News PS4's 8GB RAM "a joy" to developers says Dishonored lead designer

Does anyone know how the shift to PC architecture is likely to affect games on PC? There's a lot of comparisons around between the PS4 and current PCs, but if games are suddenly going to be better optimised for PC, doesn't that mean we're all going to get a performance boost too?

 

*deleted

 

Yes. We will get way better ports of games. And finally games that pushes our PC .. at least for the second and third year of the console... after that not so much. i exclude the first year, as the first year is when developers get to know the console and generally, beside having no interesting game, to push the console.

 

Yes, there will be an improvement in ports to the PC. It won't be a one-click "compile for Windows" affair due to API differences, but a lot of performance-critical code in games is typically hand-coded in assembly. Since the PS4 uses the x86 ISA just like PCs and supposedly like the NextBox, this code can just be copied over without issues.

Ditto for the GPU - devs are now able to use all of the latest DX11/OpenGL 4 APIs that are available since the hardware on all platforms will support them.

 

The biggest problem with most ports is the controls actually, atleast from my experience. The gamepads really are very bad input-devices for FPS-games imho and most ports don't adress this issue too well.

Performance-wise most players still play in 1080p, as especially the big screens in the living-room are restrained to this resolution. For 1080p a current $1000 gaming-rig is more then capable to cope with any title released within the next two or three years and the PS4 won't change that much actually. Even on my rig (GTX660 nonTI + i5-3450@stock) I can play Crysis3 @1080p with all settings on high still getting allways above 30fps.
So I'd say that current PCs really have enough headroom for 1080p-gaming and the next gen consoles won't be optimizing for any bigger resolutions really, as affordable big screens for the living-room won't be available with higher resolutions within the next two or three years.

The PS4 only catches up to current PC-performance imho, but that's not bad at all actually, as current PC-graphics are really good allready.

 

Devs In console land don't use graphics Apis like direct x and open gl for reference, all games are coded to the hardware.

If the ps4 is released chrimbo 2013 in USA then by jan feb 2015 we will see the improved ports that we all want, its not going to be an over night thing where on ps4 release PC games automatically are now better.

Will take 14-16 months as is normal in console development.

 

I hope so, i'm having trouble keeping up with all the games i have to play - I NEED MORE TIME!!!

 

While i agree with everyone who has said this is a good thing for PC gaming, I do question the longevity of 8GB of ram.

The PS3 will be over 6 years old when the PS4 is released, how much RAM did your average PC have 6 years ago and how much does your average PC have now ?

Will we be in the same situation 6 years from now, cursing consoles for holding back PC gaming ?

 

PC ram has been pretty stagnant for years due to 32bit OS limitations.

6years ago most had 4gb of ram now most have 6-8gb of ram if using 64bit OS, if not 4gb is still pretty standard.

It's why price of memory has hit the prices it has as people are not buying it in large quantities.

Similar thing is happening in the 2.5inch laptop hard disk market demand is weakening because ssds are so cheap.

 

Seems that all this time game developers have only been interested in aiming for the lowest RAM consoles such as the older PS3... Great nice to know that they make games for the completly chavvy crap they call a console and then port it to PC rather than making it high end for the PC and make the consoles take a lesser hit. But thats time and money for you rather than actual artwork all these developers claim they are making.
They wont use 8GB of ram in their games. I bet a good 1Gb of it will be used by the playstation home screen, apps and other things running in the background at least.
RAMs dert cheap anyway, the only reason they are slapping that much in. If it were still expensive at the time PS3 was released I know they would be using 4GB or less.
Its never about the amount of RAM really available though, the CPU and GPU power has always been the main reason for games looking and being as good as they can be. Take ARMA3 for example, their recommended specs are now a Core i5 and a GTX 560 or above (+amd equivilant)

 

http://www.bradfordtaylor.com/insert-blank-press-start/ps4-vs-the-great-discord/ Is a good read. It goes some way to explaining why devs are happy. Presently , you simply can't buy a PC that's like a PS4. With its unified architecture/GDDR5 memory. The potential is high , and then there's that console advantage - direct to metal.

As for huge amounts of system ram already on PCs , there aren't games that use that system memory, as most games are within that 2GB 32bit OS limitation still . And the high vram >1.5GB, is really only used for higher res than 1080.

 

Finally, someone says it. 512MB total/shared (depending on console) was a woeful amount, even a couple of years after the 360's/PS3's release. By 2007, most PC gamers were on 2GB of RAM, at least, and 256MB of VRAM. And even with Windows, et al, running in the background, there was still plenty of overhead.

I don't mind GPUs being fixed on a console and not being able to pump out as many polys, but I do mind claustrophobic game designs and lack of environmental freedom in games brought on by limited memory. This has a direct impact on the most important aspect of gaming: the gameplay itself, where the ability to run a wide, highly complex level with lots of opportunity for free-form play and emergent gameplay has to be eschewed for a tightly-scripted one.

RAM is cheap. RAM is easy to install, and implement.

Remember the N64? It had RAM expansion back in '99. What's got me about the Playstation 4 announcement is that all the pundits seem to have the foresight of a sawn-off shotgun; and falling into the same trap of "WOOO! It'll last forever!" I imagine after being chocked by 512MB for so long that 8GB really does seem like an infinite amount.

But we need a little foresight here, and if they plan on dragging out the next gen for as long as they did for this gen, I wish they would implement simple RAM upgrades.

 

Well its a shame since every laptop on the planet (ok ok, maybe not every one but 95% plus) has user replaceable ram - why cant the new consoles?

 

Thanks for the link.

Interesting read

+rep

 

large address aware flag allows for >3GB in 32bit and >4Gb in 64bit.


so 4GB for storing the game and 4GB of space to `play` with it

and changing shadoers on the fly....


but dont worry its `only` AMD so a weak cpu will hamper it and GDDR5 latency will mean its dog slow....

 

Well, technically, it's pretty obvious that they could, but I wouldn't expect them to do that - the last thing they want is to make the situation even slightly complicated. Marketing-wise, I suspect the last thing they'd want to do would be to have a "Playstation 4 game" which has specific, well, "system requirements".

When they're selling something like this they'll want it to be a simple situation: if it's a PS4 game it runs on a PS4, no further thinking required. I suspect they'd avoid like the plague any situation where you had to read the back of the pack and decide whether your combination of upgrades was enough to run the game.

 

For each iteration of the Playstation there has been an increase of memory of 16x

 

That's bollocks. 64-bit software can adress more then 4GB if it's coded this way. Photoshop grabs some 6GB on my rig and I've seen it using up to 30+GB in preproduction, when working with large files. So stop telling such stuff please.

And for the latency of GDDR5... you gave the answer yourself before, and that is that GDDR5 can read and write at the same time per clock cycle ( something that DDR3 can't) totally negating the latency-issues and basically delivering 2-4 times more bandwith.
Also, the PS4 isn't limited that much by the PCI-bus, so communication between GPU and CPU is much much faster.

 

It is a really good cash cow and it saves a lot of developing this way. Since the PS4, XBox-XXX and PC are going to run 'some sort' of the same hardware, all support DX11 and x86. You only need to develop a game on one platform. And distribute to all platforms with ease. Enable game pad mode on consoles and mouse mode on PC and you'r set.

 

oh dear

i shall correct your lack of knowledge

32bit programmes on a 32bit OS with large address awars can use up to 2GB (PS uses 1.7GB)

64bit programmes on 32bit OS can use up to around 3GB (ps is slightly above at 3.2 , but thanks to 32bit os hard limits usually doesnt)

64 bit programme on 64 bit OS - whatever ram you have

but apparantly the makers of photoshop are talking **** and your right

http://helpx.adobe.com/photoshop/kb...Opening_32_bit_and_64_bit_versions_on_Windows