XtremeXpider
Member
Durango is fine with DDR3 because it doesn't need more bw.
Kotaku Rumor: Microsoft 6 months behind in game production for X720 [Pastebin = Ban]
- Thread starter shinobi602
- Start date
The "trickier for developers" is my greatest concern. I really hope 3rd parties make use of the ESRAM.
AgentP
Thinks mods influence posters politics. Promoted to QAnon Editor.
Then they should save money and get rid of the eSRAM.
statham
Member
I completely agree.
XtremeXpider
Member
DDR3 is ok thanks to all memory system.
Sylonious
Member
My understanding is that Microsfot is likely to have specific D3D 11.D functions that make it easier to make use of the Durango hardware. If they are locking developers into the API like the rumors suggest how would it be hard to program for?
Because you still need to manage two separate pools of memory.
statham
Member
I'm clueless on this but how is that different then the current xbox?
Its not, but its still more annoying then having one single pool.
lol stop making stuff up.
statham
Member
then it shouldn't be a problem for next gen. 360 games seem just fine.
Brad Grenz
Member
There was basically only one thing you could do with the 360's EDRAM since the ROPs were built into it. Devs can choose how to use the ESRAM in Durango. If you want to take advantage of it being low latency (which people like to continually bring up as an advantage of the design), you have to make a choice to use it for that instead of something else, and make sure your data is in the right place at the right time, and also make sure you're not boning yourself in terms of bandwidth budgets elsewhere. It's not a Cell level headache, but it's messier than anything you have to do on PS4.
XtremeXpider
Member
What if...
What are you trying to say because your post lacks quite a bit of content, to make it not programmable and automated is going to lead to bad bad things.
XtremeXpider
Member
Hey! calm down! I just mean maybe esram is related to: http://www.tomshardware.com/news/AMD-HSA-hUMA-APU,22324.html
Brad Grenz
Member
That doesn't fix the problem since the fact that the memory pools are physically different and have different performance characteristics is the thing you're trying to exploit. Everything being in the same virtual memory space doesn't help you get the data you need into the low latency pool when you need it.
XtremeXpider
Member
Well, I think virtual memory can help for things like Partially resident textures. And things related to HSA:
Maybe I'm wrong, but I doubt Microsoft and AMD have not implement some HSA support in Durango.
-ImaginaryInsider
Member
It's harder to program than the PS4, but not necessarily harder to program as in it's the second coming of Cell.
Brad Grenz
Member
Well, I think virtual memory can help for things like Partially resident textures. And things related to HSA:
Maybe I'm wrong, but I doubt Microsoft and AMD have not implement some HSA support in Durango.
No, you're conflating terms and technologies. Only reading the portion of a texture you're actually rendering doesn't require a virtualized memory space.
And the HSA slide you've posted is about reading data without moving it, when moving data to the ESRAM is what actually makes it useful.
specialguy
Banned
Oh yes. I believe ERP referred to it as "just enough rope for developers to hang themselves with" or something like that
It could lead to a PS2 like situation where a few intrepid developers are able to squeeze a lot more than thought possible out of the system, while the vast majority would achieve lower paint by numbers performance.
PS3 vs 360, 360 was still considered the simpler as it was unified where PS3 was not, not too mention the Cell headache. This time around both are unified, but PS3 doesn't have the ESRAM complication. ps3 is pretty much less complicated than any console in history, ever. easily. geez, i cant imagine how much devs are going to love the x86 jaguar cores next gen alone...
XtremeXpider
Member
Carmack don't think the same.
And AMD:
But I guess I'm wrong.
What? PS3 less complicated? xD
I'm sure complication are not hardware related, it is more a documentation issue.
Ninja Moomin
Banned
forgive my layman's understanding... Aren't durangos move engines there for that very purpose?
It doesnt require it, it might require you to format the data in a special way but other then that.
Surprise it makes it easier, doesn't mean it wasn't possible before.
XtremeXpider
Member
Makes it easer and better I guess.
And about the esram... How do you know Durango is hard to develop or harder than PS4?
EDIT: And why you are so negative about Durango?
Because managing multiple pools of ram, or even really having to worry about multiple pools of ram makes a design more complex, now when a design is more complex that generally means that its harder to code for.
On the PS4 you don't really need to worry about if your eSRAM is filled up and you suddenly have next to no bandwidth for your remaining textures.
EDIT: I'm realistic. No belief in special sauce or power gremlins here.
Americanmushroom
Banned
Haven't been following the thread closely.. What does Pastebin=ban means and is the rumor reliable or bull?
XtremeXpider
Member
Being realistic doesn't mean each post you must say something negative. I am realistic, I know Durango will not be the most powerfull console, but I'm not saying only negative things.
A more complex design not necessary mean harder to code, if you have good documentation and good dev tools, the developer will not have issues.
If you post something from pastebin you will be banned.
I think MS is keep a minor spec surprise close to the chest.
The special sauce is what we don't know.
googleplex
Member
Way less complicated when compared to PS2
XtremeXpider
Member
The special sauce will be Usher xD
"ps3 is pretty much less complicated than any console in history"
He is comparing with any console, even Xbox 360 or PC.
What if...
You'll notice in all the hUMA slides there is one unified pool of memory for the GPU and the CPU. ESRAM is not part of the unified pool, and thus will probably be accessed through a special API. It looks like it's where you'll keep your main render targets. However, 32MB isn't very big, especially if you want 32-bits a channel for HDR (1920x1080x16Bpp = ~31.6MB!).
The ESRAM looks great for little compute shenanigans though.
so Vustadumas work at Blizzard and he saying that durango has 8gb gddr5 and sony matched their specs?....
isnt this a megaton?!
also if i always thinked that they was going to ddr3 and esram for latency and coherent memory...
Ninja Moomin
Banned
aren't the move engines meant to assist with this though?
no it doesn't
in theory, if it only ever accesses the esram, then the durango GPU will see a decent bandwidth. For some activities that will be fine (framebuffer stuff etc), but assuming your level data is larger than 32MB, you'll need to access external ram and your bandwidth will drop off a cliff - doesn't matter how much the data movers try and mitigate that, eventually things will slow down
As I said - early 2012 they were going for DDR3 RAM + ESRAM.
Well written post my friend.
I think we should leave this to the actual devs to judge.
btw: I am *still* waiting for detailed infos from you regarding vita's sound chip...
Why your acting like GDDR5 is 10x slower then DDR3 is, it isn't, its marginally slower.
He works as a artist, not even allowed to see the hardware that has some of the worlds strict NDA's attached to it.
Monty Mole
Member
Would the megaton actually not be then that Blizzard has been working on Durango?
I'd be shocked if it isn't DDR3+ESRAM at this stage, but then that's because we've had all those rumours hammered in to us for so long now.
And still neither you nor anybody here knows how it will turn out in actual game performance.
Baconsammy
Banned
We know Blizzard is working on more than one console. They've hinted at that when they came out and said they're not really exclusive. The 8 gig rumor sounds like he got his info confused. Probably meant that Sony copied the amount of memory Microsoft was rumored to be going with, not the type of memory. 2 weeks.
there is in % pretty much the difference between the ddr3 and gddr5 bw no? 40 50%?
well i think diablo3 will go on durango too..so
googleplex
Member
Well... To be fair, besides the Xbox OG and Xbox 360 he's right. The PS3 was any Harder to program for then say, the Game Cube. The Game cube was just more familiar at that point.
Brad Grenz
Member
Your thesis was that low latency ESRAM would provide performance benefits seamlessly through hUMA. This link just says thanks to hUMA the GPU can try to address data that isn't loaded into memory at all. hUMA doesn't solve the problem of making sure a particular piece of data is physically in the low latency when you want it. It just means both CPU and GPU can address any part of memory, physical or virtual, whenever they want. Making sure data is where it should be, when it should be is a problem that will have to be solved by programmers themselves, or some automating technology MS may provide, with whatever drawbacks that may entail.
GAF needs to calm down.
1. Microsoft is not switching over to GDDR5.
2. ES RAM + DDR3 was a decision made years ago to balance profitability and developer requests.
3. Increasing RAM count has little benefit, but can be done.
4. There will be no drastic changes in RAM type. You will not see DDR3 suddenly change into GDDR5 or stacked memory. Unless you want Microsoft to spend another $500 million and to launch in 2014.
5. Microsoft's machine is better designed in terms of profitability.
A certain well known developer has echoed to me that 9 GB of RAM is where the returns start diminishing.
The speed of RAM (bandwith) and the amount of RAM are mutually proportional when it comes to performance. You can't just throw 12 GB DDR3 at 60 GB/S and expect to be able to utilize it all at once. The "speed" of RAM is just as important as pool size. The faster your RAM is, the more you can utilize at once.
The battle for next-gen has little do with specs. People read things about CPU/GPU and unified memory and think they will see some sort of appreciable performance boost. These things have little to do with performance increase, and more to do with developer ease. These machines are both, thankfully, designed around making lives easier.
1. Microsoft is not switching over to GDDR5.
2. ES RAM + DDR3 was a decision made years ago to balance profitability and developer requests.
3. Increasing RAM count has little benefit, but can be done.
4. There will be no drastic changes in RAM type. You will not see DDR3 suddenly change into GDDR5 or stacked memory. Unless you want Microsoft to spend another $500 million and to launch in 2014.
5. Microsoft's machine is better designed in terms of profitability.
A certain well known developer has echoed to me that 9 GB of RAM is where the returns start diminishing.
The speed of RAM (bandwith) and the amount of RAM are mutually proportional when it comes to performance. You can't just throw 12 GB DDR3 at 60 GB/S and expect to be able to utilize it all at once. The "speed" of RAM is just as important as pool size. The faster your RAM is, the more you can utilize at once.
The battle for next-gen has little do with specs. People read things about CPU/GPU and unified memory and think they will see some sort of appreciable performance boost. These things have little to do with performance increase, and more to do with developer ease. These machines are both, thankfully, designed around making lives easier.
"Both AMD and Nvidia sell GPGPU accelerator boards that make use of GDDR5 memory that offers considerably higher bandwidth than the DDR3 memory that is used as main memory on most systems. However AMD director of software Margaret Lewis said that the latency of memory copy operations - the act of taking data from system memory and putting it on memory that is addressable by the GPU - was a far bigger problem than the relative bandwidth difference of using DDR memory to feed the GPU."
http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer...aign=Twitterfeed&utm_term=INQ&utm_content=INQ