During the Game Developer's Choice awards, DICE took home the prize of "Best Technology" for its Frostbite 2 engine. After accepting the award on behalf of his team, we asked DICE rendering architect Johan Andersson what the next generation of consoles would need to include for Frostbite 2 to work 'perfectly and as intended on high-end PCs.' To Andersson, the answer is "pretty easy to answer." 

"There's two things: memory and processing power," he said. "We need lots and lots of processing power. The more you can cram into a machine, we'll take advantage of that." While 'more power' is the obvious answer -- both on the CPU and GPU side -- we wondered what wouldn't be 'enough' to work with.

"Two gigabytes would not be enough when it comes to RAM [random access memory]" Andersson said. "Four gigabytes would work. Eight gigabytes? Yeah. I think that would be perfect when it comes to memory." Recommended system specifications for Battlefield 3call for 4GB of RAM.

When discussing the feasibility of Andersson's dream specs with Tim Stevens fromEngadget, the editor-in-chief said, "Presumably next-gen consoles will be rendering internally at 1080p, so they'll need much higher resolution assets than are commonly used for modern games (usually rendered at 720p and scaled up). Also, console lifespans have been getting longer, and presumably the next-gen units have an even longer journey ahead of them. More memory means more future-proofing. Finally, RAM is cheap. You can buy 8GB DDR3 modules for $40 retail. Buy the chips wholesale and it's easy to imagine the cost for 8GB dropping under $20."

But the current crop of HD consoles already do so much with the meager specifications they have, thanks in part to closed architectures of each device. The current Xbox 360 console houses 512 MB of GDDR3 RAM, while the PlayStation 3 includes 256MB of XDR Main RAM and 256MB GDDR3 VRAM, yet developers are still wowing players with amazing visuals.

While developing a machine built on Andersson's dream specs would assuredly create a graphical powerhouse to rival high-end PC rigs, Andersson says his specs aren't solely focused on increasing visual fidelity. To him, it's about the experience. "To build game changing experiences, not just pretty visuals, but game changing experiences? That's what we're really excited to do, going forward." Andersson wouldn't elaborate on what "game changing experiences" he had in mind.

When it comes to the GPU, Andersson says things obviously need to be faster but he doesn't envision consoles including multiple graphic processing units.

Andersson says there are "quite a few games" currently in development using the Frostbite 2 engine, but wouldn't go into detail beyond currently announced titles. Recently, EA revealed both Medal of Honor Warfighter and Command & Conquer: Generals 2 would be built on the technology.

When asked whether Mirror's Edge 2 was running on Frostbite 2 (because we're sly like that), Andersson quickly shot back: "If we were to build a Mirror's Edge 2, it would use Frostbite 2."

You win this round, sir.

http://www.joystiq.com/2012/03/09/battlefield-3s-rendering-architect-details-his-dream-specs-for/

Well what he says pretty much makes sense. In fact the specs he mentions is very much what you would probably find in a mid-range PC in this day.

I built a budget PC a few weeks ago very similar to what he mentions with 8GB RAM, quad core 3.0GHz (can be overclocked to 3.5 GHz) CPU and a 1GB GDDR3 GPU. Trust me, you can buy these components for about £200 retail, so mass produced they would probably be half the price. Plus I'd also imagine MS/Sony would customize the components and they would be completely dedicated for gaming, so no other loads as in a regular computer. Slap on a 1TB hard drive to that for another £50, plus the case, fans, drive, etc, etc and they could have a console at launch that is costing them anywhere between £200-250 to make (mass produced). Sell it for £300 and have a decent profit plus a good install base.

Oh yea, the only thing that I can see potentially increasing costs are these rumoured HD touchscreen implimentations to the controllers. Don't really know if these are to be believed or how much they cost even (wonder how much the Wii U controller cost).

I expect 4GB of system RAM and 2GB video memory from the X720 but I want 8GB + 4GB.

More important is the GPU power. I need a Radeon 7950 level GPU in the X720.

You want it to be the size, weight and power use of a micro-ATX PC?

Holy acorns imagine 8gb of ram!

A slightly slower than Radeon 7950 level GPU could use 150W by Fall 2013 don't you think?

150W would still be a lot but I need it. Epic and Crytek too want a GPU 10 times the X360.

4GB should be the absolute minimum. Nowadays they aren't more than 20 bucks. I imagine that both Sony and MS would get quantity discount, so prices will probably even lower, even if the frequency rates are high.

He's definitely not getting 8GB... It'll be 2GB to 4GB max of shared RAM in some form.

Look what they have now... 512MB and they make games that have recommended specs of 4GB on PCs. Just quadrupling it to 2GB total RAM will allow 1080p visuals easily on a dedicated gaming console.

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PC memory increased 16 times from 2005 to 2013. It would suck if X720 and PS4 only increased their capacity 4-8 times when RAM is much more affordable than it was in 2005-2006.

I need 8GB in the PS4.

I've never understood why the 360 and PS3 had such measly amounts of RAM. I know they came out 5 years ago, but 512 MB of RAM, really?

I bought a new desktop last year and its got 12 Gigs of RAM, I would expect the next gen consoles to have at least 4 - 8 Gigs.