What is the future of GPU VRAM in view of next gen consoles with unified system memory?

[ubersonic]

as above, they always spout this guff in the run up to a new console
looking at the press releases from "developers" saying that the next consoles will be better than PC's, they then go on to list out specs in the new consoles and say that these figures beat a PC, I can't remember the exact figure off the top of my head, but in reference to memory bandwidth and how much data they can transfer to VRAM they listed a figure and said that this was more than "most" PC's and they referenced PCIe 2.0... now granted "most PC's" do use PCIe2.0, however he completely neglected to mention that most mid to top end GAMING PC's use PCIe3.0, which is then nearly double the figures he quoted for the consoles

it is all fluff, no matter how efficient they make these consoles, they are not going to be able to make them stand up against gaming PC's that are 2-3 times more powerfull

also bearing in mind that by the time the consoles are actually released, or more importantly by the time games get released on these consoles that start to be able to possibly use 4GB of VRAM, there will be at least one if not two more generations of PC GPU released, and it would be trivial for the 2 card makers to add more VRAM... IF it is really needed

Nonsense, Sony said the PS2 would be just like "plugging into the Matrix" and that's exactly what it was like!!!

 

[VincentHanna]

You must have had a weak pc as pc games always looked better than the console releases in 2007/2008. 8800GTX would eat a 360 or PS3 for breakfast.

Posts like this make me realise there is no point arguing the case for consoles with PC zealots.

At the time I had an AMD FX55 with Geforce 8800GT.

Now I have an Intel i7 860, 8GB Ram and AMD 6870 which I will shortly be upgrading.

I'm not saying PC's didn't look better, i'm saying they pushed out some amazing looking games considering the dated tech inside them (and occasionally still do).

Playing Red Dead Redemption on Xbox 360 was an amazing experience for instance. And the Uncharted series on PS3 are some of the best games of the current generation IMO.

I was a hardcore PC gamer for many years, but I bought both an Xbox 360 and PS3 when they were released and for a good 3-4 years I gravitated away from PC gaming.

Since 2010 I've got back in to PC games it in a big way, mainly because you save a lot of money if you use the Steam sales wisely.

Now I will only play games that support the Xbox 360 controller. My PC is connected to my 55" Panasonic Plasma so I can still sit on the sofa and enjoy games with the smoother frame rates and graphical bells and whistles at 1080p that a decent PC affords you over consoles, but I do occasionally use my consoles still.

I know I won't be changing any keyboard warriors minds here, but I've had hours of fun on all 3 separate platforms and to be honest if you can't get to grips with a controller or refuse to play consoles because they are inferior, then you are genuinely missing out on some great game play experiences

 

[Razor Time]

You have made allot of assumptions which are off the mark. I own all the current and past gaming platforms and I have had multiple pcs which are connected to HDTVs with a pad since 2005. Just because someone owns a pc doesn't mean they don't own and use other platforms, it also doesn't mean they are biased towards one platform. I consider myself a gamer and not a pc gamer or a console gamer, just a plain gamer as good games will come out on all platforms and limiting myself to one is only a detriment to myself. I am also sure I am not the only person who is like this on this board.

The simple fact is a game has never looked better on console than it has on a pc. Not much else to add to that and yes there was a difference in graphical quality between the console and pc during 2007/2008. It did also come across as though you were saying that games in this period looked the same as they did on the pc which personally I don't think is true at all. First off console games for the most part are 720p or lower with little to no AA and as we know this was not the case on the pc. Arguing that consoles are in the same ball park as pcs in that period is pretty pointless.

 

[bfar]

I'm not saying PC's didn't look better, i'm saying they pushed out some amazing looking games considering the dated tech inside them (and occasionally still do).

Sure they did. But if you ran any of those titles at 1080p+ with full 16AF and a good AA algorithm, they'd look even better. That's why the PC is the premium choice.

If (and I mean if) the new generation consoles actually render games at 1080px60 without resorting to down scaling, then they'll make a great leap in fidelity. But there's still no doubt that a good PC should push out much faster frames at the same settings, and continue to allow for higher quality assets. The fact of the matter is that even the next gen console gpus are dinky in comparison to current gen PC gpus, in terms of raw horsepower.

 

[Rroff]

I think the problem is somewhat over-blown.

RE the quote "You never know where your textures are and when they will be uploaded to the GPU, which can cause stalls or micro-stutters in a frame as resources are shunted between the memory types"

You can usually specify with certain flags where you want the API to try and store the texture data when uploading it, while not 100% sure that it will be in that location 99% of the time it will be unless your using poor game design or the host system has run out of VRAM unexpectedly.

The bus speeds on PCs are ever increasing and newer versions of rendering APIs are starting to implement advanced texture tiling/streaming algorithms etc. by the time its a potential problem PC hardware and software will likely have caught up or surpassed the requirements.

I know I won't be changing any keyboard warriors minds here, but I've had hours of fun on all 3 separate platforms and to be honest if you can't get to grips with a controller or refuse to play consoles because they are inferior, then you are genuinely missing out on some great game play experiences

Thats fine if you have a casual play style - depending on the game I prefer the freedom of movement and fluidity of a keyboard + mouse - so far no controller has come close to replicating that - I would go as far as to say for me personally as I'm not the kind of person that plays from my sofa, etc. that it ruins the immersion even on what is otherwise a good game.

 

[VincentHanna]

Apologies Razor Time, if that is the case. To be fair you assumed I had a naff PC back then

Re: Immersion - 55" screen and home cinema sound vs PC monitor and whatever speaker setup you may own...I personally prefer the big screen experience.

I strictly play single player/co-op games on PC as well, hence I have no need for keyboard and mouse.

 

[Orangey]

Lots of people would balk at using a 55" screen for PC gaming, citing pixel density mostly.

For me the best setup is mouse+keyboard, monitor/s and headphones. Immersion.

 

[Rroff]

Re: Immersion - 55" screen and home cinema sound vs PC monitor and whatever speaker setup you may own...I personally prefer the big screen experience.

For single player immersion Dell U2913wm and a set of Sennheisers with whatever flavor of surround sound virtualisation works best with the game.

Obviously its down to personal preference but playing on a pad in many games just doesn't give me the game play experience I desire.

 

[Razor Time]

Apologies Razor Time, if that is the case. To be fair you assumed I had a naff PC back then

Re: Immersion - 55" screen and home cinema sound vs PC monitor and whatever speaker setup you may own...I personally prefer the big screen experience.

I strictly play single player/co-op games on PC as well, hence I have no need for keyboard and mouse.

Now worries vincent, I did assume your pc was underpowered.

You sound very similar to myself in that I prefer to play in the lounge with a large display, surround sound and a pad. My current tv is a 65" Sony and before that I owned a 70" SXRD and a 65" Optoma DLP. A large display is my preferred choice for the same reason you mention ie immersion. I also have a desktop setup with a 24" display but never really use it as I prefer the comfort of my sofa and the homecinema setup.

Like you I also prefer single player and coop games and never really touch multiplayer games so using a pad is never an issue for me in terms of competing online.

 

[3t3P]

Lots of debate here.

PC has always looked better than console. That I will never worry about.

My question was really, will the PC platform for gaming stay recognisable as we see it today, or will or components talk to each other differently in a years time.

Also it is always unfair to compare the GPU of a console to ours.

Consoles have far fewer OS overheads so proportionally are far more efficient at churning out decent looking graphics.

Wipeout HD on PS3 was an early launch game that is true 1080p at 60fps, it looks amazing and its such a shame Sony shut the Liverpool team down and there will be no iconic wipeout launching with PS4.

I realise racing games are easier to render however as the camera flies effectively down a tunnel which you wrap textures around.

What's HSA?

 

[Five.Stars]

Developers are reporting that you'll want to be buying a card with at least 3GB memory as the PS4/Xbox games are primarily using their 4GB-5GB allocation (from the 8GB pool) for graphics.

Even at 1080p, which is all the consoles are targetting, they are now going to massively push up texture resolution, polygons etc which will all use a lot more GPU Ram than we currently do.

Personally i'm holding off to see what the next 9000 series AMD cards are like, bearing in mind it's their GPU's in both next generation consoles. I know PC graphics tech is already far in advance of the Xbox One and PS4 in terms of fillrate but AMD will have a better idea where things are going with their insider knowledge.

And what is the actual game engine going to use for memory?

 

[Five.Stars]

Perhaps, but look how good Xbox 360 games looked in 2007/2008 compared to PC's which were much more powerful at the time.

Ok they're getting a bit long in the tooth now, but the Xbox 360 is nearly 8 years old! The Last of Us on PS3 looks very good still and that has 256mb of GPU memory!

Crysis came out in November 2007.

 

[VincentHanna]

And what is the actual game engine going to use for memory?

The remaining 2GB I assume, I did link to an article stating that Killzone was only using about 512-1GB for game engine/levels

Crysis came out in November 2007.

Yes I remember quite clearly, and no bugger could run it at high settings for about 3-4 more years...

 

[Doco]

No real input but find the thread interesting , been wondering about how the added ram is going to work, obviously we're well aware that developers are very capable of pushing the consoles to their hardware limit,and naturally theirs going to be a learning curve with new hardware but given a few years (at the latest) I'd say that the extra ram will really be put to use in the consoles (why else would it be their , may as well use it) and im interested in how it'l (or if it will) translate to the pc

 

[Orangey]

Yes I remember quite clearly, and no bugger could run it at high settings for about 3-4 more years...

Not so clearly, you could run it in 2007 on high at playable framerates. Those framerates improved quickly with the release of tweaked configs, drivers etc. And even on medium it looked miles better than any console rubbish.

 

[oldestgregg]

Unified memory won't suddenly massively increase texture sizes in game, as in beyond current pc numbers already, because of resolution and inefficiency, massively higher texture sizes wouldn't increase picture quality if the size is already good enough for 1080p. PC's are at where they need to be, consoles have been miles and miles behind and will jump forward but only to match the pc.

Yes they jump to match them but consoles have been holding PCs back for a couple of years now so PC's can push forward again such as they do.

 

[VincentHanna]

Not so clearly, you could run it in 2007 on high at playable framerates. Those framerates improved quickly with the release of tweaked configs, drivers etc. And even on medium it looked miles better than any console rubbish.

Sorry but that is just wrong. Only the complete top end could think about trying to run it on highest settings and even then 'playable' was more like 25 fps. The game actually wasn't that great when you consider a masterpiece like BioShock was released the same year. Crysis was more like a tech demo. It had sandboxy elements but once you knuckled down to play the game and got a few levels in it wasn't anything special. Far cry 3 released last year was a much better example of what that sort of game should be like.

 

[Orangey]

This is an enthusiast community, where top end cards are common. Crysis' motion blur made lower framerates playable. I don't care to hear about what "most people" or "casual gamers" think or do. The fact is many people here and in other enthusiast communities were able to enjoy Crysis with the settings bumped way up to the point where consoles had no hope of competing. Your opinion of Crysis as a game is irrelevant and subjective too.

 

[Jono8]

it looked miles better than any console rubbish.

and still does.

 

[VincentHanna]

I don't care to hear about what "most people" or "casual gamers" think or do. The fact is many people here and in other enthusiast communities were able to enjoy Crysis with the settings bumped way up to the point where consoles had no hope of competing. Your opinion of Crysis as a game is irrelevant and subjective too.

Well that's just incredibly elitist.