Next Gen Consoles HW Performance Speculation
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Since the PS5 and the Xbox NotANumber have been announced, and some details on both have been released, I got to thinking:
- My current PC has 16GB of DDR3, plus 6GB of GDDR5 (Nvidia 1050). Because Just Cause 3. And I'm not the only one: https://store.steampowered.com/hwsurvey/Steam-Hardware-Software-Survey-Welcome-to-Steam
- Traditionally gaming consoles have skimped on RAM, leading to ludicrous limitations on games released multi-platform. Remeber GTA3, with max 5 car models at a time?
- Previous Xbox had 12GB RAM total.
What do you think the next PS and Xbox will contain RAM-wise? Will they skimp again? How far behind will the new consoles be of the median gaming rig?
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Have they been announced yet?
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Xbox, officially:
Project Scarlett: new Xbox console details announced at E3
The next-generation Xbox video game console will debut late next year, as announced at Microsoft’s E3 2019 press conference.
PS5, nearly:
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I think one of the questions is if they will go with a single shared RAM like previous generations, or if they will go with dedicated VRAM and system RAM like a PC. As far as I've seen both have said that they will go for GDDR6, which is apparently somewhat expensive (I found a estimate of about $100 for 16GB, albeit for a smallish purchase).
So, if only GDDR6, then I would guess 16GB or 24GB. In terms of total memory, that's roughly on par with your current PC (though being a console, and all of it being GDDR6, that's going to be more useful than what you've got in the PC ATM).
If it's split, they might get away with slightly less GDDR6, e.g. 12GB or 16GB, and then have some additional normal RAM, perhaps another 16GB or so.
If they want to piss everybody off, 8GB GDDR6 and 16 or 24GB (even 32GB) of normal DDR4. It would be hilarious.
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I would love to see NVRAM for storage, but I know it ain't happening.
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They'll all suck and be stupid.
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@error said in Next Gen Consoles HW Performance Speculation:
I would love to see NVRAM for storage, but I know it ain't happening.
Next-gen SSDs are already confirmed for the new generation, so I'm really happy. The only remaining question is whether that'll be the only storage medium or backed by a spinning disk.
I could see them doing the former, designing the next gen to be more expensive and continuing to market the current consoles as the cheap option. After all, the current gen won't go away anytime soon anyway and they've already started asking developers to target multiple different hardware configurations (normal/Pro).
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@dfdub said in Next Gen Consoles HW Performance Speculation:
they've already started asking developers to target multiple different hardware configurations (normal/Pro).
This could backfire deliciously. If they're already asking them to make 2 sets of textures and resources, there's less incentive to not make a 3rd one, for beefy PCs.
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@dfdub said in Next Gen Consoles HW Performance Speculation:
Next-gen SSDs are already confirmed for the new generation, so I'm really happy. The only remaining question is whether that'll be the only storage medium or backed by a spinning disk.
They could get away with just an SSD, if they mandate resource compression and provide hardware support for decompression. DX:MD already compressed all the levels. But de-compressing them took a break from the action. (Longer break if you had less than 12GB RAM.)
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@acrow said in Next Gen Consoles HW Performance Speculation:
If they're already asking them to make 2 sets of textures and resources, there's less incentive to not make a 3rd one, for beefy PCs.
Developers who categorically don't develop for PC do so for the following reasons:
- They are a subsidiary of Microsoft or Sony
- They're dissatisfied with the profit margin on PCs
- They like to get money for (temporary) exclusivity
Almost nobody develops exclusively for consoles because of the hardware, so I don't think multiple targets are going to change anything. I mean, publishers went through the trouble of releasing for both PS 3 and PS 4 during the generation change, two completely different architectures. In comparison, the difference between PS 4, PS 4 Pro and likely also PS 5 is tiny.
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@dfdub I was thinking of the lazy console-to-PC ports that just don't bother refreshing the textures.
But you're right, it was wishful thinking.
PS5 review
