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Forums - Gaming Discussion - Crytek Exec Says Next-Gen requires 8GB RAM

Darc Requiem on 21 January 2013
Miguel_Zorro said:
Darc Requiem said:
Miguel_Zorro said:
Some additional context for everyone. The jump from one generation to the next has been quite large historically. The 8GB prediction almost seems modest when you look at the specs below.

Gen 2:
Atari 2600 - 128 bytes RAM
Intellivision - 1456 bytes

Gen 3:
NES - 2kb + 2kb.
Sega Master System - 8kb + 16kb (One could say this the first example of Mario winning for Nintendo on a console with less power)

Gen 4:
SNES - 128kb main + 64kb video
Sega Genesis - 64kb main + 64kb video

Gen 5:
Sony Playstation - 2MB + 1MB
N64 - 4MB
Sega Saturn - 1MB + 1MB + 3MB

Gen 6:
Playstation 2 - 32MB + 4MB
XBox - 64MB
GameCube - 14MB + 16MB + 3MB
Dreamcast - 16MB + 8MB

Gen 7:
Playstation 3 - 256MB + 256MB
XBox 360 - 512MB
Wii - 24MB + 64MB

Gen 8:
WiiU - 2GB

It also shows that the console with the most RAM isn't necessarily the "winner" - in fact, it usually isn't. So no need to get too worked up about it.

Some of your RAM numbers are incorrect. Of the the top of my head, the Saturn only had 4.5 MB. You left out the 2MB of Audio Ram for the Dreamcast. The Gamecube had 24MB of Main Ram not 14. You left out the 10MB of EDRAM on the 360's GPU and the 3MB of RAM on the Wii GPU.


Do you have sources?  The Saturn numbers are here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_video_game_consoles_%28fifth_generation%29

As for the Dreamcast - I generally left out audio RAM for all consoles. 

I checked your source.

Memory

  • 1 MB SDRAM as work RAM for both SH-2 CPUs (faster)
  • 1 MB DRAM as work RAM for both SH-2 CPUs (slower)
  • 512K VDP1 SDRAM for 3D graphics (Texture data for polygon/sprites and drawing command lists)
  • 2x 256K VDP1 SDRAM for 3D graphics (Two framebuffers for double-buffered polygon/sprite rendering)
  • 512K VDP2 SDRAM for 2D graphics (Texture data for the background layers and display lists)
  • 4 KB VDP2 SRAM for color palette data and rotation coefficient data (local, on-chip SRAM)
  • 512 KB DRAM for sound. (Multiplexed as sound CPU work RAM, SCSP DSP RAM, and SCSP wavetable RAM)
  • 512 KB DRAM as work RAM for the CD-ROM subsystem's SH-1 CPU
  • 32 KB SRAM with battery back-up for data retention.
  • 512 KB Mask ROM for the SH-2 BIOS

 

You included the 0.5MB of Mask ROM in your RAM total. The Saturn had 4.5MB of RAM.  If you aren't including Audio RAM in your totals the you need to dock a 0.5MB of RAM from the Saturn. Which would give it total of 4MB.

Side Note: If the rumored specs are to be believed, then only MS is releasing a next-gen system according to Crytek.