Console Maker's OS

[Deleted member 86764]

Admittedly, based on the above, I can comment on forums on my laptop better than on my phone.

 

[Deleted member 11852]

Netflix can be run in parallel with 1 GB reserved. 1GB is plenty for multitasking media streaming functionality.

Easily. Less. What about the next big thing? This post is where I punch out of the discussion because I think we're diametrically in different places.

You accept (and in 2004 predicted) mobile applications. OK, so let's take a look at the RAM growth on iOS: the original iPhone launched in 2007 with 128mb RAM and supported native apps in 2008. By 2009 (iPhone 3GS) it had 256mb and by 2010 (iPhone 4) it had 512mb. In 2012 (iPhone 5) it had 1Gb. This type of continued growth, because apps grow in features and capabilities, is entirely predictable.

An 8x growth in RAM in five years (2007 to 2012), just as it happened on desktops. My first Windows PC (400mz Pentium II) had 96mb of RAM, my second PC (1.2Ghz Athlon) had 512mb four years later.

Looking at the tech horizon, there's no known Big Thing that'll need 3GBs AFAICS.

The thing about the tech horizon is it is limited to what is visible, i.e. public. And, with respect, I think Sony know more than you do about what kind of things are below the horizon, remember they supply components (ICs, screens, sensors) for all sorts of other companies and they have their own R&D facilities. They are interface with a lot of developers.

I disagree. Now, it's cutting edge and needs to do everything. In five years' time, it'll be old news.

I couldn't disagree more. I see the PS4 as a long-term platform, just like the PS3. It could well be the box that delivers all your on-demand IP TV, games, music and any other entertainment. You want your customers using it for Netflix then impulse browse the PSN/video/music store because that leads to impulse buys. And to get them to use it a lot you want to support as much relevant technology as it's capable of.

In five years time it will (hopefully for Sony) a well established and supported platform delivering all forms of entertainment. Microsoft I am certain, have exactly the same goal with Xbox One to the extent they're supporting live TV as well.

I didn't say that. I said 32 MBs was good enough for the gaming functions, although perhaps that wasn't clear. However, PS3 provides video encoding alongside games for remote play, so I'm unconvinced it has a necessarily large requirement.

My understanding is that PS3 games have to give up RAM and SPU resources to support PSP remote streaming and this is why its not a standard feature. Even that 3.55 firmware hack doesn't work with everything.

We just need to disagree. My, very software-engineering-centric view, is that perhaps 512mb of that 3Gb is reserved for review, maybe 3-4 years down the line but is immutable until then. The remainder of that 3Gb is just a very generous RAM overhead on all the improvements in progress. E.g. perhaps the RAM budget for the feature to drop in somebody else's game (while pausing yours) is budgeted for 50mb but they've allowed 100mb to make delivering it easier/quicker. That's what you do when you have tons of RAM and there's not pressing need for it elsewhere (games, right now).

I would definitely expect large RAM use returns for games in 18-24 months unless they decide they should match Microsoft on active game and application multitasking.

 

[Deleted member 11852]

My personal opinion is that I don't understand the need to run other functions at the same time as games.

I definitely understand this and I should state that my primary purchase of the PS4 was for games. Having said that, I'd like to retire the PS3 and it would be great if the PS4 could output Netflix (or play a DVD or Blu-ray disc) to the TV while I game on the Vita - I am really liking remote play on Vita.

If I wanted to look something up on the internet I'd much sooner do it on my phone. In fact, I prefer to use my phone's browser over my PC's. It's easier for me. Using a laptop/desktop for anything other than work just feels archaic to me now. I don't think consoles can hope to do better, it's not something they can compete with.

Also agreed. Ditto email. I can't imagine wanting to do either on a console, not even the Vita with a touch screen. The only time I even use a computer for browsing is forums like this where I'm typing and/or copying/pasting links or formatting stuff.

I find it really hard to understand what functionality the consoles can do that'd be easier to use than anything else. With exception of playing / sharing games.

I remember first using the internet on my Amiga back in 1993. My primary use was usenet, FTP, email, IRC, and, later, ICQ. I didn't really use a browser until much later. While there were browsers there was very little of interest on the world wide web. Alva visita was big in search. No google. No wikipedia. Very little porn!!!!

It's funny how things change

 

[MrFox]

If it had only first party apps that are well written and optimized, it's hard to imagine needing anything more than 1GB. But right now the store is in HTML5, they're already setting the tone of quick development versus efficiency.

For third party services and apps who want a unified code base on all platforms, and rely heavily on JIT languages, it means a stupid amount of bloated lib and wasted memory. 2GB doesn't sound too much for the next 10 years of browser web-apps (horrible javascript bloat, it's only getting worse) and third party apps (horrible dotNET bloat).

Maybe they are waiting to decide if the additional RAM would be VM alloc through BSD, or pure reserves for the game, I'd be sad if the games don't get at least another GB in the near future, since they were touting how much this was a gaming machine first and foremost. I'd prefer they swap unused apps to disk, immediacy is great and all that, but it should be like Vita, keeping only a few latest apps in memory.

 

[AlNom]

Reservation used for sleep mode (keep last game's contents in RAM)?

 

[Deleted member 11852]

Reservation used for sleep mode (keep last game's contents in RAM)?

You mean suspend/resume? Doesn't that just require you to leave what's in RAM there and go into the minimum power state? I.e. preserving the RAM contents while the PS4 in standby (yellow bar on top).

I'm assuming that's what Sony plan to do because, when talking about suspend/resume, Cerny said you just press the PlayStation button on the controller and you're instantly back where you left off.

 

[AlNom]

Ah right. Brainfart. was probably thinking of fast game switching instead.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

You accept (and in 2004 predicted) mobile applications. OK, so let's take a look at the RAM growth on iOS: the original iPhone launched in 2007 with 128mb RAM and supported native apps in 2008. By 2009 (iPhone 3GS) it had 256mb and by 2010 (iPhone 4) it had 512mb. In 2012 (iPhone 5) it had 1Gb. This type of continued growth, because apps grow in features and capabilities, is entirely predictable.

Right. But it can be predicted by a need to fit more. If we look at the PC space, what is it that's driven multi GB systems? Some years ago I couldn't see reason for such large memory, but then we got HD video editing and 3D video editing, and now we're looking at 4k video editing, and 20+ megapixel consumer grade PhotoShop editing. The PC is virtually limitless in its capacity to expand into RAM, so I won't make that same mistake again. We'll have the same on tablets. More functionality in our tablets will require more RAM, fer sure, at least as they are being used for productivity. But the mobile devices represent a very different use case than a console. Look at the growth of RAM in DVD players and PVRs and TVs...they're not using GBs of RAM because they have simple tasks.

For us to get a point we a CE box connected to a TV needs GBs of RAM for non-gaming functionality (gaming being the biggest user of RAM that there is),

I couldn't disagree more. I see the PS4 as a long-term platform, just like the PS3. It could well be the box that delivers all your on-demand IP TV, games, music and any other entertainment.

None of which needs gobs of RAM. Those features need HDD capacity and streaming. We need a function that requires 2+GBs of data sat in RAM for fast random access or heavy processing.

My understanding is that PS3 games have to give up RAM and SPU resources to support PSP remote streaming and this is why its not a standard feature. Even that 3.55 firmware hack doesn't work with everything.

Yes, but it's possible within 512 MBs total. So with 512 MBs total for PS4 OS, they can fit game streaming plus online gaming plus Netflix streaming in theory. Worst case, 1 GB for a web page and streaming content, although using one box to serve stuff in parallel around the house is probably a poor guess. How am I supposed to get Netflix running on my PS4 downstairs and showing on my TV upstairs? PS4 doesn't have wireless broadcasting. It'll need a dongle or widget connected to the TV. Like Chromecast, or a mobile with Miracast, which are either already owned or cheap and far more flexible. But even if Sony et al go that route of having one box do everything, I still find it nigh impossible to justify the reservation for those uses. I don't think it is there for those uses. 3GBs for apps is crazy. No app uses that, save maybe maps with the entire map in RAM! The largest apps available are generally games.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

having contributed in the past to a DASH media player let me say your memory analysis is... weird.

So, your analysis is/looks totally wrong.

Quite probably! If the more knowledgeable jump in with actual data use examples, it might explain it all.

In 512mb (OS included) your browser won't even open some average site without heavy delay or problems... try to see the average memory load of your browser in Windows and see. Mine has a working set of 900Mb now.

If it had only first party apps that are well written and optimized, it's hard to imagine needing anything more than 1GB. But right now the store is in HTML5, they're already setting the tone of quick development versus efficiency...

That's a possibility, just accommodating crazy bloat. How much can bloat really grow? I don't know. I know the several MBs we have on the simplest apps is mindnumbing to those who grew up with computers. Simple 2D games take MBs where they'd be written in KB in ye olden days. But still, there has to be a limit, right? Are we going to get to the point where the basic "Hello World" app takes 400 MBs just to launch? Also, how much can VM on the HDD handle? Offering a super-smooth internet experience on the console seems like wrong priorities to me. On PS3 it was cool as a way to look up stuff after a film, say. But since then everyone got themselves a tablet or smartphone and the TV based browser isn't important. Plus the TV's themselves are getting browsers! So you'll have browsers everywhere. What's the advantage to supporting the best browsing experience for Sony if they don't profit from it? Provide the functionality to support their own media services, but having to manage HTML5 animated wonderwebsites seems an unnecessary target. PS3's browser hasn't been updated and is nigh useless, but I don't care any more because it's been superseded. A console browser is already an outmoded concept IMO. It's a poor interface.

 

[Deleted member 86764]

... very little porn!!!!

It's funny how things change

I found my interest in porn reduced with age.

You may be right, I'm fully willing to accept that. I really need to see something that HAS to run at the same time as games to be properly convinced of that massive (yes, I understand it's massive now, not so much later) RAM reservation.

 

[Deleted member 11852]

You may be right, I'm fully willing to accept that. I really need to see something that HAS to run at the same time as games to be properly convinced of that massive (yes, I understand it's massive now, not so much later) RAM reservation.

Haha. I'm also willing to concede that reserving CPU/RAM for the future is entirely a gamble and is potentially a waste of resource if nothing comes along. Of course, you can give those resource back to game devs any time you like. Then kick yourself 3 months latter When the InstaGooFaceBookGramVR EXTREME experience launches and PS4 has 70mb too little RAM to run it.

 

[London Geezer]

Can we also mention that currently the whole video sharing feature is completely broken? Or will I get electrocuted in about 3 nanoseconds?
Seriously, not that I will ever share a video of me playing, but I tried it on Infamous, Tomb Raider etc and the very few times I just wanted to see what I just did, half the time the last video available was from wayyyy back in my game. Certainly not the last 15 min. And of course when I tried to get back in the game, play a bit and look again in the sharing screen, the time between that ages-old video and me clicking again was completely lost.
Not sure I explained it well but in brief: it's f'kin broken.
And that's with half my RAM used up? Taking the piss?

 

[Deleted member 11852]

Can we also mention that currently the whole video sharing feature is completely broken? Or will I get electrocuted in about 3 nanoseconds?

Agreed, I thought it recorded the last 15 minutes of gameplay but when you start interacting with video sharing features, the rules change. And nobody, not even Sony, know what the new rules are.

 

[AlNom]

Agreed, I thought it recorded the last 15 minutes of gameplay but when you start interacting with video sharing features, the rules change. And nobody, not even Sony, know what the new rules are.

Does it record 15 min worth, then stop recording anything new until you hit the share button, in which case it dumps the 15 min already recorded (however long ago), and starts recording from when you first hit the share button ?

I suppose in theory it should be recording 15 min worth and replacing the oldest frames over time, but I don't think that can work unless it's uncompressed or recorded as a series of images. Maybe

 

[London Geezer]

Does it record 15 min worth, then stop recording anything new until you hit the share button, in which case it dumps the 15 min already recorded (however long ago), and starts recording from when you first hit the share button ?

I suppose in theory it should be recording 15 min worth and replacing the oldest frames over time, but I don't think that can work unless it's uncompressed or recorded as a series of images. Maybe

It saves a video every time you hit the share button. My ps4 has a list of videos for each time I pressed the button.
The problem is that half the time, pressing the button does not give you a video of your last 15 mins. And the next time you press it, say after 2 min, it will have lost the missing time as it starts recording from the last time you pressed the button. You only get those last 2 min, and the 15 min you originally wanted - but couldn't get - will have been lost.

 

[Lalaland]

Does it record 15 min worth, then stop recording anything new until you hit the share button, in which case it dumps the 15 min already recorded (however long ago), and starts recording from when you first hit the share button ?

I suppose in theory it should be recording 15 min worth and replacing the oldest frames over time, but I don't think that can work unless it's uncompressed or recorded as a series of images. Maybe

No it is supposed to record the last 15 minutes continuously, you can do this by simply 'cutting' the footage at each key frame (every few seconds depending on the encode) and discarding all that came before. Of course it's not working right for me either so maybe it is far harder than I've just described.

 

[Deleted member 11852]

Your guess is as good as mine, AlNets! I did stumble across a cogent explanation for how it worked but foolishly didn't bookmark it. One of my many regents in life, along with Joanne Richardson but I can't blame Sony for her.

Or can I..

 

[AlNom]

No it is supposed to record the last 15 minutes continuously, you can do this by simply 'cutting' the footage at each key frame (every few seconds depending on the encode) and discarding all that came before. Of course it's not working right for me either so maybe it is far harder than I've just described.

It saves a video every time you hit the share button. My ps4 has a list of videos for each time I pressed the button.

hm... ok, so that sounds like a stop button.

The problem is that half the time, pressing the button does not give you a video of your last 15 mins. And the next time you press it, say after 2 min, it will have lost the missing time as it starts recording from the last time you pressed the button. You only get those last 2 min, and the 15 min you originally wanted - but couldn't get - will have been lost.

And here it's acting as a start-stop.

 

[AlNom]

It saves a video every time you hit the share button. My ps4 has a list of videos for each time I pressed the button.

hm... ok, so that sounds like a stop button.

The problem is that half the time, pressing the button does not give you a video of your last 15 mins. And the next time you press it, say after 2 min, it will have lost the missing time as it starts recording from the last time you pressed the button. You only get those last 2 min, and the 15 min you originally wanted - but couldn't get - will have been lost.

And here it's acting as a start-stop.

---

How does the XO recording work

 

[Scott_Arm]

hm... ok, so that sounds like a stop button.



And here it's acting as a start-stop.

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How does the XO recording work

X1 recording, you say, "Xbox, Record that" and it saves a clip of the last 30 seconds. An alternative is to snap GameDVR, where you can record longer (5 mins?). I believe you have to to start recording, and then stop (or it will stop when it hits the time limit).