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Viper1 said:
Baron said:
That's not entirely accurate. Nowadays there are plenty PC games that use (almost) 6 GB of RAM. Battlefield 3 on 1080p @ Ultra settings for instance will utilize 6 or more GB's of RAM.
The difference between PC's and consoles is the heavy OS and the dozens of processes running in the background while playing a game. Where Windows 7 requires 1 GB of RAM minimum (the 64 bit version requires 2 GB's even) a console OS uses a lot less. I reckon 512 MB of system memory is more than sufficient for any console.
What is most important with consoles is video memory. At the time of the 360's launch, normal graphics cards had 256 MB of memory and the high end ones had 512 MB. That's why the 360 and PS3 also had 512. That's what was deemed sufficient for any game. Off course back then the most common gaming resolution was 1024x768. Now the most common gaming resolution is 1080p. 2.6 times larger than 1024x768. The result of that can be seen with today's GPU's. Budget cards are equipped with 1 GB and high end cards feature 2 or even 3 GB's of RAM. With that in mind and the performance of the 360 and PS3 @ their launch in mind I think we can say that a console with 1 or 1.5 GB's of video memory, like the Wii U is rumored to have, will be sufficient for 1080p gaming.
I expect the next XBox and Playstation to have between 2 and 4 GB's of video memory as I expect the next series of graphics cards will also have that amount of RAM.
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Have you ever seen the look one someones face when they think you don't know what you're talking about? I'm making that face right now.
It's a 32 bit application so it would never use more than 3.5 GB to begin with. AND I've never seen anyone use more than 1.8 GB
Open Task Manager and check the memory usuage of the BF3 executable.
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Oops. I meant with Battlefield 3 system memory usage can go up to 6 GB's. As for never seeing anyone use more than 1.8 GB, I have had plenty of times where memory usage in Windows alone passes 2 GB. I've got a total of 12 GB's and on average 16% of that is in use when I'm in desktop. That's already 1.9 GB's for just running my system. With Battlefield my memory usage goes up to 45%. Or about 5.4 GB's.
| The output resolution has only had a significant impact on the graphics card's memory in the early days of 3D graphics cards ... |
With today's cards there's a clear difference between 2GB and 3GB cards. The nVidia GTX680 is faster than a 7970 (the original one) when it comes to 1080p gaming but when the resolution is enhanced to 1440p or 1600p or Eyefinity the 7970 comes out on top.
So clearly, there's an advantage to be had with increasing video memory.
