PS4 devs can only use 4.5GB of system's 8GB RAM - Report
Digital Foundry says 3.5GB reserved for operating system, 1GB of which could be given back to devs
For industry watchers who follow spec sheets, one of the Xbox One's disadvantages against the PlayStation 4 was that Microsoft was reserving a chunk of its console's RAM for always-on applications, leaving game developers only able to access about 5GB of the system's 8 GB total. But according to a report from Eurogamer's Digital Foundry, Sony is imposing similarly strict limitations on the PS4, guaranteeing developers only 4.5GB of the system's own 8GB of RAM.
According to the report, Sony's current PS4 developer documentation describes the system as reserving 3.5GB of memory for the operating system. However, depending on availability, developers may be able to reclaim an extra 1GB of that to use for games. Digital Foundry noted that earlier Sony documentation indicated that only 512MB would be kept from developers, although those specs were based on a machine with only 4GB of RAM in total.
While it imposes a lower ceiling on developers, the reserved RAM of both systems would reportedly allow for greater flexibility of programs that run in the background, as well as quicker switching between tasks. In Sony's case, the company was said to be flexible about the amount reserved for the OS, so there is a potential for the 3.5GB reservation to be reduced over time.
The One is actually running as two entirely seperate computers, specifically to prevent interference,and it looks like Sony is following the same course.
This generation I predicted OS sophistication close to Android, iOS or Windows Phone platforms (more the latter sandboxed ones) that are running advanced multimedia capabilities at speed with 1GB of mobile DDR2 (or 2GB for the newer phones and tablets).
If the report is true, hopefully it will be justified, otherwise the dream of no glaring RAM limitations may fade, particularly having to share with the GPU. I do think its ok to the extent that this won't stop the consoles from expressing incredible game performance and showing off what the next generation is made of but it raises a few questions :)
Edited 1 times. Last edit by Adam Campbell on 27th July 2013 7:58pm
Most PC games still target Win32 with its 2Gb per process limit. Even counting video RAM both consoles are well ahead of the PC baseline. 4.5Gb doesn't seem much of a problem.
Edited 1 times. Last edit by Paul Shirley on 27th July 2013 2:11pm
I mean, the PS4 vs PC demo of Unreal Engine 4 shows some solid differences between what a High-End PC can do and what a PS4 can do, but Watch Dogs...?
Edited 2 times. Last edit by Tucson K Bagley on 28th July 2013 2:46am
@ Moville Not necessarily. A well optimized PC game like say Skyrim can run 1080p @ 60fps on a 1GB GPU. Heck that game can run near console and level on an ultrabook. It all depends on the developer. Also with new consoles basically being PCs optimization should be even easier than before. People should get more multiplat performance out of their GPUs this generation than any before it.
Edited 1 times. Last edit by Nicholas Pantazis on 28th July 2013 11:48pm
"Vblank Entertainment's PS4 developer head Brian Provinciano has told the media that the report froM Digital Foundry about PS4 only has 3.5GB of memory available for games, is "absolutely false". While not going into details, he mentioned that games can access a combination of both "Direct Memory" and "Flexible Memory", which makes up the 8GB RAM in the system. There are games in development that uses 6GB of RAM."
Nevertheless with 16GB becoming standard, simply due to the low price, future games designed for the PC will have to be dumbed down considerably for inclusion in future consoles, Console games have alas been holding back PC's for years by keeping most of them to puny console ports, be nice when some dev's show to the full potential or at least some of it given the lack of years of optimisations of people's PC's for once, the new shared architecture will have positive effect on PC games, its clear by now PC's aren't going anywhere, and the fact that the entire industry has been focused on Consoles and now Tablets (like many people actually play games on tablets and mobiles.... they might buy a couple, but the only time I've ever found the need to play them was either a on an plane with nothing better to do, or b outside a dentists office with nothing better to do, controls are terrible, gameplay restrictive as a result, not tbh very fun, kids and casuals might continue to buy mobile games, but not all gamers like mobile gaming, and the lousy experience you get doing it, anyone who likes even a shred of immersion will avoid them )but never on PC games seems daft to say the least, their justification for this is one excuse about how PC is dying and not mainstream after the other, yet the most successful games of all time have appeared on PC, and game controllers whilst fine for many times of game play are still not nearly as precise as mouse and keyboard control. which restricts many games. and PC audience > consoles, make games beautiful enough and they'll happily upgrade their pc's to run this new class of games.
That's not to say consoles don't have their uses or games that suit them fine, its just there is and should be space for both in the industry, and publishers have put their thumbs in their ears and hummed away to the tune that only console games matter for so long that when the thumbs finally come out, it may be to late to adjust to a more balanced approach, and the increased profits that will come with it, before new companies or methodologies beat them to it, alas some have now added tablets to the humming tune, reality is no single platform holds the key to success, its dipping into them all in their strengths that should matter, its the fault of publishers and dev's that when as the valve hardware survey shows, the majority of gamers have 64 bit os and dx11, yet the majority of PC games cater only to 32 bit ones with dx11 if present as an afterthought as best, that shows publishers and developers are wildly out of touch with the market, maximum profits rarely come from being so out of touch with your audience. PC gamers have been seeking games that fully utilize their pcs for years but have yet to see any, even crysis 3 itself was ram limited.
Still from the comments the accuracy of this seemt to be in question, 3.5GB for a console os does seem a little extreme given the step up from what they previously had to deal with, I doubt they'd go to all the trouble of going to 8GB ram then hobble their new platform quite so badly as to make only 4.5GB available for most games of the bat, sure console developers will run into a RAM wall within a few years, but not quite that early me thinks.