[T.B.]

Originally Posted by Nesh

Is he a real developer or someone who claims to be a developer?

I've met some honest-to-god, devkits-and-docs, registered, certified, and NDA'd developers that had absolutely hilarious ideas about the consoles they were seemingly working on. I ran into people at the *DevStation* that obviously worked on some other console that was accidentally also named PlayStation 3.

Just because someone is a dev, doesn't mean he knows what he's talking about.

On the other hand, NeoTechni, name the document and section you found this in and I'm sure someone can acknowledge it.

[woundingchaney]

Im somewhat confused here. Are we honestly questioning DeanA's profession or his technical knowledge on the matter?? If so that is borderline ridiculous.

Or are we questioning the validity of this developer that NeoTechni is speaking of??

Regardless, I wouldnt mind taking a look at this certified document.

[T.B.]

Originally Posted by woundingchaney

Are we honestly questioning DeanA's profession or his technical knowledge on the matter??

I don't think anyone would do that...

[Shifty Geezer]

Originally Posted by woundingchaney

Im somewhat confused here. Are we honestly questioning DeanA's profession or his technical knowledge on the matter?? Or are we questioning the validity of this developer that NeoTechni is speaking of??

The current problem is NeoTechni is faced with two trusted sources offering conflicting information. The solution needs either to discredit one source or to resolve the different informations into one unified common ground. The current weight of argument seeks the former, questioning the validity of NeoTechni's source, as either being a developer of questionable repute, or a developer of questionable understanding on the subject. I think it's safe to say DeanA's position on this matter is pretty well informed

Just to be clear for those who don't know, DeanA works for SCEE's Advanced Technology Group. So he'd flippin' better have a good idea of the inner workings of PS3!

[patsu]

Originally Posted by NeoTechni

You can't get any better than official documents. I've even spoken with developers, none of them ever mentioned it running on the PPU

I remember someone mentioned that the PS3 OS run on the PPU before (not just the SPU). The fact that the developers you spoke with didn't mention it doesn't it doesn't exist.

The "homogeneous CPUs" model on Xbox 360 is more mainstream and versatile. The hetereogenous model is more esoteric, and custom (You need to explicitly make things run on the SPU, or have 2 different versions).

[liolio]

It might be 'interrupt' support?

[Rangers]

Originally Posted by inefficient

I'm thinking that they should have just put in a memory expansion module into the PS3 like the N64. Memory is so cheap. Even if it was XDR I'm sure they could have worked out an affordable price.

It just seems to be a waste of time and R&D money to fuss over dozens of MBs of ram when memory is such a cheap commodity these days.

An additional $20 or something for an extra 512MB or ram. for example. That is cheap is enough that just like they N64 they could have forced gamers to buy it in order to play certain AAA games like Majora's Mask.

There were even some N64 games that would still run without the memory module but minus some features or a lower resolution or something.

You would have to have a expansion port with a seperate, very high speed bus already built into the console and waiting for it is the problem. In fact I'm not even sure it'd be all that feasible (at a reasonable cost) anymore, as high speed and tight tolerance as buses are getting nowdays. It was a lot easier in N64 days..

[flashboom]

Originally Posted by Arwin

I think that joker makes fair points. As the 360 continues to maintain its position as lead platform in most cases and the 360's online service's feature-set is considered the standard, the PS3 continues to suffer. It's very clear (at least to me) that when a game is designed for the PS3 from the ground up this memory deficiency isn't nearly as relevant, but for most multi-platform games this still means that the PS3 is at a disadvantage. That doesn't mean though that the reduction of the footprint is irrelevant, but joker provides a good perspective.

There is no memory deficiency as of now. In fact with the faster memory a pretty big adantage. But basically a game designed for Xbox is always going to run into problems one way or another being ported.

And i'm sure party system etc etc arent that far away to burst the latest bubbles.

[AlStrong]

Originally Posted by flashboom

There is no memory deficiency as of now.

...until you start adding features? Or do you have a source contradicting some of joker's comments.

In fact with the faster memory a pretty big adantage.

You mean the XDR memory? Sure. The GDDR3 speed is 650MHz...

[GuestLV]

You mean the XDR memory? Sure

Please correct me
http://pc.watch.impress.co.jp/docs/2.../kaigai01l.gif
256mb 25.6Gb/s
vs
http://pc.watch.impress.co.jp/docs/2.../kaigai02l.gif
512mb 22.4Gb/s

a pretty big adantage ?

[AlStrong]

Originally Posted by GuestLV

a pretty big advantage ?

Indeed. (knew I should have put a smiley in there)

[Nesh]

Considering the fact that we arent talking solely about absolute numbers here since they show half of the truth, but about a game development environment, how does the 256MB XDR + 256MB GDDR3 fair compared to unified 512 MB GDDR3 RAM + 10 MB eDRAM?


In what cases does one have an advantage over the other and (intuitively speaking) how much?

Surely 256mb 25.6Gb/s vs 512mb 22.4Gb/s are misleading when talking about the actual console specifications and environments.

They both have 512MB MB but in different settings.

[AlStrong]

Originally Posted by Nesh

They both have 512MB MB but in different settings.

True enough. There is no point mentioning general obscenities as one being "clearly" better than the other.

(And a reminder to all, the platform comparisons are off-topic)

[Nesh]

Well I wasnt aiming for a platform comparison. It is unfortunate that the possibility that a comparison debate may start stands as an obstacle to a potentially interesting discussion.

Ignoring the platforms/the products their selves (as if they never existed), it would have been interesting to discuss in a pure technical level what each of these two settings enable, and which proves to be the best decision in certain situations.

[AlStrong]

Originally Posted by Nesh

Well I wasnt aiming for a platform comparison. It is unfortunate that the possibility that a comparison debate may start stands as an obstacle to a potentially interesting discussion.

Ignoring the platforms/the products their selves (as if they never existed), it would have been interesting to discuss in a pure technical level what each of these two settings enable, and which proves to be the best decision in certain situations.

Should be plenty obvious that what you're suggesting is grounds for an entirely new topic (NUMA/UMA/eDRAM implications). It is so far removed from just "PS3 OS Resources", don't you think?

There's really not much more here other than joker's vague yet interesting comments on the topic and removing/adding game-level features, except if those modules use less and less space or more is revealed in later firmware updates.

[Need 2 Know]

As usual didnt want to start a new Thread

LINK

Handy if your a Dev and in Paris buts it good to see Sony offering these types of things for people to get a better understanding of the PS3

[bkilian]

Originally Posted by Asher

I think it depends how you choose to view it. From the sounds of it, if you choose to use virtually no features like friends list and voice chats the PS3 can use as little as 24MB. So from that perspective, it would "not be bloated". But it also sounds like if you actually add up the features to bring it to parity to the 360, it goes up significantly in size.

It's a glass half full, glass half empty kind of thing...

But is it 24MB of 512MB, or 24MB of 256MB + (?)MB of 256MB? That (?) could be a significant amount. and 24MB of 256 is almost 10% of the available memory, so that's quite a bit.

It seems disingenuous to talk about the OS reserved space in RAM without also taking into account the OS reserved space in the GPU RAM, and then comparing it to the 360 and saying the one is less than the other.

They're two quite different platforms, with different advantages and tradeoffs. Development companies will essentially do what they have to to make something they can ship. If they need voice chat, they will find 8MB somewhere they can free up to make it work. Farm some work off on a SPU instead of using a precomputed table or whatever.

[JardeL]

No new leaks about OS ram usage ?..

[Aeoniss]

^ That would be quite swell.

[soulchild]

Here's a recent report stating that according to a Naughty Dog producer firmware 2.80 freed more memory for developers:

http://www.gamezine.co.uk/news/games...0-$1314390.htm

[grandmaster]

""Naughty Dog is constantly working to improve every aspect of the gameplay; be it animation, lighting, sound, texture fidelity. You know if you look at the game itself with the 2.80 engine update, you know we're adding more memory, so we get a lot more utilisation of the SPUs so we increase our optimisation of the Cell processor as well."

Ummmmmm... seems to be some interesting jumps going on in that statement... more memory means a lot more utilisation of the SPUs? More stuff streamed in from BD, held in RAM and processed by the SPU? Does the SPU work like that?

[JPT]

Isn't it a bit of stretch to say engine 2.80 = fw 2.80 ? Fine he maybe misspoke or using some internal terminology etc, but for all we know, it could be that their engine has gotten an optimization that freed up some memory.

[deepbrown]

Originally Posted by JPT

Isn't it a bit of stretch to say engine 2.80 = fw 2.80 ? Fine he maybe misspoke or using some internal terminology etc, but for all we know, it could be that their engine has gotten an optimization that freed up some memory.

Well the update did happen in-between the Beta and ComicCon...and the update didn't include much on the outside, meaning that it most likely gave back a little bit of memory to developers. And the source agrees that it could be a coincidence, but probably isn't:

"It's presumed that the 2.80 engine update Thompson refers to is Naughty Dog's improvements after the PS3's 2.80 firmware update, with the coincidence being too significant to ignore (though we're sure Naughty Dog has also gained back memory from their own engine optimisation)."

Anyway...regardless, the OS footprint must be much smaller since 1.8...I wonder what it is now.

[patsu]

Originally Posted by grandmaster

Ummmmmm... seems to be some interesting jumps going on in that statement... more memory means a lot more utilisation of the SPUs? More stuff streamed in from BD, held in RAM and processed by the SPU? Does the SPU work like that?

Sam Thompson is a producer. He may not be able to explain intricate system design and implementation cohesively. For all we know, he may be listing tasks in past project meetings.

It sounds like NaughtyDog is still improving the engine (e.g., better textures due to more memory allocated, better SPU utilization, larger BD streaming cache). If Sony frees up more OS memory, then we'll see improvements for other games in the future as well.

I'm more curious how they do this when PlayTV is running. Those guys want to add HD recording too.

[Shifty Geezer]

Originally Posted by patsu

Sam Thompson is a producer...

Exactly. Interpret the statement with consderation for the source's likely like of technical knowledge. Thus I doubt better SPE utilisation comes from more RAM. Probably ND have improved the way they are doing things with SPEs independent of memory, and Thompson has mixed all the improvements together into a single statement launched from a 2.80 update.

I'm more curious how they do this when PlayTV is running. Those guys want to add HD recording too.

I'd have thought that shouldn't make any difference apart from HDD BW.