Support NeoGAF

[ekim]

http://gamingbolt.com/xbox-one-ddr3...am-both-are-sufficient-for-realistic-lighting

We had a chance to speak founder and COO of Geomerics Chris Doran, whose company created Enlighten which is used for creating lighting for games like Battlefield 4 on the subject of – what else? – next generation consoles. Specifically, we compared the Xbox One’s 8 GB DDR3 RAM and the PlayStation 4′s 8 GB DDR5 RAM, with 5 GB and 7 GB allocated to games respectively, and asked Doran which is a better solution for crafting realistic lighting.

He stated that, “Both of these are more than sufficient. To understand why, you have to remember than on the current generation we had around 512MB of memory to play with. This meant that developers would routinely ask us to fit our global illumination calculations into 10-20MB.

On the next-generation consoles, developers are happy to give us 10 times more space to play with – in some cases even more! And with 8 CPU cores and powerful GPUs, there is plenty of compute resource for us to make use of. It is this massive increase from current generation to next generation that really excites us – that factor of 10 increase is going to be far more significant than the additional memory on the PS4.

I’m sure as the cycle evolves, developers will look at ways to squeeze more out of the PS4, but we have a long way to go with exploiting the opportunities presented by the massive jump in resource over PS3 and 360.”

Not really shocking news but interesting to see someone involved in the business acknowledging that the PS4 is more powerful - at least in terms in RAM.

 

[Zukuu]

[
Not really shocking news but interesting to see someone involved in the business acknowledging that the PS4 is more powerful - at least in terms in RAM.

No shit.


The jump is really big this time tho. Biggest RAM jump we ever had so far.

 

[TheCloser]

What is sufficient now is not always the case tomorrow. 512mb of ram is the perfect example. 5gb is not enough.

 

[Lirrik]

Not really shocking news but interesting to see someone involved in the business acknowledging that the PS4 is more powerful - at least in terms in RAM.

DUH.

 

[bigbaldwolf86]

It's basically confirming that the differences between the two consoles will be small which is something we all figured would be the case anyway for multi plats. It's going to be first parties where you could really see the difference.

 

[w1gglyjones]

What is sufficient now is not always the case tomorrow. 512mb of ram is the perfect example. 5gb is not enough.

Seriously? 5gb is closer to "enough" for the next 5 years than 512mb ever was.

 

[ekim]

No shit.

Yeah? That's what I wanted to imply...

 

[Rashid]

So 7gb for the ps4 confirmed then?

 

[mrklaw]

It's basically confirming that the differences between the two consoles will be small which is something we all figured would be the case anyway for multi plats. It's going to be first parties where you could really see the difference.

It is doing nothing other than a middleware vendor wanting to not piss off potential customers by saying their engine won't be as good on Xbox.

 

[TheCloser]

Seriously? 5gb is closer to "enough" for the next 5 years than 512mb ever was.

It's simply not enough especially when your primary competitor has more. It would be extremely silly for you to base your statement on the scope of current games today. The scope of games will exponentially increase with this new generation.

 

[Timedog]

RAM is only used for lighting.

 

[Hanmik]

this i the lightning you get with 8GB GDDR5 Ram..

Spoiler

(j/k)

 

[ekim]

It's simply not enough especially when your primary competitor has more. It would be extremely silly for you to base your statement on the scope of current games today. The scope of games will exponentially increase with this new generation.

I also tend to think that 5GB will become an issue later in the generation - especially when your oponent has 2 GB more of faster memory.

btw: How much RAM was common in PCs when 360/PS3 were revealed?

 

[TheCloser]

It's basically confirming that the differences between the two consoles will be small which is something we all figured would be the case anyway for multi plats. It's going to be first parties where you could really see the difference.

Yea, keep telling yourself that. As far as I'm concerned, the power gap is huge. It's big on the spec sheet and it's even bigger when comparing the design.

 

[TheCloser]

this i the lightning you get with 8GB GDDR5 Ram..

Spoiler

(j/k)

0/10 cause 1/10 is too mainstream...

 

[Metalmurphy]

Misleading title, he's talking about the size, not type.

 

[nib95]

I also tend to think that 5GB will become an issue later in the generation.

btw: How much RAM was common in PCs when 360/PS3 were revealed?

256mb or 512mb at the top end. This generation is seeing a bigger ram jump comparative to the PC gpu competition. I think less ram coupled with much less memory bandwidth could prove to be an issue for the XO in a few years time, but the ram difference alone might have been workable with a few cut backs here and there. It's that lower bandwidth that's the other spanner in the works.

Guess we'll have to wait and see, but Sony has a strong upper hand here, in every way.

 

[Deprive]

What do you want them to say? Their not going to piss off microsoft by saying the xbone is weaker. :|

I figure there probably will not be much of a difference for the first few years. But if we get another long gen again...

 

[nhlducks35]

I also tend to think that 5GB will become an issue later in the generation - especially when your oponent has 2 GB more of faster memory.

btw: How much RAM was common in PCs when 360/PS3 were revealed?

IIRC, my 2006 iMac had 1GB of DDR2 memory

 

[CoG]

I also tend to think that 5GB will become an issue later in the generation - especially when your oponent has 2 GB more of faster memory.

btw: How much RAM was common in PCs when 360/PS3 were revealed?

Doubt that, unless 4k games becomes big which I hope not. My PC only has 4GB RAM + 1GB GDDR5 and I run most games at 1080p / 60fps. And that's with bloaty Windows on top. This coming generation will be limited by CPU/GPU long before memory.

 

[benny_a]

Yea, keep telling yourself that. As far as I'm concerned, the power gap is huge. It's big on the spec sheet and it's even bigger when comparing the design.

He thinks it's small, you think it's huge. The numbers are the only thing we can go by at the moment.

And the dude in the OP is trying to sell his product. Why would he advertise that his middleware solution requires tons of memory? Small memory consumption + his advertised results is better than big memory consumption + his advertised results.

 

[~~Hasan~~]

It's basically confirming that the differences between the two consoles will be small which is something we all figured would be the case anyway for multi plats. It's going to be first parties where you could really see the difference.

small or not. i will buy my games on the system that will look/play better.

i will not settle down for inferior port. even if it was just a little. period.

 

[bigbaldwolf86]

It is doing nothing other than a middleware vendor wanting to not piss off potential customers by saying their engine won't be as good on Xbox.

lol

Yeah this as well. The last thing they want to do is say the Xbox One version is inferior in any way and then have that affect your sales.

 

[Krilekk]

I also tend to think that 5GB will become an issue later in the generation - especially when your oponent has 2 GB more of faster memory.

Nothing is stopping them from just offering more to games at some point. Sony did it this gen with the OS overhead that went from 120 MB down to 50.

btw: How much RAM was common in PCs when 360/PS3 were revealed?

1 GB was common, plus 128 MB Video-RAM.

 

[nib95]

Doubt that, unless 4k games becomes big which I hope not. My PC only has 4GB RAM + 1GB GDDR5 and I run most games at 1080p / 60fps. And that's with bloaty Windows on top. This coming generation will be limited by CPU/GPU long before memory.

That's when running current gen ports lol. Crisis 3 running 8xMSAA on Ultra uses up to 3gb vram even at just 1080p. And again, that's a current gen game. Give it a few years and 5GB's is going to seem paltry. There's a reason many devs asked for 8gb vram this time around. Those extra next gen graphical features are costly. Some still too costly even for the next gen consoles.

 

[Panajev2001a]

No shit.


The jump is really big this time tho. Biggest RAM jump we ever had so far.

PS1 = 3.5 MB IIRC
PS2 = 40 MB, 11.43x, 16x for main RAM only
PS3 = 512 MB, 12.8x
PS4 = 8192 MB, 16x

 

[TheCloser]

Doubt that, unless 4k games becomes big which I hope not. My PC only has 4GB RAM + 1GB GDDR5 and I run most games at 1080p / 60fps. And that's with bloaty Windows on top. This coming generation will be limited by CPU/GPU long before memory.

You really have no clue. Wow, you can run console games on your pc. Come talk to me in 2 years and we'll see if you are running anything at 1080p, talkless of 60fps. The baseline increase with the New consoles. Your pc is already useless as we speak. You have less ram than the consoles and your video card is ram limited.

 

[netBuff]

He thinks it's small, you think it's huge. The numbers are the only thing we can go by at the moment.

And the dude in the OP is trying to sell his product. Why would he advertise that his middleware solution requires tons of memory? Small memory consumption + his advertised results is better than big memory consumption + his advertised results.

He doesn't say the difference is small, just that the difference between the platforms isn't that big compared to the overall increase in processing power with this generation versus the last.

In RAM alone, the PS4 has a huge advantage - in addition, the PS4 also has a significantly more powerful GPU (50% or more).

small or not. i will buy my games on the system that will look/play better.

i will not settle down for inferior port. even if it was just a little. period.

Absolutely this - it is why I bought most of my multi-platform games on 360 this generation, and why PS4 will most likely be the platform of choice next generation.

 

[CoG]

That's when running current gen ports lol. Crisis 3 running 8xMSAA on Ultra uses up to 3gb vram even at just 1080p. And again, that's a current gen game. Give it a few years and 5GB's is going to seem paltry. There's a reason many devs asked for 8gb vram this time around. Those extra next gen graphical features are costly. Some still too costly even for the next gen consoles.

I think you're going to end up heartbroken this generation if you think the GPUs in either console can push anything requiring that much VRAM.

 

[lightchris]

Doubt that, unless 4k games becomes big which I hope not. My PC only has 4GB RAM + 1GB GDDR5 and I run most games at 1080p / 60fps. And that's with bloaty Windows on top. This coming generation will be limited by CPU/GPU long before memory.

That's only because current games are made with the tiny memory of 360/PS3 in mind. There's no such thing as too much memory no matter the CPU/GPU power. You can always make use of it.

 

[TheCloser]

I think you're going to end up heartbroken this generation if you think the GPUs in either console can push anything requiring that much VRAM.

Like I said earlier, you really don't know what you are talking about. You are the one that will have your heart broken.

Lol, I can't believe you seriouslying think your pc will run next gen games 2 years from now. It can't even run some games now,1080p/60fps. Ie crysis 3, Metro 2033 just to name a few. Btw, killzone shadow fall is already using more than 3 gb of ram on the ps4.

 

[nib95]

I think you're going to end up heartbroken this generation if you think the GPUs in either console can push anything requiring that much VRAM.

Lol. The Witness, a downloadable game, is already using 5gb of vram on the PS4. Admittedly mainly to ease strain on optimisations and level load, but still, just goes to show how wrong you already are. Games are going to make use of that ram within the first two years.

 

[ThoughtsOfSpeaking]

I honestly beleive to take full advantage of the PS4s 7gb for graphic fidelity you will either need a budget several times larger than current norms or at least a years extra dev time.


So basically that rules out everyone bar naughty dog

Lol. The Witness, a downloadable game, is already using 5gb of vram on the PS4. Admittedly mainly to ease strain on optimisations and level load, but still, just goes to show how wrong you already are. Games are going to make use of that ram within the first two years.

I expect this to be the main use of it. Seemless transitions between levels.

 

[dragonelite]

That's when running current gen ports lol. Crisis 3 running 8xMSAA on Ultra uses up to 3gb vram even at just 1080p. And again, that's a current gen game. Give it a few years and 5GB's is going to seem paltry. There's a reason many devs asked for 8gb vram this time around. Those extra next gen graphical features are costly. Some still too costly even for the next gen consoles.

Yeah but next gen wont run with 8xMSAA we may be lucky with 2xMSAA.

 

[lightchris]

I think you're going to end up heartbroken this generation if you think the GPUs in either console can push anything requiring that much VRAM.

High res textures for example don't need power. It's almost completly limited by RAM size.

 

[Sethos]

Can't wait for this generation to start, then PCs will finally become obsolete due to that massive amount of GDDR5. No PC can follow that at such a low price point, we'll be gaming in 8k at the end of the generation on the PS4 with all that power. Man it's going to be so awesome watching the salt unfold.

 

[nib95]

Yeah but next gen wont run with 8xMSAA we may be lucky with 2xMSAA.

With the ram available I expect 4xAA to be a popular choice. But that's not taking in to account all the new graphical features these games are going to be pushing that Crisis 3 doesn't. See new Unreal demo's.

 

[angular graphics]

Developer of middleware for PS4 and Xbox One says it works just fine on both. Shocking news.

I mean UE3 worked better on the 360 in 9x/100 cases but if you ask Epic they'll tell you "it works amazingly on both!" Instead of "yeah, our engine on the PS3 kinda sucks."

 

[TacticalFox88]

Are people still not getting how utterly batshit fucking insane eight gigs of GDDR5 is?

 

[twobear]

That's when running current gen ports lol. Crisis 3 running 8xMSAA on Ultra uses up to 3gb vram even at just 1080p. And again, that's a current gen game. Give it a few years and 5GB's is going to seem paltry. There's a reason many devs asked for 8gb vram this time around. Those extra next gen graphical features are costly. Some still too costly even for the next gen consoles.

Serious question: why is it a bigger problem this generation than any other generation? Wouldn't we have expected VRAM usage in games to balloon dramatically over the course of every generation? TLOU doesn't use more than 256MB of VRAM but it looks leaps and bounds better than launch games.

 

[Sobriquet]

I also tend to think that 5GB will become an issue later in the generation - especially when your oponent has 2 GB more of faster memory.

btw: How much RAM was common in PCs when 360/PS3 were revealed?

512mb

 

[ekim]

I honestly beleive to take full advantage of the PS4s 7gb for graphic fidelity you will either need a budget several times larger than current norms or at least a years extra dev time.


So basically that rules out everyone bar naughty dog





I expect this to be the main use of it. Seemless transitions between levels.

I think the main advantage is the ease of use for developers with the unified pool and the large bandwidth. Can the RAM bus on the PS4 read and write in parallel or do you need to switch context?

 

[TheCloser]

Are people still not getting how utterly batshit fucking insane eight gigs of GDDR5 is?

It's really not insane if the console has a 10 year life cycle.

 

[moolhy]

Basically: "We're gonna gimp multiplatform titles for the lowest common denominator"

 

[nib95]

Serious question: why is it a bigger problem this generation than any other generation? Wouldn't we have expected VRAM usage in games to balloon dramatically over the course of the generation? TLOU doesn't use more than 256MB of VRAM but it looks leaps and bounds better than launch games.

I never said it was a bigger problem this gen compared to last. Not sure I'm qualified to guage that. Last gen it was SD to 720p, that's a big jump. This gen it's 720p to 1080p, another big jump. But my guess is more games will be 60fps this time too, so maybe the games will be more demanding this next gen, who knows.

 

[Echoplx]

http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=616471

 

[ekim]

With the ram available I expect 4xAA to be a popular choice.

Probably only on the PS4 - I think that multiplats will use the ESRAM on the X1 to apply AA and afaik the 32 MB will allow 2xAA for free - I'm not sure if this is constrained to the targetted FPS but I would say yes.

 

[twobear]

I never said it was a bigger problem this gen compared to last. Not sure I'm qualified to guage that. Last gen it was SD to 720p, that's a big jump. This gen it's 720p to 1080p, another big jump. But my guess is more games will be 60fps too, so maybe the games will be more demanding this gen, who knows.

Uhm, honest question, does 60fps use more VRAM? I thought it just needs more bandwidth?

 

[TheD]

Uhm, honest question, does 60fps use more VRAM? I thought it just needs more bandwidth?

No, it does not need more RAM.

 

[TheCloser]

Serious question: why is it a bigger problem this generation than any other generation? Wouldn't we have expected VRAM usage in games to balloon dramatically over the course of every generation? TLOU doesn't use more than 256MB of VRAM but it looks leaps and bounds better than launch games.

It's not, see the issue here is devs won't start to optimize until they have exhausted their memory pool. That is when you start coming up with unique and complex solutions to complex problems. Ie, witness using 5gb of ram or skyrim ps3 complex solution to memory issue.