It's even funnier that they think people can be fooled so easily. You can confuse parents and kids with this kind of stuff but people on the internet (and especially on gaming websites) are way to knowledgeable to believe this gibberish.
It actually is a far more pain to actually use esram.
Esram is 32 mb and is not actually fully 200 gb/s bandwidth. It is 100 write and 100 read. Unlike PS4 which does 180 on write and 180 on read.
Biggest problem here is that for X1. You are going to spend alot of time, power and bandwidth just to break gigantic files into smaller 32 mb so esram can use it.
In otherwords, for X1, you have to pre process files to process them. You use bandwidth twice and use your processor to do this. Result is inefficiency.
Files now days are almost 20-40 gig. Imagine chopping those into thousands of 32 mbs depending on situation... alot of pre work.
PS4 you just load it on ram and use it. high efficiency.
But they HAVE fooled people so easily. They're Microsoft. They've been doing exactly that for the last 20 years. When your consumer base is full of people who - for example - get RRoD multiple times and yet stay loyal, why wouldn't you just steamroll over them? When your consumer base is full of people who - for example - have already forgotten how Microsoft behaved for the first half of 2013, why wouldn't you just lie to them and distract them with shiny lights?
"You can reduce the bandwidth on external memory – that saves a lot of power consumption as well and the commodity memory is cheaper as well so you can afford more."
Well why didn't Microsoft (a) make the console cheaper than the competition or (b) add more than 8GB of memory?
Nvidia and AMD would beg to differ. Having more bandwidth on larger capacity RAM actually makes high end graphics easier. There comment cannot be defended because it is the opposite of logic.
Not only does ESRam add a complex step of micro managing memory; having only 32MB insures that Xbox One will never see 4K gaming of any consequence due to the fact that it is too small to contain a single 4K frame which would be at least 63MB in size.
The problem is the majority of people who buy consoles are not interested in "sepcs" and the kind of RAM these systems offer. The only people that care would be gamer's and enthusiasts like us on this site. Unfortunately we make up the minority and not the majority. If this were not the case systems like the 3D0 and the NEO Geo and even the PS3 would have blown the doors off the other systems in sales all around by miles. The common consumer who represents the bulk of the buying for consoles knows squat about these technical specifications let alone differences in bandwidth and RAM. It's all alien to them. I wish this were not the case, however it is and one of the reasons no console that had the most power ever won a console generation. It always comes down to games and price.
Now Sony has hit it out of the park in my opinion with the PS4 because the system offers the most power for a console system on paper AND it's cheaper then its direct competition. WIN, WIN. Price matters and Microsoft unless they drop the price to match the PS4, expect some hurt in the MS camp come holiday season.
LOL LOL I am getting disagrees for stating the truth. People actually think the common consumer is talking about the bandwidth and speed differences between these different RAM protocols? LMAO! I love this site! No wonder it's laughed at so much :-P
Do kids really worry about that? No, they don't. They want to play games and enjoy. They could careless, they don't fap to technology like most of the people on here.
@Eonjay "Not only does ESRam add a complex step of micro managing memory"
-Nah, not saying he's right or wrong about DDR3+eSRAM being the better route vs GDDR5 but eSRAM is a natural evolution of eDRAM which devs have been using quite well for years on 360. In fact if you read it they both work the same however eSRAM is just a progression of eDRAM that quote: "we could clean up a lot of the limitations that we had with the eDRAM" http://www.eurogamer.net/ar...
Even funnier to think that parents and kids (I think you mean the people who aren't following every bit of tech news) will have any idea (or give a dang) what GDDR5 is. Heck most people don't even know what ram really does.
They dont care, they just want games to look and play great. Unless they look significantly better/worse than the PS4 it doesn't matter
"Files now days are almost 20-40 gig. Imagine chopping those into thousands of 32 mbs depending on situation... alot of pre work. "
I like how 47 people agreed with this comment, please show me the files that are 20-40 gigs in size... you don't know what you are talking about and obviously many others here don't either...
@EonJay
"Not only does ESRam add a complex step of micro managing memory; having only 32MB insures that Xbox One will never see 4K gaming of any consequence due to the fact that it is too small to contain a single 4K frame which would be at least 63MB in size"
Sony has already stated the PS4 cannot do games in 4K, Microsoft has stated there is nothing preventing it should a developer choose to use it.
I don't think you understand the point. Regardless of what EsRam can do or how it has evolved, its very existence MEANS that you have an extra step of complexity intrinsic to the fact that you HAVE to write code to manage it. It you are working on the PS4, you just drop your resources into the pool of GDDR5 ram.
The GDDR5 approach sounds much more comfortable. The added complexity of the memory system on the Xbox One presents no advantages or benefits to developers.
You didn't know that here in America how people get fooled pretty damn easily?
Hmm I've read countless articles from numerous 3rd party devs who said the system is super easy to develop for and now I'm suppose to take the word of some Microsoft lackey?
Ok buddy if you say so. Did anyone read the comments on that article claiming they haven't read these the articles where 3rd parties said otherwise?
While it is doubtful that the PS4 could have complex environments in 4K, the situation is even bleaker for the Xbox One. Find out what a frame buffer is, then come back and we can hash this out. Where in the actually eff would the Xbox store a frame buffer for a 3840 pixels × 2160 pixel resolution frame? How much memory does that kind of frame take up?
Hint: The math is 3840*2160*8/1024/1024 (In Megabytes)
The DDR3 pool is the only thing large enough to contain the frame. So now since you have to compare DDR3 speed directly to GDDR5 speed (and GPU power to GPU power), what seems more likely? Who among us is uninformed enough to believe that the PS4 can't do 4K gaming, but the vastly slower system can?
Its not about picking sides; its about respecting the truth.
wow... the ignorance of people on N4G takes another step forward... I understand you don't believe him, but don't pretend to know what you're talking about
lol, game creation is filled with thousands of steps,(coding etc) some are very minor in nature, some are major steps, all of course are important but what I do know as has been stated is that ALL developers who created games for 360 last gen are used to developing xbox games utilizing eDRAM/eSRAM. In fact its well known even with this "complexity" as you call it the xbox 360 was said to be very easy to develop for, so it seems you want to introduce a issue where there is none.
Now if what you mean is that ps4 development is more straight forward then OK, fine at the same time as micro architects believe there is a bandwidth and low power consumption advantage by utilizing DDR3+eSRAM combination so clearly at least from Microsoft point of view just a straight forward approach wasn't ideal(balanced) therefore eSRAM was a better choice and does not ADD anymore complexity than last gen so why not go that route???? Again I have no idea which is in FACT the best, generally I'm prone to believe both strategies in regards to RAM have their pro's and con's (historically it always works that way) but I'm stating this is micro's logic for their decision, you may disagree, call it PR or whatever but your OPINION that their strategy has no "advantages or benefits to developers", well that's not surprising its expected on this site that anything in favor of Microsoft will be doubted but fortunately you aren't a 1st or 3rd party developer for X1 and you are NOT in any creditable position to know this. Which is why, although I don't take micro's claims as fact, I definitely view most n4g folks spewing matter of fact type claims on yet unreleased products really as just useless unsubstantiated talk to support their agenda.
Your long winded response is littered with credible points. Also, you are right to say that people often present opinions as facts. Thats why I always encourage people to educate themselves before engaging in a debate. Only then can you establish who is credible and who is not. I openly engage in flame wars because I enjoy it. I like the debate and I find that when you encounter people who are informed, everyone can benefit from a gain in knowledge and perspective.
I am an independent developer, so when I give technical commentary, I do so from an informed and educated frame of reference. When I say that a unified pool of memory is easier to work with, its because I have experience programming and I have the educational background in computer architecture to make such a claim.
I do like your fighting spirit however and I do appreciate you actually using technical arguments/references to make your points.
pure click/flamebait. gamingbolt know what their audience wants on n4g.
if you read the whole interview on digital foundry, the guy was speaking in terms of heat and power. nothing to do with how difficult it is to work with.
You realize that none of you people matter though right? All they need to do is fool the kids and parents, the average consumers.
You have no idea how much of a minority N4G is and the rest of "hardcore gamers", we don't make a difference, we don't make the company profitable.
Sony/Microsoft care more about the bros who only buy games like FIFA, Madden, and Call of Duty. They care about little kids wanting the Kinect or the Move and having fun motion games so parents buy the systems.
You and I are nothing. Like it or not none of this tech talk matters.
@Eonjay, why x8 ? A Pixel - assuming we use RGB32 - is 32 bits wide, which makes this x4 = 4 bytes per pixel. With that said, a frame would roughly fit into a 32MB buffer. It's a bit unclear to me if a complete FB needs to fit into ESRAM, though, but true, it is very unlikely, this will ever be used in games - at least not if you want to draw more than a couple of stick figures and use more than one buffer.
Also, MS added a "VRAM-MMU". The HW can "virtualize" the ESRAM into DDR which can make it look like a 8 GB pool. But still, with that, I doubt the full bandwidth will be available. At least it makes it easier to map memory into esram. Paging to and from ESRAM is done by the MoveEngines, no CPU or GPU data transfer needed - but yet again, all it really gives you is taking r/w ops away from CPU or GPU (so helps you with ALU) but it still will use memory bandwidth.
All in all, MS screwed up. If the goal was to use all this to make a cheaper machine, they failed. XBone is $100 more expensive. If the other goal is to make the more powerful machine, they failed here again. PS4 is more powerful.
It's all smart engineering, but it took them too long to get it too market and Sony passed them laughing out of the window. Lucky for them the GDDR gamble paid off.
Eonjay - an independant developer with experience...
or loulou, JokesOnYou - known Microsoft/Xbox fanboys...
Who am I going to believe?
Developers coming out with clarification to Sony's PR that unified memory is superior to ESRAM....
or a Microsoft employee outright lying to people and trying to push it as fact.... -
Yeah, it's funny how those loyal to Microsoft are under their spell in a ridiculous way. It's kinda like this sort of deceit was made for their ears only. Dear me.
@Eonjay Your math is wrong.. With consumer 4K(which really isn't 4K but rather 2160p) Resolution(2160p) 3840*2160 = 8294400 pixels Bytes per pixel for 24 bit color is 3 bytes or 24bits/8bits per byte = 3 bytes. So total memory for just the framebuffer would be 8294400 * 3 = 24883200 bytes convert that to kilobytes 24883200/1024 = 24300KB and lastly convert that to megabytes 24300/1024 = 23.73046875MB
32MB > 24MB last time I checked.
If we use 32bits per pixel or 4 bytes we get 3840*2160*4/1024/1024 = 31.640625MB which pretty much is 32MB.
4K is really a terrible term since it only technically specifies the horizontal resolution was only primarily used for cinema and video production. Just for fun lets do the math using the largest standard 4K resolution. Full aperture 4K or (4096 × 3112) MB = 4096*3112*3/1024/1024 = 36.46875MB So unless you were talking about Full aperture 4K then the XBOne should have no trouble using it's esram to store the framebuffer if that's what they'll even use it for.
How I see it on N4G, whenever I see a comment with heaps of disagrees it usually means it's quite a truthful, honest statement. And if u get heaps if agrees your usually just dribbling $hit. Just dosnt make sense.
The only teams who will use any system to the max capacity are Sony's first-party teams. Microsoft's first-party titles don't even push their system further than the third party titles. So for anyone looking for more than another MS title, Sony is still the place to look.
Give me a full in depth run down of RAM, like what it does, what its made of, and the differences in DDR3 and 5. Explain in detail why its better to use PS4's RAM versus X1's.
What's truly funny is how folks on here fool themselves into thinking people really waste there time trying to fool them.
Microsoft don't care about you, you've already made your mind up. Microsoft care about the people who are going to use their console, and when they get it that they won't be disappointed.
@Deadpoolio
As you can tell by my pic I've been playing games for quite a while and have been through so many platforms. No platform better than the PS2 era, but this time around I feel Xbox One is the console to go.
I can assure you I i know a thing or two about consoles and computers and imo, I believe Xbox One is better. Of course not better first party games, but a better console overall.
I'm trying to stay out of the power thing by basically stating that the games will tell the tale, but as far as I know, none of their big ticket games are 1080p except
Now I'm not saying that the xbone can't do 1080p because that's stupid with Forza staring at me that I just wrote, but since there's less 1080p games right now for the xbone, it tells me that the xbone might just be a little harder to squeeze to get that power out.
Please name one high end graphic cards using eSRAM . Name one high end graphic workstation from film that users small pools of eSRAM. You cannot because they don't they all use large pools of gddr5. Worst that 32 mb eSRAM is not 1 pool.
That's a dev problem, at the end of the dat they have to develop a quality game, don't really care how hard they work or if the work overtime without salary
If the game is awesome it will sell well, if it's bad and buggy won't get our money regardless the reasons behind it
These news feel more about a person's preference than a real problem with the X1
@givemeshelter, the reason why we care about specs is because it won't hold game developers back from creating better games, in the future, for the console. People say specs aren't anything... They really are..
Oh, someone beat me to it; As far as Infamous, here's a comment from Digital Foundry:
"At a confirmed 1080p resolution as well, Sucker Punch's latest is the most polished and CGI-like title on display. It looks gorgeous in play, with its per-object motion blur being up to God of War: Ascension's lofty bar of quality, and the character's pyromaniac moves bringing out the developer's sterling effects work. The visual standard is unlike anything we've seen achieved on PS3: Delsin swaps to a smoke form in the blink of an eye while lunging at opponents with fiery fists, lit particles fly, and the billows light up brightly with each flaming swipes. Heat haze effects also make an appearance, making every punch and glide a sight to behold."
I seldom pull bull when it comes to talking about specs of a game, PC, or console; if I say it, you guys can pretty much take it to the bank that I at least heard it from a website that claims to have had a hands-on experience with a game. I don't lionize consoles or games or pretty much anything unless it's clear that I'm joking.
Actually 99% of 360 games released on DVD without the need of a 2nd DVD. Last gen only solidified the idea that HD DVD and Blu Ray was NOT NEEDED for gaming as it would have been a added cost that wasn't necessary to make 99% of the games released last gen. The proofs in the pudding, Sony successfully used ps3 as a Trojan horse for bluray, but even ps3 exclusive games didn't offer or anything that wasn't possible on a DVD. Cleary this gen with games requiring substantially much more space than last gen from a practical standpoint although possible lol, it would not make sense to use DVD.
As for the GDDR5 vs DDR3+eSRAM claim I have no idea whether they are right but it won't matter much really, most multiplats will be almost identical and both are plenty powerful to make great exclusive games. Majority of gamers will see Ryse and say "Holy crap that looks like an awesome next gen game." The same majority will see KZ SF and say "Wow, that looks amazing"....and just like that folks are going to buy either console or both based on THE GAMES THEY LIKE MOST, not specs and if they truly can't live without knowing they have the latest and greatest cutting edge graphics regardless of gaming preference then they are going to buy or update their gaming PC.
btw this is OLD news with 1 quote taken out of context from a very well done Eurogamer interview that has already been posted, usually I see mods/members report similar news submissions. http://n4g.com/news/1368003...
JokesOnYou: Except that 1% were high profile, high demand titles such as Halo, Forza and GTA. With each of those series either workarounds were introduced or full on system upgrades were done. Are examples of exactly why the choice was a bad one, unlike the ten score copies of the Battleship FPS, a remake of Blinx or Barbie's Dream Adventure.
@jeffgoldwin: What are you even talking about. That was an entirely different console generation were DVD was actually high end media storage and the internet wasn't so prevalent. Devs didn't have the luxury of updates to compensate for the release of a half finished game.
You may as well try pointing out the shortcomings of Windows 8 during the 1970s. The ineffectiveness of black and white film during the 1920s.
What exactly do you think Blu-ray did for the PS3? GTAV had one less disc in the case thanks to the power of Blu-ray. Wow, on the Xbox 360 you needed to insert the install disc one time. Biggest, largest budget game to date and that is the difference. What exactly did you see this gen? MGS's 50 gig Blu-ray that was actually 9 gigs installed to the HDD? PC's smoke PS3 and Xbox 360 graphics, how many games came out on Blu-ray to do this? Blu-ray is a storage medium. It won't make games look better, it makes it so you can make games longer in theory. The problem was a good part of that data needed installed to the HDD to work. Blu-ray on the PS3 was too slow and not efficient. If anything it hurt games more than it helped. You want fanboy to quit defending Microsoft's decision to not force Blu-ray on them, please enlighten us with what it did.
As for Halo, Forza and GTA needing the second install disc, not a bad trade off for the amount of HDD storage saved from mandatory installs from Blu-ray. DVD9 games could play entirely off the disc. Not the same for Blu-ray.
Godsmars what are these work arounds you speak of? Skyrim is one of the biggest games ever in terms of content and gameplay hours its also been praised for its open world graphics, and note its an open world game which if any game should suffer from work arounds due to multiple disc it would be open world games. The games you speak were done that way by choice and again the fact that you acknowledge ONLY 1% of games needing 2 discs only hurts your case that Bluray was NEEDED, it might be hard for you to admit but that simple statistic proves it wasn't and don't pretend that's because only Barbie games fit on 1 disc when tons of the most highly rated and successful games this gen shipped on 1 disc. http://www.destructoid.com/...
"Simply put, this is a beautiful game. The scenery on display here is almost unparalleled in the genre. From scenic viewpoints atop snowy mountains to the rushing streams and waterfalls I found myself often just stopping and admiring for a while." Here just read about what Skyrim accomplished on ONE DISC, if Bethesda can do this, then that speaks to devs making choices for their games instead of being limited by DVD format: http://www.metacritic.com/g...
JokesOnYou has been fooled. Man what a puppet you are. And all your Xbot boyfriends give you bubbles all day for the crap you say. I don't blame them though, I mean they have lots of free time because there's nothing to play on their BroBoxes.
@JokesOnYou: "Godsmars what are these work arounds you speak of?"
Removing 2GB of erroneous security codes on DVDs to allow for more space. Allowing for HDD installs. Separating SP and MP modes to different discs so that 360's w/o HDD could play either mode. The current Xbox is radically different from the one which was originally released. It's limitations directly impacting some games on the PS3 and PC.
Is it possible the games were not made as big because of the DVD size limit? There's something called the lowest common denominator, and in some cases games were built for them. In others, more features were added to the blu-ray versions. In other cases, some of the bigger games of the gen came in quite large...particularly those exclusive 1st parties from Sony.
Saying that the space wasn't needed is being naive. The games were tailored around the space available. I highly expect that next gen, games will see a sudden boost in disc size since the limitation of a smaller format is no longer around. Coincidental since it's just a new gen? I highly doubt it.
As to the article, generally the less a programmer has to work with, or around, the simpler it is to work with. Cache memory is an extra step. Doesn't make ESRAM bad by any measure, just means the architect is really grasping at straws.
While reading the article, I wondered to myself why the developers would give a rats ass about power consumption of the console. That's a system architects problem, and for the most part, people aren't too concerned about such matters while playing games. It would appear to me that Sony isn't worried about power consumption given the size of the case. It's small enough that the power has to be low in order to allow for proper heat dissipation.
But yeah, lets ignore the many devs who said the PS4 is awesome to work with and follow suit with an architect of it's competition.
It just came across my head.a large amount of people here talk tech and say how easy it is to ''dump everything on the GDDR5''and everything is solved.I ask myself how many people here make games.everyone seem to know how to developed for Xb1 and PS4.all you guys are surely making games.
the reason the PS4 has 8GB of unified GDDR5 it's because that's what developers wanted. But if you put slow memory like DDR3 then you would have to speed it up with esRam to not bottleneck the available bandwidth for the GPU but then that wouldn't be "unified memory" anymore.
Cerny: "My first tour of the developers, I had a questionnaire where I just asked them their thoughts on what the next generation might bring. The largest piece of feedback we got was that they wanted unified memory.”
hmmmmmmmm, amazing how not a single Dev is saying any thing bad about ps4 and nothing but praise ....because Cerny made sure to make what all dev's wanted
and the only dev who is saying unified GDDR5 Ram is Uncomfortable.....is xbox dev -__-
Just because you're ignorant on the subject, True_Samurai, doesn't mean everyone else is. And you don't have to be a dev to understand. That's just a quick excuse you guys use to try and discredit anybody who actually DOES know what's being talked about, so that you can pretend you're on the same level.
^^^^ than explain. It's easy to talk when you "Google" on the subject and "pretend" you know about the matter. Unless you have the hardware and is working on projects with GDDR5 or eSRAM. than I can say you guys don't know jack shit about the matter
Man so much non-existent factual representation in an argument. The Xbox guys are so desperate this time around to justify something that is factually inferior.
Some people can't face that generations are different, companies make different decisions each generation. Sony remedied all problems of PS3 from a technical and hardware architecture standpoint. Cerny was lead architect for a reason, as the SCE hardware team understood where PS3 went wrong in terms of developer and user satisfaction from an extremely early point. http://www.youtube.com/watc...
PS4 was made with developer input from its inception. What makes you believe that Cerny's approach would not be the best for developers?
Its funny how MS defend inferior technology ;)