[vanquish]

Originally Posted by joker454

Because no one would believe the numbers.

Do you mean that the PS3 supporters would refuse to believe the OS takes up the stated amount of RAM, and cite that the OS footprint has been greatly reduced in recent firmware revisions (as they have done so in the past).

Or that other PS3 devs would not agree?

[KongRudi]

Noone (both PS3 supporters, and anti PS3-peeps) would believe the numbers beeing said by a unknown forum-dude, because most unknown forum-dudes are clueless, we'd also assume that this unknown forum-dude is clueless aswell.

-

If a PS3 developer wich everyone knew however said it, he'd breach the contract he and his company has written with Sony when they ordered a devkit, and he'd maybe loose his job or even worse, end up in court - probably because alot of blog's websites would have headlines 'Wii OS superior to PS3 OS, because it takes a smaller memory footprint' and similar, the day after the statistics were posted here.. :-/

[Carl B]

Ok, I mean it's full out now a conversation about the conversation about OS footprint... which honestly was a tangent to the topic to begin with (though a worthy-enough one). I've let this reside here because I have been noticing of late a jump in members new to the forum sort of being overly blunt/demanding of devs, and I just wanted a podium to remind folk that hey, these are just ordinary members in their own right who are here because they enjoy technical discussion - don't make it unpleasant for them to simply hang out, y'know?

I took post #139 as the means to address this specifically, but I've noticed it in other places of late, so Dargakis I didn't mean to pick on you.

[patsu]

I doubt we can learn about the current OS size by looking at the given memory stats. Besides the missing G-buffer, we can't tell what are overlapping and what else are not reported.

I am a little surprised by the sound memory (2 of out 7 max. streams took up 18+Mb, with MP3 Surround and Stereo processing). Is this normal/average ?

What is KDTree used for in KZ2 ?

Both the main and video memory store texture. Would be interesting to know how they are split.

Also a little surprised at so many tasks running on the SPUs overall.

As the video pointed out, there are (at that moment) 17 humanoids active in front and behind the scene.

[vanquish]

Originally Posted by KongRudi

Noone (both PS3 supporters, and anti PS3-peeps) would believe the numbers beeing said by a unknown forum-dude, because most unknown forum-dudes are clueless, we'd also assume that this unknown forum-dude is clueless aswell.

-

If a PS3 developer wich everyone knew however said it, he'd breach the contract he and his company has written with Sony when they ordered a devkit, and he'd maybe loose his job or even worse, end up in court - probably because alot of blog's websites would have headlines 'Wii OS superior to PS3 OS, because it takes a smaller memory footprint' and similar, the day after the statistics were posted here.. :-/

Hmm, there has to be a way around this.

Couldn't one of our PS3 devs email or PM a B3D mod (or me) with the info, and so then they can post it?

If devs are bound by such strict contracts how come stuff like MS's per disk loyalties (see RAGE) or the 360's limits on DVD disk space available to devs, got out?

[AlStrong]

Originally Posted by vanquish

the 360's limits on DVD disk space available to devs

We know this in particular from the Gamefest presentation, so they've been cleared for public consumption.

[patsu]

When Carmack reported it, he didn't reveal any technical details. He simply said that shipping a 3rd disc is out of the question because of $$$ issues. From that statement, people inferred that 2 discs weren't enough.

[grandmaster]

Originally Posted by vanquish

Hmm, there has to be a way around this.

Couldn't one of our PS3 devs email or PM a B3D mod (or me) with the info, and so then they can post it?

The idea of what an NDA is doesn't seem to have quite sunk in. It means non-disclosure no matter what hacker alias you might invent to post with on the internet!

Originally Posted by vanquish

If devs are bound by such strict contracts how come stuff like MS's per disk loyalties (see RAGE) or the 360's limits on DVD disk space available to devs, got out?

First of all, I'm not sure the stuff you mention *is* under NDA. Secondly, no-one would seriously take action against John Carmack for obvious reasons. Thirdly, the 360 limit on DVD disk space can be easily ascertained even without development hardware or access to NDA-protected materials.

[vanquish]

Originally Posted by grandmaster

The idea of what an NDA is doesn't seem to have quite sunk in. It means non-disclosure no matter what hacker alias you might invent to post with on the internet!
.

Well if your hacker alias means they can't find out who you are (perhaps helped by some IP masking), they can't do anything, now can they?

I think Sony have bigger problems atm, than chasing down someone who posted the size of the PS3's OS footprint. It's free knowledge what the 360's is so it can't be that big a deal.

[Shifty Geezer]

Originally Posted by vanquish

Well if your hacker alias means they can't find out who you are, they can't do anything, now can they?

Getting caught has little to do with it. These guys are professionals, not silly little school-yard chums spreading secrets. They are not supposed to divulge information and so they don't. Plus if they leak this one bit of info, people would hound them for more and more. Those wanting them to leak info really aren't appreciating what you're asking. Why should a developer risk (small chance as it is) getting caught for breach of NDA to divulge information for you? What's in it for them? You may as well ask a random person on the street to go into a shop and shoplift a Mars bar for you. The chances of them getting caught are negligable, but why should they bother?

You are a faceless voice on the internet. The dev's job is how they live. What possible reason could they have to value you over their job?! The only way anyone would give in to such pressure is if they're new to the job and/or remarkably stupid, and I wouldn't expect such a character to hold on to their employment for long.

Whether you agree or disagree, I now declare the topic of 'how to get NDA info from developers' to be closed as it's a form of 'piracy' and against board policy. I hope those putting forth the request seriously reflect on what they were asking and how they would act if they were the employee being asked to break contract.

[Dargakis]

Killzone 2 actually had memory left because they allow for ingame music streaming as some of you might know.
Or is this part of the main os, and takes up memory even if a game doesn't use it? (like a winamp always running in the background or something).
I am wondering if we can ever have that voice chat running on top of a game.
To implement that would be simple, if you use it, your game cannot see the BT/mic hardware. And you could both talk while playing other games or watching movies. How much would the 'chat layer' cost to implement?
Not NDA stuff, but suggestions.

[assen]

Originally Posted by vanquish

If devs are bound by such strict contracts how come stuff like MS's per disk loyalties (see RAGE) or the 360's limits on DVD disk space available to devs, got out?

The MS per disk loyalties turned out to be false, which shows you can't believe even officially announced stuff.

Originally Posted by vanquish

Why can't a PS3 dev just create a new account, and post the figures?

Creating a new account doesn't absolve you from contractual obligations and basic human integrity.

[patsu]

Originally Posted by Dargakis

Killzone 2 actually had memory left because they allow for ingame music streaming as some of you might know.
Or is this part of the main os, and takes up memory even if a game doesn't use it? (like a winamp always running in the background or something).
I am wondering if we can ever have that voice chat running on top of a game.

Does the memory snapshot include KZ2 voice chat memory footprint at all ?

Not to mention EU PS3 could be running PlayTV in parallel to the game.

[joker454]

Originally Posted by vanquish

It's free knowledge what the 360's is so it can't be that big a deal.

The problem is that it would be a complete waste of time. Putting integrity issues aside for the moment, I could post a screen grab of the exact memory use and probably never be caught. But it would cast the PS3 in a negative light, meaning that on PS3 centric forums no one would believe it anyways, and I would likely just be marked as a fool, fanboy or noob. This goes for all technical specs, peoples minds are made up and they don't want to hear any differently unless its complimentary. So why even bother? People are going to believe whatever they want, there is no point trying to dissuade them, and certainly even less point in violating nda to do it. It's better to just let people believe what they want to believe regarding their hardware of choice. Whatever keeps them happy and keeps them buying games

[Carl B]

Joker I don't know why you insist on egging these folk on wrt this OS issue, but that said I think it's fairly certain that if you posted such a screen, the majority of the 'reasonable' forum would obviously believe it. Especially since a lot of us would take non-dev refutation as the silent stamp. I mean you can try this thought experiment out if you like.

As for 'negative lights' and such, well anyone that's followed it already knows it's bloated compared to the competition, but then again it definitely has been improved as time has gone on, so it's all relative from the point of view one comes from.

[TheWretched]

I am just curious as to what IS inside that reserved area... I mean, XMB and all that stuff is clear, but is there anything else reserved for voicechat, music and whatnot inside there as well, or do these options dig into your games RAM.

[makattack]

Originally Posted by Carl B

...
As for 'negative lights' and such, well anyone that's followed it already knows it's bloated compared to the competition, but then again it definitely has been improved as time has gone on, so it's all relative from the point of view one comes from.

Agreed. I don't really care about 360 vs PS3 OS memory usage but am most definitely interested in what Sony has done with each OS revision to reduce/remove/modularize parts of their OS over the years while adding features.

Same as the 360. I'd be keen to see how their OS progressed over time -- especially in light of the additional features they add in.

Since this thread is on PS3 OS resources, I wonder how the non-gaming features impact games development, if at all.

[patsu]

Yap, we already know about the bloated OS more than a year ago. At the same time, we also saw games like KZ2, Uncharted and MLB The Show 2009 over time.

What's truly missing is the context to interpret the numbers (What people highlight above: Why is it bigger ? How does something like PlayTV affect the internals ? Is there something else in the OS ?). Not sure if the devs have the answers to these questions though.

[Carl B]

Previous threads have shed some light on the reasons for the increased size though, and one aspect is simply that Sony's code is more bloated. On a 'like for like' basis, MS' has simply been more efficient from the outset. That said, some of the original set aside has become returned overage with a less bloaty OS, it's been alluded that previous would-be inclusions have been set aside, and of course when it's all said and done there are a couple more things that the Sony OS tries to juggle in a modular fashion, and that require some space.

Games like Killzone are more a showcase for the SPEs; I don't think they redeem the memory constraints, they just show that great games can be achieved in spite of them. Of course with a cleaner memory backdrop, the game would have been better still - textures has been one complaint bandied around after all.

Anyway it is what it is - I love the MM functionality associated with the PS3, so I actually am fine with OS bloat so long as it gets more efficiently implemented with each revision worthy of note. The games can suffer a bit and I'll be ok with it; I understand that this isn't mainstream opinion per se.

[patsu]

Yes, but what else (Did the completion of PlayTV allow Sony to not reserve that much memory in the Game OS ?)

Memory is a scarce resource. If more is available, we should see noticeable difference. For KZ2, different subsystems may claim more space (e.g., 960x1080 buffer, more animation, sound processing -- at least 18Mb). They all add up. Textures are not the only residents in memory. If the OS hasn't released more back to the dev, some of these may not be doable.

[Carl B]

I can definitively answer that they have enough memory to do what they did.

Ok so that was a joke of course (though true!), but I don't know... I mean I myself haven't followed the topic as closely in the last couple of months, but wasn't around the turn of the year the last time we got a clear flag on some movement with the mem allocation on the dev kits? First when the MP3 playback thing occurred and/or shortly thereafter, I believe there was a cost one could incur to support certain new 'optionals' in-game, and it was near concurrent with a slight reduction in the overall set-aside.

I mean I guess I could search this stuff and find the specific references, but honestly I'm sure there are others who have this stuff on 'speed-dial' so to speak. I should archive myself actually when I know there's interesting info in a thread, but with being lazy and all...

(Uh, nevermid, I just did a search and my memories are from late 2007 vs 2008 - man the last year just flew by! Hell, things must be much better now.)

[patsu]

Yeah the optional features (e.g., YouTube video record, in-game MP3) require even more memory. But something like concurrent PlayTV record is supposed to work with all games. Even though it may not take up much memory in the final product (I don't know), I wonder if Sony needed to reserve more earlier while looking for the final solution.

Similarly, in-game XMB was introduced later as the Game OS memory footprint shrank. It's hard to see from outside whether Sony devs reserved a chunk "just in case" (or simply a development/debug version took up more space, or none of the above).

[damienw]

Somewhere on a thread recently, a respected contributor said " about 40 megs, now" and there was no backlash or claims he was off base. So I operate with that assumption.

[Carl B]

Originally Posted by patsu

Similarly, in-game XMB was introduced later as the Game OS memory footprint shrank. It's hard to see from outside whether Sony devs reserved a chunk "just in case" (or simply a development/debug version took up more space).

Oh definitely, and I'm sure there's still some buffer in the OS yet. But as for the devs the required OS footprint can only go one way, so I don't think they need worry about a set-aside within game; they'll just not be beneficiaries of the additional later on. Stuff like in-game XMB was part of the reason for the original massive size; luckily, Sony managed to get it a little better than they gave themselves room for.

Originally Posted by damienw

Somewhere on a thread recently, a respected contributor said " about 40 megs, now" and there was no backlash or claims he was off base. So I operate with that assumption.

Damienw reading some of this older stuff now I see you've been a pretty steady follower of the story; anyway thanks for the reference, found the thread and I'll link it here:

http://forum.beyond3d.com/showthread.php?t=51889&page=2

(Patsu this is gonna be deja vu all over again for you I feel! )

[patsu]

Originally Posted by Carl B

(Patsu this is gonna be deja vu all over again for you I feel! )

Originally Posted by Carl B

But as for the devs the required OS footprint can only go one way, so I don't think they need worry about a set-aside within game; they'll just not be beneficiaries of the additional later on.

Yes, that's why knowing the context together with the stated OS memory footprint is more interesting because it allows us to understand the past, present and predict what's next.