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walsufnir on 26 July 2013
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drkohler said:
walsufnir said:
drkohler said:
So much nonsense being written here and in other forums. The situation is like this:
On a PS4 developer unit, you have 8G of ram divided into (numbers heavily rounded):
1G os
1.5G debug software
1G debug scratchpad
4.5G game (or 5.5G if using the debug scratchpad)
On a PS4 end user unit, you have:
1G os
5.5G game
1.5G unclear space (now os scratchpad space?) as there very likely isn't any debug software loaded
So on a PS4 end user unit, the ram limit is >= 5.5G for the game

Usually I appreciate your posts but this one... Unless you can prove it, then devkits usually are equipped with more ram than the retail console. That's where the 1.5g debug seems to be wrong. But either way I think 5.5g is still enough for nowadays games.

There is nothing to prove here. We know that (at some point into the timeline) PS4 development units had 8G of ram. This now leads to exactly the problem I mentioned in my post: As developers are constrained by debug space (which is quite large), they do not know now what happens to the debug space in the end user units when the debug software/scratchpads are gone.

This is the _very reason_ debug units always have more ram than end user units. It insures that the debug software/scratchpad area does not cut into end user space, since the whole debug area would be located in a space outside end user range. As long as the target PS4 memory size was 4G of ram, this lead to no problems at all. When Sony upped the memory to 8G, they instantly found themselves in the "debug space mess", as their 8G developer units instantly had insufficient memory and left developers scratching their collective heads.

If there ever is/is going to be a (final) PS4 developer unit with 12-16G of ram, we could conclude the end user consoles will have anywhere from 6-7G of ram for the game (the PS4 os is likely much smaller than the three os for the XBox One, 1G might be a reasonable guess). If the develoment units stay at 8G, all bets are open. A clever developer could still be able to use the (8G-os space) memory range (would also depend on the type of game. I'm an old-time Anno 1602-1404 gamer and this is very type of game that could use all memory).

Once again, the PS4 os is NOT 2.5-3.5G in size, it is the debug area problem.

 

So basically your point stands on that dev-kits even now run with 8 gb ram. We don't know this yet. I can follow your points, of course, but it is only true if your assumptions you are basing this on are right.