]

Anybody else find it annoying when people add a "s" to the end of MB, GB, etc?

Considering that MB = Megabyte and MBs = Megabytes, I'm going to have to say "no."

 

[Ikaris]

Consider this:

It takes, on average from the middle of a disc, 1 second to transfer 5 megs of data to memory (give or take... don't jump all over me on this, people).

Let's assume your data is not compressed.

That means it would take almost a minute to fill up 256 megs of memory. Almost 2 minutes for the X360.

And those times are when the game isn't doing anything else... if the game is running at the same time, it could take twice as long, or more.

If the game is streaming data, you gotta break those chunks into real small pieces, or make your transition "hallways" hella long to traverse...

Also, don't forget that the 360 and the PS3 are going to be using normal maps and specular maps on everything... not necessarily true for the Wii (it can do normal maps, just barely)

So, there are trade-offs.

 

[JDSN]

4kb in the Wii remote, I think my Cell phone Sim card has more:lol

Mark Bozon (IGN) said it is more than that.

 

[Pimpbaa]

Still he always goes and says stuff like that. Anyways can someone explain to me why systems such as PS3 and 360 use ~512mb of RAM? I mean its a lot but why a gig? I hear people talk about how games would be better in all aspects but that doesn't make sense to me. I.E. In PC"s the more RAM you add the faster you go, access times etc, but it doesn't make your AGP card suddenyl become a Geforce 8800. So whats the "huge" deal? I don't understand >.<

If they had a gig of ram, that means they could have used bigger more detailed textures or bigger levels. Basically less compromises would have to be made to make sure the game fits into the amount of ram the system has. Also, more ram in PCs don't neccessarily make it run faster, more ram just makes sure you don't use virtual memory (dumping memory data on to your harddrive when the amount of ram needed exceeds the amount of physical ram you have). When windows starts dumping ram into the page file (virtual memory), shit starts to slow down (especially games).