Cerny: PS4 8GB GDDR5 RAM Was Decided in Very Final Meeting

PlayStationing writes: "Mark Cerny, lead architect of the PlayStation 4, almost didn’t get his way when it came to getting 8GB of GDDR5 RAM into the console (it was going to be only 4GB). In fact, it came down to the very final meeting regarding the architecture of the PS4."

[Themba76]

and a very good decision it was.

[IronFist]

Truth!

[Abash]

Both developers and gamers thank Sony for such a great choice

[The_Truth_24_7]

You rang?

[Mr Pumblechook]

Make Mark Cerny a saint!

[Sevir]

Developers did express surprise and gratitude when Sony announced
It at the meeting last year,

Previous kits started with 2, then 4. It was a moving target, and when the yield breakthrough allowed for fabrication they went for it. A great decision because 4 gigs would have been suicide for the console to run all the apps and features they have.. Cerny and the the engineering team made a great product perfect fir development. :) and a machine gamers love.

[MazzingerZ]

I think it was decided early by a few, those with the descision powere but in order to avoid leaks they made it official in the last meeting. Cerny and Shus' evil plan...just look at that pic haha

[Hellsvacancy]

Abash 100% agreed

[ColinZeal]

ALL HAIL THE CERNY!

[fr0sty]

After seeing how well it paid off, I doubt Sony will ever consider skimping on RAM again. You gotta have the hardware to be future proof...

Gotta love Cerny. He may look like he should be driving around parks in a van with no windows offering kids candy, but he knows his video games.

[alexkoepp]

Funny because we know the OS is reserving 3.5gb, so a whole 500MB wouldn't have done much good...

[johndoe11211]

@alexkoepp

Oh alex alex alex alex, you never fail to impress us with your mediocre and senseless attempts at trolling every ps4 article.

I really feel like I shouldn't be answering your question because we all know that nothing anyone says would make a dent in that xbox loyalty vest you're wearing but I'll do it anyway.

All the early dev kits that were given to the devs had 4gigs of ram. The only time the devs found out about the 8 gigs was at the reveal just like us.

Now, please feel free to go ask misterxmedia if it's true so you can come back here and troll us some more.

[tokugawa]

great decision...

microsofts xb1 decisions on the other hand.... hmm

[miyamoto]

Mark Cerny is a living legend & god of video games!

[Ritsujun]

It's ok, MS. Do not give up!! :DD

[MysticStrummer]

Yes alex, because the OS was always set in stone.

smh

OT - I wonder how things would look if they hadn't gone that route. I remember an early tech discussion around the time of the reveals that said 4GB of GDDR5 would be better than 8GB of DDR3 and eSRAM.

[cfc78]

Greatest move of gen 8.

[GeofferyPeterson]

Thank you Mark! (But I'm still not buying Knack)

[frostypants]

Yep...the benefit-to-cost ratio is huge. They'd have been fools to not adhere to Cerny's request.

[stuna1]

I would call it forward thinking! Developers were already complaining about memory and, wanting 2 to 4 Gigs of it, Cerny just gave it to them in Spades!

[DefenderOfDoom2]

You DA MAN Mark Cerny ! Great job!!!!

[randomass171]

PS4 hardware = truly state of the art. That much is for sure. :)

[Immorals]

As a console.. Not really. Last gen ps3/360 were as powerful as high end pcs at launch. This gen is blown out of the water by pcs.

[ThanatosDMC]

^For the price and quality, I dont think so.

[Tsar4ever01]

In terms of perfomance power, Ps4/Xb1 doesn't impress pc enthuesists. Ps4's HD 7870 gpu was considered a solid mid_range performer in 2012, and it's gpu has been gimped by down clocking the MHz & disabling 2 f it's cores to better accomidate it's low power supply. But what makes both Ps4 & Xb1 "state of the art" is it's new Hardware Intergration" tech. Putting Cpu/Gpu & memory controllers together on a single chip. This is what make the consoles special.

[Foliage]

The only people disappointed by the lack of power this gen are xbox 360 fans; who thought the xbone was not going to suck.

This is a pretty distinctly varied generation:
WiiU = Worst Hardware/Power
Xbone = Sizable improvement from WiiU
PS4 = The most sizable improvement compared to the next best

PS4 is nearly in a tier on their own.

So please don't speak for all of us xboners; PS4 owners are damn excited about this generation and the improvements made. You can try fitting everyone into your boat to make yourself feel better; but this is like the Titanic:

WiiU = Lower Class locked away and nearly all drowned
Xbone = Some Were Saved On Lifeboats, the rest drowned
PS4 = All were alive; as they stayed home playing the best looking console games to date

[ProjectVulcan]

It's not state of the art but it is at least the fastest games console by quite a ways.

[imt558]

Adam Boyes played his role in this 8GB GDDR5 thing. Nice article, recommended.

http://www.playstationlifes...

[choujij]

Lol. I can't believe several butthurt fanboys would disagree 8gb RAM is better than 4gb.

[3-4-5]

The Bigger story here is REALLY:

* Once again Somebody who ACTUALLY knew what they were doing/talking about, had to convince a room full of egotistical wealthy idiots, that 8GB was a good choice.

* Once again, the "money guys" at the top, were only thinking about "cost", and not about future long term value because they aren't intelligent enough to figure that stuff out.

* PS4 ALMOST didn't get 8GB, because of a bunch of elitist douche bags.

^ This is the reason crappy things are starting to happen more and more in the video game industry.

They brought int too many " money guys".

Thank god for the likes of Mark Cerny & other people at Sony/Microsoft/Nintendo who actually know what they are doing.

[lameguy]

Can you imagine what the world would've look like today had the Xbox also chosen DDR5?

I'm not talking power here, but rather the supply constraints with fabrication of that much RAM... It would have been a very rocky start for both consoles :)

[gaffyh]

@lameguy - It's GDDR5, DDR5 is nowhere near to development.

@3-4-5 - Unfortunately that's how the world works, and for a good reason. PS3 was priced so high because of Ken Kutaragi's design, and it was simply too high-tech for it's own good. With the PS4 there was an emphasis on keeping the cost down, and spending the money where it really mattered, so he would have had to make a good case for it. This means that we have an affordable console (not $599), which is still very powerful. It could always be more powerful, but the business guys have to think about the bottom line too, otherwise they would just go bankrupt and never make a new console.

[assdan]

the ps4 couldn't have made it all gen with just 4gb. It simply wouldn't have. It would have killed the xbox one for the first year or two, and the fallen off of a cliff. Thank God for Cerny.

[ITPython]

I sure hope Sony gave him a big fat raise for this one, as he single handily guaranteed that the PS4 would dominate this gen from the beginning to the end. And I don't think Sony could have ever anticipated how well the console would sell.

Could you imagine if it only had 4 GB? The PS4 would still be more powerful than the XB1, but not by much. Which means the decision of getting one console or the other would be a bit harder, and would basically be decided based on the features of the console, exclusives and online services.

Right now the decision is pretty easy, as the PS4 has the extreme edge on multiplat games, so people choose the PS4 first and then might consider the XB1 in a few years once it has some decent exclusives. But if all the games looked and performed nearly the same, this console war might have been neck-and-neck, rather then the one-sided slaughter it is now.

Cerny for 2016!

[johndoe11211]

"I sure hope Sony gave him a big fat raise for this one"

Mark Cerney is not an employee of sony, he's a consultant, he has his own company.

[johndoe11211]

How the hell do you get a disagree for a known fact?????

[PSFanboy007]

Sony is the greatest company in the world. They created PS4 which is a generation ahead of Xbone and it takes the PC geeks two over priced GTX Titans to match the power of an optimized PS4.

Let's face it, PS4 is a super computer.

[bumnut]

Whatever you say buddy. Not sure whats funniest, the comment? The fact you believe it? Or your lack of PC knowledge?

2 titans to match ps4!!!!!!! Stay off the crack

[PSFanboy007]

@bumnut Is u jealous. If ur PC rig is so much more powerful as u claim it to be...then how comes the Resolution of Last of Us on PC is 0000×0001 0000.001fps whiles on PS4 it is 1920×1080p 60fps. So yeh, all the power is with the PS4. The greatness certainly awaits for one of the greatest game ever on the greatest console ever known by mankind.

EDIT: xbumnut, u mad. Jealousy is a sign of denial, regret, & mental health issues. U dont need higher than 1080p unless ur one of those nerds who like to spend ur entire year saving on 4k hdtv's over 65". No content, no native games of 4k res means pointless. 1080p is full HD. I can understand ur bitter that u spent half of ur income on a GPU that cannot perform as good at 1080p on such game of the year that is Last of Us on ur rip off expensive GPU. I feel ur pain but ur continued defense of ur money spending is just retarded. PS4 is were the greatness lies. Buy a PS4 and be happy with it.

PS4 4 Life!

[bumnut]

You are without doubt the biggest fuckwit I have ever encountered on this site.

And that takes some doing so gold star for you.

Enjoy buying games twice

[MysticStrummer]

@bumnut - You fell right into the trap.

[showtimefolks]

This decision will pay off big time in few years, imagine xbox one had DDR3 memory for next 5-6 years atleast

while ps4 will have the newer faster GDDR5 which i think will be used more in PC's moving forward

Mark Cerny a gamer was the lead guy on ps4 and it shows. He wasn't looking to make it a entertainment box at the expense of having less power for games. Right now xbox one may have few more AAA games but indies are on PS4 and moving forward every 3rd party game will look better and run better on ps4. Once the 1st-2nd party exclusives start rolling in, its all but over than

[Dhuie]

Here Here !

[miDnIghtEr20C_SfF]

Still really no PS4 games to talk about, so why not make the number 1 story on N4G about something we've known for like 6 months now already.

Boy, what breaking news.

[gaffyh]

He's really smart by how he went about this

[gameDevWannaBe]

indeed!

[GUTZnPAPERCUTZ]

You are right, MS thought they had it in the bag when they went with 8gb DDR3 since PS4 would have had 4gb GDDR5, but even MS stated they were surprised during the unveiling.

[Gazondaily]

Yup I did mention this to someone but got disagreed with. Those early leaks were true. It was a very late decision that caught MS unawares.

[Lowsnamebrand]

It definitely threw a wrench in Microsoft's cog, Sony was smart to listen to very on this matter

[gameDevWannaBe]

One of the richest tech company and they are cheap mofos! lol

Ddr3.. 100 million spent on making a controller and it still needs batteries? lol sure.. Will get xbox in 2017 - 2018 though cuz all I want right now is that remedy game unless it comes to pc..

pc and ps4 is an awsome combo!

I think this gen is cheaper for me since it's easy to beat console specs and ps4 is also a good price.

[HugoDrax]

That 100 million dollar controller last wayyyy longer than my DS4 controller. That's the truth.

[marioJP87]

While I agree, my xbox one controller lasts a week before I have to recharge my rechargeable duracell batteries, whereas my PS4 dual shock controller can't last a day.

[Salooh]

Instead of batteries and a charger just buy another DS4 , so when battery is dead just change the controller. That would have a lot of benefits over X1 controller.

So that would be a negative for X1 not a positive.

[ITPython]

I may loath and detest everything XB1, but I have to admit that the PS4 battery life is abysmal, and the XB1 controller having a battery pack that can take rechargeable NiMh batteries is a pretty nice option/feature.

I think Sony messed out on a wonderful opportunity in regards to the controller battery. What they should have done is stuck a 18650 li-ion battery in there, and allow us to easily remove it (for swapping with a freshly charged battery).

An 18650 li-ion would have worked the exact same way as the li-ion battery in the controller now, it could still be charged with the USB, it could be swappable, but it would have had WAY more juice. Were talking 800mAh (battery in PS4 controller now) vs a 3400mAh 18650 battery. It would have had over 4 times the lasting-power.

One day I want to modify the PS4 controller and stick a 18650 in there, or at the very least attach a small pack on the back of the controller that's wired up to the controller so I can use an 18650 instead of the wimpy one that's inside the controller now.

[BadlyPackedKeebab]

I think thats why MS were confident. While the overall bandwidth and GPU were on Sonys side, being limited to 4GB would have had a serious impact on how far they could push the ps4. In reality, they would have had 2.5-3gb of that to play with tops. I suspect at the start of the gen it would have been 2gb useable given game dvr etc.

Remember although they say otherwise they always know very well what the competition are up to. I work in a very similar industry and what we say we know and what we do know are very far apart. People move jobs all the time and take info with them.

[BG11579]

Definitively, that move may have won the generation.

[TheRedButterfly]

6 months isn't 10 years. Calm your tits dude.

[ocelot07]

MS was all ready for another 7-8 year willy waving contest with Sony. Sony then whipped there's out and made MS a laughing stock.

[randomass171]

My guess is Microsoft predicted Sony going the cheaper route in order to cut costs. Big mistake on their part if so. Sony played it very intelligently with hardware this generation.

[Irishguy95]

I always thought it was to the rumors that MS had 8GBs, Sony simply matched up

[Eonjay]

Thanks Mark! Well played.

[MasterCornholio]

It was a huge risk that only Sony wanted go take (due to the availability of 512MB GDDR5 modules) and it paid off. Microsoft played it safe and stuck with DDR3 with ESRAM to boost the bandwidth and it ended up being a horrible mistake.

So interesting seeing this poker game play out between the two.

[Strange_Evil]

To be fair to Microsoft, if one looks at the Xbox One without taking the PS4 into the picture, one can easily say that at the time it was shown to the masses, 8GB RAM was a good step forward (compared to the 512MB last gen... that is a 16x jump). It just so happened that Sony had a more customizable architecture which meant that they could wait till the last second.

Think from the perspective of a system engineer. They had to set the specifications probably 2-3 years prior to the consoles announcement and at that time a 8GB DDR3 module would have seemed salivating. However, IMO I guess the success of 360 actually spelled doom for the One since they thought of going with the same architecture (which didn't allow them to take a GDDR5 approach) whereas Sony just wanted to build it as simple as possible (after the wide criticism of the PS3) and caught them off guard at the last second.

Overall its a huge win for Sony IMO. After living through a RAM starved environment last gen, I am happy with the decision of both the companies to go for 8GB (I remember some Crytek boss quoting that expecting more than 4GB is a pipe dream). As the gen progresses and more and more games start taking advantage of the extra available RAM, we would see more and more amazing games. Can't wait to see how the next Uncharted looks like.

[randomass171]

The poker analogy is actually quite perfect. And I agree, it is very interesting to watch the competition unfold and see technology expand.