What of the eSRAM then?
PS4 Ram vs. Durango Ram: How big of a difference does it make?
- Thread starter CaptNink
- Start date
What of the eSRAM then?
Your what now? lol, seriously, either you put it up for display or you stick to what we know from the vgleaks. Seriously, well mine says differently too. LOL.
Have you not seen Star Wars? High ground wins yo!
It would taken down pretty quickly.
It has the words confidential right across the middle of every single slide, not worth turning into another supeDaE just to please you.
Well I say bullshit. Put up or shut up.
Their entire rumored architecture is to circumvent the GDDR5 issue and is designed around DDR3. If they upgrade tp GDDR5 you can rest assure that architecture in the leaks is wrong. I also think Sony leaked 2 to 4GB GDDR5 upgrade as a means to midirect MS. Not sure if true but if most dev' were not even told about the 8 GB upgrade Sony could have done the 4GB leaks on purpose.
You do know on GAF, if you have something to share you have to spill it.
Otherwise, you just don't say anything at all and sit on info like all the other devs that post on GAF do that are under NDA.
That's the Sony I grew to love during the PS2 gen. lol
Gemüsepizza
Member
Sony only has to solder additional chips on the mainboard. That's trivial. But Microsoft would have to reengineer their APU, replace the memory controller, remove the eSRAM, test the chip at manufacturing fabs for mass-production etc. That's a lot more difficult. And if Microsoft hasn't done this long ago, they simply have no time left.
He doesn't have anything. If he did, we wouldn't have been arguing all this while as documents state that you can render to esram and ddr3 ram. Even before vgleaks exposed that feature in their leak, aegis stated the same rendering to the 2 memory pools, and he got his info from the supposed doc with confidential written across it.
I think ts more likely that Sony were told by devs and perhaps the people working on their OS that 4gigs wasn't going to be enough, all rumours point to the decision being made on the additional memory happening in January, I doubt it's some mega scheme to out flank Microsoft.
No way will MS change their design now, they know the importance of being first to market or at least not being overly late and delaying their console now would be scuicide
Instead of it being some sort of "megaton" we actually just got punked?
Agreed, and they got lucky that the architecture would allow for the upgrade without too much fiddling. It's not a big deal. Carmack's quote about wise engineering decisions on Twitter after being critical of both Sony and MS for their console design decisions last year indicates that more than one developer wanted more RAM, both MS and Sony are heeding their request. If anything it appears that Sony was late to the party making the decision to go with 8GB (probably because it had to be reviewed big time as something that could be affordable), and as I said, they got lucky that it could be done with relative ease.
Interesting how some don't see it that way
THE:MILKMAN
Member
I agree that it was likely more simple. Sony had decided to go with 16 2Gb chips and had basically finished design work on the console. Then either Sony decided at the last minute to go with 16 4Gb chips (no/little motherboard alterations required?) or Hynix/Samsung phoned them very late shouting "we can do it!" 160 million 4Gb chips per year no problem!
Sony (laughs) Their accountants cry...
robertsan21
Member
I really hope MS cant upgrade to 8 GB RAM like the one Sony is equipping PS4 with. Would be sweet to see what kind of meltdowns we will have here on GAF when games are released and there is a huge difference in graphic performance etc 
I really hope MS cant upgrade to 8 GB RAM like the one Sony is equipping PS4 with. Would be sweet to see what kind of meltdowns we will have here on GAF when games are released and there is a huge difference in graphic performance etc
That's just... in such bad taste. Why anyone would want another console to be purposefully "crippled" is ridiculous. As ever we need these companies to be pushing each other to their limits. More competition means better development and better products. Less competition means complacency and stagnation
FlutterPuffs
Member
So how good will 8 gddr5+ ESram be? Fucking amazing or....?
TheChewyWaffles
Member
Uh...define "last minute"
If you're going for 8GB GDDR5 at 176GB/s there is no point in having 32MB of eSRAM at 102 GB/s. You create an unnecessary and expensive bottleneck
I believe that the bottleneck will be the speed of the bluray drive on both systems. From what i can remember Sony is going for a 6x drive, i guess MS will use similar drive speeds. If the information on wikipedia is correct a 6x drive can read 27mb per second, and that doesnt even take seek times into account. If we consider that the OS and other functions will take away RAM from both systems...i just calculated with 6 GB for games, then it will take almost 4 minutes to fill the RAM. I can imagine that games need to be installed if we want acceptable loading times!
iceatcs
Junior Member
lol. It would be downgrade and expensive if force to use ESRAM
robertsan21
Member
There will still be competition, I doubt that there will be a HUGE difference but there will be a slight difference, enough to put xbox fans against sony fans. There will be meltdown after meltdown haha and thats fun no ?
I own both systems so I am not taking any sides, just loving the meltdowns
THE:MILKMAN
Member
One thing that does puzzle me is that there has been the assumption that the memory config of Durango automatically makes it a cheaper system than PS4. I don't think the difference will be that much.
Reading the Chipworks analysis in the Wii U Latte thread and Jim Morrison thinks the MCM of Wii U could cost close to ~$100 partly because of the 32MB of eDRAM and talks of how hard and expensive it is to make.
On top of this, it is said Durango has a very advanced audio chip and the latest rumour is the CPU is upgraded. So although 8GB GDDR5 is both insane and expensive, IMO the Durango makes up for it with all the exclusive chips it has.
Reading the Chipworks analysis in the Wii U Latte thread and Jim Morrison thinks the MCM of Wii U could cost close to ~$100 partly because of the 32MB of eDRAM and talks of how hard and expensive it is to make.
On top of this, it is said Durango has a very advanced audio chip and the latest rumour is the CPU is upgraded. So although 8GB GDDR5 is both insane and expensive, IMO the Durango makes up for it with all the exclusive chips it has.
Bandwidth won't make much of a difference. Even if PS4 could access 5.x GB per frame they can only fill RAM at 0.1 GB/s or 0.003 GB/frame or 1/4th of that when reading from BD. So if they'd put everything into one scene they had nothing for the rest of the game. So not gonna happen. No game is gonna need more than 2 GB/frame. Well, maybe arena beat em ups.
Ninja Moomin
Banned
no they don't.
There's a HDD in there as well you know.
There will still be competition, I doubt that there will be a HUGE difference but there will be a slight difference, enough to put xbox fans against sony fans. There will be meltdown after meltdown haha and thats fun no ?
I own both systems so I am not taking any sides, just loving the meltdowns
So highly mature of you. More to the point unless XB3 is using something other than Cape Verde equivalent GDDR5 is a waste. They have have set up move engines and ESRAM in such a way that the thing is in a delicate state of balance to extract maximum performance by encroaching on its theoretical maximum potential.
There will still be competition, I doubt that there will be a HUGE difference but there will be a slight difference, enough to put xbox fans against sony fans. There will be meltdown after meltdown haha and thats fun no ?
I own both systems so I am not taking any sides, just loving the meltdowns
Where i come from we call that anarchism
Gemüsepizza;48112122 said:
This isn't how it works. You don't just whip out a solder gun and go to work on a mobo as complex as the PS4's.
The only reason Sony is capable of making the jump to 8GB is because they either A. planned on 32 1Gbit chips and are now getting a stellar deal on 2Gbit chips or B. they planned on 16 2Gbit chips and have been promised a steady supply of brand spanking new 4Gbit chips at a reasonable cost.
The number of chips has been set in stone for a long time, you can't just add more.
I'd bet that someone like Hynix is cutting Sony one hell of a sweet deal on 4Gbit chips, as 32 mem chips on a console mobo is insane. Likely what we're seeing is Hynix and Sony doing the math together and realizing just how quickly the PS4's use of 4Gbit chips can push high yield mass market production of them into being a reality. Hynix obviously wants to be the only provider in town who can turn out high quantities of reliable 4Gbit GDDR5 and the PS4 is the ultimate whale for that product. PS4 will move more GDDR5 chips in a year than every enthusiast graphics card combined, probably by a wide margin. You can get real creative on price point when dealing with that kind of quantity.
Pretty much completely fucking pointless.
The ESRAM has significantly lower bandwidth than GDDR5 as it is, MS is just using it to cover just how slow DDR3 is relative to GDDR5.
Also, people act like MS just doesn't know what they're doing with DDR3. There is a purpose to them choosing DDR3. The lower latency will be great for their non-gaming features.
well, PS4 has a lot of extra chips as well, from video encoder/decore to zlib decode to separate CPU for OS, as well as all the standard stuff for audio and other things.
Question here is how much does Kinect cost to do and if MS is indeed upgrading cpu/gpu how much will it cost all together.
I dont think 720 needs to be upgraded though... If they can get $100 lesser price, that would be awesome for MS and quite possibly easily outsell PS4.
Ol No Bones
Banned
Xbox only fans don't seem to have meltdowns like the Sony only crowd do. I think it would be pretty funny if the Xbox was actually better hardware in a serious way. I don't know what's gonna happen but a lot of people on here are assuming with certainty that the ps4 is more powerful than the next Xbox. It will be interesting. It's not like the ps4 is tech we have never seen before. The memory solution is nice for sure but people are a little too crazy about it if you asked me. 75 percent of PC gamers on here probably have a significantly better CPU and gpu.I really hope MS cant upgrade to 8 GB RAM like the one Sony is equipping PS4 with. Would be sweet to see what kind of meltdowns we will have here on GAF when games are released and there is a huge difference in graphic performance etc
Ol No Bones
Banned
yhis is what in talking about. Ms should upgrade this ms should upgrade that. We don't know what they have to begin with. We technically don't know if this device exists.
Of course they can. Do you think they only have one hardware design developed? They have a big number of hardware designs|alternatives in their pocket. Not just because of an answer to Sony, but also because of manufacturing or suppliers problems. I'm pretty sure they even have "b-plans" to go with a totally different CPU/gpu provider in case something happened to AMD.
And redesigning a board from DDR3 to DDR4 doesn't take that much time. The question for Microsoft is just if the change in specs for PS4 is really a risk, not if they can redesign some aspect of their new Xbox.
Uno Venova
Banned
But there was also rumors that Sony was pushing for 8 and might increase it, no rumors like that for MS.
Forget about playing from BD next gen.
They better pack a large HDD into their systems then, I doubt that people want to manage their installs.
quickwhips
Member
The ps4 is using 8 GB of GDDR5 that is suppose to run hotter correct? How small do you think they can make the PS4 and still keep it quiet for noise levels? I mean it had to change the case design a bit for size correct to keep up with cooling?
AgentP
Thinks mods influence posters politics. Promoted to QAnon Editor.
Parody post? That's not how it works.
FatalMuzza
Banned
Yeah I'm not convinced the GDDR5 will be a monumental benefit. Bigger bandwidth but higher latency over DDR3.
Lets say higher bandwidth can deliver 10 boxes in 10 seconds, whereas narrower bandwidth lower latency can deliver 3 boxes in 4 seconds. Yeah in 10 seconds on DDR3 I can only get 7.5 boxes compared to 10 . But what if I only practically need 3? I can get them faster on DDR3. And this is not even factoring the ESRAM which can deliver me 1/2 box in 1 second. What if half a box is as much as I need for a damn good period of time.
All of a sudden the Durango outperforms PS4. NOTE: boxes and ratios completely fictional to illustrate a point.
I think the real clincher will be who has the fatter GPU muscle. And we know how that's allegedly looking ATM.
Lets say higher bandwidth can deliver 10 boxes in 10 seconds, whereas narrower bandwidth lower latency can deliver 3 boxes in 4 seconds. Yeah in 10 seconds on DDR3 I can only get 7.5 boxes compared to 10 . But what if I only practically need 3? I can get them faster on DDR3. And this is not even factoring the ESRAM which can deliver me 1/2 box in 1 second. What if half a box is as much as I need for a damn good period of time.
All of a sudden the Durango outperforms PS4. NOTE: boxes and ratios completely fictional to illustrate a point.
I think the real clincher will be who has the fatter GPU muscle. And we know how that's allegedly looking ATM.
TheGreyHulk
Member
gddr5 runs hotter, but not that damn hot that it'll require a new design. All they have to do is put tiny heatsinks on them or have the big heatsink they'll be using on the apu have some extended fins to cover the chips and they'll be good.
Diminishing returns. I am not convinced that all that bandwidth (~5GB per frame at 30) can really be used by the GPU they have anyway. Assuming most is used for textures and meshes etc. it just seems like overkill. However 4 might have limited them in the long run and I assume they have to go the next power of 2.
Manmademan
Member
Games have cached to hard drive while you play for a long time now- at least on PS3 which had a hard drive in every SKU, and the Xbox 1 before it for the same reason.
Sony is also pursuing day 1 digital releases for all PS4 titles, so those won't use the BRD at all.
The blu ray speed is in no way the bottleneck here.
MightyHedgehog
Member
As I recall, some of the 'leaked' info included a specific mention that games on the next XBOX won't or, rather, can't play straight from disc as they first need to be installed to local storage, even in a quick streaming-code method to allow players to start a game without having to wait for full and completed installation. If that's legit, Blu Ray access and seek time won't be a concern for Durango and, if the guesses are right, the DMEs will help to spool data to and from the HDD for further work with the RAM and ESRAM pools, which, according to the documents snippets floating around, are going to be unified addressable spaces to enable streaming of compressed assets that can span the pools as well as be larger than either can hold in their entirety at any one time.
THE:MILKMAN
Member
Durango is rumoured to have the same/similar extra chips as PS4 plus Kinect in every box, a potentially more advanced audio chip, MEC chip, DME's and HDMI in too. Add all that to the 32MB of eSRAM (this alone could more than cover the extra CUs in PS4) and I can't see it coming in $100 less. Unless MS are willing to take more of a loss.
Green Yoshi
Member
To change DDR-3 RAM in GDDR-5 RAM Microsoft has to change the memory controller in the APU and to remove the eSRAM (because it's useless then). So they would have to do a complete redesign of the chips, that's not possible only a few months before mass production starts.
not sure whats there really extra except for eSRAM but then again, with 8 GB of GDDR5, PS4 mobo is pretty complex... plus there is an extra cpu that runs OS.
then again who really knows right now... I think they are targeting either more advanced kinect or cheaper box at the end but we wont know for sure.