Predict: The Next Generation Console Tech

[RedVi]

Hence the difference in speed terms won´t be that big?

With DDR4 you will have higher clock speeds at lower power and cost, especially in the future. Initial speeds of DDR4 will probably mirror high speed DDR3, but having high speed DDR3 in a console is much less likely than having the same clocked DDR4 as there will be a lot of room to reduce power and cost on the DDR4 at that speed in the future.

Let's assume 2500MHz. For DDR3 such speeds are costly and power hungry because it is reaching the upper limits of what the standard can achieve. With DDR4, the same speed is somewhat a low-mid end starting point, so in a few years it will be more like the mature and conservative DDR3 1333MHz, where the cost and power use is very low.

 

[SKYSONY]

With DDR4 you will have higher clock speeds at lower power and cost, especially in the future. Initial speeds of DDR4 will probably mirror high speed DDR3, but having high speed DDR3 in a console is much less likely than having the same clocked DDR4 as there will be a lot of room to reduce power and cost on the DDR4 at that speed in the future.

Let's assume 2500MHz. For DDR3 such speeds are costly and power hungry because it is reaching the upper limits of what the standard can achieve. With DDR4, the same speed is somewhat a low-mid end starting point, so in a few years it will be more like the mature and conservative DDR3 1333MHz, where the cost and power use is very low.

I assume then that 8 Gb of DDR4 will be on par with 4 Gb of GDDR5 of the rumored PS3 specs?

 

[itsmydamnation]

I assume then that 8 Gb of DDR4 will be on par with 4 Gb of GDDR5 of the rumored PS3 specs?

what do you mean? launch cost? bandwidth? latency?

 

[SKYSONY]

what do you mean? launch cost? bandwidth? latency?

I´m talking in terms of what a developer can do in a game with that memory. I read, back in the day when it was rumored the first Orbis dev kits had 2 Gb of GDDR5, some people said a bigger amount of slower memory might be better.

Thus I ask if for gaming would be better 8 Gb of DDR4 or 2/4Gb of GDDR5.

 

[fehu]

Please
GB > Gb

 

[RedVi]

Thus I ask if for gaming would be better 8 Gb of DDR4 or 2/4Gb of GDDR5.

It has been debated here before how 8GB of memory at x bandwidth would compare to 4GB at 2x bandwidth. I think it is fairly unlikely that DDR3/4 would quite reach half the bandwidth of a GDDR5 solution, but in the best case scenario it could be close. Worst case it could be a bit under 25% of the GDDR5 solution, so there's not much point arguing which is the better solution until we know clock speeds and bus widths, as well as final capacities of course.

 

[Sonic]

MS going for 8 GB of slower memory means they will need a smaller pool of very fast RAM (Esram or edram) especially if only 5 - 6 GB of the main pool is usable by games. We know from a certain patent floating around (if this is indeed the route MS is going to take with its new machine) that some of that memory will be guaranteed usable for non gaming applications and for these apps to be in use while gaming. So if only 6 GB is available at half the bandwidth of the 4 GB going into Orbis then that's a problem if MS has no faster pool of small memory.

 

[bgassassin]

Sorry, sleep deprivation. I would venture a guess that there are some neat Compute scenarios that having a "large" very fast local memory could be an advantage. I remember a very interesting sparse sample GI solution from 2005 which was mostly slowed by memory.

I had been looking up an trying to learn more about cache layouts in current GPUs and while doing so I had saw that the memory (size and I believe bandwidth) seemed to be the primary limiter in GPGPU capability. I began wondering if consoles would take possible steps in addressing that limit in some fashion. Your posts seem to give me at least one possible answer for that.

MS going for 8 GB of slower memory means they will need a smaller pool of very fast RAM (Esram or edram) especially if only 5 - 6 GB of the main pool is usable by games. We know from a certain patent floating around (if this is indeed the route MS is going to take with its new machine) that some of that memory will be guaranteed usable for non gaming applications and for these apps to be in use while gaming. So if only 6 GB is available at half the bandwidth of the 4 GB going into Orbis then that's a problem if MS has no faster pool of small memory.

Don't forget PS4 games won't have free reign on that 4GB either.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

I had been looking up an trying to learn more about cache layouts in current GPUs and while doing so I had saw that the memory (size and I believe bandwidth) seemed to be the primary limiter in GPGPU capability. I began wondering if consoles would take possible steps in addressing that limit in some fashion. Your posts seem to give me at least one possible answer for that.

Keeping so many computation units fed is going to be extremely difficult. That's what SPEs were trying to address with 256 KB in just keeping its vector unit+scalar unit busy. A GPU capable of 1,000 single precision flops a clock is consuming ~2000 bytes per clock. At 500 MHz that'd be 1 terabyte per second BW it could eat through. Each 2 megs of local store would last 10 clock cycles, so 10 MBs eDRAM would net you 50 cycles of work at which point you'd need new data. I don't know if that'd really be beneficial or not. It wouldn't be like Cell with enough data stored locally for the SPE to work full tilt while more data is fetched unlses you had an enormous amount of local store.

GPUs are so wide that the memory issues will always be limited to main BW. It does make one wonder though if more could be achieved with less computation units and fast local store to feed them?

 

[N2O]

MS going for 8 GB of slower memory means they will need a smaller pool of very fast RAM (Esram or edram) especially if only 5 - 6 GB of the main pool is usable by games. We know from a certain patent floating around (if this is indeed the route MS is going to take with its new machine) that some of that memory will be guaranteed usable for non gaming applications and for these apps to be in use while gaming. So if only 6 GB is available at half the bandwidth of the 4 GB going into Orbis then that's a problem if MS has no faster pool of small memory.

What,there is someone really believe nextbox will use 3GB RAM for non-gaming?and PS4 gonna use 0kb for non-gaming?or let's say,someone still believe PS4 will be a game console?

 

[SKYSONY]

What,there is someone really believe nextbox will use 3GB RAM for non-gaming?and PS4 gonna use 0kb for non-gaming?or let's say,someone still believe PS4 will be a game console?

I think people believe the Xbox 3 is gonna use a bigger amount of RAM for non-gaming, and Orbis will use less RAM for them. If the final PS4 specs have 2 GB of GDDR5, I think no more than 0.5 GB of RAM for the system and apps.

 

[Rangers]

What,there is someone really believe nextbox will use 3GB RAM for non-gaming?and PS4 gonna use 0kb for non-gaming?or let's say,someone still believe PS4 will be a game console?

It's a rumor, and some one on this board semi-hinted at it as well.

I put credibility in it.

Edit: meaning 3GB 360.

I'd expect PS4 to use at least .5GB if it has 4GB RAM.

 

[Prophecy2k]

What,there is someone really believe nextbox will use 3GB RAM for non-gaming?and PS4 gonna use 0kb for non-gaming?or let's say,someone still believe PS4 will be a game console?

The 3GB reserved for non-gaming use does sound rediculously excessive, however this comes from rumours (un-verifiable ones of course). So its not like people are just randomly choosing to believe that the Nextbox OS will sup so much memory.

Personally I can't see either console's memory footprint being less than 250-500MB. I mean how much else do you want a low-power console to be doing outside of running your game?

 

[Prophecy2k]

MS going for 8 GB of slower memory means they will need a smaller pool of very fast RAM (Esram or edram) especially if only 5 - 6 GB of the main pool is usable by games. We know from a certain patent floating around (if this is indeed the route MS is going to take with its new machine) that some of that memory will be guaranteed usable for non gaming applications and for these apps to be in use while gaming. So if only 6 GB is available at half the bandwidth of the 4 GB going into Orbis then that's a problem if MS has no faster pool of small memory.

I've wondered alot about this rumour of the Nextbox having 6-8GB of DDR3/4. My biggest concern would be load times. I mean to load 6-8GB worth of data from an optical drive into a relatively slow pool of main ram, whether bluray or DVD, would take forever.

How would you get around that?

 

[Shifty Geezer]

I'd expect PS4 to use at least .5GB if it has 4GB RAM.

Why? PS3 can render all sorts of functions and uses up <100 MB. Efficient apps needn't consumer masses of RAM to run, and there isn't a real need for massive multitasking in a conventional box. So unless these consoles are to become app servers to the home, running everyone's web browsing and video playback and multiple games across TV and phones and tablet, the need for OS RAM consumption isn't high.

I can see a larger footprint for enabling background webpages and immediate switching to a browser in game, but if that's not enabled (and with the ubiquity of handhelds that can browse simultaneously while gaming, one ahs to question the value of mutlitasking web browsing with game playing) then the OS needn't consume huge amounts.

 

[Blazkowicz]

I don't think background tasks would consume much memory bandwith, it should be crap like downloads, gamer account updates etc. and the OS scheduler will keep it all at low priority.
reserving a whopping 2GB is interesting, it's a generous amount to run windows 8 with a full internet explorer and apps. at any time you can pause the game and switch to the apps and vice versa, always seemlessly.
1GB would work already, in line with current tablets, 2GB makes it a better computer. dunno if you would edit your photos or something.

this would make the xbox competition for Windows PC, which is weird.
there is a question of what are allowed as Metro apps, and whether there would be additional restrictions on the xbox. if you can get DosBox, console emulators etc. you can now play thousands of pirated games.
a torrent client? there's quite some "video on demand" available there.

 

[N2O]

I think people believe the Xbox 3 is gonna use a bigger amount of RAM for non-gaming, and Orbis will use less RAM for them. If the final PS4 specs have 2 GB of GDDR5, I think no more than 0.5 GB of RAM for the system and apps.

Well look at win7->8,8 use less ram than 7,they won't going back,and even running game with full of apps,it's pretty hard to use more than 1GB RAM(same with PS4)

 

[Prophecy2k]

There's no way MS would allow users to run a full Windows install on Xbox.

They may have a console OS which is a stripped down version of windows 8, but it would be fully locked down to allow only the install and running of software that is sold through their specialised MS windows store.

Allowing windows on Xbox would be akin to MS declaring war on all their PC desktop and laptop manufacturing partners. It would piss far too many people off. Probably publishers and developers alike

 

[McHuj]

Well look at win7->8,8 use less ram than 7,they won't going back,and even running game with full of apps,it's pretty hard to use more than 1GB RAM(same with PS4)

That may be true for today's apps. But they have visions of a device that will last 5-10 years. Who knows what apps and their requirements will be in 3,5,8 years. They can't decided 5 years in that now the OS/Apps will take a gig more.

If the next xbox is truly going to be the media hub of the living room, I can easily see it eating up lots of ram for non gaming tasks: Main display running a game, tasks like IE running in the background, perhaps audio video streams to multiple devices, background downloading/dvr'ing of TV/Movies, etc.

I think there's a possibility that this device may have multiple concurrent users for the various apps/tasks.

 

[Blazkowicz]

I've wondered alot about this rumour of the Nextbox having 6-8GB of DDR3/4. My biggest concern would be load times. I mean to load 6-8GB worth of data from an optical drive into a relatively slow pool of main ram, whether bluray or DVD, would take forever.

How would you get around that?

there was a lengthy thread about console storage. debate about the presence of a standard HDD : it's big enough to have all or most of your games and does about 100MB/s ;
and a lot of support for the idea of a generous flash cache. not unlikely when you look at how ssd prices have dropped (if global flash supply is not a problem)

but there can be some techniques, I'm mainly thinking about textures packed and with advanced compression (wavelet or other), recompressed to dxtc or whatever the GPU uses. I believe Rage does that. (it's also constrained by storage speed but it's a particular game made to load textures everytime you look at something)