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Pemalite on 16 March 2017
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TomaTito said:

By comparison, the Xbox One has 8 GB of RAM, where 3 GB is reserved for the operating system. The PS4 reserves about 2 GB for the OS.

Both the Xbox One and PS4 are reported to use 2 cores for the OS as well (an update last year made the 7th core available for PS4 games, but only under certain circumstances).

Comparing the three systems and their RAM use, it would looks like this:

  • Switch: 4 GB RAM – 3GB for games
  • Xbox One: 8 GB RAM – 5 GB for games
  • PS4: 8 GB RAM – 6 GB for games

Playstation 4 Ram numbers are incorrect.
Try to remain accurate if you can.

TomaTito said:

According to a new report, Switch games can use 3 out of 4 CPU cores and 3 out of 4 GB of RAM. Which means that 25% of the system resources (1 core + 1 GB of RAM) is reserved for the operating system and background tasks.

Over the weekend we spoke to a Switch indie developer, who confirmed the recent Switch hardware specs, and revealed to us who much of the system resources games can actually use. We’ll have the full interview up later this week.

The Wii U had 2 GB of DDR3 RAM, but half of that was reserved for the OS — the same amount that the Switch OS uses.

This has been known for a long time.

Jranation said:
Is this good?

It's not unexpected.

JRPGfan said:

Why?

Why dont they have full access to all 4? they have 8 cores in there right? 4big and 4small ones? why not use the small ones for the OS and other stuff?

 

Only 4 cores can be used at a time. If a game demands the faster cores, the system will use those cores instead, if the system doesn't, it reverts to the slower cores to save on power.

Running all 8-cores would simply require far to much energy.

Personally I think nintendo should have stuck with 4 slower cores rather than have a Big.Little layout.

JRPGfan said:

 Its why the PS4 has cheap memory (compaired to XB1 esram + ddr3 combo), thats still high memory bandwidth.

It uses the same type graphics cards normally do.

It does come with a couple of caveats.

GDDR5 was (At the time) more expensive than DDR3, with DDR3 now in decline, costs should be starting to change into GDDR5's favour.

Plus GDDR5 has higher latency in general than DDR3 by roughly 10-20%.

etking said:

One core and 1 GB of RAM is wasted for no reason. Why don't they use dynamic resource allocation and more efficient programming, so that the unused core and unused memory can be used for games?

You do not need a whole core for the OS and you do not need 1GB of RAM. Instead they should kill / freeze and swap out everything that is not required while gaming. Encryption, security and networking takes a small amount of CPU and memory, but not enough to reserve 25% of all system resources available. This is not an efficient design decision but it can and should be changed.

It's not wasted. That 1GB of Ram and 1 CPU core is for the OS and background tasks. And I would assume eventually... Apps.

Besides, it's fine to reserve a chunk of the system capabilities at launch when everything is still fairly fresh and new, then over time release extra resources for developers to use.

It's easier to release resources in a console at a later date than to take it away.





--::{PC Gaming Master Race}::--