Analysis Of PS3 Online. The Good. The Bad. The Ugly.

[Ben-Nice]

Three big blog articles. I guess I'll post one interesting section

When you speak to developers privately, they express a stunning level of frustration. Repeated delays in the delivery of online APIs, delays in coming-up with online testing kit, incomplete or missing libraries, promised features that are never delivered. The list goes on and on. They have to deal with the bloat of the OS, which eats up nearly 100 MB of memory (and one SPU), and provides very little functionality to the game. In comparison, the OS for the Xbox is rumored to only use up 3.5 MB. (Correction: an anonymous poster suggests that the Xbox reserves 32 MB for the OS. Please see the comments below.)

It’s surprising that the OS can take so much memory, and without being able to provide a mechanism for reading or responding to messages. Another example of bloat: if you want to draw the OS keyboard in game, it will use up a further 16 MB of memory. The OS will eat up another 16 MB of memory on top of the 100 MB it’s already using up; the amount of memory used by the OS is simply ludicrous.

http://www.innerbits.com/blog/2006/11/06/analysis-of-the-ps3-online/
http://www.innerbits.com/blog/2006/11/07/analysis-of-the-ps3-online-the-bad/
http://www.innerbits.com/blog/2006/11/08/analysis-of-the-ps3-online-the-ugly/

 

[Rockster]

I read that series of articles a few days ago. Pretty gloomy. My question is, do consumers even care? I get the feeling from both retailers and consumers that Sony has such a strong brand presence that people will eat up everything they are served, and trust that over time, all of Sony's promises will be fullfilled.

 

[RobertR1]

I read that series of articles a few days ago. Pretty gloomy. My question is, do consumers even care? I get the feeling from both retailers and consumers that Sony has such a strong brand presence that people will eat up everything they are served, and trust that over time, all of Sony's promises will be fullfilled.

This only works when you have nothing to directly compare to. People are slow to learn and take notice but eventually do.

 

[Arwin]

It's a well written article. Its point about a game supporting both Xfire and the Playstation Network at the same time though goes over my head. That doesn't, to me, sound like a bad thing at all. This kind of cross-over experimentation basically reads 'free-market live anywhere' to me, and doesn't necessarily have anything to do with the lack of online features, or you'd have seen it in more than just Untold Legends.

As for the reported memory useage, I think some bits of it are exaggerated and/or overstated. Though just as likely other stuff is true. It makes more sense though to believe stuff we've already heard, which is that 64mb of RAM is reserved for the OS, and probably an additional 32mb on the GDDR3 side. I agree that this seems a lot, but I'm going to wait and see until I have a more official word on this, and also seeing what Sony will eventually allow us to do with it. Because all in all, you could also say that it leaves Sony room to do more than the 360 ... eventually.

I think that over the last weeks, developers will have seen API updates probably a rather lot, and god knows what has changed between Firmware 1.0 and 1.10, or even between 1.0 and 1.01. Ridge Racer 7 has a fair bit of online support, and I wouldn't be surprised if a fair amount of it is actually linked to the PS Network.

I think that Sony did more than most expected. While it has made developers suffer needlessly (I have no doubt that Project 8 devs are among those who bitched about this to the author ), and they were godforsaken late, especially considering the delays that the PS3 suffered, it still looks like Sony is delivering on a number of important fronts, already, and it has until Christmas 2007 to get it right.

But to bring in some discussion from another thread, whatever else you may think about Microsoft, their Live initiative is forcing Sony to pick up the online gauntlett, something which in every way they seem reluctant to do and may not have done otherwise (especially as Japan still doesn't nearly care as much as the rest of the world does).

 

[Darkon]

It's a well written article. Its point about a game supporting both Xfire and the Playstation Network at the same time though goes over my head. That doesn't, to me, sound like a bad thing at all. This kind of cross-over experimentation basically reads 'free-market live anywhere' to me, and doesn't necessarily have anything to do with the lack of online features, or you'd have seen it in more than just Untold Legends.

As for the reported memory useage, I think some bits of it are exaggerated and/or overstated. Though just as likely other stuff is true. It makes more sense though to believe stuff we've already heard, which is that 64mb of RAM is reserved for the OS, and probably an additional 32mb on the GDDR3 side. I agree that this seems a lot, but I'm going to wait and see until I have a more official word on this, and also seeing what Sony will eventually allow us to do with it. Because all in all, you could also say that it leaves Sony room to do more than the 360 ... eventually.

I think that over the last weeks, developers will have seen API updates probably a rather lot, and god knows what has changed between Firmware 1.0 and 1.10, or even between 1.0 and 1.01. Ridge Racer 7 has a fair bit of online support, and I wouldn't be surprised if a fair amount of it is actually linked to the PS Network.

I think that Sony did more than most expected. While it has made developers suffer needlessly (I have no doubt that Project 8 devs are among those who bitched about this to the author ), and they were godforsaken late, especially considering the delays that the PS3 suffered, it still looks like Sony is delivering on a number of important fronts, already, and it has until Christmas 2007 to get it right.

But to bring in some discussion from another thread, whatever else you may think about Microsoft, their Live initiative is forcing Sony to pick up the online gauntlett, something which in every way they seem reluctant to do and may not have done otherwise (especially as Japan still doesn't nearly care as much as the rest of the world does).

Doesn't the OS reserve 64 MB now, at least from what i read it does ?

 

[pipo]

Doesn't the OS reserve 64 MB now, at least from what i read it does ?

The quote you're referring to doesn't exactly say that. And that's what the problem is. People read something and expect that to be the bottom line (I know how that works )...

...their Live initiative is forcing Sony to pick up the online gauntlett, something which in every way they seem reluctant to do and may not have done otherwise (especially as Japan still doesn't nearly care as much as the rest of the world does).

Exactly. I've said it before, but you gotta love competition.

I'm pretty sure we would have ended up with a 256MB 360 otherwise too.

Oh, and LB, love... From the depths of the forum:

Uhm the start is in the future, so what's the problem?
It's not like PS3 is out now, and Sony's scrapping together a service now to make up for it...
In the end, for all we know, Sony could have a service up and running when PS3 comes out, which makes your arguments very tiring. If they don't, then you can bitch about it. As it stands, you really can't comment on it now.

Here I am.

To be honest, they've done some stuff and it will get better, but I still don't ever see them coming to the slick experience the Guide provides in this generation. It's far better than the original Xbox though, I'll give 'm that.

 

[Graham]

One can only wonder what the service would have been like had the hardware not been delayed so many times.
Same for the games too I guess.

As something of a newcomer to xbox live, I have to say the service is really growing on me. Simply I never have to think about it, it just all works and works damn well. And at the end of the day, thats what sony must produce, not a feature laden online system but a reliable and consistent system.

 

[kia]

Is there any confirmation about that only a total of 64MB reserved for PS3's OS?

 

[hey69]

One can only wonder what the service would have been like had the hardware not been delayed so many times.
Same for the games too I guess.

As something of a newcomer to xbox live, I have to say the service is really growing on me. Simply I never have to think about it, it just all works and works damn well. And at the end of the day, thats what sony must produce, not a feature laden online system but a reliable and consistent system.

i'm pretty sure the ps3 came not late and november launch was always the real ship date.
Offcourse they would not say that , to keep the press and their fans happy

 

[inefficient]

Is there any confirmation about that only a total of 64MB reserved for PS3's OS?

The author himself corrects his article (because of user comments) in a follow up saying it was actually 64MB system memory and 32MB graphics memory. link

It's not clear if that 32MB of "reserved" graphics memory just the frame buffer or something.

He also corrects his article where he says the xbox only uses 3.5MB of memory to 32MB of memory.

I think it's pretty clear he is just trying to assemble the "word on the street" from various sources and is not an actual developer himself. If he was a dev or had real sources, he would not need to clear up his information after users reading his article corrected him on it.

 

[Phil]

This may be the wrong topic to ask, but while we're on the topic of those 64 + 32 MB for thE OS - do we know if those 64 + 32 MB are reserved at all times (even during playing a game) or is this simply the amount that has to be free once the PlayStation-button is pressed and the OS screen is shown? I really can't see the point of always having a fixed amount of memory reserved even during gameplay.... I'm sure the services running in the background during gameplay could be cut to under 10 MB. As long as game developers know that their game has to free up to 64 MB when the PlayStation-button is pressed, it shouldn't really be a problem?

Any thoughts?

 

[Cheezdoodles]

This may be the wrong topic to ask, but while we're on the topic of those 64 + 32 MB for thE OS - do we know if those 64 + 32 MB are reserved at all times (even during playing a game) or is this simply the amount that has to be free once the PlayStation-button is pressed and the OS screen is shown? I really can't see the point of always having a fixed amount of memory reserved even during gameplay.... I'm sure the services running in the background during gameplay could be cut to under 10 MB. As long as game developers know that their game has to free up to 64 MB when the PlayStation-button is pressed, it shouldn't really be a problem?

Any thoughts?

I think the whole point is that it takes up 64+32 at all times, not just when you press the PS button.

Otherwise i cant see how this is relevant to anything, i dont care how much RAM my OS is using when im NOT playing games. I care about how much its using when im playing the games, because thats whats going to affect the performance of what i care about, the games.

 

[pakotlar]

Three big blog articles. I guess I'll post one interesting section

When you speak to developers privately, they express a stunning level of frustration. Repeated delays in the delivery of online APIs, delays in coming-up with online testing kit, incomplete or missing libraries, promised features that are never delivered. The list goes on and on. They have to deal with the bloat of the OS, which eats up nearly 100 MB of memory (and one SPU), and provides very little functionality to the game. In comparison, the OS for the Xbox is rumored to only use up 3.5 MB. (Correction: an anonymous poster suggests that the Xbox reserves 32 MB for the OS. Please see the comments below.)

It’s surprising that the OS can take so much memory, and without being able to provide a mechanism for reading or responding to messages. Another example of bloat: if you want to draw the OS keyboard in game, it will use up a further 16 MB of memory. The OS will eat up another 16 MB of memory on top of the 100 MB it’s already using up; the amount of memory used by the OS is simply ludicrous.

http://www.innerbits.com/blog/2006/11/06/analysis-of-the-ps3-online/
http://www.innerbits.com/blog/2006/11/07/analysis-of-the-ps3-online-the-bad/
http://www.innerbits.com/blog/2006/11/08/analysis-of-the-ps3-online-the-ugly/

Ouch. Personally I could care less about PS3's online infrastructure, as I will not be getting one (seperate discussion as to why, has nothing to do with pro-company dimentia), but 100-116MB of ram for OS is insane. That means that for all intents and purposes, PS3 has in the best case 68MB of available RAM less than the x360. That is ~12% advantage for the box right there. This should simply not be happening for a system released in 2006/2007.

edit: Even if PS3 is reserving "only" 64MB that is still 32MB of ram less than the box, and only 85% of available SPE processing power. Seems inneficient. Considering that you can get an install of windows xp down to about 100MB, functional enough to run games, that is a shame.

 

[Arwin]

Ouch. Personally I could care less about PS3's online infrastructure, as I will not be getting one (seperate discussion as to why, has nothing to do with pro-company dimentia), but 100-116MB of ram for OS is insane. That means that for all intents and purposes, PS3 has in the best case 68MB of RAM less than the x360. That is ~12% advantage for the box right there. This should simply not be happening for a system released in 2006/2007.

You're picking up the wrong numbers. The 100-116MB figure is probably derived from the Flash memory updates. The way I understand it, the PS3's GameOS is stored on a 128 MB flash ROM, and it can load any part it needs from there. But the 64Mb is the memory these modules will have available to them as 'working memory'. This is similar to how the PSP works.

That working memory right now seems to be 64MB reserved so that it will be able to do stuff like downloading in the background while you are playing your game - that it doesn't do this just yet, doesn't mean that they haven't left room to do it. The 360 does a similar thing, but it uses less memory. The difference at any point will not be more than 64MB though (even if you take 64MB+32MB the 360 does reserve about 32MB also, if I'm not mistaken).

It's still a significant amount, and I'm sure we'll see soon enough whether or not they can cut back on it so that it is not needed, or see whether or not a game is actually allowed to free up the memory once the button is pressed. But right now, this is probably the way it is.

The 32MB reserved in GDDR memory may well be for scaling purposes by the way, who knows.

It's all early days. Looking forward to what's going to happen in the next few months. I expect quite a few firmware upgrades before the European launch.

 

[rabidrabbit]

This only works when you have nothing to directly compare to. People are slow to learn and take notice but eventually do.

Sometimes, "good enough", "second best", "works well enough" are what the people are satisfied with, and don't necessarily feel left out if there's a service that's a bit better.

 

[pipo]

Sometimes, "good enough", "second best", "works well enough" are what the people are satisfied with, and don't necessarily feel left out if there's a service that's a bit better.

True. I would even say you won't know what you're missing until you've actually tried it.

 

[rabidrabbit]

But even after you've tried it, would you miss it so much you'd gotta get it?

 

[pipo]

But even after you've tried it, would you miss it so much you'd gotta get it?

Nope. I don't see it as a killer app. I'm pretty sure there aren't a lot of people who bought a 360 for the Dashboard too. We're still talking consoles, and my primairy use for it is gaming. That's why I'll be buying a PS3 too.

OTish - A critical mass could mean it becomes more of a killer app though (IMHO). I've said it earlier, but some former PS2 owning friends of mine have bought a 360 because of the community aspect (friends / chat / video / etc). The PS3 has that covered too of course, but it's not in stores over here until next year...

Back on topic: here's a new interview with Phil Harrison - http://www.gamevideos.com/video/id/7622

I get the feeling they've only created the single sign on for the PS store ('where it matters'). That doesn't rule out future updates for unified stuff of course, but his remarks and ducking sure don't make it sound like it has a (high) priority...

 

[pakotlar]

You're picking up the wrong numbers. The 100-116MB figure is probably derived from the Flash memory updates. The way I understand it, the PS3's GameOS is stored on a 128 MB flash ROM, and it can load any part it needs from there. But the 64Mb is the memory these modules will have available to them as 'working memory'. This is similar to how the PSP works.

That working memory right now seems to be 64MB reserved so that it will be able to do stuff like downloading in the background while you are playing your game - that it doesn't do this just yet, doesn't mean that they haven't left room to do it. The 360 does a similar thing, but it uses less memory. The difference at any point will not be more than 64MB though (even if you take 64MB+32MB the 360 does reserve about 32MB also, if I'm not mistaken).

It's still a significant amount, and I'm sure we'll see soon enough whether or not they can cut back on it so that it is not needed, or see whether or not a game is actually allowed to free up the memory once the button is pressed. But right now, this is probably the way it is.

The 32MB reserved in GDDR memory may well be for scaling purposes by the way, who knows.

It's all early days. Looking forward to what's going to happen in the next few months. I expect quite a few firmware upgrades before the European launch.

Hmm, interesting. Thanks for the elucidation