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Forums - Nintendo - 512 MB of Wii U's RAM "reserved for the OS. What's the total?

VGKing on 21 May 2012
Jereel Hunter said:
Pemalite said:
Wh1pL4shL1ve_007 said:
They need to optimize the OS. The Ps3's OS at the start of this gen was at 100mb? Then they optimized it down to 10mb.

You can do it Nintendo!!!


Way off the mark. The PS3 OS at launch used 120mb, which Sony managed to drop to 96MB then to 50mb.

http://www.psuni.com/ps3-os-footprint-slashed-to-50mb-1798/

Still large when compared to the Xbox at 32mb, but then it's not entirely unexpected with Microsoft who has been making Operating Systems for decades, so they have the expertise.

512mb though is massive for a console, but I guess Nintendo is playing it safe, you can't increase an Operating Systems memory footprint on a console without serious reprecussions, but you can reduce it for future games.


I didnt' realize Xbox did it with so little - especially since features like cross-game chat built into the OS. If Nintendo truely is dedicating this much to the OS (something I'm not sure I believe) then chances are they want to be able to have pretty much complete access to system features inside a game. Right now my only real complaint about xbox/live is that if you're ina game, and you want to buy an add-on or download content, you usually have to exit the game to buy at the store, with a few exceptions. Nintendo giving lots of resources to the OS would allow users to pause a game and shop/surf the net, and switch back quickly. This makes sense. My friends and I play ME3 multiplayer all the time, and it takes forever for the game to start up, log into multiplayer, get a game started, etc. When I'm waiting for one of them to finish up, if I could be running an app on the OS ram like netflix until they're ready, and then switch over? That would be great. It's time they brought some true multitasking ability to consoles.


The reason for this is to prevent lag in online multiplayer games.



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flagstaad on 21 May 2012
Zim said:

Seems like a lot of people are posting without reading the neogaf thread and relevant posts.

Here are some key points from it. This information comes from someone who used to be a gaming journalist in france and still has plenty of connections. His information seems to be very reliable.

The 512mb of ram was from a now earlier dev kit, he stated that this information was from 2 and a half months ago and that there will be obviously be big changes leading up to release.

Nintendo hasn't come out and said the 512mb is for the 'OS'. Merely that was the amount locked away from devs use. It is likely they are, as you would imagine, being overly cautious with the amount they will need. It is much better to keep 512mb locked away and then need 256mb, than to lock away 256mb and then need 512mb.

The potential relevance of this is that there is a very good chance that developers will soon have more ram available to them as Nintendo finalizes its side more. It is very unlikely that the full 512mb will stay locked away as things get more final.

It also is perhaps an indicator to how much ram the console will have all together. If 512mb has been locked out then it is reasonable to assume there must be at least 1gb available.

The rumoured reasons for the large amount are things such as possible video chat, being able to suspend games and then pick up where you left off later etc.

Now this explanation makes a lot of sense, if they lock 512mb initially and then they can optimize the OS, more RAM would be available to the developers. I think the final numbers for the console, should be on 1.5 or 2 GB of RAM, even with 512mb blocked, that would be 2 or 3 times better than the current consoles, and not very expensive for Nintendo.



Viper1 on 21 May 2012

512 MB is more than necessary. The system OS may be robust and enable some great multitasking features but it doesn't require that much...not even half that much.

I can get Windows 7 running on 512 MB and I know others that have it running in 256 (all for academic testing rather than daily use). The Wii U's OS will not have the same RAM footprint as Windows 7.



The rEVOLution is not being televised

WiiBox3 on 21 May 2012
superchunk said:
People are missing the biggest reason its so high.... its going to be running Android to some extent with Androids apps.

Meaning you'll have a REAL OS that can multi-task (both WP and iOS do not truly multitask... they freeze the apps in the background and remember their state).

This should turn out to be awesome. Meaning you'll be able to play a game and watch video utilizing the dual screen setup with TV and tablet. Have Pandora running while whooping up on Ganon's minions so you don't have the hear the next iteration of the annoying 'helper'. You'll have cross game chat, maybe even video chat with a small picture-in-picture type of setup.

This is a really big deal and hints at amazing things from Wii U's OS.


I hope your right.



errorpwns on 21 May 2012
Viper1 said:
512 MB is more than necessary. The system OS may be robust and enable some great multitasking features but it doesn't require that much...not even half that much.

I can get Windows 7 running on 512 MB and I know others that have it running in 256 (all for academic testing rather than daily use). The Wii U's OS will not have the same RAM footprint as Windows 7.

I highly doubt you'll be able to properly multitask on 512mb of ram.



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superchunk on 21 May 2012
errorpwns said:

I highly doubt you'll be able to properly multitask on 512mb of ram.


Android phones and tablets have always properly multitasked with 256MB and up. Now most have 1GB or larger, but a couple years ago they had far less.



Viper1 on 21 May 2012
errorpwns said:
Viper1 said:
512 MB is more than necessary. The system OS may be robust and enable some great multitasking features but it doesn't require that much...not even half that much.

I can get Windows 7 running on 512 MB and I know others that have it running in 256 (all for academic testing rather than daily use). The Wii U's OS will not have the same RAM footprint as Windows 7.

I highly doubt you'll be able to properly multitask on 512mb of ram.

It actually runs quite well on just 512 MB.   You'd be surprised.  I know I was.



The rEVOLution is not being televised

kitler53 on 21 May 2012
haxxiy said:
Badassbab said:
RAM is much cheaper now so the more the merrier. Hope it has bundles of Edram. 360 Edram helped it out a lot though it started to hold it back due to small amount.


Console RAM has to be soldered onto the main board, they are way more expensive to manufacture than their PC counterparts.

That being said, I think 512 MB for OS is way too high, but it could happen for all I know. Probably the total RAM is around 1.5 GB then, with maybe an embedded GPU RAM for cheap antialiasing like the GC and the X360. 

I've heard this quite a few times now...why is that? 



Zim on 21 May 2012

So interestingly it seems as though Neogaf users in the know are now quite openly talking about the Wii U. One of the insiders there has been talking about how the RAM has been bumped up. Going from 1.5GB to 2GB total.

Honestly that is fantastic news and is really the absolute best situation that could reasonably have been expected.

So at the moment there is 1.5GB available for games. A pretty nice 3 times of that in the 360. With an extra 512mb currently locked away but potentially some of it becoming available.

Assuming the other parts were in line with it then it would be a very nice bump over the 360/PS3.



Turkish says and I'm allowed to quote that: Uncharted 3 and God Of War 3 look better than Unreal Engine 4 games will or the tech demo does. Also the Naughty Dog PS3 ENGINE PLAYS better than the UE4 ENGINE.

superchunk on 21 May 2012
Zim said:
So interestingly it seems as though Neogaf users in the know are now quite openly talking about the Wii U. One of the insiders there has been talking about how the RAM has been bumped up. Going from 1.5GB to 2GB total.

Honestly that is fantastic news and is really the absolute best situation that could reasonably have been expected.

So at the moment there is 1.5GB available for games. A pretty nice 3 times of that in the 360. With an extra 512mb currently locked away but potentially some of it becoming available.

Assuming the other parts were in line with it then it would be a very nice bump over the 360/PS3.

If you look at my next gen specs thread it has 512 XDR ram and 1GB of video ram. I'm now thinking they bumped up the regular ram and left the XDR ram for the OS to make sure the system, its tablet, and all the new Android based features run flawless while still having a large enough storage of additional ram to make games still superb.