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Zkuq on 30 January 2013
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Chark said:
Zkuq said:
Chark said:
Zkuq said:
Is it 4 GB for both the system and the GPU or the system only? It's just barely enough if the former, but it's nowhere near enough it it's shared with the GPU.


For the system. How is that not enough? Are you thinking on PC terms because RAM is much more utilized in a console than in a PC. PS3 and 360 only have 512MB and Wii U has only 2GB.

I'm not thinking on PC terms, I'm thinking on future terms. Sony is probably aiming for a long generation again and if that's the case, 4 GB will be too little by the end. 512 MB is just barely enough for now but 256 MB (what PS3 has; the other 256 MB is for the GPU only) is not enough. Sure, talented devs will be able to put it to good use but it'll take a big effort and then you get stuff like Bethesda's games anyway. Also, as I understand it, you say that 4 GB isn't shared with the GPU but then I have a couple of questions: 1) Does it say somewhere how much memory the GPU has? 2) It says 'unified system memory' for RAM so, pardon my ignorance, what might it mean then?

Oops sorry, I mean for the whole system. Unified RAM would mean it is sharred with GPU and CPU but speculation has 512MB or 1GB reserved for the OS. There isn't a firm knowledge about how much RAM will be needed for games in the future, but if you look at a system like the Wii U which has 2GB, utilizing 1GB for games. Something like 3-3.5GB of GDDR5, which is faster, is quite the step up.

You might want to take the Durango rumors with some salt. They say 8GB of GDDR3 RAM, but dev kits typically have more RAM than the final product and it very well could get chopped down. They also suggest 3GB of that is part of the OS anyway. It really is anyone's guess what the final RAM specs will be, but we had plenty of people just last year speculating that 2GB to 4GB of RAM for Games is the target with anything else overkill because consoles optimize RAM. GDDR5, wasn't even part of the discussion then so it is really interesting to hear some of these rumors on PS4.

If we assume it's 512 MB for the OS and 1 GB for the GPU, that'll leave 2.5 GB. I think it's not enough in the long run. It's good for now but it won't be after the first few years. Well, I mean, devs will learn to live with it and it problably gives them a lot more room to breathe than they have now with the PS3 but they'll still be struggling. And I believe we can say that the PS3 is a good example of how faster memory doesn't help nearly as much as more memory. Also: open world games. They sure seem to like their RAM more than more linear games do, and open worlds seem to be where we're going. Not with everything of course, but they're a big thing now and I don't see them losing popularity any time soon.

Also, I haven't really looked into the Durango rumors. I've heard them and I'm not really comparing these rumors to those. It's kinda unbelievable MS would put 8 GB in it and then take 3 GB for the OS. 3 GB, seriously? I'm running Windows 7 with about 2 GB in use right now, and that's with some rather unnecessary stuff running - and I'm sure they could cut it down by quite a bit for their console.