Console Maker's OS
- Thread starter FATBOT
- Start date
First article that reveals nextgen console tech. Great read.
Hopefully Sony will reveal official specs soon.
iceberg187
Regular
Been a while (nearly four years) since I've last logged in but with both of the new consoles, money willing, I'll get both on day of release as I did this past generation. I'm excited for both for what they can both bring to the table.
512mb for the OS is way too much.....
Yeah, I don't get why they do this. It almost turns it into more of a marketing ploy.. "We've got 4GB of RAM!!!" and neglect to mention that not a single piece of software will ever actually be able to use all of it. Ever.
They probably don't want to limit themselves too much, too. By using the system's main memory, they can expand it later if they need to, if they add more features, and they probably will. And the only cost will be available RAM for games. Fair trade, right?
Frankly, I'm not a big fan of this "one box to do absolutely everything your living room will ever require" trend. It's a game console, and that's all I'll ever use it for. Just because it can do something else doesn't mean it should. I used my PS3 like that once.. watched a bunch of Blu-ray movies on it. It was nice. Until the overabundance of video streaming (which uses only CPU and not GPU) caused uneven heating of the motherboard and effectively burned out the entire system. I had to disassemble the unit to get the disc out, because they didn't even bother designing a manual ejection system for the BD drive in the case of, you know.. total system failure. My new PS3 does nothing but play games, and that's all it will ever do. Ditto for PS4.
I don't want countless devices under my tv unless its unavoidable.
There is no logical reason not to utilize the PS3 for games/Blu-ray/streaming (Netflix, Amazon, etc). I know you mentioned your concerns but really has no basis in reality (other than the assumption that the issue you had is because you watched some movies on it).
I use my launch PS3 for all of the above and it's still going strong.
Maybe your power comes for free but here that's not the case. An AppleTV for instance is around 2 Watt.
That's fine and all, but I'm the same as you the other way around. I've not bought a dedicated DVD (or up) player since I got my first PS2. Different strokes, different folks I guess. Incidentally, that's the first time I've ever heard 'uneven heating' being the cause, rather than just overheating combined with issues with led-free solder and degrading heat spreading paste ...
There was a time all MTV did was show music videos. Eventually that no longer became financially possible and they had to expand their scope. Consoles are exactly the same, anyone that releases a console in todays market that only plays games is basically dead before they even start.
You Google skills stink then, because it's easy how to find the force-eject for PS3 (hold down power/eject and switch on power at back; something like that).
As for added functions, a lot are just extra software. If one console plays YouTube vids and streams Netflix and plays your Sony/Microsoft/Apple/Google music tracks, and the other doesn't, the one with those features gains an advantage, even if barely used.
Of course, there's going too far, and constant Facebook connectivity etc. may just be a waste of resources in the long run. But pure gaming isn't going to happen again, any more than pure high-end phones. It's all multifunction everything (even TVs!).
It depends on how the system is designed. 512MB for OS to do what ? According to the alpha kit leaked info, BD reads can be automatically cached in HDD. There may also be dedicated h/w decoders placed under the OS's charge (including reserved working memory). Or background services to patch games and serve wireless displays on controllers. If the game OS contains these higher level, convenience and optimized gaming services, I may be ok with it.
For non-gaming services such as community apps that need to run in parallel with the game, I hope they can try streaming those from Gaikai for a relatively fixed run-time cost regardless of how many apps you open. Since these services don't have to be real time and may need to work with other devices, a server-based approach may be fine.
For foreground DVD playback, they should be able to pause the current game and play the movie without compromising each other.
In this sense, for people who prefer to treat PS4 as a dedicated box, you still get to use most of the hardware for gaming.
EDIT: If they do it this way, then they may be able to install Android and access all its apps on the server while a game is paused, without compromising PS4 client security. Or a virtual Mac to allow the users to use any non-gaming apps they desire. Ideally, Sony should not get in the Mac vs PC, iOS vs Android vs Windows war. Just focus on gaming and other media services.
EDIT 2: Perhaps if they move along this line, the dedicated decoders may be helpful in decoding Gaikai "frames" without disrupting the games too much when the user switches between them. They may be reusable in other Sony devices. Again, I have no knowledge of what Sony is cooking. I'm just reading up on stuff when I have a little time now. Something like PS Home would be much more usable since the system doesn't have to transport user assets to the clients on the fly for rendering.
For non-gaming services such as community apps that need to run in parallel with the game, I hope they can try streaming those from Gaikai for a relatively fixed run-time cost regardless of how many apps you open. Since these services don't have to be real time and may need to work with other devices, a server-based approach may be fine.
For foreground DVD playback, they should be able to pause the current game and play the movie without compromising each other.
In this sense, for people who prefer to treat PS4 as a dedicated box, you still get to use most of the hardware for gaming.
EDIT: If they do it this way, then they may be able to install Android and access all its apps on the server while a game is paused, without compromising PS4 client security. Or a virtual Mac to allow the users to use any non-gaming apps they desire. Ideally, Sony should not get in the Mac vs PC, iOS vs Android vs Windows war. Just focus on gaming and other media services.
EDIT 2: Perhaps if they move along this line, the dedicated decoders may be helpful in decoding Gaikai "frames" without disrupting the games too much when the user switches between them. They may be reusable in other Sony devices. Again, I have no knowledge of what Sony is cooking. I'm just reading up on stuff when I have a little time now. Something like PS Home would be much more usable since the system doesn't have to transport user assets to the clients on the fly for rendering.
I suppose one significant difference could be the way services are handled, in that they all may be resident as standard instead of loaded as needed as is the case on PS3. Currently devs have to sacrifice RAM to include various network features. I presume that these'll all be resident in PS4. Although 512 MBs is still a hell of a lot of memory, and it'd only be needed if Sony's software continues to be grossly inefficient.
I could see 'We need 512 NOW! But we expect to shrink it over time"
I used to keep tabs on the 360/PS3 OS RAM requirements because I found it interesting. And they both shrank quite a bit from their original sizes.
I could do without a lot of the social features/apps that are rumored. It'd be nice to be able to pause and then bring up a YouTube tutorial, though. Stuff like that I'm all for.
Both rumored OS sizes seem outrageous to me. I mean, for 3.5 gigs MS better have full Windows on that baby!
There's no reason at all why they would need anything close to 512mb RAM....
You can run Windows 7 on less then that and have more functionality then what the consoles will more then likely offer.
PS3's OS is currently at ~50Mb?
I would really like to know what PS4 can do that PS3 can't to justify 10x+ the OS memory requirements.
Hopefully the PS4 will include cross-game-chat that Sony says is impossible to do on the PS3. Still, it shouldn't/wouldn't require 10x the memory just for that feature.
It may sound absurd but the thing is we just don't have enough information on their short and long terms plans for the machine to decide if it's too much ram. We'll have to wait for more leaks so we can get a clear picture of what their plans are.
I know what you're saying but seriously, 10x is a lot of memory.
I meen apart from cross game chat, digital game downloads and HD camera/kinect support what they they possibly be planning that uses that much memory?
Similar threads
