Likely that the next consoles will have 1GB or more of RAM?

[megadrive0088]

How likely is it that the next round of consoles, PS3, XB2, GC2, will have 1GB or more of memory?

Any combination of system, video and audio memory.

I was hoping the next consoles have 3-4 GB memory, but I'd settle
for just 1-2 GB. helluva lot more than todays systems.

Consoles are always getting short changed when it comes to memory. All the current consoles, without changing their CPUs/GPUs, would all benifit greatly from having 4x the memory they have now.

 

[V3]

I was hoping the next consoles have 3-4 GB memory

I only have 2 GB in my PC. Next year new mobo and CPU, maybe I'll get it up to 8 GB.

But yeah, I don't think there can be enough memory. But I think bandwidth will be more important.

 

[cybamerc]

I don't think so. I haven't bothered validating my theory but is seems to me that the amount of RAM increases approximately by a factor of 10 each gen.

Of course, devs have been bitching about the lack of RAM in consoles for ages so maybe the hardware providers will finally adress this particular issue.

 

[megadrive0088]

Of course, devs have been bitching about the lack of RAM in consoles for ages so maybe the hardware providers will finally adress this particular issue.

yeah, that is what I am banking on, that console makers will listen to the developers more and satisfy their need for more memory.

 

[PC-Engine]

It all depends on when the nextgen console are released and the price of memory at that time. Anything over 128MB for nextgen is enough for games, however marketing wants at least 256MB.

 

[KnightBreed]

It all depends on when the nextgen console are released and the price of memory at that time. Anything over 128MB for nextgen is enough for games, however marketing wants at least 256MB.

I hope that wink means you're being sarcastic. 128MB enough for games... booologne.

 

[PC-Engine]

It all depends on when the nextgen console are released and the price of memory at that time. Anything over 128MB for nextgen is enough for games, however marketing wants at least 256MB.

I hope that wink means you're being sarcastic. 128MB enough for games... booologne.

Umm..no it wasn't sarcasm. How much memory does PS2 and GCN have?

 

[Tagrineth]

It all depends on when the nextgen console are released and the price of memory at that time. Anything over 128MB for nextgen is enough for games, however marketing wants at least 256MB.

I hope that wink means you're being sarcastic. 128MB enough for games... booologne.

Umm..no it wasn't sarcasm. How much memory does PS2 and GCN have?

Take a look at a game like DOOM3, which needs to have its levels SEVERLY segmented for even the Xbox - with twice as much RAM as GCN and PS2.

Then look at Serious Sam Xbox which has had all of its levels shortened appreciably.

THEN look at HALO which has a checkpoint every five minutes. Those aren't just for saving, hun...

Even Xbox's 64MB are being stressed.

And THEN look at the PC game Diablo II, which, when I enable the stats display (type just 'fps' in a text box), my RAM and Page File are ALWAYS full (~240+/256MB physical, and around 90% of my page).

 

[PC-Engine]

It all depends on when the nextgen console are released and the price of memory at that time. Anything over 128MB for nextgen is enough for games, however marketing wants at least 256MB.

I hope that wink means you're being sarcastic. 128MB enough for games... booologne.

Umm..no it wasn't sarcasm. How much memory does PS2 and GCN have?

Take a look at a game like DOOM3, which needs to have its levels SEVERLY segmented for even the Xbox - with twice as much RAM as GCN and PS2.

Then look at Serious Sam Xbox which has had all of its levels shortened appreciably.

THEN look at HALO which has a checkpoint every five minutes. Those aren't just for saving, hun...

Even Xbox's 64MB are being stressed.

And THEN look at the PC game Diablo II, which, when I enable the stats display (type just 'fps' in a text box), my RAM and Page File are ALWAYS full (~240+/256MB physical, and around 90% of my page).

We're talking about a console designed from the ground up not a stripped down closed box PC trying to run bloated PC game code and pretending to be a console

 

[Tagrineth]

We're talking about a console designed from the ground up not a stripped down PC trying to run bloated PC game code and pretending to be a console

Why the hell should that make ANY difference of ANY kind WHATSOEVER?

What, you think PC hardware can't run code as heavily optimised as specially designed hardware? Hell yes it can, it just doesn't have as many chances to do so (compatibility between many different PC products).

And not all PC game code is bloated.

AND Halo is definitely pretty well-optimised.

*AND* John Carmack assuredly knows how to optimise PC hardware damned well.

 

[PC-Engine]

 

[Vince]

<snip> Take a look at a game like DOOM3...
Serious Sam Xbox...
HALO...
PC game Diablo II

Um, I see an underlying symmetry here, do you? Oh yeah, there all PC games that are ported over to a console.

I'd hardly consider PC developers to be on the same playing field as console developera when it comes to any type of effeciency or finetuning for a specific architecture - especially when it comes to the memory subsystems.

A great example is MaxPayne, which Quincy (I think) can tell you has an engine which is FUBAR as it'll write unneccesary data out and expand the size of the program. Was a pain in the ass to port and run on a console because it was designed with the PC paradigm inmind.

Yet, with a similar rate of increase in the PS2->PS3 as was seen in the previous (same as XBox, just have the PSone to look to) you can expect a >20X increase in sheer polygonal output according to a paper proposed at GDC 2002 IIRC. Thus, when your playing with multiple meshes composed of upwards of 80,000 polygons a piece, you need to store them.

Beyond more aggressive compression, you will need more storage space, but I question 8GB of RAM, even 1GB. I'll predict 512MB as the mean, with 256MB and 1GB as the possibles but questionable.

 

[Vince]

You guys are too fast... lol

What, you think PC hardware can't run code as heavily optimised as specially designed hardware? Hell yes it can, it just doesn't have as many chances to do so (compatibility between many different PC products).

Um, you just proved our points...

AND Halo is definitely pretty well-optimised.

*AND* John Carmack assuredly knows how to optimise PC hardware damned well.

Part 1: I think when you see what they do with HALO2 @ what speed, you'll see just how much legacy baggage was holding down their game.

Part2: Carmack isn't a God, he doesn't write seperate routines for each piece of hardware out there. Does anyone remember the stories where guys would re-compile Quake1/2 and run it at on hardware way under id's specs?

 

[marconelly!]

I think it will depend more on how fast the next gen optical media will be. Just think how long it would take for todays DVDs to fill the amount of RAM > 1GB (heck, even 512MB) even in the sequential mode. The load times in games would be unacceptably long

 

[PC-Engine]

I think it will depend more on how fast the next gen optical media will be. Just think how long it would take for todays DVDs to fill the amount of RAM > 1GB (heck, even 512MB) even in the sequential mode. The load times in games would be unacceptably long

Excellent point, I'm guessing by that time we'll have around 40X DVD read speeds without factoring in the higher density next gen DVD media which will also help speed up data transfer speeds.

 

[zurich]

Also assume that next gen HDs will be much much larger, maybe 100 gigs or so. If thats the case, then it'd be pretty acceptable for games to install portions of itself to the HD when run for the first time. This would allow the RAM to fill up much quicker.

 

[TTP]

The PS3 wont have any internal RAM at all! It will load the game directly in your brain! Oh, BTW, how many GB are in any given brain? Not so much in mine at this moment

Anyway, I guess 512MB of just main RAM (repeat - MAIN RAM) will be ok for the next gen system.

 

[Bogotron]

You don't have to fill the main memory with information that is byte for byte identical to what is stored on physical media. Actually, I'd say that is a pretty stupid thing to do.

One thing that developers can do with more memory is to use data structures that are more aimed at speed and not storage efficiency. For example, on a DVD/CD you compress all data and decompress on-the-fly. Doing on-the-fly data decompression on data structures in main memory is something you do not want to do. In main memory you will use completely different data structures, structures that can faster relocate data and/or be traversed with much lower algorithmical complexity.

Think about databases. If designed properly they're blazingly fast, but sometimes the index tables can be 3-4 times larger, maybe even more, than the actual data tables. There is a huge difference between data structures created for static data storage (i.e. on physical media) and data structures for dynamic data storage used in a game engine that is trying to output 30/60/whatever fps.

 

[BenSkywalker]

I'll agree with Vince on the likely amount of RAM, likely 512MB give or take(although I find 256MB extremely unlikely, it is possible with 1GB being well within reason).

Obviously we are moving away from cramped level design, even Halo is utterly dwarfed by some titles out(on the PC at least). We will be moving to higher levels of audio quality(amount of simultaneous streams at least), will be using more complex AI scripts, have more characters on screen at once. Then we have texture quality which will need to see a massive boost in resolution(not to mention 3D textures) to look decent at 1080i. True we will likely see some decent HOS/Spline support in the next gen, and procedural textures will likely be far more common, but it is very easy to exceed even 1GB worth of RAM when you start really thinking about what the next gen will entail. Also keep in mind that the more complex things get, the less low level optimzations you will have(as a factor of both budget constraints and simply having enough time).

 

[Qroach]

i agree, i was also thinking 512, down to 128 for possible configurations. I think going from 64-1G is a bit too much and ram still costs quite a bit to make that too expensive for a consle. Even a few years from now I expect.