How much memory should the PS3 have?

[GodZeRo]

Speculation (that I've heard) has that the PS3 is likely to have 256MB. To me that simply isn't enough to feed the cell. I think it should be upgradable, so when ram prices drop, people could put in more, especially if it has a general pourpose OS available for it.

[JoshD]

Well, there are a few things I don't think you took into account. The first thing is that the cell will most likely have on-chip RAM, meaning that the RAM will be part of the chip. It is a lot faster to access, but it is still unclear how much of this type of RAM would be included on the chip. The second is that games are programmed to use a specified amount of RAM. Even if you were able to upgrade the machine with more RAM, none of the games would ever use it.

I chos 512 MB because I hope that Sony gives developers all they need and more to make games easier to program. In reality, with on-chip RAM you may not need that much RAM to run games. Everything is really up in the air right now.

[GodZeRo]

512 Mb ram on die would be sweet, but sounds like a lot of acreage. If it had a MMU it would solve the problem, but I don't think that'll happen, being that sony is aiming it for (the Cell procs in general) embeded applications.

[megadrive]

In 1993 or 1994, before Playstation1 came out, it had 1 MB of main system memory.


developers asked for it to be 2 MB


Sony went along.


the final Playstation had 2 MB of main memory instead of 1 MB when it came out in Japan in December 1994.


(3.5 MB total: 2 MB main, 1 MB VRAM, 0.5 MB audio)



PS3 will have 256 MB main system memory
+ 32 MB on the CPU
+ 32 MB on the GPU

at least.

hopefully 512 MB main system memory.

[GodZeRo]

...............
The second is that games are programmed to use a specified amount of RAM. Even if you were able to upgrade the machine with more RAM, none of the games would ever use it.
...........


Well if the games are only design for a given static environment, they will not be able to utilize the much balyhooed ability of the cell arcutecture to link multiple procs to handle tough computations, ie games. The obvious way to expand the ram that a ps3 has access to is to buy another ps3, but that is overkill, and not cost effective for what I want.

Besides, the N64, and Saturn had ram expanders.

[IronLugz]

On Toshiba's roadmap for the XDR they're hitting 512MB. If all goes like planned with the cell patent then well see various parts of the cell with accessable memory. I got my money on total system memory at 512MB.

[JoshD]

...............
The second is that games are programmed to use a specified amount of RAM. Even if you were able to upgrade the machine with more RAM, none of the games would ever use it.
...........


Well if the games are only design for a given static environment, they will not be able to utilize the much balyhooed ability of the cell arcutecture to link multiple procs to handle tough computations, ie games. The obvious way to expand the ram that a ps3 has access to is to buy another ps3, but that is overkill, and not cost effective for what I want.

Besides, the N64, and Saturn had ram expanders.

Having a game run on your machine is different than having a game run on a host machine (as is done with many online games). I believe if their is too be shared computing, it will happen for online gaming but not standard gaming (because of the issues with a static environment).

[GodZeRo]

I understand and somewhat agree with you, but I'm gunna cross my fingers anyway.

[Omega Blue]

well today a P4 has at most 2MB's cache which is alot by todays standards so if sony can somehow put 32 on each die of each Processing unit (CPU and GPU) then for Main Board RAM have 512 MB's of toshiba's XDR then its Data Transfer rate will be amazing that means pretty fast Loading times as well. and plus even if its only 256, come on aren't we forgetting how fast this XDR is gonna be?. what im wondering is how much GPU memory they are gonna have. some computer video cards already have 512. could sony have XDR VRAM made by Toshiba?

[SumDeus]

While 512mb would be nice, consider price. Not only is XDR new, but other ram prices for 512 mb will cost upwards of $100, if Sony wants to make the consol reasonably priced they MIGHT not be able to put on 512.

[Ibanez32]

Sony still have to make back the money they've inested on the development of the cell. Although 512 would be nice i'd settly for 256.

[solidus]

i think it should be 512, that's what i voted.
Just to be safe.

[Webmaster]

Yeah 512 MB with an expansion option is really good and that way you can store stuff on the PS3. :lol:

[solidus]

Are you still talking about Ram memory?, because we are.

[GodZeRo]

well today a P4 has at most 2MB's cache which is alot by todays standards so if sony can somehow put 32 on each die of each Processing unit (CPU and GPU) then for Main Board RAM have 512 MB's of toshiba's XDR then its Data Transfer rate will be amazing that means pretty fast Loading times as well. and plus even if its only 256, come on aren't we forgetting how fast this XDR is gonna be?. what im wondering is how much GPU memory they are gonna have. some computer video cards already have 512. could sony have XDR VRAM made by Toshiba?

If the memory is on die, a small cache , say 32k instruction, 32k data would be fine.The advantage of ondie, is that you don't have to worry about copper trace length and propigation, and it could be much wider.

A traditional bus has 64 bits/traces/wires going from the proc to the ram, some have up to 256 bits (on high end grafix cards). The ps3, if it's ram is ondie, it'll be like 1024 bits. That's fast enough to mitigate use of a large cache.

[Omega Blue]

well today a P4 has at most 2MB's cache which is alot by todays standards so if sony can somehow put 32 on each die of each Processing unit (CPU and GPU) then for Main Board RAM have 512 MB's of toshiba's XDR then its Data Transfer rate will be amazing that means pretty fast Loading times as well. and plus even if its only 256, come on aren't we forgetting how fast this XDR is gonna be?. what im wondering is how much GPU memory they are gonna have. some computer video cards already have 512. could sony have XDR VRAM made by Toshiba?

If the memory is on die, a small cache , say 32k instruction, 32k data would be fine.The advantage of ondie, is that you don't have to worry about copper trace length and propigation, and it could be much wider.

A traditional bus has 64 bits/traces/wires going from the proc to the ram, some have up to 256 bits (on high end grafix cards). The ps3, if it's ram is ondie, it'll be like 1024 bits. That's fast enough to mitigate use of a large cache.

all i ask for is alot. the P4 EE shows that on die is good for gamin performance so i hope it has enough,

[RiseOTheMachine]

It would be nice if the PS3 had 512MB of RAM with the possibility of expansion but similar to what happen with the N64 it ends up dividing the market. Once an expansion like that comes out it divides the market into gamers that can play games because they have it and then gamers that can't because they don't. Even today with Sony's online adapter there are only a few million people using this while there is millions of PS2's worldwide. Something that isn't packaged with the system from day one usually has a hard time becoming very widely used. The upcoming hardrive release for the PS2 will have a similar problem and thats exactaly why Sony is packaging Final Fantasy 11 with it. If Sony does indeed decide to release a RAM expansion for the PS3 later on down the road it must be packaged with a must have game or something similar or it will simply be pointless and developers won't even look twice at it.

[Marius]

It would be nice if the PS3 had 512MB of RAM with the possibility of expansion but similar to what happen with the N64 it ends up dividing the market. Once an expansion like that comes out it divides the market into gamers that can play games because they have it and then gamers that can't because they don't. Even today with Sony's online adapter there are only a few million people using this while there is millions of PS2's worldwide. Something that isn't packaged with the system from day one usually has a hard time becoming very widely used. The upcoming hardrive release for the PS2 will have a similar problem and thats exactaly why Sony is packaging Final Fantasy 11 with it. If Sony does indeed decide to release a RAM expansion for the PS3 later on down the road it must be packaged with a must have game or something similar or it will simply be pointless and developers won't even look twice at it.

You are absolutely right!

[GodZeRo]

It would be nice if the PS3 had 512MB of RAM with the possibility of expansion but similar to what happen with the N64 it ends up dividing the market. Once an expansion like that comes out it divides the market into gamers that can play games because they have it and then gamers that can't because they don't. Even today with Sony's online adapter there are only a few million people using this while there is millions of PS2's worldwide. Something that isn't packaged with the system from day one usually has a hard time becoming very widely used. The upcoming hardrive release for the PS2 will have a similar problem and thats exactaly why Sony is packaging Final Fantasy 11 with it. If Sony does indeed decide to release a RAM expansion for the PS3 later on down the road it must be packaged with a must have game or something similar or it will simply be pointless and developers won't even look twice at it.

You are absolutely right!

The reason some games required it and some didn't is because of the cartidge format, holding a hires and lores version of the textures would have been too expensive on carts, but look at pc games, they hold multiple versions of textures on disc (usually low, medium and high), because the disc format can handle it no problem.

Besides, extra mem can be used for other things, like cacheing (eliminating pauses and burps/jerks, improved framerate, speeding up load times way more than an internal hard drive) for example, or if linux was available for ps3, it would be insanely great to have the power of CELL and boat loads of ram powering that gem of an OS.

There are many reasons to have as much ram as you can afford.

I have an old 400 Mhz pentium downstairs that run circles around most 1 Ghz machines I have seen because it has 512 MB ram, while most 1ghz machines have 128 or 256 MB.

[Blablablayadayada]

System Memory: 512MB
System Memory Bandwidth: 24 GB/sec

Secondary Processor: Emotion Engine on 0.13-micron process (backward compatible with PS2)
Clock Speed: 300 MHz or 375 MHz (selectable)

[Omega Blue]

System Memory: 512MB
System Memory Bandwidth: 24 GB/sec

Secondary Processor: Emotion Engine on 0.13-micron process (backward compatible with PS2)
Clock Speed: 300 MHz or 375 MHz (selectable)

more make believe crap. stop posting spam none of this is confirmed. when i see it at E3 while Ken himself is listing the specs. thats what i'll believe.

[jordanpardy1]

Speculation (that I've heard) has that the PS3 is likely to have 256MB. To me that simply isn't enough to feed the cell. I think it should be upgradable, so when ram prices drop, people could put in more, especially if it has a general pourpose OS available for it.

Yeah, it should have 256 MB with an upgradable option that does not cost that much.

[jordanpardy1]

It would be nice if the PS3 had 512MB of RAM with the possibility of expansion but similar to what happen with the N64 it ends up dividing the market. Once an expansion like that comes out it divides the market into gamers that can play games because they have it and then gamers that can't because they don't. Even today with Sony's online adapter there are only a few million people using this while there is millions of PS2's worldwide. Something that isn't packaged with the system from day one usually has a hard time becoming very widely used. The upcoming hardrive release for the PS2 will have a similar problem and thats exactaly why Sony is packaging Final Fantasy 11 with it. If Sony does indeed decide to release a RAM expansion for the PS3 later on down the road it must be packaged with a must have game or something similar or it will simply be pointless and developers won't even look twice at it. That is cool man!!! I agree

[Omega Blue]

with an upgradable option that does not cost that much.


LMAO that was hilarious i sure hope you were kidding. obviously u have no idea how much regular RDRAM cost today let along XDR. go to a computer shop or website where they sell it and check out prices compare to DDR 333

[jordanpardy1]

with an upgradable option that does not cost that much.


LMAO that was hilarious i sure hope you were kidding. obviously u have no idea how much regular RDRAM cost today let along XDR. go to a computer shop or website where they sell it and check out prices compare to DDR 333

Well, maybe since sony is a cool company, it will BE A TINY BIT CHEAPER. I didn't mean alot cheaper, just a little bit less than Computers memory is.. :idea: