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[Mr_Brit]

People don't realise that memory is a lot cheaper for Sony/MS to buy for these reasons:

They can buy direct in bulk from the memory chip manufacturer, e.g. Hynix etc. This is unlike PC RAM where you have the memory manufacturer e.g. Crucial/EVGA who make the complete RAM stick/PCB and the retailer e.g. NewEgg who all add to the costs as they have to make large profits. By buying direct in bulk Sony/MS cut out two middlemen and can get memory chips for vastly lower prices compared to retail.

They can also cut special deals with manufacturers as they know that Sony/MS will be buying millions of memory chips exclusively from them for the next 5+ years.

RAM does not go into a console like it goes into a PC, you can not buy them in bulk....

Note I'm talking about memory chips which are soldered onto the motherboard of the console.

 

[wwm0nkey]

People don't realise that memory is a lot cheaper for Sony/MS to buy for these reasons:

They can buy direct in bulk from the memory chip manufacturer, e.g. Hynix etc. This is unlike PC RAM where you have the memory manufacturer e.g. Crucial who make the complete RAM stick and the retailer e.g. NewEgg who all add to the costs as they have to make large profits. By buying direct in bulk Sony/MS cut out two middlemen and can get memory chips for vastly lower prices compared to retail.

RAM does not go into a console like it goes into a PC, you can not buy them in bulk....

where does the RAM stick and GPU go!?

 

[brain_stew]

People don't realise that memory is a lot cheaper for Sony/MS to buy for these reasons:

They can buy direct in bulk from the memory chip manufacturer, e.g. Hynix etc. This is unlike PC RAM where you have the memory manufacturer e.g. Crucial who make the complete RAM stick and the retailer e.g. NewEgg who all add to the costs as they have to make large profits. By buying direct in bulk Sony/MS cut out two middlemen and can get memory chips for vastly lower prices compared to retail.

They can also cut special deals with manufacturers as they know that Sony/MS will be buying millions of memory chips exclusively from them for the next 5+ years.

Vast profits on RAM? Historically memory has been sold under cost and subsidised by the Taiwanese government, its not a market with large margins. Anyone can go and check the current going rate of the actual chips themselves in bulk anyway, its not some big industry secret.

 

[Special J]

all more ram allows developers to do is be really sloppy with their resource allocation it wont make games significantly better looking just improve development times and load times.

streaming tech has made more ram less of an issue because of dynamic resource allocation. honestly a 128x128 vs a 256x256 texture really aint gonna make much of a difference on a 1280x720 rendered screen anyways.

 

[Sword Familiar]

all more ram allows developers to do is be really sloppy with their resource allocation it wont make games significantly better looking just improve development times and load times.

If it can potentially improve development times I'm all for it. This generation's been a mess.

 

[Mr_Brit]

Vast profits on RAM? Historically memory has been sold under cost and subsidised by the Taiwanese government, its not a market with large margins. Anyone can go and check the current going rate of the actual chips themselves in bulk anyway, its not some big industry secret.

It was only subsidised due to supply outstripping demand and this is usually only true for desktop RAM not more specialised RAM. Also margins have to be at least decent or there wouldn't be so many memory manufacturers as well as there being a vast range of prices for similar specced RAM, some RAM sticks can vary up to £40-50 between manufacturers. I'm sure someone like Hynix would cut Sony/MS a deal if they promised to but at least 30 million chips over the next 4-5 years, it'd be crazy to think they'd pay normal prices.

all more ram allows developers to do is be really sloppy with their resource allocation it wont make games significantly better looking just improve development times and load times.

streaming tech has made more ram less of an issue because of dynamic resource allocation. honestly a 128x128 vs a 256x256 texture really aint gonna make much of a difference on a 1280x720 rendered screen anyways.

Did you just step through a time portal from 2005?

 

[G Rom]

all more ram allows developers to do is be really sloppy with their resource allocation it wont make games significantly better looking just improve development times and load times.

streaming tech has made more ram less of an issue because of dynamic resource allocation. honestly a 128x128 vs a 256x256 texture really aint gonna make much of a difference on a 1280x720 rendered screen anyways.

Yes a texture quality bump will make a difference. For example in Forza or GT, in-game/replay liveries could use that.
Don't forget that next-gen, more games will probably be YYYYx1080.


Speaking of textures, I hope that we get more texture filtering next-gen. Some current games could look much better with AF applied IMO...

 

[brain_stew]

It was only subsidised due to supply outstripping demand and this is usually only true for desktop RAM not more specialised RAM. Also margins have to be at least decent or there wouldn't be so many memory manufacturers as well as there being a vast range of prices for similar specced RAM, some RAM sticks can vary up to £40-50 between manufacturers. I'm sure someone like Hynix would cut Sony/MS a deal if they promised to but at least 30 million chips over the next 4-5 years, it'd be crazy to think they'd pay normal prices.


Did you just step through a time portal from 2005?

I'm not denying its cheaper, just that its not going to have such a major impact on costs as you'd like to believe and it, yet again, ignores the major reason why 8GB is impossible; board complexity.

 

[Mr_Brit]

Yes a texture quality bump will make a difference. For example in Forza or GT, in-game/replay liveries could use that.
Don't forget that next-gen, more games will probably be YYYYx1080.


Speaking of textures, I hope that we get more texture filtering next-gen. Some current games could look much better with AF applied IMO...

What is the reason so few games use AF filtering this gen? Is it bandwidth limitations? Assuming Sony/MS go for what we expect them to go for, will AF be pretty much free? Whenever I turn on AF on my PC I can never tell if there's an FPS difference.

 

[G Rom]

Pic of old Xbox 360

This design is out of date though. The Slim has the CPU and GPU on the same die, there's only one big fan/heatsink, the NAND flash is on a daughter card to save costs and the whole PCB is much smaller.
Microsoft learnt a lot of things from the Slim in all areas, which is why they'll probably want to recreate this for next-gen.

 

[toastyToast]

Isn't 1-2GB of GDDR5 plenty? 8GB is outrageous. What would it contain? These things aren't PCs. I suppose if consoles become more multipurpose like allowing you to minimize a game to watch a movie or some other crazy nonsense a secondary slower pool could have it's uses.

I'm pretty sure they're not talking about VRAM.

 

[Mr_Brit]

Isn't 1-2GB of GDDR5 plenty? 8GB is outrageous. What would it contain? These things aren't PCs. I suppose if consoles become more multipurpose like allowing you to minimize a game to watch a movie or some other crazy nonsense a secondary slower pool could have it's uses.

I'm pretty sure they're not talking about VRAM.

We're already seeing current gen PC games be VRAM limited by 1.5GB cards and I know that I personally won't be happy with even Metro 2033 level textures next gen so they'll need at least 4GB if they want a true next gen leap in textures. Also games will most likely run in XXXXx1080p next gen so we'll need more memory for that too.

 

[Polk]

Wouldn't 8GB of ram be cheap as all fuck to put it there? So why not?

Maybe you forgot that Sony removed two USB ports from later revisions of PS3 thus saving like $0,10. That's why they will put least amount of memory they can "get away with".

 

[Special J]

http://www.valvesoftware.com/publications/2008/GDC2008_CrossPlatformDevelopment.pdf

anyways heres a doc about console development from valve which makes it obvious the kinda pains game developers have because of the limited ram and how its more an issue of getting things to fit rather than having X ram will make our games look significantly better.

 

[toastyToast]

I suppose it's nice to have a shit load of VRAM just in case but there are few games that push the 1GB mark(modded Crysis, GTA IV, Metro?). 2GB is feasible to be cheap enough to include in a console but 4GB+ doesn't seem likely for anything but the dual super high end GPUs for a while imo.

 

[Mr_Brit]

I suppose it's nice to have a shit load of VRAM just in case but there are few games that push the 1GB mark(modded Crysis, GTA IV, Metro?). 2GB is feasible to be cheap enough to include in a console but 4GB+ doesn't seem likely for anything but the dual super high end GPUs for a while imo.

I think the most ideal in terms of cost to hardware manufacturers and ease of game development is 4GB, it won't bottleneck devs too much and it won't cost too much for Sony/MS to include.

 

[Quasar]

Why's this in the least bit ridiculous? memory has been the big pain this generation, if we're going with decade console life cycles then it's not an unreasonable request.

Though 8GB is pretty crazy. Especially given we'll be stuck at the resolutions we have now.

That said phones are already at 1 GB. Phones.

 

[spwolf]

1GB or maybe 1.5GB...

they do wonders now with streaming tech, and they have much less memory...

Also to consider is that they have to load various libraries into that available memory... so whatever extra they get, it will go to graphics exclusively.

Would not even be surprised with 768 MB. That would give them more then double the space for textures compared to now, and look at how some games look (UC?).

 

[2San]

Doesn't the PC version of DA:O use more than 2GB ram? Maxing everything out caused the game the crash with certain spells(pink/purple cloud spells) since it needed more RAM then the 32-bit client allowed. A small command line tweak allowed the game to access more and it was smooth sailing from then on. Or am I misunderstanding things?

 

[ThoseDeafMutes]

Doesn't the PC version of DA:O use more than 2GB ram? Maxing everything out caused the game the crash with certain spells(pink/purple cloud spells) since it needed more RAM then the 32-bit client allowed. A small command line tweak allowed the game to access more and it was smooth sailing from then on.

I don't think I'm telling you anything new here, but DA:O was a buggy PoS with memory leaks up the wazoo.

 

[Zaptruder]

If these consoles are been released in 2-3 years, and high end mobile phones of today have 1GB ram...

You'd be severely fucking disappointed if next gen consoles had 1-1.5 gb of ram.

The same level of progression from last gen to this gen would be from 512 to 4GB of ram.

Which isn't great, but isn't terrible either. Given that consoles do a decent job of cranking HD screens, you're going to see a limit to the utility of ram as far as graphics are concerned... and it's probably around the 4-8GB mark. At least as far as 1080p goes.

 

[erick]

It's completely hilarious ... that people think 8GB is too much. If anything, it's quite conservative...

1. These consoles won't see the light of day for another 3 years. I am putting 16GB in gaming PC boxes right now, not because it is needed but because it is so cheap.

2. Do you think that this 8GB will still be "oh too f*cking much" in the year 2021, when the next-next generation will be 5 years old? If so, 2001 just called and said that you don't need more than 256MB in any PC, ever.

But the average "lol its a Ferrari-supermodel" NeoGAFer knows sh*t about technology, so I don't even know why I bother...

Carry on.

 

[derder]

http://www.valvesoftware.com/publications/2008/GDC2008_CrossPlatformDevelopment.pdf

anyways heres a doc about console development from valve which makes it obvious the kinda pains game developers have because of the limited ram and how its more an issue of getting things to fit rather than having X ram will make our games look significantly better.

Someone should put this in the OP.

 

[2San]

I don't think I'm telling you anything new here, but DA:O was a buggy PoS with memory leaks up the wazoo.

That's true, but 2~4GB RAM doesn't really seem that crazy for the next gen. If only to speed up development.

 

[spwolf]

If these consoles are been released in 2-3 years, and high end mobile phones of today have 1GB ram...

You'd be severely fucking disappointed if next gen consoles had 1-1.5 gb of ram.

The same level of progression from last gen to this gen would be from 512 to 4GB of ram.

Which isn't great, but isn't terrible either. Given that consoles do a decent job of cranking HD screens, you're going to see a limit to the utility of ram as far as graphics are concerned... and it's probably around the 4-8GB mark. At least as far as 1080p goes.

Mobile phones also cost >$600.

 

[navanman]

It's completely hilarious ... that people think 8GB is too much. If anything, it's quite conservative...

1. These consoles won't see the light of day for another 3 years. I am putting 16GB in gaming PC boxes right now, not because it is needed but because it is so cheap.

2. Do you think that this 8GB will still be "oh too f*cking much" in the year 2021, when the next-next generation will be 5 years old? If so, 2001 just called and said that you don't need more than 256MB in any PC, ever.

But the average "lol its a Ferrari-supermodel" NeoGAFer knows sh*t about technology, so I don't even know why I bother...

Carry on.

Arghh, do you know how many RAM chips that is?
16GB of RAM, that's probably 32 RAM chips minimum at least.
The PCB surface area would have to be huge, multi-layered & double-sided leading to PS3 launch $599 issues again.
As brain-stew mentioned previously, Sony & Microsoft will want to aim for 4 RAM chips of the largest size available at the time of development, prototyping.

 

[NeoandGeo]

Mobile phones also cost >$600.

The inflated price to force contracts cost more than $600. The actual phones themselves are much cheaper.

 

[derder]

The inflated price to force contracts cost more than $600. The actual phones themselves are much cheaper.

uhhhhhhhhhh wrong

 

[subversus]

Doesn't the PC version of DA:O use more than 2GB ram? Maxing everything out caused the game the crash with certain spells(pink/purple cloud spells) since it needed more RAM then the 32-bit client allowed. A small command line tweak allowed the game to access more and it was smooth sailing from then on. Or am I misunderstanding things?

what command ?

 

[Kinan]

I suppose it's nice to have a shit load of VRAM just in case but there are few games that push the 1GB mark(modded Crysis, GTA IV, Metro?). 2GB is feasible to be cheap enough to include in a console but 4GB+ doesn't seem likely for anything but the dual super high end GPUs for a while imo.

Aye. My bet is 2GB as well, with decent bandwidth. Full HD 4xMSAA HDR framebuffer is "only" around 110MB, most of the the memory is used by textures and vertex/index buffers, and, if Uncharted2 taught us anything, those can be very impressivly streamed. Next generation will not need anything above 1080p, more important will be to have raw speed and bandwidth to reach 30fps in Full HD 3D.

 

[G Rom]

It's completely hilarious ... that people think 8GB is too much. If anything, it's quite conservative...

1. These consoles won't see the light of day for another 3 years. I am putting 16GB in gaming PC boxes right now, not because it is needed but because it is so cheap.

2. Do you think that this 8GB will still be "oh too f*cking much" in the year 2021, when the next-next generation will be 5 years old? If so, 2001 just called and said that you don't need more than 256MB in any PC, ever.

But the average "lol its a Ferrari-supermodel" NeoGAFer knows sh*t about technology, so I don't even know why I bother...

Carry on.

16 GB, yeah right...

1. Next-gen consoles won't use DDR3, they will use GDDR5 or XDR2 (GDDR5 is more likely), these types memory are much more expensive and faster.
2. Those 16 GB that you put in your gaming PC probably come in 4x4GB, there's just not enough space on a console motherboard to put so many module, even with the not yet released 4Gb modules. This would mean 32 4Gb modules. Look at the previously posted photo of the Xbox 360 motherboard and look for the RAM modules, now imagine trying to fit 32 of those rectangle on the same motherboard...
3. It may cost you a few bucks to bump you PC to 16 GB but manufacturers work with millions of units in mind so those few bucks end up costing tens of millions.
4. Consoles are closed box with very limited OS footprint in the memory compared to "normal" OSes (32 MB for the Xbox 360 IIRC). In your 16 GB PC, Windows and other small applications (Steam, Skype, etc...) all eat a considerable amount of RAM. That's not the case on a console...

 

[Mr_Brit]

uhhhhhhhhhh wrong

Nope, he's right, you're wrong. The only reason the iphone and other smartphones are $600+ is so that they don't disincentivise contract purchasers as that is where the real money is made.

4. Consoles are closed box with very limited OS footprint in the memory compared to "normal" OSes (32 MB for the Xbox 360 IIRC). In your 16 GB PC, Windows and other small applications (Steam, Skype, etc...) all eat a considerable amount of RAM. That's not the case on a console...

Console OSs are so slim as they basically do nothing except act as messaging clients. Next gen you can expect the background OS to use at least 256mb as they'll be much more complex and offer an experience not too dissimilar to Smartphone OSs like group video chat, in game browser, in game marketplace, large friends lists etc.

 

[erick]

Arghh, do you know how many RAM chips that is?
16GB of RAM, that's probably 32 RAM chips minimum at least.
The PCB surface area would have to be huge, multi-layered & double-sided leading to PS3 launch $599 issues again.
As brain-stew mentioned previously, Sony & Microsoft will want to aim for 4 RAM chips of the largest size available at the time of development, prototyping.

That is 32 RAM chips right now. In a minimum of 18 months, it will be 16, and by production time it should be 8. Completely do-able with double-sided PCB, good engineers can do it single-sided (much like gfx cards).

The issues with the launch price of PS3 had very little to do with multi-layered PCB and very much to do with Blu-ray.

Besides, wasn't it the very same multilayered PCB that saved Sony around a billion dollars as it did not curve under heat and pressure, unlike the one in a certain beige box?

16 GB, yeah right...

4. Consoles are closed box with very limited OS footprint in the memory compared to "normal" OSes (32 MB for the Xbox 360 IIRC). In your 16 GB PC, Windows and other small applications (Steam, Skype, etc...) all eat a considerable amount of RAM. That's not the case on a console...

If you offered developers that 32MB taken by the OS, I think they'd all cry tears of joy. The idea here is not how much is the bare minimum you can put a functioning OS into, but how much is left available AFTER.

14,5/16GB usable space is still generations better than 3,96/4GB and no amount of optimization will change that.

 

[AllIsOneIsNone]

Do people honestly think that consoles released in 2015 will have only 2 gigs of RAM? Puff puff pass, man, don't hog it all.

 

[Zaptruder]

Mobile phones also cost >$600.

They're also a tiny fraction of the size of a console.

 

[TheExodu5]

Are we waiting until 2015 now?

 

[Wandering Leopard]

Console OSs are so slim as they basically do nothing except act as messaging clients. Next gen you can expect the background OS to use at least 256mb as they'll be much more complex and offer an experience not too dissimilar to Smartphone OSs like group video chat, in game browser, in game marketplace, large friends lists etc.

I agree, I can definitely see next gen consoles from Sony & MS having a lot more non gaming applications and functions. Although something like 2GB vram and 1gb - or less - of slower RAM for the OS would still be more ideal and most importantly cheap compared to having more than 4gb.

 

[2San]

what command ?

Looking back it wasn't a really a command line, as it was tweaking the exe using CFF, I wasn't techsavy enough to really understand what you needed to do. I used this program: http://www.ntcore.com/4gb_patch.php. It essentially patches x86 applications to use 4GB ram instead of 2GB with an easy to use GUI.

 

[-viper-]

I want a new console by the end of 2012/early 2013. NO EXCUSES SONY/MICROSOFT.

 

[Log4Girlz]

If these consoles are been released in 2-3 years, and high end mobile phones of today have 1GB ram...

You'd be severely fucking disappointed if next gen consoles had 1-1.5 gb of ram.

The same level of progression from last gen to this gen would be from 512 to 4GB of ram.

Which isn't great, but isn't terrible either. Given that consoles do a decent job of cranking HD screens, you're going to see a limit to the utility of ram as far as graphics are concerned... and it's probably around the 4-8GB mark. At least as far as 1080p goes.

At some point any discussion about Ram in some console or handheld has to mention Smart-phones. Fuck I have the perfect solution, 16 GB of Smart-phone memory. Brain_strew, try all you want, but you cannot poke holes in the logic of using massive amounts of Ram. The flexibility would be stupendous and it'll barely generate any heat because its from Smart-phones.

 

[Kinan]

I do not think Sony will use Rambus memory again, but XDR2 does look pretty sweet, and it comes in 4Gb modules as well, according to their website.

Will cost a fortune though.

 

[Mr_Brit]

Is there any chance of a new type of memory coming out by late 2013?

 

[scar tissue]

8GB?
yeah, good luck with that
i bet we won't get more than 2GB
although crytek should know that 8GB PC RAM doesn't equal 8GB of console ram (because of windows running in the background, etc)

 

[Sqrt_minus_one]

Nope, he's right, you're wrong. The only reason the iphone and other smartphones are $600+ is so that they don't disincentivise contract purchasers as that is where the real money is made.

Where are you people getting this information from?

Can't just make stuff up and tell him he is wrong. The price of a stand alone modern mobile is £400 ($600) and above where is the information on the sell through price to networks being much lower per unit. If anything I saw a recent chart which said the networks were incurring reduced profits because of the shift to smartphones. The cost of the average handset is increasing so they have to subsidize a greater amount.

 

[Mr_Brit]

Where are you people getting this information from?

Can't just make stuff up and tell him he is wrong. The price of a stand alone modern mobile is £400 ($600) and above where is the information on the sell through price to networks being much lower per unit. If anything I saw a recent chart which said the networks were incurring reduced profits because of the shift to smartphones. The cost of the average handset is increasing so they have to subsidize a greater amount.

I never said the phone networks paid a lower price just that the reason smartphones cost so much is due to smartphone makers inflating the price to such high levels. It's a widely known fact by the way, I didn't just make this up.

 

[gofreak]

I don't know if 8 RAM chips is really going to be problematic?

I mean, neither Sony's cost problems or 360's heat problems (AFAIK) came from the number of RAM chips.

Of course it's easier and cheaper to use less, but I don't know if 8 would necessarily be hugely problematic...

I hope for 8, otherwise 4GB might be off the cards entirely. I hope for 4GB, I think that would be a nice upgrade, comparable to previous jumps.

 

[erick]

XDR is a huge rip-off. If you take a look at the PS3, the modules they use there are barely faster than GDDR3 (25,6GB/s vs 22,4GB/s) while costing A LOT more and working at 3,2GHz which means they need more voltage and produce more heat.

While 3,2GHz sounds impressive for any RAM, it stops being impressive when you compare the actual bandwidths.

 

[szaromir]

XDR is a huge rip-off. If you take a look at the PS3, the modules they use there are barely faster than GDDR3 (22,4GB/s vs 25,6GB/s) while costing A LOT more and working at 3,2GHz which means they need more voltage and produce more heat.

While 3,2GHz sounds impressive for any RAM, it stops being impressive when you compare the actual bandwidths.

Sony used (cheaper) 64bit bus width.

 

[avaya]

XDR is a huge rip-off. If you take a look at the PS3, the modules they use there are barely faster than GDDR3 (22,4GB/s vs 25,6GB/s) while costing A LOT more and working at 3,2GHz which means they need more voltage and produce more heat.

While 3,2GHz sounds impressive for any RAM, it stops being impressive when you compare the actual bandwidths.

Err XDR is leagues better on performance per watt.

 

[erick]

Err XDR is leagues better on performance per watt.

Prove it or die

Even if so, we are talking about an energy consumption of about what, ~16W for 4 chips of GDDR3? How much can you optimize off of that before the gains just ain't worth it?

EDIT: checked using Wikipedia. GDDR3 operates at 1,5V while XDR operates at 1,8V. I'd say that's about equal, if you consider the bandwidth that is ultimately provided (22,4GB/s vs 25,6GB/s).