Middle Generation Console Upgrade Discussion [Scorpio, 4Pro]

[Globalisateur]

Based on the CGIed scorpio board we speculated that Scorpio could use 12 or 24 GB of memory. But in fact most sites speculate it's only gonna be 12 and most don't even imagine that it could be higher than 12.

12GB after 8Gb would be the lowest memory gain in the recent history of consoles. Even the Wii had more than 3 times more memory than gamecube. The freaking Wii! Crazy!

So here, new gen, 4 years, 4.5x stronger GPU which is OK for a 4 years gap, and only 1.5 times more memory? I find it really hard to believe. Either something is wrong, or there is really going to be 12 on each sides of the board, or the CGIed board was just a vague indication of what will really be Scorpio.

 

[Clukos]

This is not a next-gen console though, 24 gigs would be a huge waste if you have to account for X1 as well, even if that's for the first two years of its lifetime. It's also going to be a hell of a lot more expensive, and for what? Games would still have to be ported on PC/Neo and i don't see many GPUs using 24/36 gigs of vram in the next two years. Titan maybe? And that's a maybe...

 

[Shifty Geezer]

It's not a true next-gen console, but surely you'd want better assets for 4k rendering? Well, I guess not. It's all about the IQ rather than the pretties. So a modest increase in RAM does make sense; and it'd be more like doubling when you factor in OS reservation.

 

[mrcorbo]

It's not a true next-gen console, but surely you'd want better assets for 4k rendering? Well, I guess not. It's all about the IQ rather than the pretties. So a modest increase in RAM does make sense; and it'd be more like doubling when you factor in OS reservation.

I've only ever seen the memory compression in later revisions of GCN mentioned in terms of its bandwidth savings, but would this not also allow for greater effective memory capacity?

 

[liolio]

256bit GDDR5X seems ideal, but it must be a question of cost. Just like HBM, we see it appear only on the highest end cards. There must be a reason all midrange GPUs announced are GDDR5.

Did I miss something with regard to Nvidia announcements? The rumors I read said not about the RAM. All I've managed to gather is that AMD has not yet compliant memory controllers.

 

[function]

I've only ever seen the memory compression in later revisions of GCN mentioned in terms of its bandwidth savings, but would this not also allow for greater effective memory capacity?

Faster storage than a laptop HDD would a far bigger boost to world size and asset quality than going beyond 12GB of memory.

512 GB, 5400 rpm drives are cripplingly slow.

 

[function]

Did I miss something with regard to Nvidia announcements? The rumors I read said not about the RAM. All I've managed to gather is that AMD has not yet compliant memory controllers.

1080 is GDDR5X, 1070 is merely GDDR5. Anything below 1070 would therefore likely use GDDR5 too. Though perhaps a "top end" 128-bit device might use GDDR5X, especially in mobile.

480 doesn't seem to need GDDR5X (or so it appears), so not sure about Polaris 11.

 

[BRiT]

Based on the CGIed scorpio board we speculated that Scorpio could use 12 or 24 GB of memory. But in fact most sites speculate it's only gonna be 12 and most don't even imagine that it could be higher than 12.

12GB after 8Gb would be the lowest memory gain in the recent history of consoles. Even the Wii had more than 3 times more memory than gamecube. The freaking Wii! Crazy!

So here, new gen, 4 years, 4.5x stronger GPU which is OK for a 4 years gap, and only 1.5 times more memory? I find it really hard to believe.

No, the lowest memory gain is from PS4 to PS4K Neo.

 

[liolio]

Based on the CGIed scorpio board we speculated that Scorpio could use 12 or 24 GB of memory. But in fact most sites speculate it's only gonna be 12 and most don't even imagine that it could be higher than 12.

12GB after 8Gb would be the lowest memory gain in the recent history of consoles. Even the Wii had more than 3 times more memory than gamecube. The freaking Wii! Crazy!

So here, new gen, 4 years, 4.5x stronger GPU which is OK for a 4 years gap, and only 1.5 times more memory? I find it really hard to believe. Either something is wrong, or there is really going to be 12 on each sides of the board, or the CGIed board was just a vague indication of what will really be Scorpio.

That is coming after a massive, unprecedented x16 jump. The XB1 has more memory than some PC that are managing in lot of cases a better job.
Memory likean overall design is not about writing something like that "xX", but about meeting requirements for the hardware and doing so in the least wastefull manner as possible. 4 extra GB is plenty (and more than that) to cope with the increased size of RT and frame buffer and increase precision for the later. We don't even know exactly how the reserved RAM is used on both the PS4 and the Xbone.

What do you want to do with all that extra RAM, I'm curious?

 

[AlNom]

What do you want to do with all that extra RAM, I'm curious?

Doughnuts?

 

[Silent_Buddha]

It's not a true next-gen console, but surely you'd want better assets for 4k rendering? Well, I guess not. It's all about the IQ rather than the pretties. So a modest increase in RAM does make sense; and it'd be more like doubling when you factor in OS reservation.

How many developers are going to be able to afford to create art assets to fully utilize, say, 20 GB of memory? And more importantly, how long are users going to be willing to wait to load those assets in from mechanical storage medium? Not to mention storage requirements and installation size. How long would it take to install, say 200+ GB onto a 2.5" HDD from an optical drive or the internet?

I don't see memory size greatly expanding until we have faster console storage technologies in use, whether that be flash based NAND or something else.

Regards,
SB

 

[liolio]

1080 is GDDR5X, 1070 is merely GDDR5. Anything below 1070 would therefore likely use GDDR5 too. Though perhaps a "top end" 128-bit device might use GDDR5X, especially in mobile.

480 doesn't seem to need GDDR5X (or so it appears), so not sure about Polaris 11.

Wow I missed that, I wonder if it is completely about price/BOM or about stark segmentation Intel style though.

 

[AlNom]

Though perhaps a "top end" 128-bit device might use GDDR5X, especially in mobile.

Why?

 

[Shifty Geezer]

No, the lowest memory gain is from PS4 to PS4K Neo.

Though true, Global qualified, "new gen". Neo definitely isn't a new gen. I'm not sure Scorpio is either. The whole concept of discrete generations is possible dead now.

 

[Globalisateur]

No, the lowest memory gain is from PS4 to PS4K Neo.

Neo is not next gen at all based on everything we have. Based on Microsoft history, what Spencer said about not releasing xbox 1.5, the release date, the rumored hardware and unclear or confusing PR messaging Scorpio is rumored to be next gen IMO.

Xbox to X360 was only 4 years too. Wasn't X360 next gen compared to Xbox? I really don't see the problem of calling Scorpio next-gen for a Microsoft console. They already did it. Anyways I think the rumored specs are only the minimum low number in order to avoid gamers disappointment and most importantly: Avoid any future class action lawsuit like if they say 7tflops and the Scorpio is only 6.5tflops.

 

[liolio]

Doughnuts?

I'm asking seriously, the increased footprint in the RT and FB size is not going to be that severe, partly compensated by bandwidth saving measure.
This gen has ~5ish GB dedicated for games, adding 4GB for is a lot. Going past that you can store the content of whole games, content meant to be accessed through hours of gameplay. There a newer texture compression formats too, bt that is not even the point, I'm asking people to think about the reality behind the number they are making up, one can run for example Ryse: son of ROM on a computer, @720p or 1080p, at 30 fps or 60FPS and notice that memory usage from texture does not vary (say you are at the highest quality already), now access to data are another matter.
Past this point it might be much more power efficient to put the money into a better HDD which is more power efficient than keeping data unused in the RAM.

 

[scently]

Though true, Global qualified, "new gen". Neo definitely isn't a new gen. I'm not sure Scorpio is either. The whole concept of discrete generations is possible dead now.

The 390x, the gtx 1080, and several other high-end gpus are doing just fine loading 4k assets and textures in 8gb of RAM. I somehow doubt 12gb will be too small.

 

[MrFox]

I like the idea of a south bridge having many GBs of really cheap ddr3 on a 32bit bus, for the purpose of a managed IO buffer, preloading assets. Instead of wasting expensive gddr5 for it.

 

[milk]

I like the idea of a south bridge having many GBs of really cheap ddr3 on a 32bit bus, for the purpose of a managed IO buffer, preloading assets. Instead of wasting expensive gddr5 for it.

I'm surprised no console this gen went that route, given they have 3GBs mostly sitting there for OS, and most games support streaming and all. 8 gigs of Gddr5 is great, but I think 4 gigs of that plus 8 of whatever is the cheapest memory around would have been even better.

 

[Globalisateur]

The 390x, the gtx 1080, and several other high-end gpus are doing just fine loading 4k assets and textures in 8gb of RAM. I somehow doubt 12gb will be too small.

But that's only for 4K "cross-gen" games targeted for poly starved 1080p consoles and it's only for VRAM. Scorpio will most probably have a memory hungry OS, not less than what they have now on XB1.

12GB unified memory (CPU + GPU + OS) won't be enough for 4K gaming IMO.