Probably some third party. But GG definitely knows and used it.
PS4 has 8 GB OF GDDR5 RAM
- Thread starter Log4Girlz
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Probably some third party. But GG definitely knows and used it.
CoffeeJanitor
Member
Yeah, I love this move, but we;ll see how it plays out on the open market. I hope we're not looking at a huge price here.
Can tech GAF answer something for me. Since many are saying GDDR5 will have more latency then ddr3, will this affect input lag at all? I play fighting games so even an extra frame of input lag is a big no no. For this gen, some fighters had an extra frame of lag on ps3 then on 360.
Other then that, as long as cpu and gpu are customized a bit, I am very happy with the ps4. The specs were something I worried about for a while because if they sucked, then all the games would suffer from it. Now that I know the system is good enough, I am relieved and I can just focus on the games from now on. The launch games already look good enough to me that I wouldn't care if graphics don't improve in the next few years. Just work on physics and animations
It won't affect input lag at all. The latency will be in nano-seconds.
Pristine_Condition
Member
Here's what I wrote in another thread about 3 wks. ago on the 8GB GDDR5 RAM BOM, ect. back when I was convinced that it was "only" going to be 4GB, but was trying to point out that the pricing wasn't as outrageous as some were saying. Hell, I think there was a guy in that thread or another that was claiming it would be $1000!
http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost.php?p=47256230&postcount=181
My source wasn't some insider or anything...just a guy who works in the fab business. The post was pretty much ignored by everybody, but it seems pretty solid in light of what we know now. Note his price estimate was "all-in," meaning everything you need, inserted on the board, and ready to go. (Insertion is not a trivial cost with multiple chips--every little piece counts.) I'm thinking Sony got the pricing they wanted, hit the green light, and made the contract with a vendor or two.
http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost.php?p=47256230&postcount=181
My source wasn't some insider or anything...just a guy who works in the fab business. The post was pretty much ignored by everybody, but it seems pretty solid in light of what we know now. Note his price estimate was "all-in," meaning everything you need, inserted on the board, and ready to go. (Insertion is not a trivial cost with multiple chips--every little piece counts.) I'm thinking Sony got the pricing they wanted, hit the green light, and made the contract with a vendor or two.
DerpButter
Member
Assets have to stream in from something; and that taps it for all the patience with tech bickering I have.
Yes, they do, but they do not have to stream gigs and gigs before you play. It won't be an issue.
yep, the cost difference between GDDR5 and DDR3 isn't huge, but it is if they want to keep the machine below $500 IMO. Although maybe they plan on just eating the cost and taking a bigger loss initially.
ThisWreckage
Banned
I don't think this will drive the price up. I think they'll eat money on the first batch of systems and offset those losses with the money they're going to be getting from Playstation Plus/World. 450 at the very most. A lot of people were convinced the Vita was going to be 400 dollars before the price was revealed for it here on GAF.
Having more RAM to keep the high quality art assets loaded will still not remove the need for LODs, having a small amount of RAM can make it so that you get some worse pop up.
The PC version of Crysis 2 still has LODs.
KingofGourds
Member
Probably the single most exciting bit of news for me out of this whole thing.
RAM has been an issue developers have gone on about for generations. It was getting to the point where you just felt like it was par for the course of console gaming.
Sony just blew that out of the water.
RAM has been an issue developers have gone on about for generations. It was getting to the point where you just felt like it was par for the course of console gaming.
Sony just blew that out of the water.
smokeandmirrors
Banned
Developers/programmers will always bitch about RAM. Comes with the territory. It's easy to get stuck in the mindset of unlimited memory
especially when you're just chugging along, allocating x bytes here, y bytes there and you don't notice until after compile time when you try to access memory you don't have.BruceLeeRoy
Banned
When they knew it though is the question.
SolidSnakex
Member
The insiders that Edge have seem to know what they're talking about. They had it pegged at being bumped up to 8gb.
Can tech GAF answer something for me. Since many are saying GDDR5 will have more latency then ddr3, will this affect input lag at all? I play fighting games so even an extra frame of input lag is a big no no. For this gen, some fighters had an extra frame of lag on ps3 then on 360.
Other then that, as long as cpu and gpu are customized a bit, I am very happy with the ps4. The specs were something I worried about for a while because if they sucked, then all the games would suffer from it. Now that I know the system is good enough, I am relieved and I can just focus on the games from now on. The launch games already look good enough to me that I wouldn't care if graphics don't improve in the next few years. Just work on physics and animations
That's not how memory latency works. Memory latency is measured in hundreds of nanoseconds. Frames are measured in tens of millions of nanoseconds. It's a computational concern only, not a gameplay concern.
ThisWreckage
Banned
Put it this way, even if Microsoft did something ridiculous like having 12 GB of DDR3 they would still be at a disadvantage because of the rumored bloat of their OS/Kinect coupled with the inferior type.
The benefit of GDDR5 is its greater potential bandwidth. That is the amount of addressable information per given time, so in this case 176 GB/S. This gives the GPU more information per frame to work with. The more information, the more efficiently the GPU can be used to create graphics. This is why you don't just stick in the cheapest possible memory.
Downsides to GDDR5 is that it comes in densities low than DDR3. Meaning, it takes more chips per given gigabyte of space and more chips means more money. It also has higher latency, though graphics functions are not too latency dependent.
smokeandmirrors
Banned
It's faaasssstttttt. Well over double the transfer rate of ddr3 and can be clocked a hell of a lot faster.
:lol
Yeah, the blue one is how my penis looks like now, but a similar graph comparing 8GB DDR3 PC with the GDDR5 and something about the graphics card which I don't really get would be amazing. I just want to begin to understand what I'm drooling over ;p
You might want to see a doctor.
Unified memory is very good in a closed environment. It allows more flexibility and it keeps things simple.
Agent Ironside
Member
Dinneeeeer time everyybody! Come, eat up.
http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?p=48018070&posted=1#post48018070
http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?p=48018070&posted=1#post48018070
So it does mean that there is now just one RAM and it's shared for all the graphics purposes and whatever else was RAM responsible for?
Apart from cache on the CPU, yeah.
Dynamite Shikoku
Congratulations, you really deserve it!
can it run crysis?
orientalNoodle
Banned
A desperate move from a dying company. 8GB of GDDR5 is clearly a decision by marketing to grab attentions rather from engineers.
Liabe Brave
Member
A frequent discussion point in the RAM speculation threads was that GDDR5 bandwidth will become available with stacked DDR3 at lower heat and lower cost very, very soon (but not soon enough for PS4 mass production). This obviously raises the question if it's possible Sony put this much GDDR5 in the PS4 intending to switch to stacked DDR3 at some point in the near future--say a year or so.
My question is, would that be technically feasible? Obviously the internal layout would need to change, but apart from that, could it be done in such a way that the 8GB 176GB/s stacked DDR3 would "look like" 8GB 176 GB/s GDDR5 to the OS and the games already released to that point? Or are the latencies/voltages/whatever different enough that it would break everything?
I ask because if it could be done, then the launch price could be lower than otherwise. Sony could afford to lose more on the first year's units if they were sure that a meaningful drop in build cost was coming soon (eliminating or much reducing the losses per unit).
My question is, would that be technically feasible? Obviously the internal layout would need to change, but apart from that, could it be done in such a way that the 8GB 176GB/s stacked DDR3 would "look like" 8GB 176 GB/s GDDR5 to the OS and the games already released to that point? Or are the latencies/voltages/whatever different enough that it would break everything?
I ask because if it could be done, then the launch price could be lower than otherwise. Sony could afford to lose more on the first year's units if they were sure that a meaningful drop in build cost was coming soon (eliminating or much reducing the losses per unit).
It's what developers wanted. True, it's probably a move made out of trying to guarantee strong specs but it's not a marketing move.
Broder Salsa
Banned
Digital-Hero
Member
What is that bar graph trying to prove?
Agent Ironside
Member
PS3 is only DDR3. The PS4 GDDR5 bar is taking that into consideration. ; )
The original graph was exaggerated.
Broder Salsa
Banned
That the scale doesn't match up.
Whiteshirt
Member
Consumers don't even know what GDDR5 is so it'll have to be a really stupid marketing move to gain attention.
That's what I'm wondering about the original. There's no scale so it's completely meaningless.
A desperate response from a desperate MS fanboy.
They have a guy at Sony. He's pretty well known and well regarded. Mark Cerny who's heading up development of the architecture of the PS4. He's a pretty big deal and I'm pretty sure he knows what he's doing.
orientalNoodle
Banned
MS gave the developers 8GB of DDR3 which I say is a much smarter decision that provides the optimal balance between cost and performance.
orientalNoodle
Banned
Yea, consumers like you and I. We know our shits when it comes to console tech.
Yeah. You're forgetting one thing. That cost is offset by MS's insistence on a heavy OS footprint numbering 2+ GB (leaving the system with 6 GB of slow DDR3 memory) and a little camera called Kinect 2.0 that will increase production costs.
It can run Crysis running Crysis running Far Cry.
The PS3 had GDDR3 for VRAM and XDR for Main RAM, no DDR3 in it.
James Sawyer Ford
Banned
Sony would not have included 8 GB of GDR5 unless they felt it would provide a significant boost in what they're trying to achieve.