PS3 OS Resources.

[[maven]]

Kids, calm down, concentrate and stay on topic!

 

[draconian]

Joker,

How much is data packed for the average action console game? what i mean is, let say you have 4 fields that each require 4 bits for representation or 16 True/false flags(that require 1 bit each).

Now, does that mean that only one 16bit word is used(4x4 or 16x1) in memory?

Or does that mean that 4 bytes are used for the first 4 fields and 16 bytes for the second set of fields?

I'm thinking that for the average action console game, the 2nd scenario is more likely since in the first scenario, another instruction would be necessary to mask out the 4 or 1 desired bit(not to mention the extra execution instruction that the memory would use).

It seems that ps3 programmers porting 360 games could take advantage of data packing more and take the hit computationally. Maybe this is what some ps3 games are already doing? ( some ps3 games seeme choppier. i.e. armored core 4)

 

[StefanS]

Kids, calm down, concentrate and stay on topic!

QFT. (I am breaking my own rules here. Runs and hides )

Seriously, the topic is memory usuage, not HDD optional / non-optional.

 

[Npl]

Joker,

How much is data packed for the average action console game? what i mean is, let say you have 4 fields that each require 4 bits for representation or 16 True/false flags(that require 1 bit each).

Now, does that mean that only one 16bit word is used(4x4 or 16x1) in memory?

Or does that mean that 4 bytes are used for the first 4 fields and 16 bytes for the second set of fields?

I'm thinking that for the average action console game, the 2nd scenario is more likely since in the first scenario, another instruction would be necessary to mask out the 4 or 1 desired bit(not to mention the extra execution instruction that the memory would use).

It seems that ps3 programmers porting 360 games could take advantage of data packing more and take the hit computationally. Maybe this is what some ps3 games are already doing? ( some ps3 games seeme choppier. i.e. armored core 4)

I guess that wouldnt bring you very far. The most space is occupied by textures/geometry, both are typically "packed" already (and Textures typically compressed with S3TC or similar acronyms I cant remember). I suposse you can lossless compress geometry, as its mentioned in another thread that the "EDGE"-Toolset uses SPU`s to unpack, decompress, processes, cull and convert triangle-lists before sending it to RSX. Thus helping both preserve memory and cutting work for RSX

The example with bitfields is weak, because even if you have to mask out bits, the advantage is that you save load-instructions as you get more data per load if its packed. Any modern CPU will highly prefer arithmetic ins versus loads, so this would be a win on X360 too.

 

[swx]

i dont know anything about NDA's , i know that they bind you to not to speak about a subject..but my question is, they also bind you to not reveal WHEN the NDA is over?

That would give people pace, since someone could say "Expect November '07 and i let you know".

But since it seems nobody did that i suppose that the nda binded that also...

Still i want to know =P

Sorry for the crappy grammar ^^u

 

[Tahir2]

NDA's typically have no end date unless it is a press gathering or review product that is meant to be advertised/released at some stage.

NDA's concerning technical capabilities of consoles do not fall into that category.

 

[Fafalada]

When a company becomes secretive, especially about a topic that could be of interest (e.g. reflect badly compared to the competition), it drives interest by some for many reasons.

BS.
If majority of people were interested in truth, you might have a point, but that's certainly not the case on public forums where number one item on most agendas is "how is my console better then yours".

Outside of PS2, there wasn't a single console in recent history that public was openly informed about, and they all had tons of dirty secrets - and the public perception that generated was "PS2 is flawed, buggy hw full of compromises" while competition is "perfect, no flaws, no bugs, no compromises". Where was the "natural curiosity" then?
And let's not even get started on the amount of denial(if they can't be simply ignored) that typically greets leaked facts about certain consoles (plenty of recent examples too).

PS2 anomaly only makes it painfully obvious why companies prefer to keep things secret.
Sorry for ranting btw.

 

[crystalcube]

Human nature at work. When a company becomes secretive, especially about a topic that could be of interest (e.g. reflect badly compared to the competition), it drives interest by some for many reasons.

Why would it reflects badly specially when the information is not even know. Or is it that the negative opinion is already formed ? Human nature at work indeed , In this case even if the actual reserved memory is made public how will it change the perception ? If its even 1 byte more people will still complain it takes more memory. Even if it equal to ( in rare case less than) competition , people will still complain that because its 2 separate pools of memory its not as usable as on competition.

 

[deepbrown]

I believe it is less than 96mb now...by maybe 10mb...

And it is important to note it is reserved and not necessarily used by the OS now...but for future applications...

Oh and it will go down in time of course.

 

[deepbrown]

I believe it is less than 96mb now...by maybe 10mb...

And it is important to note it is reserved and not necessarily used by the OS now...but for future applications...

Oh and it will go down in time of course.

10mb less

 

[patsu]

I believe it is less than 96mb now...by maybe 10mb...

And it is important to note it is reserved and not necessarily used by the OS now...but for future applications...

Oh and it will go down in time of course.

Err... do you have more background info on the above claim ? Enquiring mind demands to know

 

[deepbrown]

Absolutely no idea. One could only speculate.

 

[ninzel]

It is frustrating to see this topic come up again with still no explanation of why it's needed to be so high.
If it could explained why it's necessary and I could be shown the actual benefit's I could be ok with it.

 

[JPT]

It is frustrating to see this topic come up again with still no explanation of why it's needed to be so high.
If it could explained why it's necessary and I could be shown the actual benefit's I could be ok with it.

The OS needs some memory and Sony have plans to add features to the OS, ie FW upgrades etc.
Currently they most likely have a plan of what features to add and an idea how much memory is needed for each feature. But they haven't written the features yet, so they do not really know how much memory it actually uses.
To make sure that they are able to get in all the features they want and probably have headroom for some that might be thought up later, they reserver a bunch of memory and add abit extra to be safe.

What do you think would happen if they reserved to little memory and in 2 years released a FW that made the OS go over the budget, hence making maybe 30-40% games released unusable because they do not have enough memory available to run?

Hence why they are generous now with the OS allocation and they can slim it down later, I do belive this is what has happened with the PSP memory reserved for the OS.

 

[deepbrown]

The OS needs some memory and Sony have plans to add features to the OS, ie FW upgrades etc.
Currently they most likely have a plan of what features to add and an idea how much memory is needed for each feature. But they haven't written the features yet, so they do not really know how much memory it actually uses.
To make sure that they are able to get in all the features they want and probably have headroom for some that might be thought up later, they reserver a bunch of memory and add abit extra to be safe.

What do you think would happen if they reserved to little memory and in 2 years released a FW that made the OS go over the budget, hence making maybe 30-40% games released unusable because they do not have enough memory available to run?

Hence why they are generous now with the OS allocation and they can slim it down later, I do belive this is what has happened with the PSP memory reserved for the OS.

Spot on. Microsoft know what they want to do with the OS. Sony have yet to make their changes, but as you say if they started with too little memory they wouldn't be able to do anything in the future, or old games wouldn't run.

 

[Mmmkay]

Innerbits have a new blog entry on the OS memory requirements for firmware 1.60.

http://www.innerbits.com/blog/2007/05/09/ps3-memory-footprint/

First, the base memory footprint of the PS3 OS in main memory has been reduced from 56 MB to 52 MB. These values will lead to some confusion, as we’ve previously reported that the memory footprint was 64 MB. 8MB of memory was given back to developers sometime before Christmas, and now a further 4 MB has been returned. Currently, as of SDK 1.60, the PS3 operating system takes up 52 MB of main memory and 32 MB of graphics memory (84 MB total).

We have also learned that processing-wise, games are expected to maintain at least 30 frames per second, regardless of how much CPU time is used by the OS. Specifically, there is a Sony technical requirement that states that titles cannot rely on the CPU processing speed. There is no explicit ceiling set on how much processing time the OS can use through its higher priority threads. Of course, Sony will make sure whatever is performed in the background will have very minimal impact on processing time, but the lack of an explicit cap concerns us.

Finally, we present a breakdown of the memory requirements for various key system utilities. In order to make use of them, developers must allocate the specified memory amounts to the OS. These allocations are done in the form of Memory Containers:

* As of SDK 1.60, developers can use standard PS3 message dialogs at no extra cost. The standard on-screen keyboard still requires 7MB of memory.
* Developers can now choose to support the Remote Play functionality (which allows players to play their PS3 titles on their local wireless LAN using their PSP. Remote Play requires 8MB of memory to be allocated to it.
* The various utilities providing saving, loading, and reading off the hard disk now require no more than 5MB of memory to be used.
* 8MB of memory is required for the online startup utility. This includes both supporting online play, and is a requirement for any of the other Network Platform (NP) utilities. There are several NP utilities, but we will only address the most important one next.
* Full support of the NP Friend List utility is currently a staggering 24MB of extra memory (on top of the 8MB needed for the startup). This utility provides the support of the NP friend’s list, allowing players to add, remove, block and communicate with their friends along with the corresponding GUI interface. The extraneous demand on memory has been met with with concern from developers. Since this is just the first iteration of the utility, Sony has vowed to reduce the memory impact of the utility to something more manageable (20MB is the rumored target for the next major release expected in late May – early June).
* Video chat (supporting up to 6 concurrent users) requires 26MB of memory, while voice chat (supporting up to 12 users) requires 8MB. The utility allowing for in-game microphone configuration is also 8MB.
* Finally, developers can choose to support an integrated web browser. The memory cost for a web browser can vary from around 40MB to 90MB+, depending on the web sites being browsed, and the number of windows and tabs used.

 

[-tkf-]

Innerbits have a new blog entry on the OS memory requirements for firmware 1.60.

http://www.innerbits.com/blog/2007/05/09/ps3-memory-footprint/

So it´s 84megs + some more?

 

[Butta]

I always wondered what the 32MB of GPU memory is used for? Any ideas?

 

[rounin]

I have to say those memory requirements are quite staggering. I wonder what the memory footprint is after implementing what Xbox users are accustomed to on their platform?

The memory requirement cutdown sounds good, but the other requirements seem to be a much more significant and act against the gains made.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

I have to say those memory requirements are quite staggering. I wonder what the memory footprint is after implementing what Xbox users are accustomed to on their platform?

To be fair, you don't know what the XB360 uses to implement such features per title either. If they're all in the OS and no extra to the game (which they should be!) then it's got the advantage. But if XB360 too needs to load in libs and stuff, it'll have an additional memory footprint.

But man, those are some big numbers! 7MB for a keyboard?! 24MB for a friend's list?!?!!!! 8MB for microphone configuration?!?!?!??!?!?!?!!?!?!?!?!?!!!?!?!! Can devs implement their own slimline utils to save RAM?