How much ram should does each of the big 3 need next gen?

[QUOTE="eboyishere"]despite the fact i made this kind of a joke thread, i still was interested in people that are more tech savvy then me. So how much would 4gb put the console? like launch priceBPoole96

Barely any. I posted a link above with the cost of 4GBs of RAM.

PS4 is going to be aimed towards hardcore gamers, it should have 4GB or 8GB of RAM.

The Wii-U and Xbox 720 are the consoles for casuals, so they should have 1GB or 2GB.

ITT: Kids who know nothing of RAM costs or the difference between the way a console and a PC work.

id say 2GB maybe 3 would be really good. Consoles dont need nearly as much as PC's do so 2GB would actually be more than enough i think. They dont even have on GB to work with now and they seem to do pretty well. You really cant compare it to PC ram though because like i said consoles need much less and then they are gonna be shooting for the lowest cost possible.

Gen007

I'm positive developers absolutely hate dealing with the memory deficit of current consoles and will be lobbying for more, like how Epic saved the 360 from being a 256MB failure. Going from 2 to 4 is relatively inexpensive. 4 to 8 is a more noticeable bump, so 4GB seems to be the sweet spot and what I expect we'll end up with.

ITT: Kids who know nothing of RAM costs or the difference between the way a console and a PC work.

ChupacabraIII

[QUOTE="ChupacabraIII"]

ITT: Kids who know nothing of RAM costs or the difference between the way a console and a PC work.

starjet905

BF 3 uses almost 2gb of system ram and 1.5gb vram for max settings. it will run with less gpu memory but there will be hitching.

Cranler

Ram on consoles isnt cheap.

2GB max probably for Sony and Microsoft, 1 for Wii U if we are lucky.

[QUOTE="Cranler"]

BF 3 uses almost 2gb of system ram and 1.5gb vram for max settings. it will run with less gpu memory but there will be hitching.

Grey_Eyed_Elf

3-5 gigs.

I could give a S*** if they had underpowered graphics and cpu as long as they had a butt load of ram I would be happy it is the one area that consoles are sorely lacking and one of the most important aspects of gaming.

4GB minimum

[QUOTE="finalstar2007"]

[QUOTE="yoshi_64"]RAM stores lines of code to perform the functions necessary to well... function. Essentially more RAM means more lines of codes can be stored. This means more pictures, sounds, etc. Larger files can be stored, thus meaning you can have better sound files, graphics, textures, etc. *insert TheMoreYouKnow.jpg*Cheese-Muffins

I see, very interesting thanks for the information but storing pictures, music and videos isnt that the function of the external HDD each console has? sounds like RAM is actually the one responsible for the "Picture" icon or the "Video" icon, am i correct? :o

I'm not really sure what you're getting at here. From my limited knowledge in my computer architecture class, RAM stores data for the program/game from the HDD (or disk?). In a game setting, whatever you're currently accessing and using in the game must be stored in RAM to continually access it. RAM has a MUCH faster access time than a HDD. It's why it takes so long to first load up a program or something on your computer as it has to load it up from your hard drive first. However, RAM is limited and you can't just store the whole game code in RAM. Thus, you have to continually evict and replace data in your RAM from the HDD. From my understanding, this is what causes "pop-in" in games. The textures you are now just accessing have not loaded into memory yet, and thus there is a penalty/delay in loading to the RAM from the HDD/Disk, which causes the "pop-in". Therefore, more RAM is typically a good thing as you can store more data in a much faster environment. It would allow better quality assests, more things on screen, etc, like yoshi_64 said.

However, the cost-to-benefit ratio above 4GB for console makers right now makes a large amount of RAM not worth it.

I think the simpler way of explaining is that where a hard drive or media disc is stored data, the RAM is used for processing the data actively being used for the given scenario of a game. So all the character models, level maps, audio clips, animation data and such are pulled of the stored data and processed to occur on screen via the RAM. The RAM also processes all statistical data, such as physics, damage calculations based on character attributes or weapons the character is equipped with (and in RPG cases the in-game stats) to determine the outcome of player actions.

And since RAM is limited, data is continuously swapped in and out in an as-needed basis. So levels exited are purged out to make room for the next level to be rendered, and so on. So more RAM means more situational variables can be calculated to create real time actions and maintain the flow of the game.

4GB minimum

ZombieKiller7

I agree.

PS4 is going to be aimed towards hardcore gamers, it should have 4GB or 8GB of RAM.

The Wii-U and Xbox 720 are the consoles for casuals, so they should have 1GB or 2GB.

GamerwillzPS

[QUOTE="Cheese-Muffins"]

[QUOTE="finalstar2007"]

I see, very interesting thanks for the information but storing pictures, music and videos isnt that the function of the external HDD each console has? sounds like RAM is actually the one responsible for the "Picture" icon or the "Video" icon, am i correct? :o

AdobeArtist

I'm not really sure what you're getting at here. From my limited knowledge in my computer architecture class, RAM stores data for the program/game from the HDD (or disk?). In a game setting, whatever you're currently accessing and using in the game must be stored in RAM to continually access it. RAM has a MUCH faster access time than a HDD. It's why it takes so long to first load up a program or something on your computer as it has to load it up from your hard drive first. However, RAM is limited and you can't just store the whole game code in RAM. Thus, you have to continually evict and replace data in your RAM from the HDD. From my understanding, this is what causes "pop-in" in games. The textures you are now just accessing have not loaded into memory yet, and thus there is a penalty/delay in loading to the RAM from the HDD/Disk, which causes the "pop-in". Therefore, more RAM is typically a good thing as you can store more data in a much faster environment. It would allow better quality assests, more things on screen, etc, like yoshi_64 said.

However, the cost-to-benefit ratio above 4GB for console makers right now makes a large amount of RAM not worth it.

I think the simpler way of explaining is that where a hard drive or media disc is stored data, the RAM is used for processing the data actively being used for the given scenario of a game. So all the character models, level maps, audio clips, animation data and such are pulled of the stored data and processed to occur on screen via the RAM. The RAM also processes all statistical data, such as physics, damage calculations based on character attributes or weapons the character is equipped with (and in RPG cases the in-game stats) to determine the outcome of player actions.

And since RAM is limited, data is continuously swapped in and out in an as-needed basis. So levels exited are purged out to make room for the next level to be rendered, and so on. So more RAM means more situational variables can be calculated to create real time actions and maintain the flow of the game.

Hah yeah, looking back at my post, that does make more sense than how I worded it!

I've had Crysis use 2GB of ram and 900MB of Vram by itself.

There's no reason they should come with less than 2GB, it's not like it costs anything.

Beats me, 360 and PS3 have gotten by just fine with the RAM they have now, so probably twice that I guess.

I don't know, and I seriously doubt anyone here does either. But people are going to talk out fo their ass and pretend they know what they are talking about like they always do.

I'm not worried about next gen at all. Except for MS, they better make some major changes like better exclusives and not charging a stupid fee for online gaming.

I've had Crysis use 2GB of ram and 900MB of Vram by itself.

There's no reason they should come with less than 2GB, it's not like it costs anything.

kraken2109

12gb-20gb there really is no reason not to with ram prices, this includes graphics as well, if they went with a shared architecture like M$ did with 360 that would be awesome. If they make these systems for the longer cycles it woudl be a crime not to, any one that believes a system could last with 2gb-4gb for hte next 10 years is stupid, PC gaming only needs like 4-6 because consoles constantly drag the overall memeory constraints down. Games are designed around being able to fit in 512mb with everythign from mechanics to graphics then get upscaled assets when they hit the pc.

[QUOTE="Cheese-Muffins"]

[QUOTE="finalstar2007"]

I see, very interesting thanks for the information but storing pictures, music and videos isnt that the function of the external HDD each console has? sounds like RAM is actually the one responsible for the "Picture" icon or the "Video" icon, am i correct? :o

AdobeArtist

I'm not really sure what you're getting at here. From my limited knowledge in my computer architecture class, RAM stores data for the program/game from the HDD (or disk?). In a game setting, whatever you're currently accessing and using in the game must be stored in RAM to continually access it. RAM has a MUCH faster access time than a HDD. It's why it takes so long to first load up a program or something on your computer as it has to load it up from your hard drive first. However, RAM is limited and you can't just store the whole game code in RAM. Thus, you have to continually evict and replace data in your RAM from the HDD. From my understanding, this is what causes "pop-in" in games. The textures you are now just accessing have not loaded into memory yet, and thus there is a penalty/delay in loading to the RAM from the HDD/Disk, which causes the "pop-in". Therefore, more RAM is typically a good thing as you can store more data in a much faster environment. It would allow better quality assests, more things on screen, etc, like yoshi_64 said.

However, the cost-to-benefit ratio above 4GB for console makers right now makes a large amount of RAM not worth it.

I think the simpler way of explaining is that where a hard drive or media disc is stored data, the RAM is used for processing the data actively being used for the given scenario of a game. So all the character models, level maps, audio clips, animation data and such are pulled of the stored data and processed to occur on screen via the RAM. The RAM also processes all statistical data, such as physics, damage calculations based on character attributes or weapons the character is equipped with (and in RPG cases the in-game stats) to determine the outcome of player actions.

And since RAM is limited, data is continuously swapped in and out in an as-needed basis. So levels exited are purged out to make room for the next level to be rendered, and so on. So more RAM means more situational variables can be calculated to create real time actions and maintain the flow of the game.

ram is just super fast synchronous memory, and it can be written to on a byte per byte basis which makes it a lot more flexible. It also doesn't process anything, that's the processors job, and even then when processor does the calculations it does so inside the cache. Sometimes you dont' want it to stay in the cache though and there are compiler options for that...

You can get flash based disks that are XIP and can use it like memory, which could be used for reading/execution of the program but it can't be written back to easily. Flash is almost always a block device so in order to write to it you have to erase a large section first to even write a byte so its not good for storing temporary information like RAM is. Reading is synchrounous but writing isasynchrounous on this type of memory.

The problem with other types of storage is its all asynchronous, so in order to get data off you have to give a read command then address and wait for the data to be prepared, you can't really use this information very readily since there is a lot of latency involved. Normally you have to request the data from a file system which goes through a block driver... takes a while. This type of memory the cpu can't execute code from, it needs a block driver to retrieve/store information.

So its like a small pyramid of going from really slow memory to really fast memory. Data gets loaded from a disk into memory, then that memory gets loaded into the cpu and is likely cached and cache is ridiculously fast compared to memory. From the CPU's perspective with though its just reading a byte from an address, cache coudl take 1 cycle, external memory could take like 10 cycles... asychronous memory could take hundreds of cycles. Those values aren't factual you'd need actual hardware for real timing data.

edit: sorry I had a **** fit when I saw memory processes stuff

PS4 is going to be aimed towards hardcore gamers, it should have 4GB or 8GB of RAM.

The Wii-U and Xbox 720 are the consoles for casuals, so they should have 1GB or 2GB.

GamerwillzPS

[QUOTE="GamerwillzPS"]

PS4 is going to be aimed towards hardcore gamers, it should have 4GB or 8GB of RAM.

The Wii-U and Xbox 720 are the consoles for casuals, so they should have 1GB or 2GB.

godzillavskong

Nothing is more "hardcore" than being a corprorate cheerleader on internet forums ;)

RAM is dirt cheap so anything below 4GB is laughable

4GB RAM @1600Mhz on Newegg

BPoole96

[QUOTE="Cranler"]

BF 3 uses almost 2gb of system ram and 1.5gb vram for max settings. it will run with less gpu memory but there will be hitching.

Grey_Eyed_Elf

well... you can play bf3 with a 8400GS(256mb) that is multiple times slower than a 7800GTX, but only with low settings, super low rez and low fps. some people don't realize that console use much less memory on BF3 because they run this game with low settings and sud-hd resolution.

[QUOTE="BPoole96"]

RAM is dirt cheap so anything below 4GB is laughable

4GB RAM @1600Mhz on Newegg

PC_Otter

No one here understands these things.

The next gen consoles won't have a bunch of DDR3 Ram, they'll have less of the next big thing, even the Wii U. Besides, even if they did have a bunch of old Ram, it'd be a waste. They're not going to put outdated Ram in machines that have to be on the market for 5 years +.

All people have to do is look at the Wii. It has 64 Mb's of GDDR3, the same kind of Ram in the 360, just less.

[QUOTE="PC_Otter"]

[QUOTE="BPoole96"]

RAM is dirt cheap so anything below 4GB is laughable

4GB RAM @1600Mhz on Newegg

theuncharted34

No one here understands these things.

The next gen consoles won't have a bunch of DDR3 Ram, they'll have less of the next big thing, even the Wii U. Besides, even if they did have a bunch of old Ram, it'd be a waste. They're not going to put outdated Ram in machines that have to be on the market for 5 years +.

All people have to do is look at the Wii. It has 64 Mb's of GDDR3, the same kind of Ram in the 360, just less.

[QUOTE="theuncharted34"]

[QUOTE="PC_Otter"] DDR3 is one thing. GDDR5, XDR, or XDR2 is another, of which they will be necessary in some quantity next gen in order to provide enough bandwidth at least for VRAM. Chances are GDDR5 will be the standard for this upcoming gen, and based on early projections 4 GB is probably the very most amount of RAM will be seeing on the new consoles. 1.5 GB would be great for a Juniper or Cape Verde level graphics processor, though such an amount would require a 96/192/384 bit bus, unless you stick to the 128 bit one of Juniper and Cape Verde, more relying on flat out clock speed to get you high bandwidth.

The amalgam of RAM size, speed, and bandwidth is an interesting topic in trying to find the proper blend of attributes to provide necessary performance while keeping the cost manageable and future revisions decently easy to produce.

PC_Otter

No one here understands these things.

The next gen consoles won't have a bunch of DDR3 Ram, they'll have less of the next big thing, even the Wii U. Besides, even if they did have a bunch of old Ram, it'd be a waste. They're not going to put outdated Ram in machines that have to be on the market for 5 years +.

All people have to do is look at the Wii. It has 64 Mb's of GDDR3, the same kind of Ram in the 360, just less.

Yeah, I only didn't mention the other 24 mb's as my point was the GDDR3 Ram.

True, but maybe the next gen consoles will be the first systems to use new this new Ram, (this is a stretch) and manufacturers are just waiting until then to mass produce it.

I wish XDR Ram wasn't so expensive, if it wasn't then everything would use it and no one would have to worry about Ram bottlenecks that's for sure. If anyone'll use XDR2 it'll be Sony with the Ps4, but only part of the total Ram of course.Right about GDDR5, most likely the majority of Ram in the next consoles will be just that.

If they can manage 4GB that would be great, but with the specs rumored for them I doubt it would be used much. Sadly I'm thinking that 2-3GB is the most likely outcome.

[QUOTE="godzillavskong"][QUOTE="GamerwillzPS"]

PS4 is going to be aimed towards hardcore gamers, it should have 4GB or 8GB of RAM.

The Wii-U and Xbox 720 are the consoles for casuals, so they should have 1GB or 2GB.

AdobeArtist

Nothing is more "hardcore" than being a corprorate cheerleader on internet forums ;)

Yeah, I only didn't mention the other 24 mb's as my point was the GDDR3 Ram.

True, but maybe the next gen consoles will be the first systems to use new this new Ram, (this is a stretch) and manufacturers are just waiting until then to mass produce it.

I wish XDR Ram wasn't so expensive, if it wasn't then everything would use it and no one would have to worry about Ram bottlenecks that's for sure. If anyone'll use XDR2 it'll be Sony with the Ps4, but only part of the total Ram of course.Right about GDDR5, most likely the majority of Ram in the next consoles will be just that.

theuncharted34

[QUOTE="mitu123"]

How about VRAM? That's important too!

nameless12345

Not for consoles (most use unified RAM).

[QUOTE="theuncharted34"]

PC_Otter

My point about the Wii's GDDR3 was only to point out that the console manufacturers won't use more, but outdated ram, but instead use less of new ram. The Wii is the most extreme example of that, the Wii's core architecture remains the same as the gamecube's, hardware from 2000-2001, and yet it *still* had up to date ram.

About your point about the mixed ram in the Ps3, that could've been the case, but it's also possible Sony developed the PS3 to have 2 seperate types from the start. XDR was a necessity for the Cell, not so much the GPU.And also the Ps3 having that split memory wasn't really the issue, I mean it was somewhat of an issue for some developers who started coding their game on 360 which had the UMA setup, but the real problem was the Ps3's OS used much more Ram than 360's.50 mb's vs. 32 as of now, and the gap was wider than that earlier on.

I'm with you in favor of a unified ram setup, just as you said for cost and simplicity, but split's fine too, like you said with split ram you don't run into bandwidth issues as much.But yeah, the bad outweighs the benefits.

And well, about the Wii and GC, they do basically have the same hardware with some updating for the Wii.

Noone in SW has the slightest clue.

[QUOTE="PC_Otter"]

[QUOTE="theuncharted34"]

theuncharted34

My point about the Wii's GDDR3 was only to point out that the console manufacturers won't use more, but outdated ram, but instead use less of new ram. The Wii is the most extreme example of that, the Wii's core architecture remains the same as the gamecube's, hardware from 2000-2001, and yet it *still* had up to date ram.

About your point about the mixed ram in the Ps3, that could've been the case, but it's also possible Sony developed the PS3 to have 2 seperate types from the start. XDR was a necessity for the Cell, not so much the GPU.And also the Ps3 having that split memory wasn't really the issue, I mean it was somewhat of an issue for some developers who started coding their game on 360 which had the UMA setup, but the real problem was the Ps3's OS used much more Ram than 360's.50 mb's vs. 32 as of now, and the gap was wider than that earlier on.

I'm with you in favor of a unified ram setup, just as you said for cost and simplicity, but split's fine too, like you said with split ram you don't run into bandwidth issues as much.But yeah, the bad outweighs the benefits.

And well, about the Wii and GC, they do basically have the same hardware with some updating for the Wii.

2-4gb sounds good.

Thefatness16

Your sig is from Walmart? o__o

[QUOTE="theuncharted34"]

[QUOTE="PC_Otter"] I think I get that your point is the idea of a split RAM system. Split RAM architecture versus UMA is an issue of cost, complexity, and "needs". The PS3 is a prime example of the split system working against developers, but then again, the addition of GDDR3 was a crutch addition to bring the memory up to half a gigabyte. My assumption is that doubling the XDR and providing a bigger pathway to it for the RSX was more expensive than adding the GDDR3 and it's traces.

What is fascinating is how earily similar to the GC and Wii the system configuration is, with "VRAM, "external" and "internal" memory banks. The System LSI looks to be a system hub (probably an MCM, unlikely to be a full single die) of sorts with the I/O, GPU, DSP (for audio I presume), along with the memory banks. The I/O, GPU, and DSP could be a single die, with the memory on their own. I wonder what the difference between the "internal" memory and VRAM is. The "internal" could be the actual VRAM, with the "VRAM" actually eDRAM for framebuffer output or quick texture storage. Then again, the "internal" could be extra memory for the GPU to use along with the VRAM, yet accessible by the DSP for audio purposes.

PC_Otter

My point about the Wii's GDDR3 was only to point out that the console manufacturers won't use more, but outdated ram, but instead use less of new ram. The Wii is the most extreme example of that, the Wii's core architecture remains the same as the gamecube's, hardware from 2000-2001, and yet it *still* had up to date ram.

About your point about the mixed ram in the Ps3, that could've been the case, but it's also possible Sony developed the PS3 to have 2 seperate types from the start. XDR was a necessity for the Cell, not so much the GPU.And also the Ps3 having that split memory wasn't really the issue, I mean it was somewhat of an issue for some developers who started coding their game on 360 which had the UMA setup, but the real problem was the Ps3's OS used much more Ram than 360's.50 mb's vs. 32 as of now, and the gap was wider than that earlier on.

I'm with you in favor of a unified ram setup, just as you said for cost and simplicity, but split's fine too, like you said with split ram you don't run into bandwidth issues as much.But yeah, the bad outweighs the benefits.

And well, about the Wii and GC, they do basically have the same hardware with some updating for the Wii.

I suppose my point was confusing, I made it sound like the Wii could've used more ram but I didn't mean that, I just meant to point out that the Wii, which is a fossil in comparison to the HD twins, still had the latest ram modules. Gamecube sure did have blazing fast loading, the mini-DVD's helped with that too.

Again, about the Ps3's memory, the RSX gpu can use the XDR ram as well, so yes the total memory isn't shared in the Ps3, but the Gpu at least can make use of all the available ram. So if the Ps3's OS didn't have the heavy footprint it does the RSX could compensate by using the additional 18 mb's that'd be available, if the OS used just 32 mb's.For your Crysis 2 example, Crytek stated they saved 14 mb's by lowering the horizontal resolution of C2 down to 1024, so the additional 18 mb's would more than make up for that.

As for the "Ps4 and 720" having a 7700 series gpu, i'd be extremely disappointed, myself. I'm hoping for a Cypress level Gpu in the next "HD twins", I think that is more than reasonable considering they won't be out 'till 2013.

1gig:minimum/mandatory level.

2gig:good for consoles.

4gig:great for consoles.

Consoles don't need the 8+ spectrum, as they are dedicated devices, and have next to no background ram use.