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

Steven Bogos

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Jan 17, 2013
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Crytek: 8GB RAM Will be a Limiting Factor For PS4/Xbox One Development


Crysis developer Crytek says that the PS4 and Xbox One's 8GB of RAM will fill up quickly.

Crytek, the team behind the beautiful Crysis games, know a thing or two about stretching hardware to its absolute limits to create the best-possible looking games. Crytek's US Engine Business Development Manager Sean Tracy has had a look at Sony and Microsoft's new consoles and isn't impressed with the mere 8 GB of RAM that both machines possess.

"8 gigs can easily be filled up," said Tracy, adding "but also keep in mind that developers don't necessarily even have access to all 8 gigs of it. For example the Xbox One retains some of the RAM for OS purposes." He went on to say that as technology progresses exponentially, we will find that the computational requirements of games will quickly hit the ceiling of a few GB of RAM. He also noted that his team already struggled with memory management for the Xbox One's Ryse: Son of Rome.

"[8 GB of RAM] will be one of the limiting factors surely in this generation," he stated. Indeed, it may not be just be Crytek struggling with this limitation, as it was recently revealed that Ubisoft's Watch Dogs would run at a much higher frame and resolution rate [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/134481-Watch-Dogs-30-FPS-on-Both-Xbox-One-and-PS4-Confirms-Ubisoft].

"As hardware gets stronger the complexity of scenes can be increased and the dynamism within them. However, with that said it's not the raw power alone that will allow for photo-realistic graphics but technology that intelligently scales and utilizes all that the hardware has to offer," warned Tracy.

As someone who's had 16 GB of RAM in my PC for the last two years, I have to agree that 8 GB seems a little low for the new consoles. Perhaps Microsoft and Sony will release a way to upgrade RAM in their consoles so we can surmount this obstacle in the future?

Source: Gaming Bolt [http://gamingbolt.com/crytek-8gb-ram-can-be-easily-filled-up-will-surely-be-limiting-factor-on-ps4xbox-one]

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lacktheknack

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Charcharo said:
I agree with what he is saying, 8 GB of RAM will be hard to last for 7-8 years.

HOWEVER.
People, your games right now, Crysis 3, Metro Last Light and Battlefield 4 included do not make use of EVEN 6 GB of RAM (and usually even 4 GB is enough).
@Steven Bogos
Currently and at least for the next 2-3 MAYBE even 4 years, 8 GB is more then enough.
...but you forget use of background music player, internet window, recording software (oh lawd, recording software), OS processes, memory allocation glitches (are common), and other such RAM-eaters.

...and the new consoles have all of these things. Every single one of them.

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.
 

Steven Bogos

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Jan 17, 2013
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Charcharo said:
I agree with what he is saying, 8 GB of RAM will be hard to last for 7-8 years.

HOWEVER.
People, your games right now, Crysis 3, Metro Last Light and Battlefield 4 included do not make use of EVEN 6 GB of RAM (and usually even 4 GB is enough).
@Steven Bogos
Currently and at least for the next 2-3 MAYBE even 4 years, 8 GB is more then enough.
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?
 

BrotherRool

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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
 

lacktheknack

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Charcharo said:
lacktheknack said:
Charcharo said:
I agree with what he is saying, 8 GB of RAM will be hard to last for 7-8 years.

HOWEVER.
People, your games right now, Crysis 3, Metro Last Light and Battlefield 4 included do not make use of EVEN 6 GB of RAM (and usually even 4 GB is enough).
@Steven Bogos
Currently and at least for the next 2-3 MAYBE even 4 years, 8 GB is more then enough.
...but you forget use of background music player, internet window, recording software (oh lawd, recording software), OS processes, memory allocation glitches (are common), and other such RAM-eaters.

...and the new consoles have all of these things. Every single one of them.

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 am. It seems like 4 GB are enough for Crysis 3 on medium-high and 4 tabs open and a muci player :p. WIndows 7 included.
My other, 8 GB Rig barely sees a use of that RAM as the most it has hit is 5.5 :p
Mine caps at about 4.5 GB... 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.
 

lacktheknack

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Jan 19, 2009
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BrotherRool said:
Geez guys, 49% 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
Then don't. There's a "medium" detail level.

Also, you don't spend "stacks" on RAM, unless you're getting majorly gypped. If your motherboard doesn't suck, a complete RAM upgrade could be as low as $40.
 

BrotherRool

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Oct 31, 2008
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lacktheknack said:
Charcharo said:
lacktheknack said:
Charcharo said:
I agree with what he is saying, 8 GB of RAM will be hard to last for 7-8 years.

HOWEVER.
People, your games right now, Crysis 3, Metro Last Light and Battlefield 4 included do not make use of EVEN 6 GB of RAM (and usually even 4 GB is enough).
@Steven Bogos
Currently and at least for the next 2-3 MAYBE even 4 years, 8 GB is more then enough.
...but you forget use of background music player, internet window, recording software (oh lawd, recording software), OS processes, memory allocation glitches (are common), and other such RAM-eaters.

...and the new consoles have all of these things. Every single one of them.

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 am. It seems like 4 GB are enough for Crysis 3 on medium-high and 4 tabs open and a muci player :p. WIndows 7 included.
My other, 8 GB Rig barely sees a use of that RAM as the most it has hit is 5.5 :p
Mine caps at about 4.5 GB... 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.
The PS4 has a separate chip for it's recording function and I believe that chip isn't counted within the 8GB. They were really wary about how they got stuck on the cross-party chart thing last time, so they wanted to make sure that most of the OS services were offloaded to something else instead of running with the game playing hardware
 

BrotherRool

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lacktheknack said:
BrotherRool said:
Geez guys, 49% 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
Then don't. There's a "medium" detail level.

Also, you don't spend "stacks" on RAM, unless you're getting majorly gypped. If your motherboard doesn't suck, a complete RAM upgrade could be as low as $40.
Then it shouldn't be a problem for consoles either. And you can't upgrade a laptop but there's never going to be a time when buying a whole extra computer seems sensible or a time when buying a computer that I can't pick up and take wherever I want seems attractive.

EDIT: Okay it was a bit silly of me to hope that someone would post whilst I was writing that. Sorry for the double post guys
 

lacktheknack

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BrotherRool said:
The PS4 has a separate chip for it's recording function and I believe that chip isn't counted within the 8GB. They were really wary about how they got stuck on the cross-party chart thing last time, so they wanted to make sure that most of the OS services were offloaded to something else instead of running with the game playing hardware
What kind of chip? "A separate chip" doesn't really mean much.

If you're talking "An extra 4GB", then that was smart of them.

BrotherRool said:
Then it shouldn't be a problem for consoles either. And you can't upgrade a laptop but there's never going to be a time when buying a whole extra computer seems sensible or a time when buying a computer that I can't pick up and take wherever I want seems attractive.
Three things:

It isn't a problem for consoles... for now. But if they have dreams of high-quality visuals in two years, they simply don't have the hardware to pull it off without some major visual tricks.

Also, you CAN upgrade a laptop, it's just annoying as hell.

Also also, high-end gaming on a laptop? Don't even try, dude. It just won't ever turn out well.
 

lacktheknack

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Charcharo said:
Recording, now that may have an influence. Though I did have no problems doing this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dSsbpRr_Qog&list=PLXwNdCgzy0wrZCWrcfylNusA_2I_Wc-_X&index=2
On 4 GB of RAM.
Nice. Is everything up full?

I have issues getting a stable recording framerate in Tomb Raider under any decent setup.
 

Jandau

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Dec 19, 2008
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The funny thing here is that this is a problem because there's so much crap running in the background on a console at this point that it starts to take up resources. In the olden days, consoles could get away with lower hardware specs compared to PCs simply because all of that hardware was focused on running the game. But those days are long gone at this point...
 

lacktheknack

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Charcharo said:
lacktheknack said:
Charcharo said:
Recording, now that may have an influence. Though I did have no problems doing this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dSsbpRr_Qog&list=PLXwNdCgzy0wrZCWrcfylNusA_2I_Wc-_X&index=2
On 4 GB of RAM.
Nice. Is everything up full?

I have issues getting a stable recording framerate in Tomb Raider under any decent setup.
No, this is where 4 GB of RAM, an old ATI 5770 and an i5 750 get you :D

Settings:
1680x1050
Very High
DX 11
NO tesselation
NO PhysX
Motion blur- normal
No SSAA

Id still say its a trooper
Yeah, I'm running all of the above with everything on at 1920x1200 because I'm a graphics whore. :p That's probably my issue.
 

lacktheknack

Je suis joined jewels.
Jan 19, 2009
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Charcharo said:
lacktheknack said:
Charcharo said:
lacktheknack said:
Charcharo said:
Recording, now that may have an influence. Though I did have no problems doing this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dSsbpRr_Qog&list=PLXwNdCgzy0wrZCWrcfylNusA_2I_Wc-_X&index=2
On 4 GB of RAM.
Nice. Is everything up full?

I have issues getting a stable recording framerate in Tomb Raider under any decent setup.
No, this is where 4 GB of RAM, an old ATI 5770 and an i5 750 get you :D

Settings:
1680x1050
Very High
DX 11
NO tesselation
NO PhysX
Motion blur- normal
No SSAA

Id still say its a trooper
Yeah, I'm running all of the above with everything on at 1920x1200 because I'm a graphics whore. :p That's probably my issue.
Well, it is not like my image quality is in any way bad either :D. Though my 8Gih Rig has NO problems with Metro on Ultra (Tesselation and everything else is on). And still has enough Ram to record:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CPuiCmH2wSU&index=2&list=PLXwNdCgzy0wrZCWrcfylNusA_2I_Wc-_X
Of course, I'm under the impression that Last Light is fairly well optimized.

Tomb Raider... is not, as anyone who's experimented with the hair can attest.