My XBox 360 vs PS3 comparison (mostly technical)

[MikeB]

ckmlb said:

bugmenot said:
In regards to RAM, you forget that Sony requires 74 MB (I think of the Cell accessible half) to be reserved for OS and other background Ops, where as Microsoft only requires 40MB. This makes a memory difference.

Is this the latest number? I know that with every big update, the PS3 number is being reduced thus making this less and less of a factor. If you could tell me if this is the current number or the one at the PS3's launch then that would help in comparing.

 

I've read: "

XMB Currently Uses: 64MB from XDR RAM, and 32MB from GDDR3 RAM and 7th SPU
Firmware2.0: 32MB from XDR RAM, 0 from GDDR3 RAM, 7th SPU can be used (no longer reserved)"

And

"PS3 SDK 1.80, OS memory reductions, new features

OS reserved memory: 48 MB (main) + 24 MB(vram)"

But reply from Heavenly Sword dev (august 2007 at Beyond3D forum): "1.80 was out absolutely ages ago.. 1.90 has been in developer's hands for a few weeks."

Software and thus operating systems can be optimised. Sony could even rewrite parts of the OS in assembler language for optimal speed and tiny memory footprints. Sadly most modern software never gets fully optimised like in the good old days due to software complexity (if something goes wrong, assembler is a far more difficult language). For the PS3 OS it makes sense as the fundamental hardware specifications won't change for many years to come, so devs are able to optimise for one uniform configuration.