Is 256MB enough?
- Thread starter Iron Tiger
- Start date
I remember reading an article on gamasutra a few years ago about possible micropolygon approaches.
When I look at CELL, I wonder: how much of a factor is massive bandwidth? Doesn't the more bandwidth you have reduce the amount of fixed memory you could need? (that is of course assuming you have as little static information as possible and generate information dynamically as much as possible). Might we be witnessing a change in approach as of next generation?
When I look at CELL, I wonder: how much of a factor is massive bandwidth? Doesn't the more bandwidth you have reduce the amount of fixed memory you could need? (that is of course assuming you have as little static information as possible and generate information dynamically as much as possible). Might we be witnessing a change in approach as of next generation?
256 MB is not enough for the next generation. It will be very limiting on developers who have to squeeze the most they can out of such a paltry amount of memory. Some may think otherwise and I'm sure they have little knowledge of how this goes.
512 MB isn't even ideal for next generation but it is 10 times better than having 256 MB. You can store more information inside memory so things get done much easier. Why have all this computational power without enough memory to use it?
When you figure high-res textures, 4X FSAA (for an HD experience), and a 720P or 1080i resolution in these games then memory does become very precious. 512 MB of shared memory in a UMA architecture with at least 50 GB/s bandwidth sounds pretty ok to me. It will allow developers the flexibility without having to squeeze data into half of the memory.
512 MB isn't even ideal for next generation but it is 10 times better than having 256 MB. You can store more information inside memory so things get done much easier. Why have all this computational power without enough memory to use it?
When you figure high-res textures, 4X FSAA (for an HD experience), and a 720P or 1080i resolution in these games then memory does become very precious. 512 MB of shared memory in a UMA architecture with at least 50 GB/s bandwidth sounds pretty ok to me. It will allow developers the flexibility without having to squeeze data into half of the memory.
Fafalada said:
Well, this may help...
All of them here
http://www.beyond3d.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=476050&highlight=#476050
Right now 512MB of ram is normal for a decent PC. What was normal for a decent PC when PS2, GC and XBox were released?
BTW people here seem to be assuming we have two options 256MB or 512MB, what about 384MB?
Personally I doubt the next gen consoles, appart from XBox 2 maybe, will have only 256MB of ram. I think PS3 and Revolution will definitely have more then one pool of ram.
BTW people here seem to be assuming we have two options 256MB or 512MB, what about 384MB?
Personally I doubt the next gen consoles, appart from XBox 2 maybe, will have only 256MB of ram. I think PS3 and Revolution will definitely have more then one pool of ram.
Iron Tiger
Regular
Does the Chihiro have a hard drive, though, or just a GD-ROM? I believe the Xbox's DVD drive can stream faster than the GD-ROM, and I KNOW the hard drive can. They also used a 256MB RAM module for Initial D Version 3 on the NAOMI2, so I think them adding more RAM is a matter of reducing drive accesses to prevent frequent maintenance, as it's an arcade machine.Evil_Cloud said:Are we talking consoles or arcade games here, or what?
Chihiro with it's 512RAM for titles like OutRun 2 is a rarity, most arcade boards don't even have 512RAM, so 256RAM is IMHO enough for consoles.
But still, that's all current gen hardware, which draws less polygons, with less texture layers, at lower resolutions than what's coming next generation. ESPECIALLY if those games were able to make use of 256 or 512MB of RAM for just 1 level, wouldn't it stand to reason that we'd need more RAM to feed next gen hardware?
EDIT: I guess I was right.
Why ask if something is enough? Each gen it's the same thing. People who have little to no knowledge about these matters will argue that the hardware makers are being to conservative and need to boost everything by 200% at least. And as usual developers will make due.
Shut up!
Shut up!
Iron Tiger
Regular
But we, as the consumer, DO have a say in what is enough. If the developers CAN'T make do, and the games don't look any better than what's available on the platform that didn't skimp, then we all may well avoid the one that did. It would be in MS (or whomever's) best interests to meet the developer's needs. The question stands, is 256MB enough to do that?cybamerc said:
I think we will end up seeing 256MB of memory in $300 consoles. And in Sony's case with XDR I am not sure they even have a choice (price wise). CELL + NV GPU + BR + XDR = $$$.
That said, I think people are overestimating what the new consoles may be able to do. e.g. The tradeoff for less memory is to use processing power to duplicate what memory would normally do. So yeah, they have hugely powerful GPUs/CPUs, but if that power is spent micromanaging and making up for the lack of memory what have we gained? Similarly, it is nice having a really powerful CPU... but what if that CPU spends half of its power vertex processing tasks?
Obviously 256MB of memory on a console is much different than a PC. It is a closed box where extreme optimization is possible and where features (e.g. like 3Dc) can be used in every game. But considering the power of the systems the memory is going to be the biggest bottleneck IMO. Large meshes, high res textures, hundreds of interactive objects, and large sprawling worlds require a lot of memory. We will see a lot of UE3 type designs that allow seamless worlds, but I think it will be limited.
Ultimately I believe memory limitations are going to be the great equalizer next gen. There will always be exceptions, but I think memory size is going to be a bottleneck in design that will ultimately make the games consoles software appear more similar than different. I could be wrong, but that is my take.
That said, I think people are overestimating what the new consoles may be able to do. e.g. The tradeoff for less memory is to use processing power to duplicate what memory would normally do. So yeah, they have hugely powerful GPUs/CPUs, but if that power is spent micromanaging and making up for the lack of memory what have we gained? Similarly, it is nice having a really powerful CPU... but what if that CPU spends half of its power vertex processing tasks?
Obviously 256MB of memory on a console is much different than a PC. It is a closed box where extreme optimization is possible and where features (e.g. like 3Dc) can be used in every game. But considering the power of the systems the memory is going to be the biggest bottleneck IMO. Large meshes, high res textures, hundreds of interactive objects, and large sprawling worlds require a lot of memory. We will see a lot of UE3 type designs that allow seamless worlds, but I think it will be limited.
Ultimately I believe memory limitations are going to be the great equalizer next gen. There will always be exceptions, but I think memory size is going to be a bottleneck in design that will ultimately make the games consoles software appear more similar than different. I could be wrong, but that is my take.
with the xenon isn't it 256 megs of ram currently , ddr ram , then the cpu has 1meg of cache and the gpu had around 10megs or more ?
I think that would be nough. One pool of extremely fast ram on the gpu and then a big pool of ram .
Honestly that is alot of ram . There is no huge bloated os like on the pc , there is no virus program , browser , music program or any other program that was used and not closed or when clsoed didn't give up all the ram .
I think that would be nough. One pool of extremely fast ram on the gpu and then a big pool of ram .
Honestly that is alot of ram . There is no huge bloated os like on the pc , there is no virus program , browser , music program or any other program that was used and not closed or when clsoed didn't give up all the ram .
So what, it would be better if it was sidding idle doing nothing half of the time? Here's an idea - maybe then the hw makers should also add a little Led indicator on the boxes showing how low CPU utilization is - making everyone feel better about the leftover "power" of their box?Acert93 said:
Are you Sure about that?jvd said:
Iron Tiger:
> But we, as the consumer, DO have a say in what is enough.
No. These things are decided on long before the opinions of consumers become relevant.
> If the developers CAN'T make do
The vast majority will.
> and the games don't look any better than what's available on the
> platform that didn't skimp
Well, it's only logical the better specified system has the potential for better looking games.
> It would be in MS (or whomever's) best interests to meet the
> developer's needs.
If it's not RAM it's something else. It's the job of any hardware maker to design the most balanced piece of hardware within the constraints of a given budget.
> The question stands, is 256MB enough to do that?
If a system ships with 256 mb then it is. At least unless the system becomes heavily marginalized in the market.
> But we, as the consumer, DO have a say in what is enough.
No. These things are decided on long before the opinions of consumers become relevant.
> If the developers CAN'T make do
The vast majority will.
> and the games don't look any better than what's available on the
> platform that didn't skimp
Well, it's only logical the better specified system has the potential for better looking games.
> It would be in MS (or whomever's) best interests to meet the
> developer's needs.
If it's not RAM it's something else. It's the job of any hardware maker to design the most balanced piece of hardware within the constraints of a given budget.
> The question stands, is 256MB enough to do that?
If a system ships with 256 mb then it is. At least unless the system becomes heavily marginalized in the market.
Iron Tiger
Regular
Okay then, I'll rephrase for you. "Will the next gen systems be balanced if they only have 256MB of RAM?"cybamerc said:
And the "if it's not RAM, it's something else argument" is null, because it's ALWAYS RAM. That's the biggest complaint that arose regarding current gen hardware, and it's the only concern I've yet heard from developers about the next gen.
Look at Doom 3 and Halo 2 on Xbox, which are considered by many to be graphical showpieces for the system. Yet, the biggest flaws in the graphics are directly attributable to the system not having enough RAM. The GPU seems capable of handling the stencil shadows and dynamic lighting in Doom 3, but the normal maps, specular maps, and textures are terribly low res. Halo 2 has that texture glitches because it has to stream textures into memory constantly, but it can't always keep up. The Xbox shipped with 64MB, and it clearly wasn't enough.
(btw, the xbox version of D3 looks similar to the medium quality mode. It's not THAT low res IMHO.)
Texture LOD transitions were obvious because they didn't cache the stuff to the harddrive... modded xbox's with the game on the harddrive have no issue with Halo 2.
A better example of not enough ram would be Max Payne 2
Iron Tiger said:
Texture LOD transitions were obvious because they didn't cache the stuff to the harddrive... modded xbox's with the game on the harddrive have no issue with Halo 2.
A better example of not enough ram would be Max Payne 2
Iron Tiger:
> Okay then, I'll rephrase for you. "Will the next gen systems be
> balanced if they only have 256MB of RAM?"
Time will tell.
> That's the biggest complaint that arose regarding current gen
> hardware, and it's the only concern I've yet heard from developers
> about the next gen.
Yes, because less RAM means more work. The things is, putting more RAM in these systems wouldn't be a problem. However it would mean that something else would have to go or be scaled down. Would you really want a gig of RAM if it comes at the expense of the state-of-the-art CPUs and GPUs? And it would.
> The GPU seems capable of handling the stencil shadows and dynamic
> lighting in Doom 3, but the normal maps, specular maps, and textures
> are terribly low res.
PC games are rarely good examples of efficient memory usage. And quite frankly I think Doom 3 has more issues than just textures. It's terribly low poly, has crappy hard edged shadows and its lighting and shaders are already starting to look old.
> Halo 2 has that texture glitches because it has to stream textures into
> memory constantly, but it can't always keep up. The Xbox shipped with
> 64MB, and it clearly wasn't enough.
But the reason why the retail version didn't ship with stencil shadows and global per-pixel lighting is because the CPU and GPU aren't powerful enough to do those things at a playable framerate. And I'm sure the texture issue could've been sorted out with a little more time.
> Okay then, I'll rephrase for you. "Will the next gen systems be
> balanced if they only have 256MB of RAM?"
Time will tell.
> That's the biggest complaint that arose regarding current gen
> hardware, and it's the only concern I've yet heard from developers
> about the next gen.
Yes, because less RAM means more work. The things is, putting more RAM in these systems wouldn't be a problem. However it would mean that something else would have to go or be scaled down. Would you really want a gig of RAM if it comes at the expense of the state-of-the-art CPUs and GPUs? And it would.
> The GPU seems capable of handling the stencil shadows and dynamic
> lighting in Doom 3, but the normal maps, specular maps, and textures
> are terribly low res.
PC games are rarely good examples of efficient memory usage. And quite frankly I think Doom 3 has more issues than just textures. It's terribly low poly, has crappy hard edged shadows and its lighting and shaders are already starting to look old.
> Halo 2 has that texture glitches because it has to stream textures into
> memory constantly, but it can't always keep up. The Xbox shipped with
> 64MB, and it clearly wasn't enough.
But the reason why the retail version didn't ship with stencil shadows and global per-pixel lighting is because the CPU and GPU aren't powerful enough to do those things at a playable framerate. And I'm sure the texture issue could've been sorted out with a little more time.