I think Sony must have thought of different configurations, with 2 memory pools on the PS3. They could have made either of the 2 pools smaller, but i think having a "total available memory" with the same number as X360 is more important to them than the actual usefulness of it, to a certain extent.
What would devs have to do to customize for the Xenos?
- Thread starter ralexand
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What do you mean 'need at least 256 of vram'? As I understand it, RSX can access XDR, so Sony could have gone with 512 XDR, but the low latency wouldn't have benefited the GPU too much. So they did a cost saving and went with 256mb DDR.ralexand said:
As for whether 256 or 512 were intended from the start, I find it hard to believe that either manufacturer would have tried ot get away with only 256 mb RAM! It wouldn't matter how powerful the hardware was if you didn't have enough room for those high-poly models, hi-res textures, expansive, heavily populated levels. I guess we have the devs to thiank, same as getting 32 mb onto PSP
A couple questions of my own (sorry to interrupt):
How much VRAM is normally used in Xbox games (top-tier to narrow it down)? From Xbox to Xbox 360, we're seeing a 16 times increase in the amount of overall RAM. Even if we triple the size of the VRAM used for Xbox games to get good sized textures for 720p, that's still a lot of RAM left over...
Would there be a significant increase in Sound memory usage?
I hope they use more RAM for animation data (if that's how better animation works: more data -> "better" animation).
Anyhoo... just a curiosity..
How much VRAM is normally used in Xbox games (top-tier to narrow it down)? From Xbox to Xbox 360, we're seeing a 16 times increase in the amount of overall RAM. Even if we triple the size of the VRAM used for Xbox games to get good sized textures for 720p, that's still a lot of RAM left over...
Would there be a significant increase in Sound memory usage?
I hope they use more RAM for animation data (if that's how better animation works: more data -> "better" animation).
Anyhoo... just a curiosity..
XB = 64 mb RAM
XB360 = 512 mb RAM
That's an 8 times increase. That'lkl allow 8x as much stuff. 8 times the models, 8 times the textures, 8 times the AI space and physics space. Depending on how much RAM these need you might find that more than 8x is possible. Also with more processing power you can calculate more stuff instead of needing it in memory, such as producing trees on the fly instead of using tree models, so you'll get more out of 8x the memory than just 8x the game.
For me, I hope the lose the 'animation' frames and replace them with physics controlled skeleton-mapped characters.
XB360 = 512 mb RAM
That's an 8 times increase. That'lkl allow 8x as much stuff. 8 times the models, 8 times the textures, 8 times the AI space and physics space. Depending on how much RAM these need you might find that more than 8x is possible. Also with more processing power you can calculate more stuff instead of needing it in memory, such as producing trees on the fly instead of using tree models, so you'll get more out of 8x the memory than just 8x the game.
For me, I hope the lose the 'animation' frames and replace them with physics controlled skeleton-mapped characters.
Shifty Geezer said:
We already have those to a certain extent, haven't we? Ragdoll physics does that.
Obviously there will still be a need for scripted animation routines, but those can be "broken" if need be.
Yeah we've got ragdoll physics, but where's the fighting games where you swing your arm and the mass of the weapon affects how it moves, impacts the opponent, damage dealt, how long it takes to recover, what other move you can do between swings, etc.? eg. Swing you arm, and then duck halfway through the motion. The skeleton should freely adapt to the motion without being constrained by keyframed positions, and the change in your motion should affect the change in your swing. Don't know if there's anything that advanced out there yet?
Shifty Geezer said:
With a fighting engine that dynamic, the legacy fans would be in an uproar. They need something fixed so if they spend enough time playing they know exactly what button has precedence over everything else. Dynamic thinking does not sit well with them at all.
I think your idea sounds way fun though. If it ever happened, I might actually buy another fighting game.
Just watched the 'Testimonials' vid. Jason Parks from SCEA is using this. Look like we WILL be playing virtual people instead of stop-frame animated people next gen
The other vid shows an advert for Pepsi Max with a guy 'falling' down a glass building which i've seen before, but also a Tekken trailer. It shows Heihachi and...his son (forget their names) and a load of the Ruskie robots. Is this a Tekken cutscene, or something to look forward to?
The other vid shows an advert for Pepsi Max with a guy 'falling' down a glass building which i've seen before, but also a Tekken trailer. It shows Heihachi and...his son (forget their names) and a load of the Ruskie robots. Is this a Tekken cutscene, or something to look forward to?
therealskywolf
Regular
ralexand said:
YOu are actually kinda right, in an interview (Video interview i think, dont know where now) J Allard said that he was expecting "more" of the Ps3, he said that he got "Surprised" and reliefed (Relieved? Dont know how to spell it) after checking the Ps3, as if what Sounded like the End Of Days had come out looking like nothing more than a Close call.
ShootMyMonkey
Veteran
AI and physics and comparatively speaking, models don't eat up that much space compared to textures. If you're assuming minimum spec HDTV 720p, the texture resolutions will have to increase enough to make the increase in ram pretty necessary.
Also, it's a ~6x increase, not 8x. 360's OS -- including the whole XboxLive GUI mess -- reserves the lower 32 MB of RAM all the time, including during gameplay (partially related to the whole "everything must be LiveAware" thing). There's 480 MB of usable memory space.
That still is just a tool to generate new canned animations, albeit ones that intelligently blend between the effect of a physical stimulus and the "style" of other existing animations. The whole DFA-based animation systems used in gaming will still be alive and kicking well after your grandchildren are dead.
A generalized combination of physics and animation is very much an NP-problem. In fact, based on some of the latest papers I'm seeing that try and solve this, I believe it may actually be NP-hard (everything seems to rely on search and transition methods to find case-specific blends).
Things like IK feet (i.e. placing the feet according to the surface you're standing on) are quite possible. You can see that even on a few current-gen titles.
If you're going to nickel and dime the memory allocation, don't forget to add 10 MB of EDRAM.
Also, even though the Xbox OS reserves 32 MB of RAM for the OS, it uses some of that RAM to implement features (like user sound tracks) that would otherwise have had to be implemented in the game. So it's not like it's a total loss. Let's say that 8 MB of the OS allocation is actually doing useful work for the game title. Also remember that Xbox 1 reserved some space for the OS too. Let's estimate that as 1 MB.
So call it 64 - 1 = 63 MB for the game on Xbox 1 vs 512 - 32 + 8 + 10 = 498 MB on Xbox 2. So 7.9x increase.
Which totally rocks.
Now PS2 guys are looking at a 32 + 4 + 2 = 38 MB vs 512 MB, or 13.5x increase, so they must be _really_ happy!
Also, even though the Xbox OS reserves 32 MB of RAM for the OS, it uses some of that RAM to implement features (like user sound tracks) that would otherwise have had to be implemented in the game. So it's not like it's a total loss. Let's say that 8 MB of the OS allocation is actually doing useful work for the game title. Also remember that Xbox 1 reserved some space for the OS too. Let's estimate that as 1 MB.
So call it 64 - 1 = 63 MB for the game on Xbox 1 vs 512 - 32 + 8 + 10 = 498 MB on Xbox 2. So 7.9x increase.
Which totally rocks.
Now PS2 guys are looking at a 32 + 4 + 2 = 38 MB vs 512 MB, or 13.5x increase, so they must be _really_ happy!
ShootMyMonkey
Veteran
Why count the eDRAM? It's exclusively allocated for framebuffer and Z/Stencil only. It can't be used for anything else. Only the main memory can be used for actual "memory allocation" for any purpose. Blocks in eDRAM are pre-allocated for a singular purpose. The only transfer capability it has is to copy its contents into main memory. You can't use the eDRAM as extra memory space at all.
Assuming you even use those features. Obviously, for Live-related matters, you'd use some of it. But you can't assume that they will be of use at all, especially when the bulk of first-gen games will more than likely be built on top of current-gen engines (in spite of all the news you hear about everybody licensing UE3).
Bandwidth, probably. I don't see any indication either on 360 or on PS3 that you won't be plagued by the same problems that kill you on a PC, albeit at a different scale. About the only real weakness of the UMA of 360 vs. the NUMA of PS3 is the fact that you will invariably run into issues of CPU and GPU both contending for the same bus.
I really don't expect miracles in terms of raw poly-pushing for a while. Not until you're into the same relative age that brought us the likes of Riddick and God of War on this gen. At least shader power won't be something to complain about. However, that's the heavier focus of Xenos in lieu of pushing massive fillrate. I hope that doesn't prove to be in error, but there will surely be a case at some point that struggles because of it.