is the lack of ram will make a problem for ps3 in the future ?

What do you mean? In graphical advancement? If so the 360 has the same problem. And the wii has the problem even worse. Next generation I hope the console makers don't focus too much on cpu power and give the consoles at least 3gbs of ram. By then we don't even know how much the average pc will have.

i mean the gpu ram cuz i heard its only have 256mb only and thats make me upset a little cuz there is a problem happend with me in my pc i have a 256mb vga i play GRAW on it but its not allow me to put the textures on high because the vga ram .. its says that i should have a 512mb vga to allow a high textures.

sorry for the bad english.

NNN2004 said: i mean the gpu ram cuz i heard its only have 256mb only.

256MB VRAM is great for a console. It's equivalent to a $500 USD or so PC out today.

Even on an ultra-high-end PC, above 512MB doesn't make that much of a difference.

I would complain more about the GPU ram being too slow due to smaller bandwidth rather than the amount. That is another problem with the hd consoles. Their ram is far to slow than what we would see in a video card.

Consoles have (typically) had problems with having too little ram because they tend to favour high speed ram over high capacity ram ...

IMO as games development seems to focus more and more on console technology, it won't be that big of a problem. Developers will get more and more efficient.

512 MB is actually a lot to work with on the PS3 (compared to previous consoles vs PC specs of the time), but just as important is the bandwidth and default harddrive which allows for caching and results into a lot more memory for intelligently streaming games engines within independent game sections.

Executable code is usually tiny compared to the size of graphics and audio. Luckily most graphics and audio are very suitable for streaming. The texture data don't have to fit into the GDDR3 memory, actually by using the XDR Ram as well this adds a lot of potential bandwidth.

The PS3 has been designed to be a streaming monster, meaning lots of data for future games will flow through its architecture instead of having all the data in memory at once. (Resistance: Fall of Man and Motorstorm are examples of games which only streamed their lossless 7.1 audio, but the rest was all in memory at once for each track or level). The better quality (or more diverse) the assets that are being streamed become the more space will be required and so the storage space of Blu-Ray is a huge benefit, as well as its predictable speed results (data which can be cached onto the harddrive for much better performance at sustained speeds)

People often compare the available console memory with PCs, but a direct comparison is flawed to begin with. Gaming PCs use Windows, Windows/DirectX eats up a lot of memory (in addition to CPU cycles), especially Vista demands memory for itself, consoles can be far more efficient. Windows gets more demanding with every major new release, new console firmwares however will become more and more efficient.

What I think you will see is that at some point you won't see higher quality textures due to bandwidth/RAM bottlenecks, with regard to executable code and streaming audio there's enough RAM and bandwidth to push the Cell/RSX towards full potential.

Take for example the Neo Geo:

Main RAM: 64KB
Sound RAM: 2KB
Video RAM: 128KB

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=fqb0ea31fUI

As you can see the Neo Geo was much better at games than 1990 PCs sporting many multiple times its amount of available RAM. This could only be achieved due to the ultra fast circulation of data from ROMs (internal and on game cartridges).

Developers just have to step away from PC developing methods. In the past it was more convenient for developers to demand PC gamers to further upgrade their PCs instead of performing better optimizations. The average PC gamer is horribly misinformed with regard to technology, so this could even be beneficial to sales, if a game demanded twice the RAM and processor performance, the game must be twice as impressive, right?

Luckily the market is changing, the more demanding games are more and more styled with a console mentality in mind. Some legacy engines may however not be really suitable for full redesign.

RAM is already an issue for developers however 360 and Wii face the same issue with RAM. In fact all consoles do. Back in 2005 when SONY announced PS3 512mb of RAM was plenty of RAM for a console. Hell most people's home PC's ran on 512 or 1024mb of RAM.

Remember PS2 has a mere 32mb of RAM ( + 4mb of RAM on graphics card).
And PS1 had a mere 2mb(main), 1mb(video),512kb(sound)...

So basically expect 4gb+ RAM in PS4 ... however i doubt it'll be that big of a deal. Current-gen systems are pretty powerful -- and by next-gen id say consoles will of hit a plateau where graphical improvements have reached their limits. Sure you could make games look better-- but will developers be able to afford to make them look more realistic? Will people care about the graphics of next-gen games when they all make Crysis look below average.

I've been saying that since it's launch, and someone brought up Xbox360 and Wii, where the hell did they come in?

Jeez so defensive.

It would be a problem if it was a bottleneck. That means if limited RAM holds other components back. And I honestly do not think that this is the case. The PS3 RAM is fast as hell, so developers will learn to use it as a cache while streaming textures from the BluRay disc. The reason the PS3 RAM is mentioned so often is that the unified memory of the 360 forces developers to reprogram core parts of their game when porting to the PS3. Which is painful.