• Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.

FRIDAYTON MK II: 5.5 million bears and salmon create unholy allliance to sack SONY HQ

Odrion

Banned
512 MB
to
3.5 GB


What the?
512mb to 1.5gb for the OS.
An extra 1gb earmarked for the future.
The other "flexible 1gb" hasn't been explained. But if they need it, it's there. So it's basically 5.5gb unless the flexible ram requires a virgin sacrifice or something.
 

StoopKid

Member
Sony moneyhats, far as the eye can see

So your saying Sony is money hatting to keep developers quiet on the ram ?

Jennifer-Lawrence-ok-thumbs-up.gif
 

daveo42

Banned
Leave for a few hours and it seems like I didn't miss much of anything. I suppose no official word from Sony and we'll have to wait till at least Monday?
 

Klocker

Member
Wonder when Sony is just going to come out and say something.

Wouldn't hold my breath. They never confirmed o's memory reserve footprint last gen iirc as that info came like this, From devs.

Anyone upset about this is just due to them setting themselves up for it by buying into total speculation as fact for the past few months
 
This is the dumbest reach I think I've seen yet, though to be fair I've only lightly skinned this thread since it was always destined to be a shitstorm. You're going to spend more than $800 on a PC with a 7950 and a blu ray drive unless you get a CPU that bottlenecks your GPU or buy mostly used parts. That's skipping over the PS+ nonsense.

why do you need a blu ray drive on a gaming PC for ? and here's a CPU for $150, AMD FX-8120, an 8 core CPU running at 3.1Ghz (so 50%+ better than PS4's CPU). the rest of the PC won't cost $350.
 
512mb to 1.5gb for the OS.
An extra 1gb earmarked for the future.
The other "flexible 1gb" hasn't been explained. But if they need it, it's there. So it's basically 5.5gb unless the flexible ram requires a virgin sacrifice or something.

Plus, Sony is willing to shave down the OS through optimization and potentially change the alotments further down the road unlike MS who has their limits set in stone.
 

Discusguy

Member
I can see why Sony is reserving that much for the OS. I don't like it but they have to compete with what the X1 is offering in terms of the multimedia and other stuff. Was it the hardcore gaming machine that everyone expected? Certainly not for my case but it is what it is. I went from an early adopter to a wait and see which system has the better ecosystem because that's where these two console are shooting for with that much ram reserved for OS.
 

i-Lo

Member
The problem is, we've had developer statements, which all basically say "Calm the fuck down. You people have no clue what you're talking about. We have plenty of RAM to work with, for the sake of holy fuck."

Nobody listened.


Amazing how devs (you know, the guys and gals who work with this shit) all seem to be more than happy with the PS4's RAM. But don't let that cloud your righteous indignation.

You see I get that. But it all seems like this from devs point of view now: "If Sony ships with 4GB overall, then they're dead in the water".

After the Feb event, developers and managers (like from Unreal) were heaping praise at Sony saying that their requests had been finally fulfilled. So now, it sounds like all they ever wanted was capacity between 4.5 and 5.5GB.

And once again, this "future-proofing" malarkey by Xbone and PS4 via sequestering a whole gigabyte of ram seem less about each other and more about some potential foreign threat from mobile market. Makes me wonder if these manufacturers have forgotten what they are being built for in the first place, esp. PS4. Seldom will people buy "playstation" with the intent of doing multiple things that aren't gaming related (now that Blu-ray players are cheaper than ever) and are also excluded given it's not a xbone. It just boggles the mind that Sony could so much with only 50MB on PS3 and yet struggle to reconfigure their 1.5GB without having to rely on another extra gigabyte.
 

mr2xxx

Banned
This doesn't make sense in slightest. Most of the developers were surprised about the 8GB announcement, which means that the system was built around 4GB as some of the leaked documents noted. Sony was developing the OS around 4GB for the majority of the time but once they got the news on the final specs the OS takes a massive jump in resources? Hopefully we get some better sources on this.
 
What's funny is Cerny tells us that they doubled the RAM because the developers said 4GB is too little. Now all of a sudden, giving developers a pinch more and using the majority of the additional RAM for OS and everything is fine. They put in all of this extra GDDR5 RAM only to have the majority of it used for OS bloat. We're talking about future proofing... how about the lean mean gaming machine future proof the games and allocate more resources to it? No wonder that developer said Sony would be killed if they shipped with 4 GB of RAM with the story of this massive OS on the system. What did developers have to use before? 2 GB? 1.5 GB? If 4 GB is RAM aplenty for next-gen, take the extra 4 GDDR5 out and put that extra $50 or $80 towards a higher tier GPU.

I got on Microsoft for their massive resource usage not dedicated to games, so Sony will get the same treatment. At least in Microsoft's case, they are at least DOING something with the RAM, whether it be Kinect, the multiple operating systems or DVR functionality. Sony is just sitting on a massage pool of RAM for no reason they've communicated to gamers. 3.5 GB is utterly ridiculous. If 4.5 is supposedly enough for next-gen games, which are some of the most resource intensive applications around, what in the world is Sony planning to run in the background of a game? Allow you to instantaneously switch into a Home-esque 3d world/interface while playing a game?


Microsoft is forcing Windows 8. They are trying to make the Xbox one into a legitimate Windows 8 machine and I wouldn't be surprised that in their next sales figure announcement, they say that the Windows 8 adoption more than doubled since the surface because of the sales of the Xbox. Also on top of that, just because it still plays games, does not mean that MS still doesn't give it the second class citizen treatment. People are so quick to forget that they are still tv focused and still fighting to be the main component in the living room trying to beat out Apple and Google (Not sure anymore with Chromecast)

What you seem to not understand is, Sony has not said anything on what that extra is for. In this case, I would suspect that they are indeed future proofing the system for things that are unannounced or unaware to us right now and saving something for later just incase. I look at it like this. I won the lottery and I have all this money. Now I don't want to be broke...so for right now, I will put the rest in a CD just in case I might need it for the future. If I don't need it, then I can take it out and invest it somewhere or keep it there to continue to grow when I do need it. Why blow all your money away when you can use it to boost or sustain yourself in the long run?
 

Odrion

Banned
Also the "Sony will optimize!" thing is a little funny because if they have really do have 1gb earmarked it means they're planning on growing the OS footprint out more than shrinking it.
 
Plus, Sony is willing to shave down the OS through optimization and potentially change the alotments further down the road unlike MS who has their limits set in stone.

Have we heard this ANYWHERE from ANY insider? I know you're trying to make a joke, but if you are implying people are just making up stuff pretending to be "insiders," you are wrong.

Actually we don't have ANY facts, even in the OP.

ProElite dropped the "MS can increase RAM down the line" tip in this thread iirc.
 
You see I get that. But it all seems like this from devs point of view now: "If Sony ships with 4GB overall, then they're dead in the water".

After the Feb event, developers and managers (like from Unreal) were heaping praise at Sony saying that their requests had been finally fulfilled. So now, it sounds like all they ever wanted was capacity between 4.5 and 5.5GB.

And once again, this "future-proofing" malarkey by Xbone and PS4 via sequestering a whole gigabyte of ram seem less about each other and more about some potential foreign threat from mobile market. Makes me wonder if these manufacturers have forgotten what they are being built for in the first place, esp. PS4. Seldom will people buy "playstation" with the intent of doing multiple things that aren't gaming related (now that Blu-ray players are cheaper than ever) and are also excluded given it's not a xbone. It just boggles the mind that Sony could so much with only 50MB on PS3 and yet struggle to reconfigure their 1.5GB without having to rely on another extra gigabyte.
I get where you're coming from, but if the amount of RAM going toward games was anything other than amazing, we'd've heard something from some dev complaining--or at the very least, we wouldn't be hearing so much flat out gushing praise.

Also the "Sony will optimize!" thing is a little funny because if they have really have 1gb earmarked it means they're planning on growing the OS footprint out more than shrinking it.

No, it means they have 1GB earmarked just in case. They have no plan for it yet, I'm assuming. If devs eventually need it, I'd bet they'll open it up to them.
 

Durante

Member
Also the "Sony will optimize!" thing is a little funny because if they have really have 1gb earmarked it means they're planning on growing the OS footprint out more than shrinking it.
It's not really "funny" at all, considering both precedent and technical viability. If anything, OS memory reservation sizes will shrink throughout a console generation, they'll never grow.
 
Also the "Sony will optimize!" thing is a little funny because if they have really have 1gb earmarked it means they're planning on growing the OS footprint out more than shrinking it.

I think people mean it more about that 1GB that seems to be in limbo. The way I see it, according to the info we have, the OS will for sure have 2.5GB to itself no matter what (and whether they actually use it all or not), and the other 1GB is the true part that is being reserved 'just in case'...
 
So the theory offered in this topic I'm going to believe for now is:

Sony has allocated

4.5GB for games

1.5GB for OS

2GB in limbo.

Of this 2GB:

1GB offered to game devs to fill.

1GB offered to OS team to fill.

The interesting part being the OS team will always be trying to reduce their footprint, while the game devs will be slowly increasing theirs as the game engines/graphics become bigger and better. It seems over cautious, but it's probably a better way for reacting to future changes.
 
Also the "Sony will optimize!" thing is a little funny because if they have really have 1gb earmarked it means they're planning on growing the OS footprint out more than shrinking it.

Then you don't understand what optimization is. Optimization is cutting back to make stable to open space to do more. You can have 1GB optimize it and then grow on it all at the same time. Having something extra for just "in case" is not so bad if you can't promise what will happen in the future. Features like Party Chat and recording might take a lot of resources now, but in the future can get to a point where it's non existent on memory. However running games 4K and needing that extra space to push that... might be what ideal.
 

i-Lo

Member
It's not really "funny" at all, considering both precedent and technical viability. If anything, OS memory reservation sizes will shrink throughout a console generation, they'll never grow.

While that's the precedent this generation starts off (for both consoles) by this:

No, it means they have 1GB earmarked just in case. They have no plan for it yet, I'm assuming. If devs eventually need it, I'd bet they'll open it up to them.
 
512mb to 1.5gb for the OS.
An extra 1gb earmarked for the future.
The other "flexible 1gb" hasn't been explained. But if they need it, it's there. So it's basically 5.5gb unless the flexible ram requires a virgin sacrifice or something.

Have we heard this ANYWHERE from ANY insider? I know you're trying to make a joke, but if you are implying people are just making up stuff pretending to be "insiders," you are wrong.



Actually we don't have ANY facts, even in the OP.

Proelite said it
 

kevm3

Member
Microsoft is forcing Windows 8. They are trying to make the Xbox one into a legitimate Windows 8 machine and I wouldn't be surprised that in their next sales figure announcement, they say that the Windows 8 adoption more than doubled since the surface because of the sales of the Xbox. Also on top of that, just because it still plays games, does not mean that MS still doesn't give it the second class citizen treatment. People are so quick to forget that they are still tv focused and still fighting to be the main component in the living room trying to beat out Apple and Google (Not sure anymore with Chromecast)

What you seem to not understand is, Sony has not said anything on what that extra is for. In this case, I would suspect that they are indeed future proofing the system for things that are unannounced or unaware to us right now and saving something for later just incase. I look at it like this. I won the lottery and I have all this money. Now I don't want to be broke...so for right now, I will put the rest in a CD just in case I might need it for the future. If I don't need it, then I can take it out and invest it somewhere or keep it there to continue to grow when I do need it. Why blow all your money away when you can use it to boost or sustain yourself in the long run?

The One is running three OSs compared to Sony's one and it is STILL using less resources than the PS4 is full hog if these rumors are true, and that's pathetic. If we're talking about future proofing, PS4 is a games console and Sony went on and on about the lean mean gaming machine... so how about future proofing GAMES and freeing up more resources for them instead of creating this titanic operating system. Otherwise, throw in DVR functionality so we can at least get feature parity with the One.
 

darkside31337

Tomodachi wa Mahou
The One is running three OSs compared to Sony's one and it is STILL using less resources than the PS4 is full hog if these rumors are true, and that's pathetic. If we're talking about future proofing, PS4 is a games console and Sony went on and on about the lean mean gaming machine... so how about future proofing GAMES and freeing up more resources for them instead of creating this titanic operating system. Otherwise, throw in DVR functionality so we can at least get feature parity with the One.

Xbox One doesnt have DVR functionality...
 

StoopKid

Member
The One is running three OSs compared to Sony's one and it is STILL using less resources than the PS4 is full hog if these rumors are true, and that's pathetic. If we're talking about future proofing, PS4 is a games console and Sony went on and on about the lean mean gaming machine... so how about future proofing GAMES and freeing up more resources for them instead of creating this titanic operating system. Otherwise, throw in DVR functionality so we can at least get feature parity with the One.

I thought the Xbox one couldn't dvr ?
 

ironchair

Banned
Then you don't understand what optimization is. Optimization is cutting back to make stable to open space to do more. You can have 1GB optimize it and then grow on it all at the same time. Having something extra for just "in case" is not so bad if you can't promise what will happen in the future. Features like Party Chat and recording might take a lot of resources now, but in the future can get to a point where it's non existent on memory. However running games 4K and needing that extra space to push that... might be what ideal.
That makes me wonder, does anyone think that we will see 4K video streaming (a la Netflix) on our new consoles in the next few years? That would be pretty cool.
 

Heshinsi

"playing" dumb? unpossible
So the PS4 still has a much better GPU, nearly the same amount of allocated RAM for games but faster RAM, and is $100 cheaper...someone explain to me how the PS4 comes out looking worse than the Xbox One?
 

Odrion

Banned
Oh really? So there really is only 2GB for the OS right now? Huh. Had no idea.
I dunno, from what we learned in this thread developers really don't need more than 5gb to work with right now. Maybe it is smart for both sides to have 1gb earmarked for the future.
I guess there goal was 7 GB of RAM to games...
No, the 7gb was foolish speculation. They'd had this ram allocated for quite some time now.
 

fritolay

Member
Explain how having the same amount of faster RAM available, plus a more powerful GPU for a lower price makes the PS4 a worse or equal "deal."

And remember, we're talking specs, not games (which are purely a matter of opinion).

Well look at Sony's history with what they say about their consoles. They will be used for missile guidance systems, 8 usb ports, you will want 2 jobs, they usually deliver more on hype than reality. Besides the PS3 was supposed to be much more powerful than the 360 so I think right now just having faster ram means nothing.
 

prwxv3

Member
Well look at Sony's history with what they say about their consoles. They will be used for missile guidance systems, 8 usb ports, you will want 2 jobs, they usually deliver more on hype than reality. Besides the PS3 was supposed to be much more powerful than the 360 so I think right now just having faster ram means nothing.

Except it does.
 

i-Lo

Member
I get where you're coming from, but if the amount of RAM going toward games was anything other than amazing, we'd've heard something from some dev complaining--or at the very least, we wouldn't be hearing so much flat out gushing praise.

One thing to note I am fully cognizant that more RAM does not mean "better graphics!" per se. So I was not expecting visual differences between 5 v 7GB. However, more RAM could have been used various underlying aspects, like mitigation of load times even further or (given the GPU can draw up to 1.6B poly/sec) more importantly, a more persistent world with all the relevant positional data of everything can be cached on to the RAM w/o having to rely on HDD for streaming on demand or caching tons of pre-calculated bits of information instead of procedurally generating it (faking dynamic deformation for example) that stresses the GPU, etc.

While these things are certainly possible now, higher limit means more leeway.
 
This is an outrage! Cancelling my pre-order and will pay 100 more for less ram that's also slower. Wait.
I laughed.

Well look at Sony's history with what they say about their consoles. They will be used for missile guidance systems, 8 usb ports, you will want 2 jobs, they usually deliver more on hype than reality. Besides the PS3 was supposed to be much more powerful than the 360 so I think right now just having faster ram means nothing.
They never hyped any of the PS4's number; they just gave them. As far as guessing what amount of RAM went toward what function, that was message board speculation. And the PS3 was more powerful than the 360 in some areas, weaker in others. But it was a bitch to program for. That isn't the case with PS4.

Those other things you referenced was from a long dead Sony. They've been quite honest and treated gamers damn fairly in more recent times.

And they don't "just have faster RAM." Their GPU is also a more powerful, which counts when you're talking about graphics.

This basically summarizes my thoughts. It's all ABOUT THE GAMES, then this crap WTF
Because devs...the people who make those GAMES, couldn't be happier about the PS4's RAM. Anything other than what they think is meaningless.
One thing to note I am fully cognizant that more RAM does not mean "better graphics!" per se. So I was not expecting visual differences between 5 v 7GB. However, more RAM could have been used various underlying aspects, like mitigation of load times even further or (given the GPU can draw up to 1.6B poly/sec) more importantly, a more persistent world with all the relevant positional data of everything can be cached on to the RAM w/o having to rely on HDD for streaming on demand or caching tons of pre-calculated bits of information instead of procedurally generating it (faking dynamic deformation for example) that stresses the GPU, etc.

While these things are certainly possible now, higher limit means more leeway.
I get where you're coming from. I just feel like until we hear devs squealing about the RAM situation, it just isn't that big a deal.
 
Top Bottom