Retro City Rampage developer speaks out about PS4 RAM

The developer of Retro City Rampage shares their thoughts about the whole PS4 RAM debacle that's been going on.
There are various sources debunking Digital Foundry's claim, this being one of them.

[dark-hollow]

With all the recording 1080p, sharing etc. Are people really surprised that next gen console need to allocate 3 gigs of ram for the os alone?

IMO I don't want just updated ps3/360 with better graphics only, so the whole new features of their OS's is great and a step in the right direction.
All these seamless multitasking features make the experience more convenient, and that's what's all the consoles about, convenience.

Or else you just get a PC with gods know how much ram you can put in it.

[iamnsuperman]

I agree multitasking is important for our next generation consoles. You really see how dated the consoles are when you have to close each programme to do something else (I know the PS3 has a very small level of multitasking but nothing worth talking about).

Being able to play a game then instantly switch something else is good. Also I love the instant switch on feature. I can't remember who it was but a developer said something along the lines of I have no idea why we see the PS3 or 360 logo when we start up the machines. We know what machine it is. This is so true.

[thorstein]

UPDATE: Sony has issued a statement:

"We would like to clear up a misunderstanding regarding our "direct" and "flexible" memory systems. The article states that "flexible" memory is borrowed from the OS, and must be returned when requested - that's not actually the case.

The actual true distinction is that:

"Direct Memory" is memory allocated under the traditional video game model, so the game controls all aspects of its allocation
"Flexible Memory" is memory managed by the PS4 OS on the game's behalf, and allows games to use some very nice FreeBSD virtual memory functionality. However this memory is 100 per cent the game's memory, and is never used by the OS, and as it is the game's memory it should be easy for every developer to use it.

We have no comment to make on the amount of memory reserved by the system or what it is used for."

Based on this information, plus the new source coming forward to explain the properties of flexible memory, our take on this right now is that there is 4.5GB of conventional RAM available to developers, along with the OS-controlled flexible memory Sony describes, in addition to that.

We understand that this is a 1GB virtual address space, split into two areas - 512MB of on-chip RAM is used (the physical area) and another 512MB is "paged", perhaps like a Windows swap file. But to be clear, of the 8GB of GDDR5 on PS4, our contention is that 5GB of it is available to developers.

The good news is that the amount is static and not dictated by OS functions as we stated in our original post, making it a lot easier for developers to work with.

[georgeenoob]

Wow, never knew specs meant so much to PS fans. Guess it's cause there's literally nothing left for them to troll about.

[NewMonday]

@thorstein

this 5G number is latest flip flop from Eurogamer, Sony still never released numbers, actual developers say Eurogamer is outright false, just like the report about 7 minute recording on PS4(it's 15 minutes).

and a number of actual insiders in NeoGaf say the RAM for games is up to 6.5G. so the OS is just 1.5G

and to use common sense if Sony wanted lots of RAM for the OS they could have used 4G of DDR3+ 6G of GDDR5 and still save money, the expensive RAM cost almost as much as the APU, so 8G is their for a reason.

[RememberThe357]

@newmonday: It'll be interesting to see how this plays out. I'm getting tired of people bicker about this shit but as a gamer I would like to see how this hole RAM thing really effects my games.

[dedicatedtogamers]

As the truth has quickly been revealed, Digital Foundry went from

"Only 4.5 Gigs for gaming" to

"4.5 Gigs dedicated to gaming, but with 1 Gig borrowed from the OS sometimes" to

"Sony said that 1 Gig is devoted to gaming, so 5 Gigs total (LOL Math) because we just noticed some extra RAM in this one place over here"

And now there are sources indicating that number is wrong, including an actual developer on PS4. Some other sources say that PS4 games using 6 Gigs of RAM are in development.

So, are all the people who jumped on this rumor willing to fess up?

[Ezz2013]

""""Now let’s look at it closely. The rumor stated that the PS4 reserved 3.5GB, while the Xbox reserved 3.0GB. Think about how this headline then spins the story. Even had it been true, this was a difference of 0.5GB, yet the headline would make it sound like the PS4 has a massive weakness."""&am p;qu ot;

So we have well knowen Dev that confirm that they are using 6GB for their ps4 game and other dev's confirm that as well

so once again DF pull another BS one like "Ps4 can only record 7 minutes"
for the life of me i don't know why ppl keep trust DF ?!

[tuglu_pati]

So lets do a recap on this

1) Digital Foundry / Eurogamer claims in an article that 4.5 GB is available for development at launch, with 512 MB / 1 GB as flexible memory

2) Various, unbanned GAF insiders have said "That article is incorrect"

3) Thuway, Famousmortimer, BruceLeeRoy, and Verendus (all unbanned) have all heard "The memory situation on PS4 is ideal and has exceeded expectations in every way." That should mean that games at launch won't be affected by any kind of restrictions in place

4) Thuway stated that some games currently in development are using 6 GB of RAM, but also implied some form of RAM restrictions at launch is not completely out of the equation

5) Kagari (has connections to Square-Enix) also agreed with the 6 GB claim

6) VBlank Entertainment (Retro City Rampage) has denied that Sony is reserving 3.5 GB of RAM for the OS

7) NOTHING is confirmed until either Sony states something or launch RAM allocations are revealed in some way

[DonFreezer]

Shut your freaking mouth.Please make us all an excuse all of you ps drones and go hide in a cave.When the news come out about Microsoft using 3GB for the OS where have been?Why haven't you defended multitasking them and bashed Microsoft for using more memory for the OS?The double standard on this site is astonishing.Now it's great to multitask?So know the ram is enough but when Xbox One had that numbers it was going to suck?

[AbortMission]

It's a little silly over what the dude said about start up logos on consoles. Every major electronics gadget, from PCs to smartphones do this. It's just their way of showing their brand.

[SirBradders]

@donfreezer i know what your saying all this fanboy crap is annoying.

But 1. The source of information is unreliable i.e. its not from sony whereas microsoft have directly said themselves whats going down.

And 2. 5gb gddr5 ram vs 5gb of ddr3 ram is still approx 50-60% more powerful.

[AndrewLB]

But I thought consoles have far less system overhead due to highly streamlined operating systems, finely tuned software, and services?? That's what all the console fanboys have been saying for months now when trying to justify claims that these "next gen" consoles will be on par with a high end gaming PC.
Right now my Win 7 system is running firefox with 9 tabs open, Avast, Malwarebytes, powerISO, Setpoint, d3doverrider, corsairlink, evga precisionX, SVP, creative console, AND of course Windows 7... and I'm only using 3gb of my 16gb ddr3-1600 system ram and 183mb of the 2gb gddr5 @ 1600mhz (dual displays @ 1200p)
Soo... the only possible reason why these consoles need HALF (or just shy of that) of their memory for the OS is because these new consoles are nothing like we've seen in the past. They're no longer specialized and are running far more complex operating systems with much higher overhead, and have become FAR more like a traditional PC in order to run all these new features.
In essence, that decades old truth that consoles can do more with less capable hardware is no longer the case. It's a shame that the PS4 and XBone were not made more powerful because quite a few PC games when completely maxed out graphics wise would still NOT be able to be run on "next gen" consoles which aren't coming out for another 4-5 months. Sounds like consoles will once again hold back PC gaming like they have this past generation.

... i'm still getting a PS4 though. Like my PS3, i'm sure it will be great for playing blu-ray's and the occasional exclusive game.

[SynGamer]

To be completely honest, I was struggling to see how developers would make proper use of 7GB of RAM. I mean, games look amazing on PC and most of those only require 4GB RAM total for system, and 1-2GB of Video RAM. So even if the PS4 has 6GB of RAM for games, that's still plenty.

Heck, the PS4 could have 5GB of RAM and I'd still be OK with that, IF IF IF it means the OS isn't laggy like the PS3 currently is.

[President]

For christs sake, the Digital Foundry article is bulshit, the PS4 OS doesnt need 3GB. Here is one source telling you its bullshit, why do you still decide to believe lies?

[devwan]

@AndrewLB

"Right now my Win 7 system is running firefox with 9 tabs open, Avast, Malwarebytes, powerISO, Setpoint, d3doverrider, corsairlink, evga precisionX, SVP, creative console, AND of course Windows 7... and I'm"...

Sat behind your desk like Spiderman Boss mast^H^H^H^H trolling consoles fans on N4G? Yep...

[Ju]

We fight over how much RAM the games will use, but overlook this line:

"allows games to use some very nice FreeBSD virtual memory functionality"

This is particularly interesting because it actually breaks the memory boundary all together. For example this is how ND implemented a "virtual VMEM" in Uncharted (and probably later Last of Us). In one of the post mortem they described using a system where the basically use 768MB "virtual video memory" on the PS3. This is basically the same thing but available on a system level to every developer - control able from the game.

No matter if it's 4.5GB or more, it basically allows the app to allocate as much memory as it wants and uses efficient caching to the fast 4.5GB "buffer" to page out memory to the HDD - not sure if those "512MB flexibel memory" rumors are true, but if so this would be a fast cache, while the rest would be application controlled (to make sure the pager doesn't swap out memory). At least that'll be my best guess.

Imagine a huge open world game where the "pager" swaps out the current level to the HDD. This is totally automatically handled by the OS.

[Ritsujun]

Who let the G-n00b out?

[cyguration]

If I want to multitask I'll get a PC.

[iamnsuperman]

I could also get a smartphone as well but that isn't the point

[InTheLab]

So you never sat there wonder why you have to exit out of a game you're currently playing to view your game list on the 360?

Or pull up the web browser on the PS3 in the middle of a game?

There's at least a dozen cases where I'd kill to have multitasking on current consoles.

[manaxknight1]

when i multitask, i use a pc

[N4Flamers]

I usually use the browser on my phone while a game is loading. It's faster than my ps3 browser and internet explorer but other than that I play the game that's currently on. I'm looking forward to load times being reduced.

[nirwanda]

@inthelab
Whay would you want to surf the net while gaming.
Be honest if you had the choice between having better looking games by having much more room for textures or being able to instantly surf the net, which would you choose.
Personally I couldn't care less about loads of multi tasking and it wouldn't be that hard to have the consoles in a low power mode to keep the game in memory while keeping the game still there.

[nirwanda]

@inthelab
Name some multi tasking features you would rather have at the expense of better games.

[bjmartynhak]

@InTheLab
"So you never sat there wonder why you have to exit out of a game you're currently playing to view your game list on the 360?"
If I go to a game list, it is because I don't want to play the game I was playing before

"Or pull up the web browser on the PS3 in the middle of a game?"
I use a PC to browse. Like... mostly everybody

[Thehyph]

@bjmartynhak

I guess you don't want background downloads or full store capability while gaming, either.

I have a Vita and it multitasks like a boss. It does it better than both my piece of poo Asus 1215N netbook and my Samsung Galaxy SIII. The browser is not as good and it doesn't have the apps, obviously, but at least it doesn't dump the ram. If they bring this level to ps4 I'll be happy.

[Ju]

It's the 21st century. Really, some background services should be available and necessary.

E.g. entering the PS store to buy DLC without leaving the game. Storing game play videos and not "unloading" the game - e.g.:

- store, edit, publish continue playing.
- Pause game, "stream" (and remote play) friends game, continue own game

Plenty of use cases, 8GB is plenty and plenty of cores available. I am glad Sony is making this much more dynamic than before.

[malokevi]

"if I want multitasking". lol. Case and point.

If I want money... I'll get a job! But hell, what sort of person wants money?

[Ritsujun]

Yup, go do your beloved MT on PC/smartphone/tablet, iamnsupersissy.

[dedicatedtogamers]

"Or else you just get a PC with gods know how much ram you can put in it."

PCs have their own limitations too. I have 16 Gigs of RAM crammed into my PC but 32* applications are still limited to 4 Gigs of RAM at a time (even many modern games like Skyrim have this limitation).

As for me, I'm warming up to the notion of multitasking on consoles and I have to own up and shut up about the grief I gave Microsoft in the past about TvTvSports. I may not - personally - be intrigued by TvTvSports but the multitasking and "instant resume" and features like THAT that X1 and PS4 will have? I'm geeked.

[dark-hollow]

I know about the ram limitations with PC and I agree with what you've said.

My point is, the extra ram for the OS can also benefit the gaming experience. Streaming games while chatting with a friend who's playing another game. Joining instantly to gaming sessions. Seamless multitasking. Possibility of pausing a game while browsing the psn store then jump back right in the game without any delay. The possibilities are endless as long as you dedicate a healthy amount of ram, and even they can always optimise the OS later on to free up some ram for gaming purposes.

It's not necessarily only about non gaming related stuff like watching movies or browsing.

[dedicatedtogamers]

I simply brought up the PC limitation because some people (not necessarily you) believe that a PC can use all of that extra muscle strictly for gaming. In many cases, it cannot.

But yeah, however much RAM ends up being devoted to these "background" functions remains to be seen, but I hope it makes the overall gaming experience smoother. Accessing the XMB while in a game was a sluggish nightmare, but then Sony comes out with Vita which has excellent multitasking, so we'll see I guess.

Personally, something I love about handhelds is that I can "sleep" them and resume my game on the fly. When I heard PS4 would have this feature (MS also announced a sleep mode iirc) I was geeked beyond all geekiness.

[pete007]

What limitations youre Talking bout?
Ignorant fool!
Even a 32 bit executable on a win8 4gb ddr3 coupled With 2 or 3 gb vram puts To complete shame any console out there. Pc games run at native resolutions, not upscaling tricks, With Mutch higher detailed textures.
The only thing i thank on the new x86 architecture is the fact that all Pc games Will become 64 bit native

[Bigpappy]

They limit the games to 4 MEG for optimal performance, because that was the standard Mid range PC's were shipped with. It is a design choice.

[BallsEye]

to remind you all XO has flexible OS ram too/ Up to 7 GB can be given to a game. Read up about hypervisor in 360.

[Furi17]

The 15 minutes video buffer is not going to be stored in a 176GB/s memory, when in could be stored in a cheap 1GB 20MB/s flash chip or directly in the HDD.

Stop saying this shit.

[fr0sty]

I encode video for a living (I own a media production company). Typically even the most demanding encodes (1080p H.264, which is very likely what PS4 is saving it's videos at.) do not exceed 1GB of RAM usage, and that's with the encoder set to it's slowest, highest quality setting.

That isn't mentioning the fact that Sony has dedicated encoding hardware in PS4 that prevents that recording from impacting gaming or OS performance. From Eurogamer:

"Sony wants to give gamers the tools to allow anyone to live-stream their own gameplay. The PS4's internal video and audio encoders allow gameplay to be compressed and transmitted over IP with no impact on CPU, GPU or RAM."

[yeahokchief]

This guy is awesome. Really like how he opted to release RCR on the Wii even tho he lost money on it.

I don't see what the big freaking deal is. Nothing even comes close to using 8 and nothing is final yet.

Gameinformer isn't exactly known for their gaming expertise. They write articles for kids who got a free magazine when they traded in their old games and repost news from other sites.

Not exactly teeth cutting journalism! Bunch of no class IDIOTS.

[fr0sty]

"Even HAD it been true, this was a difference of 0.5GB,"

He pretty much debunked the rumor right there without even having to violate his NDA. You can tell he was tip-toeing his way around the issue so as not to break any non-disclosure agreements, but in the end he exposed the truth. It may be true these consoles' operating systems may use UP TO that much RAM, that does not mean that the games cannot ever access any of that RAM (at least on PS4, not so sure about XB1).

When you have developers saying they are still trying to figure out ways to use all the available RAM and bandwidth PS4 offers, or saying the PS4 version of games that also appear on PC will have the same resolution textures as the PC game running on max settings, it doesn't paint the picture that they are having to grapple with tight memory restrictions.

Someone saw a chance to write a sensationalist headline. They were given an inch and ran a light year with it. In the end, one massive fail.

[Doctor_Freeman]

I don't think a certain number of memory needs to be allocated to any one source, like on PC you have a total number of ram and the system uses what if needs along with any other programs or games.

Me I have 8GB, Windows 8 uses between 1-1.5GB, the rest is freed up for anything else.

[turgore]

A console is to play games, not record videos of you playing games. Youtube is full of gameplay videos already.

[pedrof93]

I wonder what 3.5 gigs of memory are used for.

[Angeljuice]

Remembering three an a half laughs?

Edit (sorry, I thought you said giggles).

[fr0sty]

3.5 gigs is not reserved at all times for just the OS, that's what he was trying to clarify without violating his NDA with Sony.

[majiebeast]

So thats another bullshit article by Digital Foundry. Who would have thought after their major screw up with PS4 recording times.

He says "atleast" in bolded which could mean its more and then he says the Digital Foundry report is not true.

[Fireseed]

The point of his article wasn't to say it was or wasn't true. It was to say avoid sensationalist headlines, and that everthing is going to be ok. No matter how much space the X1 or PS4 OS take up from the RAM, it can always be fixed and optimized later via software updates.

[majiebeast]

No he is avoiding the NDA in a clever way. He cant talk specs but in a clever way he did why else bold those parts, especially at least. He could have just said as much as xb1 but he said at least and then bolded that. "Even had it been true" is him saying the information is false why didnt he just bold "Even had it been true, this was a difference of 0.5GB" because thats important info if he wanted to just point out sensationalism.

[Fireseed]

Dude you're going DaVinci code for something that shouldn't matter to you to begin with. Buying a console isn't like buying a PC. With a PC it might matter cause it can influence your performance in game. But with a console you buy it, and you get what the devs give you. You have NO say over performance.

[zebramocha]

@majiebeast you mean digital floundering.
http://n7ugc.disney.go.com/...

[THC CELL]

Great news

[Arai]

Various sources confirmed that the memory split is 6GB for games and 2GB for OS, speculation beforehand was that 7GB would be for games and 1GB would be for the OS.

The 7/1 split was an assumption being passed around as a fact, it was pure speculation on the behalf of gamers.
Nothing has changed and if anything they reserved enough memory for whatever they (Sony) might have in works for the PS4 in the future.

[pacostacos]

links please?
All i have seen is that its five locked for games for now with 3 set aside for the Os from the Og eurogamer report an updated version of the 4.5 locked with 1gb set aside in case devs needed it.
If its 6 thats better.

[pacostacos]

idk if i can trust neogaf at this point the whole site has been one huge clusterf%#% for missinformation concerning this. rumors are rumors even from "trustworthy" neogafers. I need sony to confirm!

[BitbyDeath]

Links plz

[Spurg]

A link would be nice :)

[Arai]

Knock yourselves out:
http://www.neogaf.com/forum...

3 insiders have confirmed it on GAF and have a good track record to back up their claim and then there's the handful of developers on Twitter debunking DF's article.

[Spurg]

It's official guys 6GB for games...thx for the link Arai.

[BitbyDeath]

Thanks bubble up for the link.

[MasterCornholio]

Only 2GBS for the OS? That isnt bad at all.

:)

Anyways i knew something was extremely fishy with eurogamers article since the XBOX One is designed to be an all in one device which is why its only logical that the XBOX Ones operating system takes up more system memory than the PS4.

[Grap]

well i guess now i know how rumors start. 6/2 my a$$

[golding89]

bottom line is up to 5gb is there for games on ps4 as xbox one :-/

[Arai]

Hard to miss my post, it's right above yours...this is just plain ignorance or you'd be trolling.

6GB for games 2GB for OS as of right now, in the future the OS might shrink (just as PS3 did, same Unix core).

[golding89]

reports are indicating 4.5 with 512 to 1gb as extra..where are you getting your number 6gb from?

:-/

[Yo Mama]

@golding89

http://www.neogaf.com/forum...

[BallsEye]

I would love to believe so but untill there is an official statement, what people write there on forum MEANS NOTHING. Neogaf was wrong tons of times, especially about e3.

[XabiDaChosenOne]

You are EXACTLY the type of person this article is talking about. Thanks for offering yourself as an example.

[BillytheBarbarian]

All this talk about RAM reminds me of Gears of War

[Software_Lover]

So true. I dont even understand why Microsoft was shooting for 256 to begin with though. In hindsight they should've released with 1gb but it is what it is.

[Software_Lover]

I hate these stupid arguments. Now we're arguing about How much ram is available. Really? Everyone should be f'n happy with what the XBone and PS4 are bringing, coming from 512mb.

The industry isn't even about games anymore. It isn't about fun anymore. Now I see why nintendo does what it does. They want to get away from the BS. Now I'm not a big Nintendo supporter, but I can give them props on that area.

[Cam977]

No.
If you want that type of gaming then leave N4G.

[trafalger]

we have shills, fanboys and other maggots that troll topics. some do this as a profession, some do it as a hobby and some are just a little sick in the head to be honest.

i havent been on this site for very long and you quickly find out most of the action stems from negative news and arguing between consoles, mainly the xbone and ps4 which seems to have gotten worse from the x360 and ps3 battles.

im just curious why an indie developer is trying to explain things while not really clearing anything up. it comes across as damage control than anything. i dont really care because the ps4 will be a powerful beast and i want a lot of ram reserved for the os. we have seen the limitations on the ps3 as far as cross game chat goes. now with video uploading and chat features being so popular we dont want the system to be slow and cumbersome to navigate. 8gb is a lot of ram for a game console.

[Sevir]

Its less to do with damage control and more of acknowledging the NDA as placed out by Sony. Its pretty unanimous, if Independent Developers are responding, clearly they know, especially when they are developing on the platform. Them commenting on it has given clear distinction that this news is false and Publications are feeding off something that is generating hits. This Blog post from a developer totally addresses that with little hints without coming out and giving hard numbers...

This is what happens when something flies below the radar with nothing bad and went they make a blip on said radar its red alert. The media swarms in like sharks :-) The PS4 has had virtually Zero negative press since its unveiling, maybe the stinger is the pay to play online and only announcing so far 5 First party exclusives, but you have to admit, the media and the haters were waiting for something negative to report and they got it... Like Sharks to blood.

The caveat here is that if Indies are responding like this one and give indications like "Even it it were true" and also pointing out that we should expect, Currently as of this moment that game development on PS4 has access at "LEAST what's available to developers on the xb1." Which he clearly emphasizes its pretty much confirmation that the article published might have been true initially I'm development, but isn't right now as the console approaches Mass production and finalization of specs.

Just think, MS has been the one who has had to back peddle on just about everything Theyve set out to do... All before launch when it could have been disastrous. Let the wolves fill their guts on this, they are hungry and will eat any and everything, even if what they are eating will make their stomach turn.

[KabalsHookblades]

You are very correct. That's because if you look at the power of the current consoles with Far Cry 3 for instance, games look good, so just imagine next gen games at their beginnings and then the point of graphical perfection, so 5GB should be okay.

[Fireseed]

Another thing people have to keep in mind and seemingly have no conept of on this site is that art costs money. I'm entry level character modelling and texturing, and my cost is 20$ an hour... you want better graphics than studios are going to have to pay more... and honestly I think were going to see a point when graphics level out, not because of technical power but just because of sheer cost.

[AbortMission]

Nintendo is just as guilty as Sony and MS LOL they're hardly different from the other 2 so enough with the subtle trolling/fanboyism for Nintendo (or maybe you're just plain ignorant). There's a reason why the first trailer of the Wii u showcased a guy watching baseball and a second guy playing a game on the Wii u gamepad. Not to mention the advertising of "TVii" and the Wii's, 3DS's and Wii u's ability to stream Netflix movies and shows.

Nintendo does what it does to survive, whether they have to appeal to the casuals with their gimmicks (which failed for the 3DS and Wii u) or make 1000 Mario games to increase sales. The industry in its entirety has changed to meet the expectations of consumers.

[Williamson]

People should wait until Sony comes out and confirms whats up with the ram of the ps4. Good to have gddr5 ram though.

[6DEAD6END6]

That's what people fail to realize is that this is GDDR5 ram which is almost double what DDR3 is offering.

[iamgoatman]

Reading that made my brain hurt.

[Williamson]

Yup 4.5-5.5 gbs of gddr5 ram is better than 5 gb ddr3 in almost every way for sure. I find it sad that people dont want to accept it.

[joefrost00]

Actually its better for gaming thats it
Multitasking the 5gb of ddr3 is better
Ddr3 is made for handling multitasking better
Thats a fact
I think it will be the same as last gen were
The 360 OS was faster
Everybody keep talking about ddr3 vs ddr5 and esram
But everybody forgot to factor in the data move engines
Probably cause no one truely know how they work
But all of this pointless considering devs from both sides said they are working on hardware and thats still changing and not confirmed yet

[MasterCornholio]

AMD even says this themselves.

http://www.amd.com/Publishi...

BTW i would believe them on this because they are the ones designing the APUs in both the PS4 and the XBOX One.

[BlaqMagiq24]

Agreed. The only advantage of DDR3 would be its latency but I'd rather take high bandwidth over high latency any day. GDDR5's bandwidth surpasses DDR3 at a ridiculous amount but some people on here will try to spin it in a way to make it look like DDR3 was the better choice or they're isn't a significant gap between GDDR5 and DDR3

[FlyingFoxy]

Except that it's being shared with the whole system, and its graphics memory.. it'd be more efficient to have DDR3 separately for the system.

GDDR5 has been on PC graphics cards as dedicated memory for a while now, and PC will soon be shifting to DDR4 for the system as well.

Even my 2010 laptop has 1gb dedicated to the 5870 GPU and 6gb to the system..

Dedicated for both is always better rather than sharing,

[Angeljuice]

No its not, the PCIe bridge is a huge bottleneck when it comes to parallel processing. Two dedicated pools of memory will likely be phased out eventually.

[theWB27]

So Micro says they offer self publishing and a the X1 as a dev kit. Indie devs cry and moan and say they hurt my feelings im never coming back. Some even, supposedly, cancel making their game altogether.

It gets leaked that the amount of ram thought to have been there for the developers to use isn't quite as much as Sony touted at the beginning. You get a Indie dev writing an article in order to defend the misleading announcement from Sony.

But, the indie devs say it's not them people should be coming to for answers. Yet every chance they get they offer their 2 cents on the matters at hand before even the big boys do.

Strange the big evil, spying, green machine has been more transparent about every part of their machine( even if bad PR is involved) while Sony gets away with being extremely vague about everything other than specs yet they are considered the savior of gaming. Even getting articles to defend their honor from the supposed people who don't want to be at the forefront of information about the machines.

[BattleTorn]

So true. Microsoft was getting a lot of bad press - back then the 3gb of RAM for OS was evidence of their non-gaming centric direction.

Now Sony won't even comment on a specification that Microsoft already has, and everyone is defending them. (and in some cases still insisting that the OS takes less RAM)
If the OS somehow uses less RAM than what's being speculated - don't you think they would've said so?

[theWB27]

Funny stuff. I find it crazy how little we do know about this thing. It'll come out after they get a ton of people's preorders at the last minute.

[deputyspade]

I find it extremely ironic that an xbox fanboy is accusing Sony of being vague at all. Microsoft tried to screw over gamers and you still apologize and defend them. They were vague about everything with the old "we'll share more details at a later date" and "not available at launch". Keep drinking that Microsoft koolaid though.

[theWB27]

I'd write something long and wasteful. Fanboys bash the competition with nonsense "facts" downplaying any significance the other system does. When you show me where I do that, I'll take the rest of your comment more seriously.

BTW..questioning Sony isn't downplaying. I doubt I'll get a reply with me doing that..but the search.

[deputyspade]

You lost all credibility when you stated Microsoft has been more transparent than Sony. I'm sorry but that does come across as very fanboyish to me. Notice you're getting a fair amount of downvotes. Microsoft was about as vague as you could get about all the details of their DRM since about May 21st. Their employees were giving different answers to the same question. Again, saying "we will share more details later" is not transparent. They said that again and again the last 2 months.

[rextraordinaire]

Good article.

But all this talk about technical jargon means nothing without games.

Who cares how much RAM it has?

Some of the best games don't even need half that horsepower. Would A Link to the Past have been any better with more RAM? Nope. Because at that time, devs cared about concept and execution before graphics and inbred technical "Mine's bigger than yours".

Give me a good game with a good design and I won't give a care about the RAM it needs.

[dcj0524]

Yes but with more ram then the game could be More visually pleasing and more importantly can be bigger and add more details. Look at metal gear 1.Every time you leave the screen it just resets like you were never there. In metal gear solid that doesn't happen anymore and the game becomes better and more enjoyable. It's because the PS1 has way more ram than the MSX.Same scenario here. The Crew is completley open world and you can go to MULTIPLE cities. In all racing games this gen that never happened. But because of the massive increase in ram it's possible. Its very important and impacts games directly.

[CrusRuss]

You do know that more RAM doesn't really affect games, it mainly affects multi tasking and can have an pact on load times (more ram means more content can be preloaded). PC Gamea have never really used more than 2gb for the game process. The last time I looked a huge game like total war was using 1.9gb when I alt tabbed back to windows. So 4-6gb for a next gen system is more than enough.

If the system doesn't have enough ram more content is stored in virtual ram (hard disk) and it just means the system needs to be smart about how it loads new scenes etc.

[turgore]

But you will care how it runs. Remember, Crysis 1 runs like crap on consoles because it does not have enough RAM.
In a couple of years the same thing will happen.

[nick309]

Ps4 is still in development, we will know in time when it is ready, thats why dony can tell us for certain.

[XabiDaChosenOne]

When this rumor is debunked I want Eurogamers head on a platter for bearing false witness....3 times!!!

[Talamak]

And it was written: The totality of one's head must roll for bearing false witness unto thine gaming brethren, for this is the most sacred of commandments and the whole of gaming "LAW" (in judge dredd's voice)

[pacostacos]

sony should just come out and speak on the matter give us the real info. Mark Cerny and others are vocal about other non important things but all of a sudden are hush hush about this... the quiet leads me to believe its true smh I want to know!

[claterz]

I think it's either true so they're going to keep quiet about it, or it's false and they're going to wait until Gamescom to announce that it's 6/7GB for games lol that'd be awesome. Like they did with used games, they let all the rumors flood the internet and waited until E3 to debunk them.

I hope it's not true, but if developers aren't making the most of more than 5GB anyway then I see no problem. As long as games look great and run smoothly and are integrated with the system for fast switching and multi-tasking then I'll be very happy. Plus they'll be able to optimize the OS over time to free up more RAM for games if it's needed, same for Xone too which is good.

The main reason I find it hard to believe is that Sony originally planned to have only 4GB of RAM in the PS4, meaning that only 1GB would have been available to developers. Unless that was the reason they wanted to upgrade to 8GB so that they could keep the OS the way it was intended to be for multi tasking and stuff. BUT even at the feb reveal, Guerilla apparently only had 4GB dev kits and yet I'm sure I heard somewhere that Shadow Fall was using 3GB at the reveal...
EDIT --- link for Shadow Fall using 3GB in feb:
http://n4g.com/news/1254639...

The guy who wrote this article also said on twitter that the rumors about the PS4's RAM are "absolutely false. Absolutely ridiculous" although he didn't mention that in the article for some reason =/ I guess he's obviously been told to keep quiet by Sony but he says the rumors are false anyway.
http://gamrconnect.vgchartz...

[BattleTorn]

I can't understand that your main reason for thinking that this all must not be true - is because Sony initially planned for 4gbs of RAM.

Could it be that they initially under estimated both game and OS requirements?

And thus, had to double both?

How does them having to double their game RAM somehow bring about doubt that they had to do the exact same for the OS?

That's illogical. Logic would suggest that they needed to double both.

[for example 4gb - 8gb was to apparently double the amount they wanted for developers. If it's rumored to be 5gb for games, 3 for OS - logic would suggest that they initially planned to have 2.5gb for games, and 1.5 for OS. NOT 3gb for OS, 1 for games - that's backwards thinking)

[MasterCornholio]

Sometimes i wonder if Sony releases negative rumors about the PS4 on the internet that way they will obtain a massive level of positive PR when they debunk them.

Curious isnt it?

[jairusmonillas]

PS4 is using GDDR5, same with GTX Titan and other high end GPU.

Xbox One is using the cheaper last gen DDR3.

FACT.

[theWB27]

So does that mean a PC using DDR3 couldn't run games a their highest settings? I just want to know how last gen DDR3 is. I want to know are all PC gamers having to upgrade to GDDR5 in order to run games at high settings.

It just seems weird to me that these multi plat games are being run on the X1 just like the PS4. Ya know, Battlefield 4, Metal Gear, The Crew, The Division, Watch Dogs, The Witcher and not one dev has talked of any gimp the X1 is imposing.

Since DDR3 is so last gen it manages to run next gen games.

[AceBlazer13]

didnt ubisoft say something about not being able to use the full potential of the ps4 cause aciv was multiplat? it wasnt in bold but if u read between the lines of their statement it was there

[theWB27]

@AceBlazer13
Not reading between the lines, Kojima stated the two systems are so similar in power that it doesn't make any difference in what he's making in MG5.

Yes he stated what the PS4 could do compared to this gen systems and it was an interview by the Playstation Blog. I don't see any reason for him to mention the X1 when talking to the Playstation crowd.

Dice came out and said they'd be able to put some extra power into Battlefield 4 on PC and X1 because of Direct X 11.1

http://wccftech.com/battlef...

[dcj0524]

That's because they have to make it game as profitable as possible. Look at tge original XBOX. It was more powerful than PS2 but nobody took advantage of it except for Splinter cell and Far Cry. Why? Because the PS2 had an incredible amount of potential buyers compared to XBOX. So they didn't bother. The PS4 will be more popular than Original XBOX so developers will use the PS4's power for sure but not on most games until late in the life cycle.. They don't want the other console to feel left out so they just make the multiplat equal maximizing profit.

[CrusRuss]

High end PCs use both ddr3 and ddr5. They use ddr3 for system ram and ddr5 in the video card for graphics processing. I dunno how the next box will cope with such slow ram for graphics processing.

[KiLLUMiNATi_89]

Why doesn't apple use Gddr5 but instead use ddr3?

[Dan50]

Since Macs barely have any games.

[Mikeyy]

Apple, lol

Go back to Starbucks, hipster.

[Corpser]

Ddr3 is only used in low end <$80 video cards now, gddr5 has been the norm on pc video cards for more than 5 years

[Sarobi]

People need to stop getting worked up on this. Just wait until Gamescom for an official word, and don't be so dragged down about this stuff.

[C-Thunder]

I'm sure gamescom will be great, but I doubt we'll ever get an official statement before the system releases. I'm confident whatever the split, it won't be am issue otherwise devs wouldn't be so thrilled to work with Sony. I'd expect this whole issue to be pretty much forgotten by the end of gamescom.

[Yo Mama]

They have already shrunk the memory footprint so much that some PS4 games are using 6gb of ram. It's been confirmed by 3 different well known posters/devs.

6gb for games
2gb for OS

That footprint may shrink again over the years.

http://www.neogaf.com/forum...

[AceBlazer13]

does this even matter to us? 1 benefit of buying a console is that u r assured years of quality games no matter wats inside if everyone is so interested in specs go get a pc.

[JohnS1313]

Microsoft paid everyone to write that garbage obviously. This is why I hate Microsoft and want to see that company die. They lie, cheat and steal. Nobody should buy any of their crap anymore.

[AceBlazer13]

u went full retard never go full retard

[u got owned]

never go full retard...

https://www.youtube.com/wat...

[AceBlazer13]

i wish gaming could go back to how it was. times r changing sadly.

[Themba76]

actually do you remember the sega genesis super nintendo war. that was a case of mines is bigger than yours as well. blast processesing anyone or how about mode 7.

[brandonb21]

take a look at that people. developers say 6gb now.

http://www.neogaf.com/forum...

[6DEAD6END6]

Thanks for the info.

[tuglu_pati]

I dont see any developer confirming 6gb in your link. All i see is " Kagari (has connections to Square Enix)" agree with the 6gb claim. How this make it an oficial confirmation from a developer?

[Salooh]

@tuglu_pati

In this article :

'' On a related note, remember that whatever the number is, it’s not carved in stone yet. On PS3, you might recall the news of them optimizing their memory footprint later in the system’s lifecycle to provide newer games with even more, and that was post launch. The memory usage on the new consoles is still in the development phase.''

These are developers and from this talk we can assume that sony may locked ram and planning to unlock it later . Maybe because the OS still need work and in the future it will use less ram with better performance like what happened to the ps3 and then they will unlock the rest of the ram for the developers..

[joeorc]

@14Feb-R

100% exactly

it is quite simple in my opinion why the 3.5 GB set aside for the OS is in my opinion kinda unrealistic, could it be..yes, but would it be I highly doubt it due to the fact that the core System OS that Sony is using for the PS4 is BSD!

Sony is Using BSD which is very mature and small footprint of a OS. WHEN THE CLAIM OF 3.5 GB for The OS was stated, Really think that was far too large of Ram Set aside for BSD.

example:

Both FreeBSD/i386 and FreeBSD/pc98 require a 486 or better processor, at least 24 MB of RAM, and at least 150 MB of free hard drive space for the most minimal installation.

Now of course that is for a far older system, but even the new 9.1 system requirements:

ARE QUITE LOW

Minimum System Requirements
64-bit processor,512 MB RAM,20GB of free hard drive space on a primary partition for a TrueOS® server installation

Recommended System Requirements
64-bit processor,1 GB of RAM,50GB of free hard drive space on a primary partition for a desktop installation.

http://distrowatch.com/tabl...

even on PC with Game consoles developed closer to metal, i doubt very much it was that high to even be realistic with what requirements that go in line with BSD.

In my opinion that is pretty much why i doubt very much the 3.5 GB set aside for an OS with a very long and mature history that has always had a very low footprint for an OS!

[tuglu_pati]

@14FEB

Again, where in there you see a developer confirming 6gb? There hasn't been any confirmation coming from Sony or any developer. Just people throwing random numbers. And assuming something you dont know doesn't make it real. Even Sony say they werent commenting on the allocation of memory. Who knows maybe they'll talk about it on Gamezcom.

[Salooh]

You nailed it :) . I for one think the OS will take 2.5GB most and start lower it with the updates.

Mark Cerny:
“At the same time we have to balance that out with a rich feature set that they can use in the later years of the hardware. The hardware has to grow over time. That’s why I refer to it as a super-charged PC architecture – there’s more in it than what you find in a PC.
“There are all these customisations, such as what we did to the GPU and other parts of the system to ensure that they would really be these systems that programmers could dig into in year three or four of the console life-cycle.”

Read more(Link): http://vr-zone.com/articles...

[Salooh]

@tuglu_pati
You give me one OS that uses 3.5GB of GDDR5 ram . Just one. Why the hell would they do that ?. It's not reasonable , X1 uses 3GB because it have 3 OS's , ps4 only have one and it's not focusing on PS Eye toy.

Yes , we may just guess but we talk with reason and prove not with rumor with anonymous sources . Sony statement only correct misunderstanding which is the difference between the “direct” and “flexible” ram , that's all . The rumor have a higher rate of being a false.

I actually like this rumor , it teached me new things XD ..

[tuglu_pati]

@14FFB

First of all where in my post did i said 3.5 gb was correct, i dont know where you are reading that in my post, i was replaying to the guy who said developers were saying 6gb allocated to games when that is not the case. No developer has said anything specific, just that the numbers are wrong. By how much this numbers are wrong we dont know. It could be by a very small margin or a big one.

"we may just guess but we talk with reason and prove not with rumor with anonymous source"

You may be talking with reason but I dont see any prove on the 6GB, just some people who supposedly have insider, throwing some numbers around which is the same as DF is doing. Believe whatever make you sleep at night but until Sony doesnt give us an ofcicial statement you are just guessing based on rumors.

[EverydayGuy]

Who else is dizzy from all these rumors?

[cyclindk]

My hope still hinges on the fact that it had been stated that only a few devs were even PRIVY to the fact that the PS4 would possess 8 gigs of RAM... so the idea being, that if they THOUGHT they would only have 4 gigs initially, what would be the big deal of having a whopping 4.5 available to them after the increase was widely known? And the rest going to the OS?

To me, only knowing nearly DOUBLE that amount was going to be available would be at all substantial in any real sense.

I truly think it would be a slight misstep on Sony's part to allocate such a substantial amount to OS functions alone, but I am confident, that with Sony following so much of Cerny's guidance they made the right decision.

Guess he's the guy to ask really.

[CertifiedGamer]

This is what doesn't make sense sony originally wanted to make the PS4 4GB of Ram so that means if 3.5 were for the OS, then 500MB would have been dedicated for games, I call bullshit. They had probably designed the OS a long time ago. Plus Cerny said developers wanted 8 GB, so he pretty much went back on what the developers wanted for the OS?

[NeoTribe]

People are arguing over bs. Bottom line is the console has WELL over enough ram to do what needs to be done. Last of us was made with 256mb of ram. Who the hell cares what the os uses as long as it doesn't run like garbage (ps store).

[AceBlazer13]

Also that browser man. The ps3 as much a I love it had one horrible web browser.

[NeoTribe]

Yeah the browser is pretty trash also. The store was fantastic until people started whining saying they wanted a more colorful live like look to it. Now its overcomplicated and takes forever to do anything. I'm one of the guys who loves the main os of ps3. Extremely simple layout and straight to the point. I don't need pretty bells and whistles all over. I don't spend more than a couple mins on it anyway.

[byeGollum]

Lol you are all so silly worrying about specs as though you're developers. Actual developers are more than happy with the "next gen" specs. Your favourite ps3 and 360 games ran on 512MB of ram, for goodness sake. If 2gb were all the next consoles had, that's still a huge step up.

Most of you aren't really worried about the amount of ram allocated to games, but, you're bothered for the sake of fanboy arguments. ^_^. "My peeS4 has more Ramz".

[aquamala]

It didn't debunk anything. But what's the big deal ps4 has 4.5gb or 5.5gb for games? Oh wait xb1 has 5gb so fanboys want to argue which side has 0.5gb more.. I see now

[Agent_hitman]

Well if Naughty dog for example can optimize the game on a split memory ps3, imagine what they can do more on the 4.5GB GDDR5 ram..

Guys, relax we don't know the truth yet.. Let's wait til sony confirm this news... IT's hard to make an assumption at this premature stage. The console isn't out yet.

[no_more_heroes]

These guys sound like they work for Sony. /jk

He does have a point though. I'm sure even 5GB is enough to last both consoles for seven years.

[ALLWRONG]

N4G is in a total panic. It is what it is guys, get over it. Covering it up isn't going to stop the truth. There are bigger sites than N4G and everyone knows http://www.gamenewshq.com/

[PablitoPaperito]

I'll wait for Mark Cerny issuing a statement about this.

Thanks very much.

I wonder why hasn't he already?

Either the 3.5 GB figure is true or he's busy with hookers somewhere atm.

[_FantasmA_]

Or he could be busy worrying about important stuff like games? Nah just kidding, games suck and they aren't important. Just like this gen, games didn't matter, it was party chat.

[TemplarDante]

DF foundry just lost all my f'n respect.

[urwifeminder]

Keep forgetting ps4 is even coming out MS getting all the press great to see.

[southernbanana]

Some times I do not understand why so many people care more about specs than about games. I buy every console each generation and in the end specs have never mattered. This site is called news for gamers, but I think they need to change it to something like news4fanboys or something to that extent. Can't wait for my day one PS4 and Xbox One!! Their games will be awesome!!

[jairusmonillas]

Sony is still shipping 8GB GDDR5. if they use 4.5 or 5 or 6 it doesn't matter cause its still twice better than xbox one's DDR3.

Plus, Sony can put it 4.5 and just upgrade it by OS update later on unlike Xbox One's less powerful GPU no matter how many update Microsoft do would still be less powerful than PS4's GPU. lol.

[mudmax]

Don't forget about XBones embedded DRAM.

[CuddlyREDRUM]

Or the Emotion Engine?

[mudmax]

Think I'll just stick with my PC and Wii U.

[CuddlyREDRUM]

Sony has confirmed it, but they need to do a better job of giving an actual answer without backtracking at this point.

[kewlkat007]

This will probably end up being true..Sony not being honest again..always coy

These next-gen systems will only add features..

[bromtown]

This whole thing has to be a load of rubbish. Think about it, the PS4 had 4GB of RAM originally, the extra 4GB were added at a later date; which we know because everyone was surprised during the console announcement, it was probably after allocation of resources had begun, so for a console with 4GB of RAM to need 3GB of it for the OS is ridiculous, yes it has more RAM now but that doesn't mean the OS needs more of it.
After the shambles which is the XMB I'm sure Sony wanted the most lightweight OS available, I'd be surprised if it needed much more than a GB - it's a version of linux, itself a very low demand OS.

[joeorc]

I'm sure Sony wanted the most lightweight OS available, I'd be surprised if it needed much more than a GB - it's a version of linux, itself a very low demand OS.

well, it was already confirmed what OS Sony was using for the PS4 AND here ya go:

Cerny also states that the operating system will run on BSD, a flavour of Unix.

http://www.thesixthaxis.com...

which is why i really doubted the claim of 3.5 GB set aside for the PS4's OS, BSD is a low foot print OS and with a Game console being programmed closer to the metal, i very much doubt it is that large of ram requirement, I mean could it be set aside, sure. But would it be? CHANCES ARE more than even THAT WOULD BE A NO!

[PablitoPaperito]

The OS itself might be lightweight-heck even windows 8 only need 1 gb of ram- but what about the apps? What about direct video recording? what about PSN Store? Music player? Cross-game chat?

THose will add up to the OS' footprint, so it's not like you cant leave a decent chunk ram avaliable to them or dinamically reallocate it during a gaming session cuttin off the game itself if needed

[bromtown]

@PaplitoPaperito Well, most of that is controlled away from the main pool of computing power. There are separate processors for the audio (which includes the party chat), video compression and decompression so that will have little to no effect on the amount of RAM needed by the OS. As for the store who knows but it's essentially just a program used for accessing the internet so it can't be that much of a drain, the PS3 runs it (admittedly a little slowly) and that only has 256MB of system RAM. I think it'll be just fine.

[SylviaHouston3]

I checked BlackerD22's link and it looks cool actually...DO you guys have any additional info on this http://goo.gl/Fp9qx ?

[TimeSkipLuffy]

next gen will have 16GB... and millions of social features that I do not need... and all of them will need 12GB of RAM...

[LoveSpuds]

Really don't care about this at all, all I know is that just what has been shown for this coming generation is exciting, imagine what games will look/play like 3 years down the line.

Whether the PS4 has 4, 5, 6 or 7Gb of RAM is doesn't matter, the games are still going to be amazing!

[_FantasmA_]

Only Xbots care about this. Look at the PS3 (amazing I know), and you'll know that PS4 is next big thing in gaming so stop worrying about 0.0001 GB. Sony will still bring the games and the pain.