ethomaz said:
I'm not reading anything incorrectly... in fact Skyrim uses more GPU memory than CPU memory... and 256MB of RAM is not enough to render a game at 720p without tweaks or sacrificing the quality. PS3, 360, Wii and any other console did tweaks or sacrifice quality because the low GPU memory. 360 suffers less from this but even so I doubt you have a game that has used more than 350MB of VRAM on 360 (~100MB for CPU). The GPU not uses the memory just to output the image... it uses the memory for work with them... so it use a lot more than need to just output. |
As the other poster said, if it was an issue with video memory then they could just reduce the graphics with a patch or cut down the drawing distance, but its not. If it was a GPU issue the problems would exist from the moment you turned the game on. Graphics aren't the primary problem.
The problem gets progressively worse as you play game meaning that it an issue with holding data. The coordinates and structural data for all of the objects you displace and pick up builds as you play the game stack. The quests you pick up/complete are held and tracked at all times. Those things are held in system memory. In
Also, in case you are unware(which looks likely) the 3 GB of memory that you are talking about Skyrim using on the PC "IS" system memory, not video memory. Your video memory for PCs is on the GPU. Few GPUs have more than 1 GB of RAM as its not really needed and more expensive due to it being higher quality. I played Skyrim on my PC at max settings with gaphical enhanment mods using a GPU that has less than 1GB of RAM. The elder scrolls games use "redundant textures" which are similar to the tiles used in old 8bit console games. You don't need a lot of video memory for that.
The problem with the PS3 is that is lack avaiable system memory compared to the 360.
It has 256 reserved for system memor minus 40-50 for the OS. The PC version used 2 GB while the PS3 has around 216 MB available to hold all of the data. The 360 512MB RAM that you can do anything you want with. All of the textures that are seen at any given time on the console version likely doesn't exceed 100 MBs. That would leave 350~ for holding all of the rest of the data. I'm not even going to get into the difference brought by using a true 3 core processor vs a 1 core processor with only 6/8 available SPUs.
