Biggest bottleneck for consoles - small RAM

I was thinking - isn't the (very) limited RAM the biggest problem for consoles? Consoles always suffered from small amounts of RAM compared to computers and this is also the case in modern times. For example Doom 3 on the Xbox looked comparable to medium-end PC version, but they had to redesign/simplify the levels due to the small RAM. And Crytek said they couldn't bring Crysis over to the consoles because they had too little RAM. The small RAM also probably means that consoles can't handle RAM demanding games too well (if at all).

Maybe the next-gen consoles will put an end to the small RAM question with their gigabytes of fast RAM?

I was thinking - isn't the (very) limited RAM the biggest problem for consoles? Consoles always suffered from small amounts of RAM compared to computers and this is also the case in modern times. For example Doom 3 on the Xbox looked comparable to medium-end PC version, but they had to redesign/simplify the levels due to the small RAM. And Crytek said they couldn't bring Crysis over to the consoles because they had too little RAM. The small RAM also probably means that consoles can't handle RAM demanding games too well (if at all).

Maybe the next-gen consoles will put an end to the small RAM question with their gigabytes of fast RAM?

nameless12345

Ram would mostly affect stored textures, level complexity, and number of unique instances of any given object in a game. They really should have added at minimum 2gb, but also remember that a consoel doesnt have the same amount of background applications running as a PC does, so it doesn't need mega ram to complete the same task as a PC.

It is something that irritates me as well. People argue consoles can compensate for low ram with high speed, which they do. But they are still very limited because of it, it doesn't allow them to get around the problems.

Because of low memory, everything has to be streaming based. Small instances of game play, bubbles of interactivity. No cross platform game can support the sort of scale PC can achieve, because consoles don't have enough ram to store enough information at once to achieve it.

Another problem is in graphics, consoles have half or less the texture memory of a budget gaming GPU today. As a result they have to use a variety of performance wasting effects to cover up the appearance of the textures, which in turn wastes performance on PC; where the effects are pointless. If they had more Vram, they could put more detail into the textures; and have to rely less on shaders/post processing to compensate.

It is something that irritates me as well. People argue consoles can compensate for low ram with high speed, which they do. But they are still very limited because of it, it doesn't allow them to get around the problems.

Because of low memory, everything has to be streaming based. Small instances of game play, bubbles of interactivity. No cross platform game can support the sort of scale PC can achieve, because consoles don't have enough ram to store enough information at once to achieve it.

Another problem is in graphics, consoles have half or less the texture memory of a budget gaming GPU today. As a result they have to use a variety of performance wasting effects to cover up the appearance of the textures, which in turn wastes performance on PC; where the effects are pointless. If they had more Vram, they could put more detail into the textures; and have to rely less on shaders/post processing to compensate.

Its a little tough to accurately compare a console's ram to a PC, because a PC has things like antivirus, malware, and background services running in the background upon boot, where as a console does not. In fact, the consoles OS is very light weight in terms of ram usage compared to the OS on a PC which has to manage every application that starts up in case a user needs something. Phazevariance

This is a very old; very redundant argument, and I wish console users would stop using it.

The resources of a gaming PC are so large that none of the above matters. To put this in perspective, I have as much memory on my GPU as both the 360 and PS3 put together. I have as much ram as both consoles put together times three.

Gaming PCs are fully capable of handling the OS and background processes; as well as the game without any problems.

256mb ram for a console IS small but it probably is teh equivelant of 1gb for a PC. Still, yes they are left with streaming textures from teh media, but the media doesn't stream fast enough to rpevent texture popin for some games.Phazevariance

256mb of ram is equivilent to 256mb of ram, it doesn't magically become more; because of the mystical powers of optimization. You can only ever store 256mb of content in that ram at any one time, never any more. As a result, a single instance of game play can never exceed that much information. You can stream information in and out of memory as you move around, but a single instance; is restricted to that memory.

I seem to remember the specs of the 360 originally being 256MB. Until developers started telling Microsoft they were ****ing nuts. Oh what a disaster that would've been.McStrongfast

Yeah it was Epic Games apparently.

Yeah, just look at the 360. Ever since gears of wars its been held back by its lack of general raam.

I was thinking - isn't the (very) limited RAM the biggest problem for consoles? Consoles always suffered from small amounts of RAM compared to computers and this is also the case in modern times. For example Doom 3 on the Xbox looked comparable to medium-end PC version, but they had to redesign/simplify the levels due to the small RAM. And Crytek said they couldn't bring Crysis over to the consoles because they had too little RAM. The small RAM also probably means that consoles can't handle RAM demanding games too well (if at all).

Maybe the next-gen consoles will put an end to the small RAM question with their gigabytes of fast RAM?

nameless12345

Yeah, just look at the 360. Ever since gears of wars its been held back by its lack of general raam.

htekemerald

:D

Nice one.

[QUOTE="Phazevariance"]Its a little tough to accurately compare a console's ram to a PC, because a PC has things like antivirus, malware, and background services running in the background upon boot, where as a console does not. In fact, the consoles OS is very light weight in terms of ram usage compared to the OS on a PC which has to manage every application that starts up in case a user needs something. AnnoyedDragon

This is a very old; very redundant argument, and I wish console users would stop using it.

The resources of a gaming PC are so large that none of the above matters. To put this in perspective, I have as much memory on my GPU as both the 360 and PS3 put together. I have as much ram as both consoles put together times three.

Gaming PCs are fully capable of handling the OS and background processes; as well as the game without any problems.

256mb ram for a console IS small but it probably is teh equivelant of 1gb for a PC. Still, yes they are left with streaming textures from teh media, but the media doesn't stream fast enough to rpevent texture popin for some games.Phazevariance

256mb of ram is equivilent to 256mb of ram, it doesn't magically become more; because of the mystical powers of optimization. You can only ever store 256mb of content in that ram at any one time, never any more. As a result, a single instance of game play can never exceed that much information. You can stream information in and out of memory as you move around, but a single instance; is restricted to that memory.

Yeah, just look at the 360. Ever since gears of wars its been held back by its lack of general raam.

htekemerald

I don't even....

They better have a minimum of 4GB next gen, i have seen notebooks with that kind of memory, cmon!

If consoles had more RAM will be waste because the slow GPU and CPU will not be abele to utilize all the RAM.

So consoles have the right amount of RAM they need.

More will be wasted.
Less will be hurt performance.

I've always wondered why this generation of consoles had low ram. 512MB is nothing. I expected 1GB at the time.racing1750

Cost vs need. Even if going with 512MB over 1GB only saved Sony/MS a couple of bucks per console that still works out to multi-million dollar savings, whereas even if we accept the lack of RAM is a significant issue for consoles it would still rank pretty low on the list of "what's wrong with modern game development?".

They better have a minimum of 4GB next gen, i have seen notebooks with that kind of memory, cmon!

Sandvichman

you dont need as much ram as you do for a computer

[QUOTE="Sandvichman"]

They better have a minimum of 4GB next gen, i have seen notebooks with that kind of memory, cmon!

gamer-adam1

you dont need as much ram as you do for a computer

[QUOTE="Sandvichman"]

They better have a minimum of 4GB next gen, i have seen notebooks with that kind of memory, cmon!

you dont need as much ram as you do for a computer

I had 2gb of ram when Next Gen consoles came out.

the limited memory bandwidth is more of a bottleneck, though 1gb of ram would not hurt either.

the limited memory bandwidth is more of a bottleneck, though 1gb of ram would not hurt either.

GTSaiyanjin2

Oh well...all the "weaknesses" in the world and consoles graphics still look fantastic to me. Impressed by pretty much every game this gen as far as "looks" go.

Oh well...all the "weaknesses" in the world and consoles graphics still look fantastic to me. Impressed by pretty much every game this gen as far as "looks" go.

VanDammFan

Oh well...all the "weaknesses" in the world and consoles graphics still look fantastic to me. Impressed by pretty much every game this gen as far as "looks" go.

VanDammFan

Thats why when the console is about to come out, you stick inside the absolute best GPU and CPU and crapload of ram, its costly in the beginning but the technology gets really cheap real fast and it helps longevitiy of the console while having the bragging rights to better looking games easier to develop. Sony sticks a modified 8800GTX in the PS3 and 1gb of ram PS3 easily lasts until 2016 with games looking better and better and it still looks decent by 2016. Ease of life for developers as they dont have to optimize the living crap out of games, and games release quicker and looking better, console starts selling better than the less powerful console, and wins.

More RAM would be mostly pointless given the bus widths and clock speeds of the CPU's/GPU's in the 360 and PS3. It's not like if you had double the memory you could just double the resolution of every texture and call it a day, because you'll just end up saturating the bus even more often and performance will suffer. More realistically, you could probably have more varied/unique textures in a level or be able to stream in data in larger "chunks".

[QUOTE="VanDammFan"]

Oh well...all the "weaknesses" in the world and consoles graphics still look fantastic to me. Impressed by pretty much every game this gen as far as "looks" go.

Iantheone

LOL...not really bro..no..visuals are only so good and so important. Rather you or any other PC gamer wants to admit it...You all have and love consoles. I refuse to think different.

256mb of ram is equivilent to 256mb of ram, it doesn't magically become more; because of the mystical powers of optimization. You can only ever store 256mb of content in that ram at any one time, never any more. As a result, a single instance of game play can never exceed that much information. You can stream information in and out of memory as you move around, but a single instance; is restricted to that memory.

AnnoyedDragon

Also If you take the 360 gpu (48 shader processors) and compared it to an ATI 3870 from 2007 had like 320 Shader processors with 2-4x the video memory. Console/Pc multiplatform development is holding back Pc gaming.

04dcarraher

[QUOTE="Iantheone"][QUOTE="VanDammFan"]

Oh well...all the "weaknesses" in the world and consoles graphics still look fantastic to me. Impressed by pretty much every game this gen as far as "looks" go.

VanDammFan

LOL...not really bro..no..visuals are only so good and so important. Rather you or any other PC gamer wants to admit it...You all have and love consoles. I refuse to think different.

Consoles don't have as much memory as PCs, but then they don't multitask to the same extent either. PCs need to be able to run multiple apps similtaneously, where at any one given time a user may have running a browser, word processor, iTunes (or other music app), Photoshop, InDesign, Dreamweaver, and Xcel. Just as an example.

Consoles only run one app at a time, what ever the game the user is playing at the moment, with the additional ability to have a dashboard pop-up. With an Xbox, while you're playing your game, that's all you're doing. Well that and you can have a party chat, but can't download content from the marketplace or watch a movie. And I'm pretty sure PS doesn't run its web browser while a game is being played. There is no window switching between apps like you have with PCs.

Also a console's OS is nowhere near as complex as Windows or MacOS, which have more demanding RAM requirements.

[QUOTE="04dcarraher"]

Also If you take the 360 gpu (48 shader processors) and compared it to an ATI 3870 from 2007 had like 320 Shader processors with 2-4x the video memory. Console/Pc multiplatform development is holding back Pc gaming.

Teufelhuhn

Come on now.....

The 360 does not have 240.... 48 floating-point vector processors for shader execution, divided in three dynamically scheduled SIMD groups of 16 processors each. Whats 16x 3=? 48 , The 3870 has 5 ALU's each group has 64 shader clusters whats 64 x 5=? 320.

They better have a minimum of 4GB next gen, i have seen notebooks with that kind of memory, cmon!

Sandvichman

They better have a minimum of 4GB next gen, i have seen notebooks with that kind of memory, cmon!

[QUOTE="DJ_Headshot"][QUOTE="Sandvichman"]

They better have a minimum of 4GB next gen, i have seen notebooks with that kind of memory, cmon!

04dcarraher

It's pretty amazing what they're able to do with 512. I would say they would only go 3 gigs instead of 2 if they move to a 1080p standard.

I was thinking - isn't the (very) limited RAM the biggest problem for consoles? Consoles always suffered from small amounts of RAM compared to computers and this is also the case in modern times. For example Doom 3 on the Xbox looked comparable to medium-end PC version, but they had to redesign/simplify the levels due to the small RAM. And Crytek said they couldn't bring Crysis over to the consoles because they had too little RAM. The small RAM also probably means that consoles can't handle RAM demanding games too well (if at all).

Maybe the next-gen consoles will put an end to the small RAM question with their gigabytes of fast RAM?

nameless12345

Doubtful. More electronics means more heat, and the consoles still have problems eliminating heat, don't they?

They might go up to 1 GB RAM, but for example if the PS4 goes to the next GPU series, it will generate more heat.

[QUOTE="nameless12345"]

I was thinking - isn't the (very) limited RAM the biggest problem for consoles? Consoles always suffered from small amounts of RAM compared to computers and this is also the case in modern times. For example Doom 3 on the Xbox looked comparable to medium-end PC version, but they had to redesign/simplify the levels due to the small RAM. And Crytek said they couldn't bring Crysis over to the consoles because they had too little RAM. The small RAM also probably means that consoles can't handle RAM demanding games too well (if at all).

Maybe the next-gen consoles will put an end to the small RAM question with their gigabytes of fast RAM?

Doubtful. More electronics means more heat, and the consoles still have problems eliminating heat, don't they?

They might go up to 1 GB RAM, but for example if the PS4 goes to the next GPU series, it will generate more heat.

[QUOTE="AnnoyedDragon"]

It is something that irritates me as well. People argue consoles can compensate for low ram with high speed, which they do. But they are still very limited because of it, it doesn't allow them to get around the problems.

Because of low memory, everything has to be streaming based. Small instances of game play, bubbles of interactivity. No cross platform game can support the sort of scale PC can achieve, because consoles don't have enough ram to store enough information at once to achieve it.

Another problem is in graphics, consoles have half or less the texture memory of a budget gaming GPU today. As a result they have to use a variety of performance wasting effects to cover up the appearance of the textures, which in turn wastes performance on PC; where the effects are pointless. If they had more Vram, they could put more detail into the textures; and have to rely less on shaders/post processing to compensate.

Phazevariance

im doin an active virus scan right now...my laptop is using 2 gig of ram for it and 13% of my processor(s)...anything above that i could use for gaming...when u look at most games require 2 gig and recommend 4+ on pc...those games...if ur like me...are needed for run acceptably (recommeded) but not great...2 gig of ram...extremely more than whats in a console.

It is something that irritates me as well. People argue consoles can compensate for low ram with high speed, which they do. But they are still very limited because of it, it doesn't allow them to get around the problems.

Because of low memory, everything has to be streaming based. Small instances of game play, bubbles of interactivity. No cross platform game can support the sort of scale PC can achieve, because consoles don't have enough ram to store enough information at once to achieve it.

Another problem is in graphics, consoles have half or less the texture memory of a budget gaming GPU today. As a result they have to use a variety of performance wasting effects to cover up the appearance of the textures, which in turn wastes performance on PC; where the effects are pointless. If they had more Vram, they could put more detail into the textures; and have to rely less on shaders/post processing to compensate.

If consoles had more RAM will be waste because the slow GPU and CPU will not be abele to utilize all the RAM.

So consoles have the right amount of RAM they need.

More will be wasted.
Less will be hurt performance.

MK-Professor

the limited memory bandwidth is more of a bottleneck, though 1gb of ram would not hurt either.

GTSaiyanjin2

[QUOTE="GTSaiyanjin2"]

the limited memory bandwidth is more of a bottleneck, though 1gb of ram would not hurt either.

imprezawrx500

The same reason quad cores don't offer a monumental fps increase, most games aren't coded to really take advantage of it.

Come on now.....

The 360 does not have 240.... 48 floating-point vector processors for shader execution, divided in three dynamically scheduled SIMD groups of 16 processors each. Whats 16x 3=? 48 , The 3870 has 5 ALU's each group has 64 shader clusters whats 64 x 5=? 320.

04dcarraher