I dont think developers would be happy with 24GB of RAM. 4k and 8k textures, real time raytracing, ML based upscaling will require additional memory and memory bandwidth for a true generational leap. So I dont see this 24GB happening, its too little. There are no signaling issues with a 256 bit or 320 bit bus as well so it makes no sense to go with 192 bit bus. Me thinks 256 Bit bus width with 8 modules at 4GB each would be the absolute minimum. So around 32GB of memory with ~1TB/s memory bandwidth. But its possible even with 40GB of RAM on a 320 bit bus at 36Gbps per pin data rate would be around ~1.4TB/s memory bandwidth. And if by 2028 GDDR7 has a higher per pin data rate of 40Gbps(assuming not yet 48Gbps max spec) then it could even be anywhere between ~1.2TB/s to ~1.6TB/s memory bandwidth if they choose to go with the 320 bit bus. So minimum 32GB of RAM I think max 40GB of RAM at ~1.6TB/s memory bandwidth. Over the lifetime of 7 years for next gen hw this will deliver a true generational leap at a low cost. GDDR7 is already available today 3 years before 2028 at around 36Gbps data rate.
Sony PS6, Microsoft neXt Series - 10th gen console speculation [2020]
- Thread starter Megadrive1988
- Start date
AMD has just released a new generation of GPUs with such efficient memory management that they found 16GB of GDDR6 to be enough for their cards. According to benchmarks, they are right, there is no significant advantage to more RAM for now.
A PC equipped with a 9070XT VGA and a modern CPU can do 4-500% more than today's consoles. This is a generational leap. Since we know well that such a PC configuration costs at least 1200-1500 dollars, it makes no sense to expect a more powerful console from any manufacturer within 1-2 years. Component prices are not going to go down, and no one is going to buy a 1000+ dollar console that you can only play games on.
Doesn't that rely on PC Game Pass growth? So again it comes back to, what is going to drive that growth?
MS are flirting about a hybrid PC type of model (both for the hardware and business/sales aspects), but those devices are going to be considerably more expensive than the current traditional consoles, since OEMs will need good margins on hardware to make the initiative worth it, and MS want to provide buffer on pricing with their own hardware variants if in fact they manufacture some systems of their own (so they themselves can have profit margins on the hardware vs. selling at-cost or at a loss).
There is no way MS gets to 100 million Game Pass subscribers next gen simply with the hybrid devices, be they like consoles or portables or whatever. The volume of production simply won't be there, because the prices will limit demand which will limit supply. I'm also sure they're not expecting every Series S & X owner to upgrade to the new systems as some have likely already switched over to general PC, or Steam Deck, or PlayStation or Nintendo, or a combination of those.
It's probably safe to say at this point, as a decent guess, some 20 - 25% of Series S & X owners are not going to invest in a new Xbox device next gen, and getting PC Game Pass growth off them would depend on both those players going primarily Windows PC and seriously committing to Game Pass in addition to/in lieu of just using platforms like Steam. A very tough hill for MS to climb, no matter what, and the clock is ticking.
Do you think it may be possible they could get away with 1 TB/s or even sub 1 TB/s (but close to it) bandwidth if they fitted the system with some form of HBM-PIM?
Because I've been thinking, with HBM-PIM they could cut down both in bandwidth and capacity requirement, although current PIM memory is mainly geared towards AI & HPC. Maybe it could make, say, a hypothetical PS6 w/ 24 GB HBM-PIM @ 1 TB/s possible without feeling constraining. Or even clocking the memory lower for say 960 GB/s (assuming 24 GB with 2.5 Gbps pins).
I'm not exactly sure what current HBM-PIM is based on tho; it could be HBM3, but it may also be HBM2e. I think even 2e would be enough for a PS6 depending on how the PIM component's implemented, which would require close working with AMD to optimize the APU design around it.
A long while ago there was talk about a cost-reduced version of HBM meant to cut out the interposer to make it easier for package integration and whatnot. Has there been any movement on that?
Well MS are the ones out here talking about forward compatibility and getting rid of generations, not me :/
But what I was mentioning isn't actually so much about Series systems playing the next Xbox's games, it's about the next Xbox having a way to run Xbox Series (and older) games, especially 360 & OG Xbox titles. Because AFAIK, you can't simply run a 360 or OG Xbox binary on a Win32 PC. There aren't any compatibility modes with that type of support and Xbox emulation isn't great (especially for OG Xbox).
Yet a lot of the Xbox fans who would be interested in that hybrid type of system have lots of old OG Xbox & 360 titles they want to bring with them. It's up to MS to sort out how that'll work.
As I mentioned earlier, MS will probably not achieve a significant increase in Game Pass subscribers directly with hardware but with software. I also see what you mean, that Xbox PCs will only make up a slice of this pie. Yes, definitely at first. The focus could be on the Xbox OS, which will be released for almost all PCs. A console-style gaming interface that simplifies and makes it easier for many people to use games on PCs. Now you can say that this is just an assumption, but let's not forget that until yesterday the Handheld Xbox was just that, and the OEMs' strategy was also. You can say, okay, but this is already on Steam. Maybe, but what if it could be done even better, for example by integrating it into Windows. How many users can they address with that?
However, it is unquestionable that a better Game Pass and service package than the current one is needed for all this.
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Developers are primarily the ones who determine what amount of RAM they need based off the feedback they give to Sony and MS, in addition to telemetry sent back from each devkit and console. And they have been clamoring for more RAM this gen. Add real time raytracing and the need for higher quality textures, larger more interactive worlds, doubling of RAM will be a minimum for a next gen device thats going to last 7-8 years. You're confusing PC and consoles. On PCs you can buy new RAM while consoles have fixed hw for 7-8 years. They'll likely have much more RAM and memory bandwidth than what most PC gamers have in their machines at the start of the gen. This was the case during the 8th gen as well as the 9th gen and will likely be the same during the start of the 10th gen. My estimate is between 32-40GB with memory bandwidth between 1.1-1.7TB/s if we have 40+Gbps GDDR7 by 2028.
raytracingfan
Newcomer
32GB memory is the minimum for a console to support running LLMs and other game logic AI models. Whether Sony and Microsoft actually want that ability remains to be seen. In regards to AI for graphics, upscaling decreases VRAM usage but frame generation increases it. Keeping highly detailed geometry in the BVH for ray tracing would also require a lot of memory, although we still don't know whether path tracing is a goal either.
Yes exactly well put. I dont see them doing anything less than this for a console thats going to be around for 7-8 years. I think this is going to be the biggest cost for the next gen systems after the APU. cost of SSDs will be quite low.
Can LLM run on a slower dedicated memory pool?
raytracingfan
Newcomer
Sure. Strix Halo mini-PCs and Macs with LPDDR5(X) can run LLMs just fine. Dedicating the slower pool specifically for AI doesn't really make sense though - if the pool is small it won't be enough, and if the pool is large developers that aren't using AI will want to use that memory for CPU tasks.
Dominik D
Regular
I know that both have been hacked to oblivion but it would be extremely bizarre for MS to allow running X1/X360 on Windows which, unlike console, isn't a locked system. Beyond that there are technical reasons why 360 games can't natively run on Windows that have absolutely nothing to do with API (you can transpile binaries to win32 just fine). First: PC drives can't read Xbox 360 discs and this is a hardware limitation that's unlikely to change. Second: 360 has pretty unique design with EDRAM that enabled things that haven't been possible on PC until fairly recently.
Sure, it could in theory be done better than Steam, but do we really trust Microsoft to be the ones to do it? They may have the OS where this would be leveraged, but they're also kind of racing against the clock. Valve have their own OS they want to push for PC gaming going forward, and it seems in general they are several steps ahead of Microsoft on every aspect of this "consolizing PC gaming" concept.
Again, MS's main advantage is Windows & the large market share it employs, but how much of that market share is due to modern PC gaming? I'd say likely less than half of it, because you have to remember a lot of it is also legacy Windows being used & supported at various institutions & facilities/businesses around the world. Even if Steam OS were to completely cripple Windows in terms of being "the" OS for PC gaming, it probably wouldn't knock Windows market share down by any more than 10 - 15% tops (it's currently at 70-something % last I checked). And part of that is because Steam itself will always have some presence on Windows. I'd also say, it's ability to get that 10-15% also relies heavily on their hardware initiative.
That's all in terms of market share, anyway. The bigger impact to MS if that were to happen, would be in losing key favor with companies like AMD & Nvidia when it comes to driving PC GPU feature sets around Direct X and Windows; for gaming GPUs, those types of companies would rather prioritize Steam OS, Linux etc. and devices that primarily would run them.
OG Xbox & 360 being locked systems shouldn't make compatibility of their games on Windows impossible, because MS tends to favor software-driven solutions for BC anyway. As inn, they could certainly enable functionality that is scalable to a number of device configurations considering most of the people who would be interested in playing OG Xbox & 360 games on Windows likely have systems with enough raw power to cover emulation overhead.
As for disc read incompatibility, that's something which could be tackled either by Microsoft directly, or by relying on efforts of 3P teams and companies. With the former, they could either offer a program to convert physical disc games into a digital format that users with the physical copy can download after verifying their ownership, or provide tools for old OG Xbox & 360 systems to let home users create digital copies of disc games on a portable storage medium. Both options aren't ideal, and there are particularities which would have to be worked out, but they exist.
With the latter option (relying on 3P), maybe community members who like hacking systems open up those possibilities unofficially, or someone makes a disc reader that can read those OG Xbox & 360 discs connectable to a PC, or something along those lines. There are always options for solutions out there, the question is how easy/difficult they are and the likelihood they would be pursued.
dagnastyep
Newcomer
I think RAM will be one of the easier things to predict because there's really not that many options. HBM is unlikely for various reasons, so that leaves GDDR7 (or a variant).
I think it's important to consider that, while ML and RT tasks will require more memory, this is a rare instance where target resolutions will remain static generation to generation. PS6 will target (upscaled) 4K just as PS5 does.
End cost to consumer and BOM also needs to be considered.
For PlayStation, Mark Cerny has design 4 PlayStation console with 256 bit memory buses, 2 of which also has a small amount of DDR to help out. I think PS6 will also feature a 256 bit bus, so 24 or 32 GB of RAM. If they go with 24, I could see added DDR.
For Xbox, they've experimented with memory a bit more. I could see them going 256 or 320. If it's 256, I think they'll shoot for 32 GB. If it's 320 bit bus, then I think 30 is most likely, though they could do sometime weird like they did this gen and mix chips to get something like 36 GB(?).
Also, this is wishful thinking, and I think there's a very real chance both have lower than expected RAM amounts.
I think it's important to consider that, while ML and RT tasks will require more memory, this is a rare instance where target resolutions will remain static generation to generation. PS6 will target (upscaled) 4K just as PS5 does.
End cost to consumer and BOM also needs to be considered.
For PlayStation, Mark Cerny has design 4 PlayStation console with 256 bit memory buses, 2 of which also has a small amount of DDR to help out. I think PS6 will also feature a 256 bit bus, so 24 or 32 GB of RAM. If they go with 24, I could see added DDR.
For Xbox, they've experimented with memory a bit more. I could see them going 256 or 320. If it's 256, I think they'll shoot for 32 GB. If it's 320 bit bus, then I think 30 is most likely, though they could do sometime weird like they did this gen and mix chips to get something like 36 GB(?).
Also, this is wishful thinking, and I think there's a very real chance both have lower than expected RAM amounts.
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32GB of GDDR7 wont be an issue in 2028 when the PS6 launches. I just dont see how a PS6 can launche with anything less than 32GB of RAM. I dont think devs are providing feedback to Sony and MS saying they need 24GB of RAM, if anything they're requesting for a doubling of RAM and memory bandwidth for higher quality textures, AI frame gen and upscaling, that kind of stuff. I remember ever since the 7th gen consoles have launched with much more RAM than you could find on PC discrete GPUs. 10th gen will have at min 32GB of RAM
What do you mean by "32GB GDDR7 won't be an issue in 2028"? It's not like those chips are going to come down in price substantially. If for a PS5 Sony's is spending, let's say, 20% of the budget, it's not like they can spend 40% of it for PS6 just because developers want more memory.
Now that 3GB's chips are getting produced, I was thinking something like a 192 bit bus, 6x3GB's of GDDR7 (so 18GB of GDDR) plus 6GB's of DDR5 for the OS. Almost double the memory available for games for similar or slightly higher costs.
Dominik D
Regular
I was talking about the fact that you cannot guarantee integrity of a game running on an open system like Windows. It's probably less of a problem for single player games but how do you guarantee hack-free environment for Live on Windows? How do you keep features like achievements and leaderboards hack-free? From MS perspective there's no benefit to letting people play OG Xbox or Xbox 360 games on PC. Right now a half-assed effort would make them look bad and robust solution is simply not worth it. Maybe in 5 years where older titles are more of a curiosity for a niche audience.
I wonder if the recent policy changes would make the next PS, Xbox, and Nintendo have "pc mode" so they could be categorized as computers, and they could be categorized as consoles... (and Nintendo Switch 3 as smartphones or tablet?) So it's easier to them to pivot whichever got tariff exemption.
Like... For current gen, maybe Microsoft could categorize Xbox one and series are computers? As they have dev mode that allows you to install stuff, and the console also supports computer stuff like ms office in edge.
Like... For current gen, maybe Microsoft could categorize Xbox one and series are computers? As they have dev mode that allows you to install stuff, and the console also supports computer stuff like ms office in edge.
Didn't Sony already try that with PS2 to circumvent duties? I definitely remember hearing one story about Sony framing their machine as a Pc for tax purposes.
Yep. To achieve that, initial PS2 releases in PAL territories had Yabasic in their demo disks for programming so that evey machine could be classified as computers not as toys. I still have that Demo disk
Did it work?
