Will Ps3 non-gaming features bottleneck gaming?

rabidrabbit said:
DeanoC's blog, originally linked in this thread about PS3 memory management by chris1515.
http://www.beyond3d.com/forum/showthread.php?t=28419

So, is the OS going to be more than the simplish "Cross Media Bar" that is found in PSP.
How much memory does the PSP OS take? With PS3 having more built in features, can we estimate how big a PS3 "Cross Media Bar" style interface would be?

PSP takes 8MB out of 32 MB. A fourth.

A fourth of PS3's memory would be a very big amount, so i'm hopeful it will be proportionally much less.
 
The PSP OS is updateable, is the OS lying in the main memory (32MB), or does it reside in it's own flash memory that is not erased when you turn the unit off?
Does the OS really use the same memory as the games?
Why can't they just put some cheap 64MB flash memory inside PS3 and put the OS there, or is such memory too slow? How about putting the OS on a 64MB or bigger MemoryStick, would that be also too slow, slower maybe, but too slow?
 
rabidrabbit said:
The PSP OS is updateable, is the OS lying in the main memory (32MB), or does it reside in it's own flash memory that is not erased when you turn the unit off?
Does the OS really use the same memory as the games?
Why can't they just put some cheap 64MB flash memory inside PS3 and put the OS there, or is such memory too slow? How about putting the OS on a 64MB or bigger MemoryStick, would that be also too slow, slower maybe, but too slow?

I'm sure it's on a bit of Flash memory, so that when u turn it off it stays there, but when you turn the PSP on, the OS reserves 8MB of the main RAM for its functions - yes, the same RAM that's being used for games, and yes you basically "lose" a fourth of the memory you could be using for games. In exchange you get a nice working OS with all its benefits.
Using Flash as RAM would be very slow, yes, and using Memory Sticks would be an issue if you ever remove the Memory Stick while the unit is on - it would be like taking the RAM off from a computer that's still on. Not sure what that does to a computer, but it can't be too good.
 
So PS3 developer saw this thread and posted on his blog.

I think the RAM bottleneck is more than SPE. It must take more than 32mb for simultanous tasks.

I opened my Windows task manager. All tasks simultanous.

1 IE6 to Sony Connect takes ~40mb
Winamp5 128kb Mp3 takes ~9mb
Windows Media Hd 1080p takes ~25mb
Msn Text Chat takes ~16mb

I think it is a risky to have bloated Os vs your games when your enemy have the same RAM footprint out now.

Give the Os features to people who wants to buy a PSX2 with more RAM.

I think this can become those bad returning decisions that haunts.
 
internetboy said:
I think it is a risky to have bloated Os vs your games when your enemy have the same RAM footprint out now.
That 'enemy' have a 'bloated' OS too, though I forget the RAM amount reserved for OS on XB360.
 
rabidrabbit said:
The PSP OS is updateable, is the OS lying in the main memory (32MB), or does it reside in it's own flash memory that is not erased when you turn the unit off?
Does the OS really use the same memory as the games?
Why can't they just put some cheap 64MB flash memory inside PS3 and put the OS there, or is such memory too slow? How about putting the OS on a 64MB or bigger MemoryStick, would that be also too slow, slower maybe, but too slow?

Psp firmwire is in 32mb NAND flash. Os features are loaded to 8mb Psp is not simultanous tasks capable.
 
Shifty Geezer said:
That 'enemy' have a 'bloated' OS too, though I forget the RAM amount reserved for OS on XB360.

The enemy reserves 32mb. Correct this is if i am wrong.

The enemy features for features promised will logically use lesser RAM. Again correct this if i am wrong.
 
Do you mind stop calling them "the enemy"?
They're competitors, or just call them by their name!
Enemy is just... wrong.:smile:
 
rabidrabbit said:
DeanoC's blog, originally linked in this thread about PS3 memory management by chris1515.
http://www.beyond3d.com/forum/showthread.php?t=28419

So, is the OS going to be more than the simplish "Cross Media Bar" that is found in PSP.
How much memory does the PSP OS take? With PS3 having more built in features, can we estimate how big a PS3 "Cross Media Bar" style interface would be?

It's not the GUI that requires RAM, but what applications you plan to make available. The most demanding of those, in the worst case, likely defines how much resources need to be reserved.

I'd guess 48-64MB of RAM will be reserved for PS3's OS.

Someone mentioned earlier about doing all these tasks at the same time, and how much RAM that would require, but I don't think it's clear at all that you'll be able to - say - watch a HD movie of your hard disk and browse the web simultaneously, as well as play your game. Simply that you can do these things simultaneously with a game..but not necessarily all together at once (i.e. browse the web OR watch a movie alongside your game). Some apps would be more "background" - for example if there was DVR, or the PSP accessing media on your PS3 or whatever - and they could demand resources simultaneous with another app you're running alongside your game, but I'm not sure if those ones would be the most intensive..
 
internetboy said:
I think DeanoC left us a big clue. 512 - 300 = 212 work backwards with a highend PC game i think that is a very good guess.
That 212 covers a lot of ground as said in that thread. That covers phsyics simulation, AI, current states of the universe (planetary populations, tree ages, monster hungryness...), game code and OS. There's no way to reverse-engineer requirements from a high-end game because they're totally different systems. I peg OS requirements at 48-64 Mb (which I said before Titanio :p) as that to me is a 'sizeable chunk'.
 
interesting discussion, i wonder if the ps3's OS is too large? 'bloated' as someone put, but it also has to run a lot of things as well.
 
Yes, bloated means larger than required to be to do the job. Though in this case people are using the term to mean more OS than a console for gaming really warrants, it seems. Personaly I'd prefer a smaller OS rather than a 128 MB OS that does all sorts of things I don't care for. Though I suspect a fair bit of that OS is libraries games will also be using, no?
 
Shifty Geezer said:
Yes, bloated means larger than required to be to do the job. Though in this case people are using the term to mean more OS than a console for gaming really warrants, it seems. Personaly I'd prefer a smaller OS rather than a 128 MB OS that does all sorts of things I don't care for. Though I suspect a fair bit of that OS is libraries games will also be using, no?

The libraries used by Games will be on the DVD/Blu-Ray Disc, at least the biggest part of it. Maybe Games share the kernel, but I think it will run entirely in its own virtual sandbox.
 
Npl said:
The libraries used by Games will be on the DVD/Blu-Ray Disc, at least the biggest part of it. Maybe Games share the kernel, but I think it will run entirely in its own virtual sandbox.

I would not be surprised if the OS provides services to games. In fact I think Sony explictly said that at E3 in reference to certain things (like networking). I wouldn't be surprised if it did some I/O duty too.
 
Titanio said:
I would not be surprised if the OS provides services to games. In fact I think Sony explictly said that at E3 in reference to certain things (like networking). I wouldn't be surprised if it did some I/O duty too.
I think it will stay at some basic IO and Process scheduling. Access to shared ressources (like the HDD) between OS and Game has to be serialized anyway, either through the OS or a Virtual Host that is on top of OS and Game.
Other than that you will try to seperate OS and Game as much as possible, so you dont have to check for sideffects with 100s of Games for each revision of the OS. You definitly wont have a shared OpenGL-Library for example.

I think there will be atleast 2 classes of OS-Programms, one class running entirely in the background and one that has to "ask" the game if its allowed to obtain more resources, like for example enabling a Video-Chat while beeing in a Menu of a Game.
 
This discussion kind of reminded me of an idea I had for Windows. Much as there is a Safe Mode you can boot into, which doesn't load a lot of drivers and .dll's and whatnot, there should be a Game Mode which just loads up basic OS and gaming necessities.

Unless you really do plan on playing a game while surfing the net on your PS3, does it need to load up the entire OS? It seems you could have a dual mode OS, one that supports all the game requirements and one that is more fleshed out with DVD playback and web-browser.
 
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