Special techniques possibles with 8GB of RAM

I firmily believe "the whole on-demand social networking and loading while playing aspect" was set as a goal on the early stages of design. Big companies like sony, and big projects like ps4 are very carefully thought through.

You're likely right, but at the same time, 8 GB is going to drive costs up and I don't think Sony can afford another heavy loss-leader.
 
This, from Tiago Sousa (Crytek lead graphics programmer) is quite ilustrative:

R0E1k.jpg

It seems that his Christmas present arrived around Valentine's Day. Better late than never. ;-)
 
bigger persistent worlds and gamestate mostly, simulations that run in the background at a fraction of the frameframe.
You simply cant use too much of the ram at the same time, the bandwidth doesnt allow for that.
 
But it means we will never ever see pop in again yay

Really? While I would love this, I tend to doubt it.

I do have hope for load times with that kind of RAM around, but load times are really only an issue with a sandbox RPG style, the rest are more predictable and/or have cut scenes.
 
I was kind of expecting KZ SF to be more like the infamous KZ2 render in scope, but alas it's still too early.

We need WAY more animations and AI routines to give that air of reality and emergent behavior. Or at least things like Euphoria need to be standard. Example in the render, when one of your squad mates goes down and drops the rocket launcher, another guy picks it up and passes it to you. "Simple" and random stuff like that is what we need. Which means less scripting of course. More ram should make those things more feasible..
 
Would the ram setup help enough with framerates? Killzone being a new exclusive and flagship title running at 30 fps is pretty disappointing. I think they were initially working with 4 gb ram, but if they had 8 gb to start, do you think they could utilize it for 60 fps?
 
Would the ram setup help enough with framerates? Killzone being a new exclusive and flagship title running at 30 fps is pretty disappointing. I think they were initially working with 4 gb ram, but if they had 8 gb to start, do you think they could utilize it for 60 fps?

No, not really. 30fps was chosen because it allows them to really flex graphics and other shiny goodness for the title.

Doubling the framerate drastically reduces the visual eye candy in favor of responsiveness.

I see no need for console games, outside of maybe racers (debatable..) and fighters, to go out of their way and sacrifice just to get 60fps.
 
I wish I could understand what 8GB means even in regular texture sizes. So far all offical "high resolution texture packs" for PC ports have been more or less disappointing but I assume that they are made for 1-2GB cards. Let's try to get some numbers what's possible - In general and in highly specialized setting like pvp fighting game.

2048*2048 environmental textures or higher? So bookshelfs, posters and walls wouldn't be blurry mess anymore? Too much to ask for or technically impossible?

While Metro 2033 ain't open world game, here's few screenshots. I think it use something like 1.5GB of video memory.
metro_2033_00001vkrzy.jpg

metro_2033_00002i3qmo.jpg

metro_2033_00003azr4l.jpg

metro_2033_00004ywozw.jpg

As you can see, textures look like garbage. Is 6-8GB enough to make significant difference for 1920*1080 monitor/TV resolution or are we still at least generation away when that's possible?

So, fighting games. Tightly controlled area, only few characters, little need for normal memory (at least in player vs player mode). Here's where my imagination hit the limits. I can't even imagine what 8GB means. *drools*
 
No, not really. 30fps was chosen because it allows them to really flex graphics and other shiny goodness for the title.

Doubling the framerate drastically reduces the visual eye candy in favor of responsiveness.

I see no need for console games, outside of maybe racers (debatable..) and fighters, to go out of their way and sacrifice just to get 60fps.

I wonder if developers will give us the option to choose 720p to improve the frame rate to those with 720p TVs.
 
2048*2048 environmental textures or higher? So bookshelfs, posters and walls wouldn't be blurry mess anymore? Too much to ask for or technically impossible?
A 2k x 2k texture is basically a 1:1 fit for 1080p (about 2k pixel wide). So pixel-perfect textures will be there then the object being viewed is exactly the width of the TV. If you walk closer, it'll become blurred. A 2k texture on a wall will be blurry when you stand close to it; a 2k texture on a book cover will always look sharp at 1080p. however, most of the time you're going to be so fat away from the book that a whole 2k texture on it is pretty wasteful. I don't see any amount of RAM solving texture resolution issue perfectly, especially for human made content (natural materials can be blended and tiled and appear crisp at lots of levels, and you can introduce detail textures at higher LODs). I think the only solution to perfectly crisp detail is virtual texturing, as otherwise you're stuck to the same amount of content as now just in higher detail, whereas I'm sure people would prefer more content variety. But someone smarter than me may know otherwise.
 
No, not really. 30fps was chosen because it allows them to really flex graphics and other shiny goodness for the title.

Doubling the framerate drastically reduces the visual eye candy in favor of responsiveness.

I see no need for console games, outside of maybe racers (debatable..) and fighters, to go out of their way and sacrifice just to get 60fps.

While true, Killzone was built with 3.5GB of RAM being available. The bandwidth gives them almost 3GB per frame at 60fps. Going down to 30fps only gives them an additional 0.5GB per frame, due to the 4GB RAM limitation. In this case, I don't see why 30fps would be picked.

Now, that around 7GB or so will be available, I could see why 30fps would be used over 60fps. Otherwise, it doesn't seem to be much of a sacrifice, to stick with 60fps.
 
2048*2048 environmental textures or higher? So bookshelfs, posters and walls wouldn't be blurry mess anymore? Too much to ask for or technically impossible?

As you can see, textures look like garbage

I would really like to know what games you've been playing, Metro has some if the best work in existence.
 
I would really like to know what games you've been playing, Metro has some if the best work in existence.

It's probably the very same game I played. The amount of hype about Metro2033 is still just beyond my comprehension. Some of the rooms/models are utterly lack of detail, textures are blurry at many places/areas and it's unoptimized beyond repair. They though that writing a real-time renderer instead of a "game engine" will do just fine, but it didn't. That game even struggles on a Dual GTX-Titan SLI if everything maxed out, and looks average on many occasions (well it must be noted that sometime is also looks quite good to be fair).

(IMHO) It doesn't matter if they are calculating the entire universe or using ultra resolution textures under the hood if the end result looks something like this:
http://i.imgur.com/lctN4t3.jpg
 
Doubling the framerate drastically reduces the visual eye candy in favor of responsiveness.

I see no need for console games, outside of maybe racers (debatable..) and fighters, to go out of their way and sacrifice just to get 60fps.

If that is the case, why do you think CoD and GT are so popular?
 
I see no need for console games, outside of maybe racers (debatable..) and fighters, to go out of their way and sacrifice just to get 60fps.

Did you know a F1 car can cover 10feet in 1/30th of a second, do you only want to see you car travel in 10foot steps ?
 
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