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Forums - Sony Discussion - PlayStation 4 gives up to 5.5GB of RAM to game developers

Adinnieken on 27 July 2013
walsufnir said:
TimCliveroller said:
pezus said:
TimCliveroller said:
ethomaz said:
TimCliveroller said:
Now you all try to justify 512 MB? So numbers do count? Let me put it this way: a typical os with 3 GB DDR3 vs the same os with 3 GB GDDR5.... how would it perform under let's say - common sense usage scenarios.

For what? All depends what schenarios you are talking about.

Not graphics related ones - obviously.

That is "common sense usage" on a console?

Then why does it need an OS eating 3GB? or why does it need an os at all... an API shouldn't be enough then?


I think we should point out what os is and what it's not. Some seem to confuse it with the kernel, others don't seem to know how consoles work today. Even now you can use some parts of the system while gaming and this will be extended a lot on consoles. I think both Sony and MS don't want to limit devs for other apps that are not gaming but also run on the consoles. So they reserve a lot but give more to gaming-devs which is absolutely fine and still offers ways for improvement over years.

An OS is an Operating System.  The heart of an OS is the kernel, along with components of the OS and a user interface (UI).  The components of the OS often have APIs associated with them so developers can tap into features of the OS programmatically.

Both Microsoft and Sony's 8th Generation consoles operate the OS at all times.  With the current generation (7th Gen) the operating system was shut down while a game played and restarted when it was closed.  This OS, constantly running, is what takes the memory it is. 



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walsufnir on 27 July 2013
Adinnieken said:
walsufnir said:


I think we should point out what os is and what it's not. Some seem to confuse it with the kernel, others don't seem to know how consoles work today. Even now you can use some parts of the system while gaming and this will be extended a lot on consoles. I think both Sony and MS don't want to limit devs for other apps that are not gaming but also run on the consoles. So they reserve a lot but give more to gaming-devs which is absolutely fine and still offers ways for improvement over years.

An OS is an Operating System.  The heart of an OS is the kernel, along with components of the OS and a user interface (UI).  The components of the OS often have APIs associated with them so developers can tap into features of the OS programmatically.

Both Microsoft and Sony's 8th Generation consoles operate the OS at all times.  With the current generation (7th Gen) the operating system was shut down while a game played and restarted when it was closed.  This OS, constantly running, is what takes the memory it is. 


Mostly you are right but no, at least 360 still runs parts of the os while gaming. I can see downloads of games while I play.

What we don't know by now is what also runs in the background next-gen but it seems there is a lot more going on than we can imagine by now.



gooch_destroyer on 27 July 2013
Adinnieken said:
ClassicGamingWizzz said:
Nsanity said:
NeoGaf never had a problem with Digital Foundry posting negative articles on the Xbox One and Wii U, so why the sudden change of heart?


you never get tired of this do you

Hypocrisy is always fun.  Why do you think The Daily Show and The Colbert Report do so well?

What? they're better than those other news shows *coughFoxnewsCough*



walsufnir on 27 July 2013
ethomaz said:

walsufnir said:

for the computing stuff I can imagine dedicated hardware but not for ram. Remember how small PS4 is, that would be a *lot* of stuff to be implemented on the board. I am looking forward on disassemblys of PS4. Remember the xbone-board? I really liked it :D

Sony already said no resource from the main CPU, GPU and RAM are used to the video recording feature.

And there is a theory by a "unknown" developer.

"I was talking to a third party developer recently who was impressed that on PS4 the recording feature doesn't use any main CPU/GPU/Memory resources. He theorised that it is done on a completely separate chip that taps into the output stream between the memory and HDMI and records the last 15 minutes of footage onto some stacked RAM (a method Sony already use for PS Vita)."

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost.php?p=72104901&postcount=60


Nice if true but this would make a quite big chip. Even if it's an ARM it still needs quite some storage. And cooling. Anyway I want to see the mainboard!



ShinmenTakezo on 27 July 2013

I'll bet these are just old dev kit specs like I said earlier. They keep using KZSF as an example, and we should all know the numbers for the demo by now. They were running it on an 8Gb dev kit. The demo used a total of 4.2Gb (I think), 3.5 for the actual game and the rest for audio and some other stuff I can't remember right now. That was on a dev kit with only 8Gb. I don't know if my numbers are correct, but I think they are close. I'm being lazy and don't feel like fact checking my statements. If the system ships with 8Gb, which is confirmed, then dev kits will have at least 12Gb. If not they would just do like MS and say every PS4 is a dev kit and this current rumor would make sense.



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Trunkin on 27 July 2013

So it's even less than the Xbox One? Holy crap! I'm heading to N4G right now!



Scoobes on 27 July 2013
RenCutypoison said:
ethomaz said:
And DF "sources" is this guy...

http://forum.beyond3d.com/showpost.php?p=1769150&postcount=2515


Remember what I said a few days ago about non encoded videos taking a lot of space ? 

There is at least 1GB in OS RAM for the video, I think

Why on Earth would video encoding 7-15 mins of video take up that much space? The last TiVo box only had 512MB of RAM and that records more than 1 stream of video for a lot longer than 15 minutes.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TiVo_digital_video_recorders#Series3_HD_TiVo




Get your Portable ID!

thismeintiel on 27 July 2013
ethomaz said:

There is a guys that said in GAF the all these info are wrong.

"Don't worry.This article is all wrong."
"It'll never be since its completly untrue."
"Yeah,absolutly. Real numbers and all.
Quite somme panic in there.Thread is too fast for a fake non news."

This guy was confronted by the Mods to give credentials...

In GAF when that happen if the guy is telling truth nothing happen but if he can't show credentials he is banned.

It is been a day already and the guy not got banned

Edit - GAF mod words "Yes, we talked privately already. Take from that what you will."

So I guess the numbers in DF article are all wrong... another Leadbetter Sony personal rumor attack?

Yea, I would guess the reason Sony didn't specify the exact numbers is because they don't know what the numbers are, yet.  I'm sure they are still figuring out what all they want to do with the OS, in terms of features, as well as optimizing it to use less RAM.  I also bet they are talking with devs on an almost daily basis to see what they want, too.

On a side note, people need to quit asking why the OS is 2.5GB-3GB.  It's not.  Even if this is true, the OS is only 1.5 GB at the moment.  Sony is just reserving 1GB in case they wish to expand their OS.



 

RenCutypoison on 27 July 2013
ethomaz said:

RenCutypoison said:

Remember what I said a few days ago about non encoded videos taking a lot of space ?

There is at least 1GB in OS RAM for the video, I think

I can be wrong but the video record uses dedicated hardware... stack RAM.


From what I remembered from my assembly language lessons, stack is only a few kB.

The dedicated hardware part must be a part of the APU with a bridge connecting the GPU so that every Image send trough video out is send to RAM, then every pack of X images are sent back to the GPU (A part of the GPU dediacted to video encoding) and thus the 15 minutes limit is the RAM limit.

That's how I would do it tough, it may not be that way and I probably say shit.



walsufnir on 27 July 2013
RenCutypoison said:
ethomaz said:

RenCutypoison said:

Remember what I said a few days ago about non encoded videos taking a lot of space ?

There is at least 1GB in OS RAM for the video, I think

I can be wrong but the video record uses dedicated hardware... stack RAM.


From what I remembered from my assembly language lessons, stack is only a few kB.

The dedicated hardware part must be a part of the APU with a bridge connecting the GPU so that every Image send trough video out is send to RAM, then every pack of X images are sent back to the GPU (A part of the GPU dediacted to video encoding) and thus the 15 minutes limit is the RAM limit.

That's how I would do it tough, it may not be that way and I probably say shit.


Stack RAM is not stack the way you once learned. It means "on chip" in this context. Actually it's called "stacked RAM".