It wont due to the bandwith of the better ram in the ps4.
Edge: PS4 to launch in Europe in early 2014, US/JP 2013, more powerful than next Xbox
- Thread starter miksar
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It wont due to the bandwith of the better ram in the ps4.
ChosenPredator
Banned
I wonder if MS is panicking over this lol
Why would they?
Iacobellis
Junior Member
Why would a game console with an OS footprint of 512MB need 8GB of RAM? The system doesn't have a fully capable OS using 2-4GB in the background at all times like a computer does. Besides, console games generally use lower resolution textures and whatnot, so the 8GB would just be a waste.
ChosenPredator
Banned
Just a dirty naughty fantasy
jk I don't know but it has me curious how they will react after the 20th
Truespeed
Member
I think there might be some truth to the 8GB rumor for the simple fact that, irregardless of whether you know that 4GB of steak is superior to 8GB of hamburger, to the average consumer 8GB > 4GB and must therefore be better. Even though the mere entertainment of such a thought is hilarious, this will be the public perception and the marketing ads will zero in on this and make sure it's a bullet point on the box.
Truespeed
Member
So you can multi-task your games.
You think? Have system internals ever been bullet points on the box? I think the average consumer would probably be confused between RAM and hard drive space. It isn't really relevant information for a consumer... the games will be what determines the public's perception of the system's power.
cyberheater
PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 Xbone PS4 PS4
I still don't believe it's going to be more powerful then Xbox720. There's still loads to know about the Xbox720 that hasn't been revealed.
You want to play more than one game at the same time now!!!???
FatalMuzza
Banned
Once again, the assumption is that the way things are done today are the way they will always be done. No advancement, no progress, no new ideas and concepts yet to be discovered and exploited. Whay would we ever need MORE?
gundamkyoukai
Member
willing to wager on that?
Would be crazy if Sony gets 8GB of GDDR5.
NemesisPrime
Banned
I think they are laughing. Looks like Ms will have a price and feature advantage.
I'm inclined to believe the consensus prior to this. Essentially equal.
It makes the most sense and will be best for consumers and Sony/Microsoft.
nelsonroyale
Member
So you believe the 720 will be more powerful?
googleplex
Member
Unless they made some brake though in manufacturing 3D stacked chips, 8GB of GDDR5 is just not happening in the PS4. It would be complete overkill and overly expensive for VERY LITTLE benefit.
Entertaining the rumours pertaining to OS RAM reservations as true, a reactionary response from Sony's side in the form of a bump up to 6GB would be all that's necessary; this would put the PS4's usable portion at 5.5GB versus the Nextbox's 5GB, and I assume 6GB is less of a tall order than 8GB.
I don't think it really matters which is more powerful. It's all about optimization. Look how many third party games ran like shit on PS3 compared to the 360 counterpart. There are examples that go the other way as well, and examples of PC ports running better than both 360 and ps3. It doesn't matter how high you set the bar if you can never reach it.
Unrelated, I'm not really sure what all the excitement over this "share" button is about. It may be just me, but I've never had any sort of motivation to upload videos of my gaming. In the same way I don't sync games with facebook or twitter to show all my high scores, achievements, and other crap. The very few people actually doing interesting shit already had capture devices to entertain us with.
Nah, it'd be fine. DVRs do it all the time
Officerrob
Banned
This. 8GB of GDDR5 would be a pretty big mistake in my opinion. It would either inflate the price or cause Sony to take an even bigger hit on each system (or a combo of both) for which there would be very little to show for it. It's bad business.
6GB clamshell is doable as displayed by current 6GB graphics cards however, the cost and cooling implications are very real. Only upside is power consumption won't be that much greater going from 4 - 6GB
Nobody cares how much RAM a particular console has. People only care about real world performance.
That's because this gen they were essentially equal. Who knows what kind of disaster would happen if the consoles were unbalanced to a high degree. Like someone else said, you might have games being developed for the lowest denominator. You have to consider Sony and Microsoft are conscious of this.
Where did this come from?
Hard Drives are already used as cache dumps and they are going to be constantly accessed either way.
Neither company is going to go balls out on hardware. The competition over price is too important to make any sort of drastic leap forward. With a fair amount at stake and both companies far too conscious of each other, the hardware will remain essentially equal in terms of power. Add that to the pressure from 3rd party developers that don't want to create 3 different versions of the game, and we are going to end up in pretty much the same situation as before.
I think the real battleground will be between the offerings of XBL and PSN...or whatever form they may take.
I wish we had some devs/EEs that could do the math. You should be able to calculate the maximum throughout of the rumoured GPU, take into account how you'll do multiple passes for effects etc and be left with a theoretical maximum amount of memory that could be used. I bet 8Gb GDDR couldn't even be fully utilised. But some additional memory might be good for OS and as a RAM disk for streaming engines, to leave the 4GB fully available.
I'd think 2GB DDR3 would be enough
It was 14 months between X360 launch and PS3 launch. That was over a year where people had to choose between the PS2 or the X360, and that included two Christmas'. With Microsoft being so much better at other content in the UK than it is in the EU it's of little surprise that the x360 did so well against the PS3. The small wonder is that Microsoft didn't capitalise on it and push harder into other European markets.
I agree that 390 days is far too long. Prior to this article there was hope that I might get myself a PS4 in November or December this year. Just maybe. Now it looks like it might not be for for over 12 months. It is only a few months, and for me it's just an annoyance rather than a reason to buy an Xbox3. But it's a psychological thing like being priced at £5.99 rather than £6. This year!! THIS YEAR!!!! WOOO!!!11one. Oh no, it's next year. And I have to peruse the internet with all these fuckers that will get it before me. For months.
Sure I could import, get stung on taxes, probably pay over the odds even more than we do already and have no warranty and not be able to buy any games locally. How enticing.
They did, but those would have been off the shelf components rigged up to give the developers an idea what they were shooting at. 8GB of system RAM and 2GB of GDDR5 on a graphics card would be perfectly normal.
8GB in the latest dev kit with no mention of any other ram suggests it's closer to final hardware
From one of the leaks about old devkits.
Assuming a target of 1080p max for games, presumably there is a limit to texture resolution for that target, compared to higher resolutions PC users may want. So it may be the the case that 4GB is plenty, no matter how complex a scene (within reason).
A fixed target resolution, combined with known GPU specs (and therefore known throughout) should be enough to calculate the optimum amount of ram needed for a game.
A fixed target resolution, combined with known GPU specs (and therefore known throughout) should be enough to calculate the optimum amount of ram needed for a game.
we had some devs talking about their next gen game engines taking up to 2 GB maximum RAM, with 1 GB being a much more realistic number. Remember that most of them had to optimize their streaming engines so they work on PS3/360... which means optimizations carry over to 720/PS4.
3.5 GB will be there simply to make it easier for everyone else.
If the GPU becomes bandwidth starved you gain very marginal returns then anyway. It's all about balance
Liabe Brave
Member
It definitely can. I'm not a tech guy myself, but I was pointed to a comparison that seems to make the case pretty clearly: these Anandtech benchmarks.
The GT 640 card has a higher core clock and 2GB of RAM versus 1GB in the GTS 450. Yet the GTS card handily outperforms it due to the half-sized RAM being GDDR5 instead of DDR3 (according to the GT review).
Unknown One
Member
It seems like it'll have plenty of bandwidth, I'm pretty ignorant though. A better GPU sounds good to me.
Superb point. Those DDR3 on graphic cards currently used ... wait.
No one uses DDR3 on graphic cards for valid reasons.
burgers are more reliable, its harder to over cook them and steaks may have gristle.
Iacobellis
Junior Member
So you really think we need 8GB of RAM to sustain for the next 5-7 years? You do realize the PS3 survived all this time on a tiny amount of 256MB?
Am I the only one who still isn't sold on GDDR5? Perhaps I'm too skeptical but as far as I know, it never was really confirmed by rumours (as much as confirmation goes with these things). People just assumed it was GDDR5 because of the bandwidth.
Also people expecting 8GB of it is just silly. It'd require twice the memory chips, a bigger memory controller (unless they go with clamshell) and not to mention the added cost and heat.
6GB might seem as a nice compromise but even that would require a redesigned memory controller. This won't happen either, unless Sony planned on it a long time ago.
Also people expecting 8GB of it is just silly. It'd require twice the memory chips, a bigger memory controller (unless they go with clamshell) and not to mention the added cost and heat.
6GB might seem as a nice compromise but even that would require a redesigned memory controller. This won't happen either, unless Sony planned on it a long time ago.
The actual memory they use is irrelevant to us AFAIK. The fact that they are shooting for that bandwidth across all of it is what is important.
At present with no stacking, GDDR5 is the only way to get that bandwidth (I think) If they don't use GDDR5 then it has to be stacked RAM (I think) but that doesn't seem like it will be ready in time, though it might be ready in 18 months for them to revise the motherboard.
That's why some have been speculating that it'll launch with GDDR5 and once Stacked DDR3/4 can be used then they'll do that.
iamvin22
Industry Verified
explain how they are getting that 176 of bandwidth??? this is the reason why it is pointed at GDDR5.
Psycho_Mantis
Banned
If we are going to make wild assumptions like this before either consoles price or features has been announced I am going to go o a limb and say that the PS4 will be a more powerful console and have a far better launch lineup.
Sony have been clever to announce first as it will have garnered the most attention. If MS announced the 720 in the next week it will not have as much attention as the ps4 or not as much as it could have. I am suspecting they will announce at E3.
GDDR5 is actually the worst case scenario if the bandwidth numbers are already taken as truth. Any other memory technology would likely have lower access times, even stuff that hasn't been released yet. So if you think 1) Sony wants to keep costs down and 2) the specs we've seen are true, then GDDR5 is the most likely answer.
It's by far the most likely answer anyway, just wanted to put that into perspective. If they go with a better type of memory Microsoft should be legitimately concerned since their console won't have a single performance advantage over the PS4.
Corleth the Fey
Member
Have you forgotten 16bit vs 32bit vs 64bit? CD's vs Carts? Blast processing?
nelsonroyale
Member
Exactly how I feel. I will still buy the bugger, but it is annoying that they keep pulling this rubbish. If MS can do it, they can too. The sprouts!
Schadenfreude
Member
Havent been keeping up with PS4 news. Have they said anything at all about BC with the PS3?