Zappykins said:
Adinnieken said:
The actual problem with GDDR5 is that it is designed for larger blocks of data. The other problem is you can't simply update the memory, you have to clear it and rewrite it. This is great when you're dealing with graphics, because the GPU takes the original data and if it needs to replace it so what if you lose the original data. You have the updated, possibly final form of the data you want and it generally takes up the entire block.
The problem with GDDR5 is when you're dealing with the OS, and why I believe the PS4 does hard drive caching (virtual memory). The OS and applications tend to use small blocks of data, and they often tend to append those blocks of data. So, instead of replacing them, they simple add to them or subtract from them.
This post, for example, is an addition of memory (data) to the original block I created when I opened the tab. As I type, this block gets seemlessly updated. In GDDR memory that doesn't happen. Every letter I write would require the memory be cleared, and data be reloaded from a cache into memory. Not an impossible task, especially when you consider the speed of GDDR5 memory but every letter typed requires access the cache and that takes awawny a clock cycle that could be used for something else.
Sony wasn't the first company to use unified memory in a console. Microsoft was. Sony wasn't the first company to use GDDR memory for their unified memory either. Microsoft was. There was a reason why Microsoft abandoned GDDR memory. In fact, on this front Sony is the LAST company to do both. Even Nintendo came before them on unified memory.
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Thanks for bringing in your knowledge and experiences to this discussion. Sometimes I don't know how to explain things as well as you have.
People, especially hear, seem to be confused as to how things work. It's much more complicated that just 8+1.2 or 8+1.8. When things are no longer linear, it is much harder for most to follow. But the multi play developers are having their own challenges, so we really don't know yet exactly how things will work out.
As I said during the reveal, I am concerned that Sony may have a cell type blunder, again. The unified GDDR memory might work for them, but I have yet to be show from Sony that it is actually no relevance to that concern. They should should let the public have some game-play.
But in another subject, just curious, what are you referring to with Microsoft abandoning the GDDR memory? Was this an actual product or just development?
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