Crytek: 8GB RAM Will be a Limiting Factor For PS4/Xbox One Development

[PoolCleaningRobot]

My main pc only has 4GB of ram and I never go over 2GB unless I'm playing a game. My netbook has only 2GB and while running a decent Linux distro, I don't even go over 200 or 300MB and I can still do all the same stuff a windows machine does. I'm building a gaming computer and the only reason I'm getting 16GB of ram is so I can run virtual machines on it.

Developers have the freedom to make a game need as much system specs as they want, but I've played plenty of games that look and play good and can run on just Intel HD graphics or even mobile processors. More processing for a game is a choice, not a necessity

 

[Callate]

OSs and such will frequently leech over to fill all available space, given half a chance; I don't know that that means we should be enabling programmers in such behavior.

Given that the memory gets yielded when a program actually wants to use it, what's the problem?

Well, it isn't, necessarily, so long as the system is designed to release RAM properly; something Microsoft has occasionally struggled with in the past. But as the author chose to broach basic systems functioning on his computer taking up 4 GB of available RAM, it seemed worth mentioning that such waste wasn't necessarily something that should be accepted as a standard.

Somewhat more on-topic: what he said is that "it WILL be a limiting factor.", not that it is at the moment. How is that controversial?

Sure, Ryse may well have had trouble with memory quantities, but he noted that games don't have access to all the RAM, and given that they were implementing wholly-new engine features for Ryse (which, as a release title, had a hard limit on development time), I don't think it's a stretch to suggest that it wasn't optimised as much as it could have been.

You may well be right, but Crytek has been chafing about having to scale back their ambitions for some time now, mostly with the "Crysis" series. If they're already hitting the limits of available RAM, I wouldn't count on an effective admission that it was their own optimization, rather than the hardware's limits, that was to blame.

 

[RicoADF]

You can't really compare the PC (with bloated Windows and lots of extra software) to consoles which are dedicated to playing games first and foremost.

Yes, but we're not talking about those consoles. We're talking about the Xbone and PS4, which have 3.5-ish GB of RAM dedicated to their OS and other functions. In fact, the major difference appears to be that PC, unlike Xbone and PS4, doesn't have to reserve that much space.

Sony says that 4.5gb is available for games however devs can request access to another 1GB bringing it to a total of 5.5GB. The XBO has 5GB locked in as it's cap and cannot request more.

 

[Something Amyss]

Sony says that 4.5gb is available for games however devs can request access to another 1GB bringing it to a total of 5.5GB. The XBO has 5GB locked in as it's cap and cannot request more.

I read numbers significantly lower. The ones I gave, specifically.

 

[sneakypenguin]

Umm i know nothing about software dev but I'm pretty sure the gpu is gonna be the weak point, neither console has the horsepower to actually move stuff around fast enough to use 5gb of ram.

 

[RicoADF]

I read numbers significantly lower. The ones I gave, specifically.

Sources:
http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-ps3-system-software-memory

http://www.ign.com/articles/2013/07/26/35gb-of-playstation-4-ram-reportedly-reserved-for-os

Basically it has 4.5GB available but can access an additional 1GB if required.

That said, even 4.5GB is plenty, most games uses less than 3-4 as their 32bit programs and have a max of 4GB that they can read, very few (less than 1% of games I believe) are 64bit as it requires serious work on the game engine, which publishers aren't willing to spend money on when 32bit works.

 

[Arawn]

I have a question; what'

You can't really compare the PC (with bloated Windows and lots of extra software) to consoles which are dedicated to playing games first and foremost.

That's an interesting point, isn't that the problem as well? People(the developers of said systems and on somepart the consumers) want their consoles to do more than just play games. While I saw CD and DvD(Blu-ray now) play as the eventuality of said units, now they have game/video capture and other social aspects. It's much our phones have changed from just making calls Now we make messages, live chat, games, pictures, and web browsing. There have been many times I get a text rather than a phone call from someone. I walk into a restaurant and there are 3-4 people sitting at a table staring down at their phones. Consoles are going the same path. More features aside from the main.

To be frank Crytek seem to be whiners all around, they make games to look as pretty as they can, often with little story or substance ...

That can be said for alot of games. People are constantly talking about 1080p+ rez and nothing of the game's story or mechanics. Why do graphics keep getting the front seat when the meat of the game what truly decides it's success. How many times has high resolution and fps made you forgive crappy controls or an horrible camera? I can't think of one. Yet there are numerous games where a I'll do the reverse. Risk of rain looks like something put together in a week in a garage. Yet I've played and replayed it so many times it's pathetic. One finger death punch is freaking stick figures, yet again hours upon hours of gameplay. Most high production games with they had that level or replayablity outside of multiplayer. That's why my eyes roll up everytime the resolution fights start. Yes PCs for more power, but if that power is only used for making it pretty I don't care. Most times when I play on my desktop the only option I mess with is sound and brightness. Trying to make games more realistic is all fine and good, but it's not the important part imho.

 

[RESURRECTION21]

I have a question; what'

You can't really compare the PC (with bloated Windows and lots of extra software) to consoles which are dedicated to playing games first and foremost.

That's an interesting point, isn't that the problem as well? People(the developers of said systems and on somepart the consumers) want their consoles to do more than just play games. While I saw CD and DvD(Blu-ray now) play as the eventuality of said units, now they have game/video capture and other social aspects. It's much our phones have changed from just making calls Now we make messages, live chat, games, pictures, and web browsing. There have been many times I get a text rather than a phone call from someone. I walk into a restaurant and there are 3-4 people sitting at a table staring down at their phones. Consoles are going the same path. More features aside from the main.

To be frank Crytek seem to be whiners all around, they make games to look as pretty as they can, often with little story or substance ...

That can be said for alot of games. People are constantly talking about 1080p+ rez and nothing of the game's story or mechanics. Why do graphics keep getting the front seat when the meat of the game what truly decides it's success. How many times has high resolution and fps made you forgive crappy controls or an horrible camera? I can't think of one. Yet there are numerous games where a I'll do the reverse. Risk of rain looks like something put together in a week in a garage. Yet I've played and replayed it so many times it's pathetic. One finger death punch is freaking stick figures, yet again hours upon hours of gameplay. Most high production games with they had that level or replayablity outside of multiplayer. That's why my eyes roll up everytime the resolution fights start. Yes PCs for more power, but if that power is only used for making it pretty I don't care. Most times when I play on my desktop the only option I mess with is sound and brightness. Trying to make games more realistic is all fine and good, but it's not the important part imho.

this guy gets it can we just get passed this graphics junk this is the thing that is holding the industry back I do not care how the game looks how is the story the gameplay and the characters? this is what gamers should ask not about the rez or fps this is why crytek has never made a game worth a damn they are the michael bay of game makers all flash no substance

 

[crazygameguy4ever]

Crytek is just greedy.. People complained about the PS3 only having 256 mbs of ram.. now it has 8GBs.. that's a vast improvement.. and if developers have done just fine with only 256 mbs of ram for 8 years and counting, then i'm pretty sure they can do a lot with the huge chunk of memory they have now.

 

[Strazdas]

I'd say that my 8GB is barely enough to cover the full range of stuff I end up using my computer for. Check your memory usage in the task manager next time you've got everything open, you'll be shocked.

I run on 8 GB of RAM. I am yet to see it filled. Closest i got was over 6 GB and ironically there was no game running at that time too. Games in the future may need it, granted. currently im yet to see a game that gobbles more than 4 GB (except moded grand strategy games where mods consist larger part of the game than game itself).

Just opened up my memory usage on my PC and it's hovering around 4gb - just from the OS, browsing the internet, and listening to music. So... 4GB of passive memory usage plus 4 GB of games... bam, you're already at 8 GB. And you say some games are already using 6 GB?

Thats not how it works though. Your OS likes to keep stuff in memory for fast acess when there is a lot of free memory available. If you were to take your memory used by programs and summed that you would get actual commited memory. the rest is just "we used it at some point so wre nto deleting it in case we need it again". once a game launches your 4 GB OS gobble goes down to 0.5gb and that 3.5 gb gets taken over by the game.
also if your music player and browser eats 4 GB you may want to check for problems. ive never seen my Firefox reach 1 GB and my music player is ~20mb (granted i use Foobar2000 because i like clean costumizable interface).

It's the same problem as the low-end graphics card with a ridiculous amount of RAM. Until recently I had a card with 512 MB RAM w which was just fine for everything in 1920*1080 but struggled in 2560*1440. Now I have a 2GB card (I had to switch, it wasn't by choice really) which often struggles even in 1920*1080.

I'd even say that the amount of RAM is usually the least of concern.

your talking about Video Ram (VRAM) which does have huge swings in terms of resolution. the regular RAM does not effect resolution displays, but rather is a templorar memory for the PC. you know like when you are asked to remember a number that you will need later you keep it in your thought till you need it, and after you use it you "forget it". thats templorar memory. RAM is used for templorar memory. It calculates enemy AI paths and actions, but once you close the game it "forgets it".

Geez guys, 50% +change of Steam users have 4GB or less RAM (and a good 1GB of that gets wasted on Windows). Let our computers play these things please, not everyone wants to spend stacks of money on shinier pixels

or you can just play on medium settings and it will be fine? or you know buy more ram? RAM is one of the cheapest parts of your PC. you can pick up 8 GB for 20 dollars.
and yes, you can upgrade laptops. its harder to disassemble them and not all parts are changeable, but RAM certainly is.

and then I start recording, and instantly everything hits the ceiling. The new consoles have a recording function, I bet it has a similar jump.

when your recording your recorder has to capture the video in real time - doubling the load, keep it in RAM long enough to encode it (your CPU hits the ceiling here) and then write it to disc (HDD cries out in pain). recording actually may take more resources than the game itself.
And consoles apperently are recording all the time and purging the info thats older than 30 secs, what with "always possible 30 second share" and isntant achievement replay....
actually, that could explain why a half-decent console GPU is performing so badly.

Motion blur- normal

this is illogical. existence of motion blur is abnormal. It should read: No Motion blur - normal.

Remember when 640k was enough for anyone?

no. It never was.

This again? Haven't these guys ever heard of procedural content? You know, make some functions, feed them parameters, and have them make content using just tens of kilobytes of memory, rather than hundreds of megabytes.

high precision complex procedural input of textures takes tens of kilobytes? please show how it may revolutionize the market!

Are Xbone and PS4 games 32-bit or 64-bit?

Because going by PC, Crytek has dropped 64-bit support. Crysis 1 and Warhead had a 64-bit executable, but Crysis 2 and 3 are 32-bit only. This means they can only address about 3GB of RAM, no matter how much you have installed.

Crysis 1 was PC game, so it supported 64 bit.
Crysis 2 and 3 was a multiplayform game and previuos consoles only knew 32 bit so they only developed that (and plenty more things were dropped).
New consoles can run 64 bit applications, which may finally bring games into supporting 64 bits properly. Its running standard 86x PC architecture, which supports both 64 and 32 bits.

Just keep in mind that most devs were pulling 720p 30fps out of the PS3s 256MB of RAM.

erm, no, no they werent. Most games were upscaling to 720p. And PS3 had 512 mb of shared ram, new consoles also use shared ram.
Also RAM does far more than resolution or framerate.

The trend currently goes - nothing improved.

You can't really compare the PC (with bloated Windows and lots of extra software) to consoles which are dedicated to playing games first and foremost. Also since the games made for it are optimised better than PC games the requirements aren't as high.

To be frank Crytek want PC level power on consoles which is stupid. Consoles have never and will never surpass a PC on hardware power...

That may have been true in the past. not anymore. consoles are now dedicated to TV, sports, more TV and maybe a little bit of games. Also they are NOT optimized better than PC this generation, because the architecture is identical and anything optimized for console will also transfer to PC version.

Its not stupid. It was a standard at the beginning of each generation all the time except this generation. This release is the odd man out. In fact when Xbox 360 launched it has surpassed high end PCs of that time, PS3 even more so.

GTA5, Skyrim and FC3 look great on the 360.

you can speak all you want about gameplay enjoyment and comfort, but when it comes to looks 360 is fucking awful.
GTA5 looks worse than games on PC looked 4 years ago......

and if developers have done just fine with only 256 mbs of ram for 8 years and counting, then i'm pretty sure they can do a lot with the huge chunk of memory they have now.

but thats the thing. developers werent doing fine. they were cutting out your game content to fit in that ram and complaining about it for over 5 years now.

 

[BrotherRool]

Geez guys, 50% +change of Steam users have 4GB or less RAM (and a good 1GB of that gets wasted on Windows). Let our computers play these things please, not everyone wants to spend stacks of money on shinier pixels

or you can just play on medium settings and it will be fine? or you know buy more ram? RAM is one of the cheapest parts of your PC. you can pick up 8 GB for 20 dollars.
and yes, you can upgrade laptops. its harder to disassemble them and not all parts are changeable, but RAM certainly is.

I've had longer posts going through this earlier in the thread, but the short is: I have a laptop and compared to a laptop a Desktop PC is a massive inconvenience and waste of space.

 

[RicoADF]

That may have been true in the past. not anymore. consoles are now dedicated to TV, sports, more TV and maybe a little bit of games. Also they are NOT optimized better than PC this generation, because the architecture is identical and anything optimized for console will also transfer to PC version.

Its not stupid. It was a standard at the beginning of each generation all the time except this generation. This release is the odd man out. In fact when Xbox 360 launched it has surpassed high end PCs of that time, PS3 even more so.

Having the TV input is far from demanding on the hardware, it's just a video input, which I might add is a XBO feature not PS4, so that's applicable to one system.

As for optimisation, well actually it still is partly relevant. Games on PC could be optimised far better than they are however publishers have the attitude that PC gamers can just buy better hardware and don't care to put the time and effort in. The consoles however often have to be and since their seen as the primary systems get the extra effort. The fact their all x86/64 doesn't change that optimisation wont be prioritised on the consoles nor does it change the fact that because their hardware is set on each console that they will be better optimised as the hardware in the system is known, with PC's you could have the latest AMD, Intel, Nvidia or anything below, not to mention other hardware combinations.

You could optimise the game for your PC to run far better if you had the source code and the knowledge, but it'd only have the positive effect on your specific hardware setup. Some linux distros have tools to optimise the OS based on your hardware, it takes time but the resulting install is more efficient as it's been setup for your machine specifically.

The fact it's standard does not make it less stupid, while yes improvements to graphics is nice their not the be all of the game, Crytek unfortunately focus heavily on this to the detriment of others parts of their games. Crysis 1 was pretty good though.

Yes I know what it is. That's why I don't think that larger console RAM would help run the games in higher resolution.

BTW consoles actually share the system and video RAM, there's no difference between then.
BTW2 you sure quote a lot.

Some consoles share the ram some don't, in this generation XBO and PS4 do as their APU's (CPU + GPU rolled into one) and thus why the ram is shared.

EDIT: Broke up a clump of text into paragraphs.

 

[Strazdas]

your talking about Video Ram (VRAM) which does have huge swings in terms of resolution. the regular RAM does not effect resolution displays, but rather is a templorar memory for the PC.

Yes I know what it is. That's why I don't think that larger console RAM would help run the games in higher resolution.

BTW consoles actually share the system and video RAM, there's no difference between then.
BTW2 you sure quote a lot.

It would be pointless to try running the consoles in high resolution due to their weak GPU but they seem to not able to do decent desolutions anyway. the thing is, noone her was speaking about resolution. we spoke about regular RAM benefits. Crytek didnt say it because they wanted higher resolution, they said it because they ran out of memory.

Consoles share RAM. Pcs do it better and utilize different type of RAM for different purposes, having the best of both worlds.

Geez guys, 50% +change of Steam users have 4GB or less RAM (and a good 1GB of that gets wasted on Windows). Let our computers play these things please, not everyone wants to spend stacks of money on shinier pixels

or you can just play on medium settings and it will be fine? or you know buy more ram? RAM is one of the cheapest parts of your PC. you can pick up 8 GB for 20 dollars.
and yes, you can upgrade laptops. its harder to disassemble them and not all parts are changeable, but RAM certainly is.

I've had longer posts going through this earlier in the thread, but the short is: I have a laptop and compared to a laptop a Desktop PC is a massive inconvenience and waste of space.

And i never said you have to change that. Whats your point?
And your situation must be quite rare too.

@Strazdas
Motion Blur normal means DX11 Object Dynamic Motion Blur for Metro. It is the only game where I LOVE the effect.

@ sign does not work in notifying me you responded here.
Dont know what kind of object dynamic motion blur Metro uses, but all motion blur i saw was a "nope nope nope turn it off" situation.

Having the TV input is far from demanding on the hardware, it's just a video input, which I might add is a XBO feature not PS4, so that's applicable to one system.

As for optimisation, well actually it still is partly relevant. Games on PC could be optimised far better than they are however publishers have the attitude that PC gamers can just buy better hardware and don't care to put the time and effort in. The consoles however often have to be and since their seen as the primary systems get the extra effort. The fact their all x86/64 doesn't change that optimisation wont be prioritised on the consoles nor does it change the fact that because their hardware is set on each console that they will be better optimised as the hardware in the system is known, with PC's you could have the latest AMD, Intel, Nvidia or anything below, not to mention other hardware combinations.

You could optimise the game for your PC to run far better if you had the source code and the knowledge, but it'd only have the positive effect on your specific hardware setup. Some linux distros have tools to optimise the OS based on your hardware, it takes time but the resulting install is more efficient as it's been setup for your machine specifically.

The fact it's standard does not make it less stupid, while yes improvements to graphics is nice their not the be all of the game, Crytek unfortunately focus heavily on this to the detriment of others parts of their games. Crysis 1 was pretty good though.

The TV part was in response to consoles being "dedicated gaming machines". which they clearly no longer are. TV is just a video input. TV on xbox however goes via the OS processing and thus is a burden on the system. Also video processing even from input requires power too, power which of course is laughable in modern PCs, but then, console isnt a modern PC now is it.

Irrelevant in this case. Due to identical infrastructure there will be no extra costs to optimize for each system, do it on one your golden for all 3. The atitude notwithstanding. Well, of course they can go like Infinity Ward did and bloat requirements and refuse instalation with lower requirements even if the game ran on maximum with less than half of these requirements. But these are rare now.

Hardware being known or not is irrelevant. they code for same APIs. They use same drivers. the only difference was actual difference in hardware. nobody codes for deep layer APIs. its a waste of time and money. the console and PC processes the game in same way.

No, it would not have positive effect on only my setup. thats not how it works. well, unless i had a very strnage setup, such as 10 year old CPU and move everythign to GPU, but people that have that are not the audience for games and are so rare we can ignore them.

Graphic standards are not stupid though. they are sales makers. the easiest way to sell a game is to show off its graphics. thats why so much attention is given there. its much harder to market for good AI. and when you are hit with outdated hardware like consoles the developers sacrifice gameplay for graphics, when on fast hardware you dont need the sacrifice.

 

[RicoADF]

And i never said you have to change that. Whats your point?
And your situation must be quite rare too.

I actually know quite a few friends in that sort of position, often because of work but others it's for education. They want to game but need to be more flexible than going home to a desktop to play. Laptops can play games fine as long as you get one with a decent dedicated GPU, you may need to turn the settings down but that doesn't bother most people. I have a laptop as well as my towering monolith to use for LAN gaming (which I do quite often) I can just put it in a bag with the mouse and head off, no stuffing around with lugging a tower + keyboard + 2 monitors around.

 

[Strazdas]

And i never said you have to change that. Whats your point?
And your situation must be quite rare too.

I actually know quite a few friends in that sort of position, often because of work but others it's for education. They want to game but need to be more flexible than going home to a desktop to play. Laptops can play games fine as long as you get one with a decent dedicated GPU, you may need to turn the settings down but that doesn't bother most people. I have a laptop as well as my towering monolith to use for LAN gaming (which I do quite often) I can just put it in a bag with the mouse and head off, no stuffing around with lugging a tower + keyboard + 2 monitors around.

I can understand a situation when you have to travel for work or carry information more complex than tablet can handle. but like i said, that is a rare situation. I done the mistake buying a laptop for studies. in 6 years of studies i have brought the laptop over a total of 4 times. waste of money is what it was.
Laptops can play games fine, but you pay twice the price for same power in GPU. That wasnt the discussion though. the discussion was that we suggested the person to spend 20 dollars and buy some RAM since he thought his current RAM was not enough.

Granted i dont go to many LAN parties, but im yet to see where someone brings TWO monitors. you must have been a star

 

[BrotherRool]

Geez guys, 50% +change of Steam users have 4GB or less RAM (and a good 1GB of that gets wasted on Windows). Let our computers play these things please, not everyone wants to spend stacks of money on shinier pixels

or you can just play on medium settings and it will be fine? or you know buy more ram? RAM is one of the cheapest parts of your PC. you can pick up 8 GB for 20 dollars.
and yes, you can upgrade laptops. its harder to disassemble them and not all parts are changeable, but RAM certainly is.

I've had longer posts going through this earlier in the thread, but the short is: I have a laptop and compared to a laptop a Desktop PC is a massive inconvenience and waste of space.

And i never said you have to change that. Whats your point?
And your situation must be quite rare too.

As a PC gaming forum it's very natural to think my situation is rare, but actually I'm pretty sure I'm in the majority if you also include the people who don't know they can/aren't technically able to upgrade. I'm sure that I have way more friends with laptops than friends with computers, and of my friends with computers I best most of them wouldn't know how to upgrade it.

Everyone round here thinks that everyone has super awesome game crunching machines, but the majority of Steam users (not PC owners, this is active PC gamers) don't. The lack of a graphics race is really awesome for all of those people, less so when games focus on the high end.

Because 'play it on medium settings' doesn't work a lot of the time. I currently own a lot of games that I can't play on low settings and we've had plenty of ridiculous cases recently of games asking for 6GB RAM minimum (even when it can run on less). The games where playing on lower settings is easy are often the games whose developers haven't been pushing for pie-in-the-sky look-at-the-pixels Titanesque specs or whatever.

It's been very nice to be in a situation where the consoles have forced developers to consider the lower spec PCs. I'm not looking forward to the new race to push the bar higher with the new console generation.

 

[RicoADF]

I can understand a situation when you have to travel for work or carry information more complex than tablet can handle. but like i said, that is a rare situation. I done the mistake buying a laptop for studies. in 6 years of studies i have brought the laptop over a total of 4 times. waste of money is what it was.
Laptops can play games fine, but you pay twice the price for same power in GPU. That wasnt the discussion though. the discussion was that we suggested the person to spend 20 dollars and buy some RAM since he thought his current RAM was not enough.

Granted i dont go to many LAN parties, but im yet to see where someone brings TWO monitors. you must have been a star

4 times in 6 years? Most of my laptops have lasted 4+, what happened if I may ask?

Your correct about the price, it comes down to weather the portability is worth it to you, in my case it is.
True ram was the point at hand, however there's only so much you can add before your just wasting cash, for now atleast 8GB is more than enough.

It was fun for the first hr or so, until more people came and we needed more space on the tables, so one had to be disconnected. I ended up going with laptop after a few LAN games and figured that carting around my tower was both anoying and a risk I wasn't willing to take. $1000 (laptop was on sale) was worth the price considering it saves me bringing a desktop around with a $900 GPU.

 

[ZippyDSMlee]

Bullocks as they barely use much ram now.I dunno why they bother there last 2 games were utter shit.....

 

[Dragonbums]

in 6 years of studies i have brought the laptop over a total of 4 times. waste of money is what it was.

Holy fuck dude. What kind of laptop did you get? I had an HP laptop that lasted me 6 years before getting a new one this Christmas and giving it to my mom. It still works.

 

[Lightknight]

Well, if it's a limiting factor then hopefully they can work with the RAM they get and rely on a compelling story or game mechanic rather than the things that generally demand more RAM. Games are already graphically impressive. I was quite surprised with all the stuff we crammed in the ol' 512MB consoles even up until now. I understand that Cytek really defined itself with bleeding edge visual technology but the availability of pretty games has skyrocketed since Crysis 1 and pretty soon games won't be able to rely on purely being eye candy for a consumer base large enough to support them.