PS4 Prediction Thread

[zarx]

sergiodaly said:

zarx said:

There really isn't any reason to go past 2GB video memory @1080p so unless Sony try to push quad HD games 2GB is the amount of video memory they will have IMO, hell on PC you can run 3 1080p displays off a 2GB card. With the system RAM my reasoning is that console OSs are getting ever more feature rich as time passes, and they won't want a repeat of the crossgame voice chat fiasco they had this generation so they will add more main RAM as a buffer while also giving devs the option of using it as a cache for additional graphics assets to avoid popin issues and loading screens, more RAM is never a bad thing. I also think that the Vita having 128MB VRAM and 512MB main RAM is very telling as to where Sony's hardware thinking is at. 

I am of course assuming they will still have a split memory architecture, if they don't care about backwords compatability they could go with the Power 7 chip and unified 6-8GB RAM, developers seem to really like the flexability that the 360s memory architecture.

the size of vram for 1080p doesn't have to be 2gb... depends on the quality of texture... and the quantity of texture (objects in the screen that have texture) ... on vita the reason for so much main ram has to do with the OS (example: my smart phone OS and some application in the background use 200+ MBs) and web browsing is also uses a lot of memory. so 128 or 256 was not enough for OS and gaming! in home consoles the leap in memory size will have to happen for obvious reasons but 4 gb for main is a lot IMO... 2 gbs can house the OS with lots of services in memory (audio chat and video chat comes to mind) and still have around 1.2GB or 1.5GB for games...

about the split memory architecture... it will remain like that since main memory is a lot slower, and PC always use this architecture and has never been a issue... the problem with PS3 is that vram is small for the type of games devs want to do... if ps3 would have 512 of vram and the same main, there wouldn't be such a big problem!

but yes... my bet is that will be a 2GB/2GB ram/vram architecture!

I didn't say that you needed 2GB for 1080p I said that there wasn't really a need more than 2GB of VRAM if they don't go past 1080p, I have a 1GB video card and I play all my games at 1080p with AA after all. 

That was exactly my point consoles next gen will have far bigger OSs will offer web browsing (websites are getting bigger all the time with video highres pics etc), crossgame voice chat, the ability to switch between browser and games etc, Stuff like multitasking will take a lot more RAM and I can't see next gen systems not offering multitasking TBH. With streaming technology becoming big in games being able to cache lots of compressed assets loaded into main RAM to be quickly streamed into VRAM will very important next gen. The PS3 having twice as much RAM as the 360 would have of course have been far better, but that doesn't change the fact that for most games 512>256+256. The bottom line is RAM is relatively cheap and for a system that has to be as future proof as possible skimping would be a mistake.

4GB/4GB is possible as well