By using this site, you agree to our Privacy Policy and our Terms of Use. Close

Forums - Gaming Discussion - System RAM in PS3 and XBox 360 is like half a GB

Fishie on 06 July 2008
MikeB said:
Gerinako said:
To be honest I don't understand why Microsoft or Sony didn't bother putting 1GB or even 2GB of ram in. It isn't exactly expensive compared to other components in a system

Cost considerations, especially the PS3's fast XDR memory is expensive.

If a game engine is well modified to suit consoles both consoles have a huge amount of memory to work with, especially with streaming methods and a default harddrive.

System bandwidth, processing power and storage space is far more relevant to consoles for optimised game engines. The 360 was only to have 256 MB of RAM originally, but luckily this was upped as graphics take a lot of memory. Executeable code is relatively tiny, for example Gears of War could have been a near identical game (gameplay, effects, etc) but with less quality textures. But high quality textures also take more time to load, hence the pop-ins in games like Gears of War and Mass Effect on the 360.

Urm no, texture popin was a problem with the early Unreal3 engine and the current engine has that taken care of it has nothing to do with the textures themselves.

 



Around the Network
Deneidez on 06 July 2008
Fishie said:
MikeB said:

Cost considerations, especially the PS3's fast XDR memory is expensive.

If a game engine is well modified to suit consoles both consoles have a huge amount of memory to work with, especially with streaming methods and a default harddrive.

System bandwidth, processing power and storage space is far more relevant to consoles for optimised game engines. The 360 was only to have 256 MB of RAM originally, but luckily this was upped as graphics take a lot of memory. Executeable code is relatively tiny, for example Gears of War could have been a near identical game (gameplay, effects, etc) but with less quality textures. But high quality textures also take more time to load, hence the pop-ins in games like Gears of War and Mass Effect on the 360.

Urm no, texture popin was a problem with the early Unreal3 engine and the current engine has that taken care of it has nothing to do with the textures themselves.

Theres popin mainly because of limits of mass storage(Harddisk/DVD/Blu-ray) bandwidth. So actually MikeB is right about that thing. Game engines can get 'less detailed world' much faster from mass storage and then start loading the 'more detailed world'. You can see that clearly with textures at least in bioshock and mass effect. (First small resolution textures and after that more detailed textures.). Because of harddisk and installations there will be much less popin on PS3. And on PC theres even less, because whole game is usually on harddisk. So like it or not in the future there will surely be more installations or even similar full installations as on PC on consoles.

Another way to handle loading would be much longer loading screens.



New crap available on mi pages!

akuma587 on 06 July 2008

Consoles require a lot less RAM than PC's cause they don't have to worry about running a bulky OS like Vista. That being said, it would be nice if each had 1 Gig of RAM.



We had two bags of grass, seventy-five pellets of mescaline, five sheets of high-powered blotter acid, a salt shaker half full of cocaine, a whole galaxy of multi-colored uppers, downers, screamers, laughers…Also a quart of tequila, a quart of rum, a case of beer, a pint of raw ether and two dozen amyls.  The only thing that really worried me was the ether.  There is nothing in the world more helpless and irresponsible and depraved than a man in the depths of an ether binge. –Raoul Duke

It is hard to shed anything but crocodile tears over White House speechwriter Patrick Buchanan's tragic analysis of the Nixon debacle. "It's like Sisyphus," he said. "We rolled the rock all the way up the mountain...and it rolled right back down on us...."  Neither Sisyphus nor the commander of the Light Brigade nor Pat Buchanan had the time or any real inclination to question what they were doing...a martyr, to the bitter end, to a "flawed" cause and a narrow, atavistic concept of conservative politics that has done more damage to itself and the country in less than six years than its liberal enemies could have done in two or three decades. -Hunter S. Thompson

Burgles on 06 July 2008
Rock_on_2008 said:

They can not play games that require system 2GB RAM to run like Never Winter Nights 2, some other PC games which require more system RAM.  Imagine if PS3 and XBox 360 system RAM and graphics cards could be upgraded? That would be awesome, hey. Not just have to rely on a stock console for 6 or 7 years that can not be upgraded much at all. PS3 you can upgrade the HDD for storing downloads and game data but that is not a big deal.

^Discuss people.

 

 Pointless discussion, the N64 had a RAM upgrade cartridge released for it to allow games to run at 640x480 res, and a few actually needed it...

 

It was never very popular, and if something like that was released YOU would be the first to moan about it and draw elementry innuendos to its negative points if it was released on the 360. If it was for the Ps3 then I'm sure it would be "fantastic" ;)



Burgles on 06 July 2008
Dgc1808 said:
NJ5 said:
http://www.atari.com/us/games/neverwinter_nights_2_gold/dvd_rom

According to this, it doesn't even need 2 GB on PC, just 512 MB (1 GB recommended).

 

If this is true then with some awesome optimization on a console the game can work quite well.

 

 No awsome optimisation needed. Developers make games with a target in mind. It wasn't that the game they envisioned NEEDED 2GB of RAM to run smoothly without hitching\cacheing to disk, it was that they knew thats what they had to play with.

It isn't hard to take out the bells and whistles to reduce something to its bare bones and work from there...For example having load points and what not throughout "levels"...this is common practise...

 

Take "Oblivion" for example, that NEEDS 2GB on a PC....The PS3 seems to do quite well with only 256MB. (Much better example than nwn2)



Around the Network
Squilliam on 06 July 2008
akuma587 said:
Consoles require a lot less RAM than PC's cause they don't have to worry about running a bulky OS like Vista. That being said, it would be nice if each had 1 Gig of RAM.

An Xp computer nowadays is expected to have about 1gb of ram. Since XP uses about 180mb its about comparable in ratio to the PS3 which uses 30mb of 256mb. The PS3 used MORE in the past when 80mb or 1/3rd of available ram was used for the operating system!

I think its quite an overblown concept that the PC operating system uses more ram when the PS3 one uses relatively about the same. However I don't think the tunnel shooter syndrome is caused by an abundance of ram now is it?

 



Tease.

ikilledkenny on 06 July 2008

You can do a lot more with ram on a console than with a pc due to it being entirely dedicated to games, and primarily because it does not have an os like windows, that eats the memory up.


alucardremixed on 06 July 2008

Both consoles have raw CPU power and Graphics intesive chips to compensate for the less Ram. Ram is usually for the OS and caching game data. Reason Why pc games require so much is because it accounts for all the background processes an average pc would have. Like aim, task manager, the taskbar, background updates, spyware. Its alot that chews up RAM and CPU when their added up. For example, it is recommended for WoW to have a Gigabyte, but when i run it, it takes up half a Gigabyte, when i check. Consoles=Games pc = Games and everything else



Mummelmann on 06 July 2008

Wow, Mike has left the thread but people keep flaming his posts, just another day at Vgchartz. The amount of "knowledge" in this thread from all sides are barely at "I've read it on Wikipedia" levels, so no one claim superior intelligence here please.



HappySqurriel on 06 July 2008
Squilliam said:
akuma587 said:
Consoles require a lot less RAM than PC's cause they don't have to worry about running a bulky OS like Vista. That being said, it would be nice if each had 1 Gig of RAM.

An Xp computer nowadays is expected to have about 1gb of ram. Since XP uses about 180mb its about comparable in ratio to the PS3 which uses 30mb of 256mb. The PS3 used MORE in the past when 80mb or 1/3rd of available ram was used for the operating system!

I think its quite an overblown concept that the PC operating system uses more ram when the PS3 one uses relatively about the same. However I don't think the tunnel shooter syndrome is caused by an abundance of ram now is it?

 

I just want to add that the best way for akuma587 to have stated his argument would be "Consoles used to require a lot less RAM than PCs because they didn't have to worry about running a bulky OS"

The truth is that in the last generation the "Operating System" of most consoles was not really a persistent operating system in the same way that all three consoles have today. It used to be that the "Operating System" was included on the game's disc, and that meant that 99.5% of system resources was directly useable by the game. Today, all three systems have some form of operating system running in their background that is eating some resources and (as you said) I suspect that the proportion of resources eaten by these operating systems is similar to the proportion of resources eaten by windows on an appropriately powerful system.