Dishonored's lead level designer labels PS4's 8GB RAM "a joy"

When Sony stepped out in New York with the surprise revelation that PlayStation 4 had a whopping 8GB of very fast GDDR5, there were few people more pleased than Dishonored's lead level designer Christophe Carrier.

[alousow]

big joy. let see some results at E3

[SantistaUSA]

Wonders has been done with consoles that only have 512MB! Imagine what dev will be able to accomplish now. I'm interested to see open world games :-)

[DonteDemonSlayer]

Keep in mind Santista that 8GB does not guarantee that the games will utilize all of it. A large amount of it will go to running the OS and social features, probably leaving a little room for future upgrades (The PS3 failed to foresee the importance of cross game chat, and had no left over RAM for future improvements).
SONY could also decide to make the use of the social features optional, but that means that developers would have to choose to include cross game chat, or in game music. Akin to the Vita in which some games the developer can choose to have those disabled to put more power into the actual game (Gravity Rush/Ninja Gaiden both lack the ability to use music and online features in game).

[SantistaUSA]

@DonteDemonSlayer

I'm completely aware that the games won't be able to use the 8GB of GDDR5, I don't how much it will be available for just game, but I'm thinking dev will be able to use up to 5GB and the other 3GB will be for the OS, social features and recording game play etc. Still this is a HUGE jump from 512MB ;-)

[nosferatuzodd]

Indeed look at what was created on 512 mb of ram heavy rain god of war gt5 uncharted gears of war,now can you imagine whats to come damn it i cant wait

[Gorilla_Killa_X]

And those games didn't even use the full 512 mb due to the os of the ps3.

[Muffins1223]

3 to 2 gb's will be used for the ios and 5 to 6 will be used for the game :D

[colonel179]

Didn't they say that the OS and everything that had to do with it (background downloading, in game OS, in game chat, upload videos, streaming, etc) would be handled by another chip entirely; leaving the 8 GB of RAM only for the games.

[NewMonday]

the info available says the PS4 OS will just need 500m of RAM, the talk about 3g of RAM is for the Durango.

[hesido]

@colonel179: The processing will be handled by other chips, not the RAM. The 8GB GDDR5 will be the only ram available on the PS4 for all these tasks, but there will probably be a small amount of Flash ROM for BIOS. Those tasks will need quite a bit of memory, and it would be illogical for them to have their own RAM, as the PS3 has massive amount of RAM anyway.

I am expecting they will reserve 1GB for the OS in the beginning to be on the safe side, launch titles won't probably even use half of the total RAM. Then they will surely be reducing the OS footprint immensely, even down to 512MB's during the life-cycle of PS3.

[PS4isKing_82]

Exactly. Games like watch dogs and future gta games will be brain melting beautiful. Next gen can't come soon enough!

[DigitalSmoke]

3 gig for the Ps3 OS?
Not by a long shot, this isn't a windows desktop you know, 1.2 gig max, but i personaly believe it won't even go over 600MB.

[SephirothX21]

Windows 7 64 bit uses 2gb ram so I can't see PS4 os taking up more than 1gb but will probably be less than 1gb or there is serious inefficient coding.

[Irishguy95]

The fact that those games where only on 512MB shows how unimportant Ram is in Video games. Of course you need Ram. But having an overabundance of it will not magically improve the important parts of the system. GPU - CPU.

[princejb134]

Do you guys really think the OS will consume so much ram?
Our current consoles (not wii u) have 512 mb of ram
This 512 is split for the OS and game
So the ps4 will use a max of 1 gig for the OS
So 7gig goes into gaming which is more than enough

[miyamoto]

RAM it, baby!
RAM it hard!
16 million times!

[TheOneEyedHound]

Now come here! and ram me.

[yess]

Sir. Ramalot

[Gamer1982]

As a level designer we are struggling against memory every day. We cut things, we remove things, we strip things, we split the levels, we remove NPCs from levels because there's not enough memory.

And even the PC versions were cut to ribbons.. I'm excited as a PC gamer as consoles will make PC gaming better. Yet PC gamers "other than myself" complain about them..

[-Falaut-]

"as consoles will make PC gaming better", one of the smartest and truest things I have read in awhile good sir.

[Highlife]

Not sure what else he could say

[Shadow Flare]

He could talk about his cat

[deep_fried_bum_cake]

That would be an interesting article. "My cat Mittens clearly doesn't have 8GB of GDDR5 RAM because he treats me like a stranger every time I see him."

[Shadow Flare]

Shigeru Miyamoto had to take his cat to the vet because it was severely bottle necked

[Liquid_Ocelot]

I like cats

[Gorilla_Killa_X]

I like turtles!!!

[Ritsujun]

His cat was eaten by a rat.

[Walker]

PS4 is gonna be most powerful console game of next-generation !

[baldulf]

So, Dishonored 2 for PS4 confirmed?

[r21]

Oh man, next gen Dishonored is gonna be epic. Maybe full on open world Dishonored 2 :D

[Rob4Vendetta]

I've got to admit I even applauded during the live conference.

[Studio-YaMi]

I thought I was the only one ! :')

[clintagious650]

I think any dev would be happy with that much ram especially for a console, im just glad its easier to develop for because now we can see games created at a quicker pace, talking bout u ff versus.

[kevnb]

I wonder what Sony gives for these statements. Its always about the ram...

[clintagious650]

Maybe they give em a ram in the booty? Lmao jokes.

[Bathyj]

they gave a great developement platform for devs.
and then they got those statements.
its not rocket science, dont be so cynical.

[kevnb]

no doubt, but it feels like they are told what to say.

[Bathyj]

well, not to sound like a broken record but...

http://www.thefreedictionar...

i think your comment is saying more about your attitude then theirs.

i kind of doubt it they were told to say any such thing. they have no ties or allegence to sony. face it, sony asked devs what they wanted, and they gave it to them and now the devs are happy, as should we be, especially since sony consoles have always been difficult to develope on.

this is a big change of attitude for them and i dont see how anyone can see it as anything but a good thing.

[BOLO]

Probably less than M$FT gives for timed exclusives and DLC.

[Bathyj]

i cant see anyone, other than fanboys of other consoles having anything but good things to say about 8gb of gddr5

[Gazondaily]

8gb of gddr5 is undoubtedly impressive. Anyone denying that is just deluded.

[Studio-YaMi]

Only fanboys and PC fanatics are downplaying it,others(especially Developers) are extremely happy .. so do I ! :D

[Sgt_Slaughter]

Okay, so now developers have a lot more to work with and don't have as many limitations...

You now have NO EXCUSES for having buggy, half-finished games at launch.

[cervantes99]

Maybe not from a technical perspective, BUT they still have Publishers breathing down their neck to release their product - often before it is done and fully tested.

[firelogic]

Who wouldn't be happy with 8GB of any kind of RAM? PS360 only had 512MB.

The only problems I foresee is that GDDR5 is expensive and slotting in 8GB of it will probably jack up the price of the console.

Another potential issue is that if the next Xbox uses 4-8GB of DDR3 and is generally underpowered in comparison to the PS4, devs will be targeting their games to the LCD, so unless they treat the PS4 like they do with PC versions today, we're not going to see drastic perfomance gains on it. And due to Microsoft's dictator-like requirements, there's no chance that we'll see huge disparity between PS4 and nextbox games like we see in PC games vs PS360, even if the PS4 is capable of it.

[baldulf]

I think the difference between Ps4 and Durango games might be something like we see today between consoles an mid range PCs. More or less the same game but with better textures and performance.

This is all about third party games, Sony's first pary would really use all that extra juice.

[clintagious650]

Thats probably true with all 3rd party games but where we will see the REAL RESULTS is from 1st party studios who I think will be the ones to PUSH the hardware even FURTHER then what were seeing now.

[HmongAmerican]

right. This happen to all multiplat games. The sole reason all SONY 1st party game look better on PS3 and all multiplat look like sub HD with jagged everywhere.

[lovegames718]

Obviously the "power means nothing unless you optimize" statement shouldn't even be in the same conversation when you talk about Sony and their first devs because we've seen how good they are at optimizing and bringing all the power out of the console. No one does it better. So in this case yeah power means alot!!!!

Now third parties thats a different story but i game on Sony systems more for the exclusive ips.

[KillrateOmega]

Waiting for Dishonored 2 :)

[worldwidegaming]

I am on the "8GB ram" Boat too but...
What are the benefits of having 8GB of ram?
My thoughts:
you could dump an entire game and run it off the ram.
loading should be a thing of the past.
(Still gotta PC style install).
What is starting to bother me right now is the fact
that the CPU/GPU is not the real the focus.
We got ram ram ram!! (singing...)
(who cares if your car now can carry extra gas, how IS the Engine?)

I would love to see a game take advantage of all that ram.
(prediction is No, we will not see that anytime soon unless they dump the game into the ram.)
Ram does nothing for graphics except HOLD them.

With all the song and dance I would hate to hear stuff like
"30fps" is great and good enough or "720p" is the sweet spot.

[Studio-YaMi]

If games are going to be 30fps or 720p,I'll be really pissed,even if it was 720p,at least every game should be 60fps from now on !

[MasterCornholio]

Many developers are praising the 8GBs of ram that the PS3 provides. Now what im wondering is what they think about the Wii U which only has 2GBs of ram with only 1GB available for games.

I didnt shove the 720 into my comment because even though the ram will probably DDR3 theres still 8GB that devs can take advantage of (minus the OS which is the same in the PS4s case)

@Bathyj

I completely agree that 8GBs of GDDR5 ram will be great for developers and its certainly better than the 720s rumored DDR3 ram and the Wii Us pathetic 2GBs of DDR3 ram.

[madjedi]

Deja vu 2006 all over again.

[TurboGamer]

If 1GB is for OS, then devs would most likely split the remaining RAM 50/50 between the CPU and GPU.

[ICECREAM]

Welcome to the real gaming