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[MDX]

Personally I think that an ideal setup would be.

16MB CPU EDRAM
512MB unified 1T-SRAM
1-1.5GB unified GDRR3/5
32MB GPU EDRAM

And from your perspective a machine with these specs, would be competitive with
a future MS and/or Sony console, and still be affordable? Lets say, priced under $400?

 

[Shin Johnpv]

People are thinking that 1 or 2 GB og memory is a good thing?

I mean, its more than great to compete with Ps360, but how its become when the next generation start?

The gain in RAIN from a generation to another is something like 16x (2MB in Ps1, to 32 in Ps2, to 512 in Ps3 to, probably, 8GB in Ps4)

If Nintendo don't want to lose support because a outdated hardware again, then the configuration needs to be better than that.

Maybe something like 4 or 6GB can do the trick to hold this hardware in market for 4 or 5 years. 1 or 2 and it will became the new Wii again, with a high risk to failure and everthing.

Anything under 6gb is a bad decision for a next gen console. 8 is preferrable.

Ohh man you guys are hilarious.

 

[Übermatik]

Log on to find people talking about 8GB of RAM in future consoles. You people make me sick. I'm leaving.

 

[BurntPork]

PCs in five years will probably have 32GB of RAM or more, so that should be the minimum!

 

[herzogzwei1989]

PCs in five years will probably have 32GB of RAM or more, so that should be the minimum!

yeah....

 

[SolarPowered]

PCs in five years will probably have 32GB of RAM or more, so that should be the minimum!

That is a lot of RAM sticks lol.

 

[Übermatik]

Seeing as software developers are striving to create more efficient programs, I think the need for more RAM will plateau eventually. Until we find another method, that is. Infinite bio-energy, of course.

 

[ThatObviousUser]

Seeing as software developers are striving to create more efficient programs, I think the need for more RAM will plateau eventually. Until we find another method, that is. Infinite bio-energy, of course.

That might be applicable to processing power but there will always be a need for RAM and storage space, as fidelity and resolution increases.

 

[snesfreak]

Gigabytes?
Meh, a REAL next-gen console should have 8 teraquads of memory!

 

[Turrican3]

Whether for better or worse, any hope people had Nintendo was going to go to an account-based system died with the PSN outage.

They can still tie everything to a unique identifier built-in like a serial number or whatever, and handle DRM by forcing online connectivity after you transfer a licence, Xbox Live does something similar when moving Marketplace games from a console to another IIRC.

Yeah I know this sounds too good to be true considering we're talking about Nintendo and online, but still... I hope they go the smart way.

 

[mclem]

That might be applicable to processing power but there will always be a need for RAM and storage space, as fidelity and resolution increases.

Sure, but just how many manhours does it take to create enough content to fill even 4GB of RAM? Or, to put it another way, how many manhours does it take to create enough content to fill a DVD?

 

[SolarPowered]

That might be applicable to processing power but there will always be a need for RAM and storage space, as fidelity and resolution increases.

Resolution increases have come at a much slower pace than processing power requirements though.

We also have to consider that something like 3GB of GDDR5 will also blow the living crap out of 2GB of GDDR3. It's not like we have to physically double the amount of RAM when there are tons of newer options with better speeds out there.

 

[-WindYoshi-]

Gigabytes?
Meh, a REAL next-gen console should have 8 teraquads of memory!

Wrong! I have a hunch that the Wii U will have precisely 2 zettabytes of ram.

 

[Eteric Rice]

PCs in five years will probably have 32GB of RAM or more, so that should be the minimum!

So basically, I'm going to cook in my computer room.

It already gets hot enough in here.

 

[LeleSocho]

Wrong! I have a hunch that the Wii U will have precisely 2 zettabytes of ram.

Why the WiiU will need 2 ZB of ram if it haven't a Holmes based Perfect Cell CPU clocked at 21 yottahertz like the ps4?

 

[Koren]

I did a double take on that 1T-SRAM.

That RAM is supposed to be insanely fast. No way we get more than 256 mb of that RAM with 1.5GB of GDDR5(hell, probably not even with 1.5GB of GDDR3).

I wouldn't be surprised to see something like 64MB/128MB of 1T-SRam and a larger pool of more "classic" memory for main RAM.

There's probably no need to have large amounts of very fast ram, anyway (and it's not even the programmer's problem, since the compiler could be pretty good at allocating the data to the right memory pool depending on the volumes/frequency of access). It's always difficult to have multiple pools of RAM on PCs, but consoles don't have the same problem.


Another thing I'd like to see on consoles should the compilers progress towards this support is FPGA co-processors. It can be insanely efficient on some computations and much more versatile than specialized coprocessors.

 

[Xane]

Sure, but just how many manhours does it take to create enough content to fill even 4GB of RAM? Or, to put it another way, how many manhours does it take to create enough content to fill a DVD?

5 seconds for both. You see, it depends what content it has to be filled with.

 

[Forsaken82]

People are thinking that 1 or 2 GB og memory is a good thing?

I mean, its more than great to compete with Ps360, but how its become when the next generation start?

The gain in RAIN from a generation to another is something like 16x (2MB in Ps1, to 32 in Ps2, to 512 in Ps3 to, probably, 8GB in Ps4)

If Nintendo don't want to lose support because a outdated hardware again, then the configuration needs to be better than that.

Maybe something like 4 or 6GB can do the trick to hold this hardware in market for 4 or 5 years. 1 or 2 and it will became the new Wii again, with a high risk to failure and everthing.

You are assuming that Sony and MS are going to keep moving forward with expensive systems that require huge budget games to be successful which if I recall, both Sony and MS have made claims to not wanting to go that route. And game companies have been leading the charge explaining that they don't want the cost of gaming to increase anymore than it already has. (with the exception of Crytek maybe... )

If the Wii proved anything, it is that you don't need to obliterate previous gen system specs in the following generation. Granted, neither Sony or MS will release a system that is barely superior, but I personally don't see the same exponential tech increase as previous gens. It wouldn't be financially sound.

 

[guek]

Maybe something like 4 or 6GB can do the trick to hold this hardware in market for 4 or 5 years. 1 or 2 and it will became the new Wii again, with a high risk to failure and everthing.

Well we wouldn't want the wii u to be another wii. That thing gimped along and struggled in last against the competition for the majority of this past gen.

Oh wait, that was the ps3

I wonder what people who clamor for 6-8gb of ram think next gen is going to look like. 9/10 games are probably going to look like higher res versions of current gen games with more AA. No wondrous sea of ram is going to dramatically decrease development costs.

 

[ThatObviousUser]

I highly doubt either system from MS or Sony will have more than 6 GB of RAM. I'm guessing 4 GB, personally.

 

[Übermatik]

I highly doubt either system from MS or Sony will have more than 6 GB of RAM. I'm guessing 4 GB, personally.

If we're lucky. Realistically, I'd say 2-3 GB, probably 3.

 

[ThatObviousUser]

If we're lucky. Realistically, I'd say 2-3 GB, probably 3.

Depends how long they wait. If Wii U launches in 2012 and they wait until 2014, I can see 4 GB. Otherwise I agree.

 

[StevieP]

Depends how long they wait. If Wii U launches in 2012 and they wait until 2014, I can see 4 GB. Otherwise I agree.

The XBox 3 is likely coming out next holiday. It will have 2GB at most if that's the case.

 

[guek]

The XBox 3 is likely coming out next holiday. It will have 2GB at most if that's the case.

I wonder what the best case scenario is for nintendo regarding their competitors.

Would it be best if wii U launched in the summer and the xbox3 came out that winter? And then PS4 the year following? Or would a 2014 launch of the competition most benefit them?

 

[Übermatik]

Depends how long they wait. If Wii U launches in 2012 and they wait until 2014, I can see 4 GB. Otherwise I agree.

Hm, betting the next XBOX will hit america either winter 2012 following an E3 announcement, or summer of the next year, 2013. By which point, PS4 development will be well underway before a late 2013/14 release? Seems like another GC era scenario to me.

 

[EloquentM]

Hm, betting the next XBOX will hit america either winter 2012 following an E3 announcement, or summer of the next year, 2013. By which point, PS4 development will be well underway before a late 2013/14 release? Seems like another GC era scenario to me.

I sincerely doubt the nextbox will be out next year.

 

[Father_Brain]

The XBox 3 is likely coming out next holiday.

People still believe this after Halo 4 was announced for 360?

 

[SolarPowered]

I highly doubt either system from MS or Sony will have more than 6 GB of RAM. I'm guessing 4 GB, personally.

A system with 4GB of RAM means that Kutaragi is secretly controlling Sony like some sort of shadow puppetier.

No way that happens unless Sony has lost their minds.

Depends how long they wait. If Wii U launches in 2012 and they wait until 2014, I can see 4 GB. Otherwise I agree.

Oh, okay then.

 

[StevieP]

People still believe this after Halo 4 was announced for 360?

Halo 4 will be Twilight Princess-ed. The Xbox will be out in 2012 if MS reaches their targets. The biggest of which is AMD delivering a bulldozer-based chip en masse.

 

[KrawlMan]

People still believe this after Halo 4 was announced for 360?

I actually wasn't paying too much attention during E3, but was Halo 4 really announced as a 360 game? I just assumed it was a new trilogy set for whatever console would be relevant at the time.

 

[ThatObviousUser]

A system with 4GB of RAM means that Kutaragi is secretly controlling Sony like some sort of shadow puppetier.

No way that happens unless Sony has lost their minds.

Oh, okay then.

Well he's still with the company... so who knows. Him and Kaz could be BFFs.

 

[Übermatik]

I sincerely doubt the nextbox will be out next year.

People still believe this after Halo 4 was announced for 360?

Makes a fitting farewell to the system, no? And considering the whole Trinity rumour thing, late 2012 seems pretty likely to me - bearing in mind I gave it a time frame of Christmas-mid 2013 to release.

 

[guek]

I think spring 2013 is most likely for the nextbox (xbox3? 720? I wish it were as easy as ps4). As for halo 4, I wouldn't be surprised if it got bumped to being a launch game.

 

[Shin Johnpv]

I give it a 1 year time frame. The KineXtBox will be out between late 2012 and late 2013. I really can not imagine Sony or MS wanting to give Nintendo (the market leader this gen with an ass ton of money to spend) anything more than a 12 month head start. To give Nintendo 2 years on the market as the only next gen console would be a huge mistake I think.

 

[Eteric Rice]

I'm thinking around 2 gigs of high quality RAM would be a good jump. We don't want consoles to be launching for $599 again. That shit was bonkers.

 

[Thunder Monkey]

I'm thinking around 2 gigs of high quality RAM would be a good jump. We don't want consoles to be launching for $599 again. That shit was bonkers.

More than a few seem to be open to the idea completely.

Because it really worked out for Sony last time they did it.

 

[Aizu_Itsuko]

"Slightly" subHD is still subHD. Most of this generation's top games run at subHD. Remember the hooplah about Microsoft "mandating" 720p? Yeah, I don't think any of *their* launch games hit that target.

(i.e. Perfect Dark Zero: 1152x640 w/no AA, Same with Halo 3, etc)

Yes, but you could say the same thing last gen when a lot of games weren't running at 640x480 either (RE4 for example), yet it was considered the standard.

720p is more or less the standard for most games this gen but the way some people talk you'd think pretty much every PS3/360 game out there is running at half that resolution and that's not the case; it's a bit of an exaggeration.

 

[EricDiesel]

I'm so looking forward to the internet meltdowns when none of the three consoles have specs "good enough" for these "THE XBOX 720/PS4 HAS TO HAVE 12GB OF RAM" people. It'll be quite the sight.

The fact is games are already getting too detailed and too expensive to produce for even decent sized developers. The graphical/technical leaps next generation likely depend on what base engines are out there. Then factor in that the economy is still in fairly rough shape and a $500-$600 PS3 sold poorly even before that whole mess happened... Really? You're expecting 8GB of RAM?

I really don't understand the reasoning behind these high expectations. "Because there's always been a [blank]x increase in RAM" and "I got 8GB of RAM on Newegg for $60, RAM is cheap!!!" is about all I ever see for "evidence". And neither are realistic in the slightest.

 

[Haint]

I give it a 1 year time frame. The KineXtBox will be out between late 2012 and late 2013. I really can not imagine Sony or MS wanting to give Nintendo (the market leader this gen with an ass ton of money to spend) anything more than a 12 month head start. To give Nintendo 2 years on the market as the only next gen console would be a huge mistake I think.

Could go either way. I don't think they'd have a problem waiting if they knew WiiU wasn't clearly superior to PS360. I mean if it just hosts slightly downgraded PC ports (which seems to be the consensus among third parties at this point), I don't necessarily see them giving a fuck.

 

[guek]

Could go either way. I don't think they'd have a problem waiting if they knew WiiU wasn't clearly superior to PS360. I mean if it just hosts slightly downgraded PC ports (which seems to be the consensus among third parties at this point), I don't necessarily see them giving a fuck.

I bet both MS and Sony know a ton more about the Wii U than we do. It'll be interesting to see what they do at E3

 

[Stinkles]

I'm so looking forward to the internet meltdowns when none of the three consoles have specs "good enough" for these "THE XBOX 720/PS4 HAS TO HAVE 12GB OF RAM" people. It'll be quite the sight.

The fact is games are already getting too detailed and too expensive to produce for even decent sized developers. The graphical/technical leaps next generation likely depend on what base engines are out there. Then factor in that the economy is still in fairly rough shape and a $500-$600 PS3 sold poorly even before that whole mess happened... Really? You're expecting 8GB of RAM?

I really don't understand the reasoning behind these high expectations. "Because there's always been a [blank]x increase in RAM" and "I got 8GB of RAM on Newegg for $60, RAM is cheap!!!" is about all I ever see for "evidence". And neither are realistic in the slightest.

Although partially true, this partially ignores the fact that high end PC games are often made my slightly smaller devs with ridiculous fidelity. There is a narrowing power-execution gap that enables content as well as simply increasing the budget and resources required to build it.

 

[StevieP]

I mean if it just hosts slightly downgraded PC ports

Same thing that all 3 of the next consoles will be hosting.

I bet both MS and Sony know a ton more about the Wii U than we do. It'll be interesting to see what they do at E3

Microsoft: unveil the new box, the new controller and some unobtainable CGI trailers mixed with a few tidbits of gameplay footage. Launch "by end of year".

Sony: Go through the conference pimping Vita. At end of conference, roll CGI trailer real with completely unobtainable non-realtime footage comparable to Avatar. End with "PS4 - Coming in 2013", fade to black.

 

[blu]

I really don't understand the reasoning behind these high expectations. "Because there's always been a [blank]x increase in RAM" and "I got 8GB of RAM on Newegg for $60, RAM is cheap!!!" is about all I ever see for "evidence". And neither are realistic in the slightest.

Don't you know all high-volume, embedded shelflife consumer electronics are supplied via newegg-type bargain deals? Nintendo would be idiots not to BOM their consoles based on what reputable market sleuths like iSuppli procure, ergo nintendo's BOM should be *exactly* as iSuppli says. Fact.

 

[Übermatik]

Same thing that all 3 of the next consoles will be hosting.



Microsoft: unveil the new box, the new controller and some unobtainable CGI trailers mixed with a few tidbits of gameplay footage. Launch "by end of year".

Sony: Go through the conference pimping Vita. At end of conference, roll CGI trailer real with completely unobtainable non-realtime footage comparable to Avatar. End with "PS4 - Coming in 2013", fade to black.

So likely it actually hurts my groin. And I mean the bad kind of hurts.

 

[bgassassin]

What do you mean by TC? Texture Cache? Because there's no way the system will have 128MB EDRAM just for the GPU. That's completely overkill.

Not all RAM is created equal so you can't really think of it as trying to achieve a round total like that. General RAM and EDRAM achieve a very different purpose. So 128MB of EDRAM, divided half and half between FB and TC is just insane and possibly counter productive (the bigger the RAM pool is the slower it's access speed, EDRAM is suppose to fast). To put things in perspective, the Wii and GCN only have 3MB of EDRAM and the X360 only has 10MB. 128 is the same around of VRAM that the PSVita has which is of the non-embedded, general purpose variety and is used for all GPU functions not just FB and TC. The Wii U will probably have a unified ram setup, so that much EDRAM simply isn't necessary (especially not as a dedictaed FB and TC). It would cost a fortune and the system simply isn't going to be fast enough to fill all that TC and FB.

Not if they are going with any more than 1.5GB of main memory. Plus AlStrong and blu pointed out the FB amount to achieve what I had in mind still wouldn't be truly enough. Also textures are bigger than they used to be so I don't see how that's overkill. I'm not saying it will happen, but it's not a real stretch either. Also according to an unconfirmed interview with Xavier Poix before Wii's release (he's with Ubisoft France and since they like to talk it's probably true), Wii's Hollywood had "2MB for the framebuffer 2MB for the Zbuffer and 4MB for texture cache." And considering how "small" the step up Wii made over GC the amount I'm suggesting is plausible for Nintendo's supposed intentions with Wii U. I found that after my previous post when I used a scenario of 4MB for TC. Which if true then Wii already had that amount.

I understand how the latency can decrease with larger amounts, but the premise behind the idea is to use the memory that way for the bandwidth while still maintaining as low a latency as possible since 1T-SRAM is supposed to be (much) faster than eDRAM. To get a better understanding of how I'm sort of looking at it, here is the block diagram for the 360.

As for cost, I found this to be interesting.

http://www.thefullwiki.org/EDRAM

Embedding permits much wider buses and higher operation speeds, and due to much higher density of DRAM in comparison to SRAM, larger amounts of memory can potentially be used. However, the difference in manufacturing processes make on-die integration difficult, so several dies have to be packaged in one chip, raising costs. The latest developments overcome this limitation by using standard CMOS process to manufacture eDRAM, as in 1T-SRAM.

Obviously I don't have a foundational and comparison cost to know the real savings, but the underlined part is exactly how Flipper and Hollywood were made.

All of my contacts at Retro clammed the fuck up as of June 2011.

The silence is deafening.

That sucks, but I guess that's not surprising.

 

[bgassassin]

Unexpected thread title change, haha.

Microsoft: unveil the new box, the new controller and some unobtainable CGI trailers mixed with a few tidbits of gameplay footage. Launch "by end of year".

With this idea I have gone from "wouldn't be shocked" to "almost expecting it".

 

[mrklaw]

I'm thinking around 2 gigs of high quality RAM would be a good jump. We don't want consoles to be launching for $599 again. That shit was bonkers.

yeah, because RAM was totally the main reason PS3 was crazy expensive.

360 also had the same amount of memory and wasn't quite so stupid expensive at launch.

 

[StevieP]

yeah, because RAM was totally the main reason PS3 was crazy expensive.

360 also had the same amount of memory and wasn't quite so stupid expensive at launch.

Bluray and Cell were the main drivers of the PS3 cost. That said, getting into a lot of chips of expensive memory (XDR, GDDR5, etc etc) is going to drive up cost dramatically.

 

[phosphor112]

Bluray and Cell were the main drivers of the PS3 cost. That said, getting into a lot of chips of expensive memory (XDR, GDDR5, etc etc) is going to drive up cost dramatically.

Your sarcasm meter is broken. =]

 

[MDX]

Other things I came across was that 360's Xenos has indirect similarities to GC's Flipper. Heck I'd almost say the 360 in general was based on Gamecube from what I've seen. One of the similarities I noticed was in Xenos' daughter-die and Flipper's embedded Framebuffer where both handled the back buffer and z-buffer (front buffer in main memory). If Wii U continued with this I could see some things that would in turn resemble Xenos by moving the operations that need the most bandwidth to a secondary die. With Xenos there is a theoretical bandwidth of 256GB/s doing this on its daughter-die, and then 32GB/s between the main die and secondary die.

FYI

( We've heard comments from developers familiar to both designs that this element of Xenos bears similarities to the "Flipper" design for Nintendo's Gamecude, a part that was originally designed by ArtX, who of course were subsequently purchase by ATI, however ATI are keen to point out that while there may be apparent similarities the designs are entirely independent as there are distinct virtual and physical barriers between the groups working on the various console developments, past and present, and no members of the Flipper architecture team were involved in Xenos's development).

http://www.beyond3d.com/content/articles/4/4