PlayStation 4 (codename Orbis) technical hardware investigation (news and rumours)
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Betanumerical
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It shouldnt be the amount of RAM a movie would take up would be microscopic and both the consoles have dedicated encoding/decoding hardware.
For streaming you want at least some memory, but actually I've noticed that the Vita streams longer videos to the Flash memory, and that memory is far, far slower than the harddrive (likely the PS4 drive is about 10x faster than the fastest Vita memory cards). So videostreaming could just use some virtual memory on the hdd and not need much RAM. The HTML5 apps driving some of the services probably need more
BRD video requires 40 Mbps, which is only 5 MB/s. Anything streamed from the internet requires far less, so performance storage really isn't an issue.
I hope it still support the old PS3 bluetooth remote. Suck to have to buy a new remote.
Sony has been great with supporting ps3 accessories. We know ps3 mic/headphones and wheels work.
Only thing not support look to be controllers.
This is becoming such a trivial matter for next gen consoles that I am not surprised. It makes me wonder though what's the actual amount of memory taken by the OS on the PS4.Exact verbage: "In most situations you will be able to switch instantly between playing a game and other apps OR the dynamic menu."
Here's a gif of that part of the video, clearly implying media apps as part of the multitasking.
My theory is that Microsoft forced Sony to follow suit and they are going to reserve 3GB out of the PS4's 8GBs of RAM of the OS. 5GB of RAM for the games. I get the amount of memory the PS4 uses for the OS is still unconfirmed and Sony certainly have a lot of movies and music to share so I think that's a factor too.
@Cyan
How has MS forced Sony to follow suit?
PS4 OS was build to work with 512MB but suddenly after the leaks on the XBO OS it needed 6x the RAM!?
Sony increased RAM to 8Gb because developers asked for it, because they want more RAM for games not for apps, but then after the Durango leaks backtracked and gave them just 1.5GB for games because suddenly mimicking MS OS strategy was more important!?
PS4 primary function, as Cerny said, is as a games machine and its architecture reflects this so why change that to make it more like XBO?
Now I am open minded so what can possibly justify 3Gb for the OS?
-Remote Play it's done by hardware.
-Game DVR will use the HDD because using high performance memory instead of HDD it's just wasteful + we saw the HDD reservation.
-Downloads in background are done by hardware.
-Games/apps switching would most likely be done by suspending the game in RAM and so would not be taxing for the OS.
-Movies/apps switching would hardly be a demanding feature.
-PS Dynamic Menu was built to work with 512Mb, ti doesn't require 3Gb to work.
What would require more than 512Mb for the OS?
Keeping 5 or more tabs open would require more than 512Mb but increasing the OS footprint 2/6 times just for the sake of better intent browsing is also a waste for a games machine.
How has MS forced Sony to follow suit?
PS4 OS was build to work with 512MB but suddenly after the leaks on the XBO OS it needed 6x the RAM!?
Sony increased RAM to 8Gb because developers asked for it, because they want more RAM for games not for apps, but then after the Durango leaks backtracked and gave them just 1.5GB for games because suddenly mimicking MS OS strategy was more important!?
PS4 primary function, as Cerny said, is as a games machine and its architecture reflects this so why change that to make it more like XBO?
Now I am open minded so what can possibly justify 3Gb for the OS?
-Remote Play it's done by hardware.
-Game DVR will use the HDD because using high performance memory instead of HDD it's just wasteful + we saw the HDD reservation.
-Downloads in background are done by hardware.
-Games/apps switching would most likely be done by suspending the game in RAM and so would not be taxing for the OS.
-Movies/apps switching would hardly be a demanding feature.
-PS Dynamic Menu was built to work with 512Mb, ti doesn't require 3Gb to work.
What would require more than 512Mb for the OS?
Keeping 5 or more tabs open would require more than 512Mb but increasing the OS footprint 2/6 times just for the sake of better intent browsing is also a waste for a games machine.
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Cerny makes an interesting statement around the 1 minute mark in this video about GPGPU.
arijoytunir
Regular
interesting analysis of ps4 porting from pc !
it also confirms that the os of ps4 uses 2 cores !
it also confirms that the os of ps4 uses 2 cores !
Mod: Copy/pasting entire articles is bad form. A quote of the most poignant part of an article accompanied with a link to drive traffic is the correct netiquette.
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I wouldn't put too much faith in that figure caption. It was not said by the devs. What are the two cores supposed to do during a game?
the allocation between garlic and onion seems to drive the hailed "uniform memory access" straight out of the window
You end up with 2 quite different pools, accessible from anywhere... you know, just like the PS3 (albeit sizes are configureable).
Guess "UMA" is meant as " Unified Memory Architecture".. ie 1 pool of memory
You end up with 2 quite different pools, accessible from anywhere... you know, just like the PS3 (albeit sizes are configureable).
Guess "UMA" is meant as " Unified Memory Architecture".. ie 1 pool of memory
There are multiple reasons why that could have been the case in earlier devkits. But the question remains: For what should the OS use two full cores during gameplay? What they are supposed to do?
Take your PC, run a game in windowed mode and look at the CPU load of the different processes. How much gets used by Win or some other background processes or apps?
I frankly don't know.
I am also trying to find out where in the SF postmortem they say that 2 cores are reserved for OS but I can't find it.
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At least for early dev kits, there could have been a convention for multiple reserved cores if Sony hadn't decided if it was going to compensate for defects if one core was faulty.
One core could be declared off-limits for OS and system resource guarantees and one could have been a "maybe".
They didn't, but they only showed six being used.
One core could be declared off-limits for OS and system resource guarantees and one could have been a "maybe".
They didn't, but they only showed six being used.
I'm not sure I understand the need to fully reserve cores for the OS. On the PS3 it made sense for the Cell because of the LS I guess, but here what's the reason for not giving access in a non-guaranteed way instead, and give high priority to the OS thread? Most of the time the OS will be idle, it feels like it's kind of a waste of available resources.
There's a stronger expectation for performance consistency, and there could be miscellaneous things inherent to the platform or its services that they don't want to impinge on the game.
The PC as a platform expects hiccups due to random interference from other apps to be the gamer's problem, while for a dedicated platform it is a flaw in the experience.
The PC as a platform expects hiccups due to random interference from other apps to be the gamer's problem, while for a dedicated platform it is a flaw in the experience.
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