70MB of additional RAM unlocked for PS3 developers


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It's rare for a console to get a spec upgrade in the middle of its life. However, Sony has stealthily upgraded the PS3 over the past few months to unlock additional usable RAM for developers. Much like the PSP received a boost in clock speed, the latest firmware updates provide developers an additional 70MB of RAM to work with. The change was initially discovered by PlayStation University, noting the reduction in the system OS's memory footprint, from 120MB to 50MB. As the OS continues to slim down, developers are allowed access to even more usable system memory.

SCEA's Patrick Seybold recently confirmed the change to Joystiq. "Since the launch of the PS3, we have been continuously making efforts to reinforce our support system to game developers, allowing them to express their creativity freely on the PS3. As part of this support for game development, the size of the PS3 OS memory footprint has been reduced through network update for the game developers."

While 70MB of additional memory is not insignificant, don't expect drastic changes to future PS3 games. A PS3 developer told us that "any bit of RAM helps. Generally it probably won't change design, but might allow extra effects resolution or dynamic lights or something. Probably more beneficial from the systems and art side then from design/gameplay." In tandem with increasingly efficient code, the added RAM will undoubtedly make for even better looking games. Certainly, that's not something we'd complain about.

Source: http://www.joystiq.c...ps3-developers/

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I hope this decision doesn't come back to bite them in the future. Like if they decide they want to add some new features to the firmware but cant due to the small amount of RAM they have boxed themselves in to.

Great job on the optimizations in any event. (Y)

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I hope this decision doesn't come back to bite them in the future. Like if they decide they want to add some new features to the firmware but cant due to the small amount of RAM they have boxed themselves in to.

Great job on the optimizations in any event. (Y)

I don't think something like this was decided over night. They have clearly put some thought into it. And besides one would imagine they have the future features mapped out pretty tightly and have allocated the exact amount of resource(s) needed.

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I hope this decision doesn't come back to bite them in the future. Like if they decide they want to add some new features to the firmware but cant due to the small amount of RAM they have boxed themselves in to.

Such a pessimistic thought you have, yet I agree with you. Sometimes I fail to think outside the box. Expanding the firmware could be become an issue. I guess they will just have to live with their limits. Once developers start taking advantage of that extra 70mb, there is no going back.

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Don't you guys know the 360 FW is like 25mb?

The PS3 has started to use the hard drive for some of it's abilities which has helped decrease the memory footprint of the OS - Something that can be done as every PS3 has a hard drive.

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Well considering 70MB is nearly 15% of the PS3s total available memory, I'd say that's a very impressive feat! Good job Sony!

How much does the PS3 have? 256 Megs?

Isn't 70 Megs more like 27% of that?

That is a significant amount.

But ... Uh... Are they saying the original PS3 OS used 120 Megs out of the 256 Megs available? Just 136 Megs for games?

If so, going from 136 Megs to 206 Megs is a 51% increase in usable RAM.

Or is this article mixing up RAM/memory and Storage space??

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I don't know why this is news now, they have been slowly decreasing the footprint for months, I remember last year after a firmware update that the Burnout Team put out an update that used some of the released memory for some extra bits and bobs.

Think that was the update that added 1080i to the game too.

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Don't you guys know the 360 FW is like 25mb?

The PS3 has started to use the hard drive for some of it's abilities which has helped decrease the memory footprint of the OS - Something that can be done as every PS3 has a hard drive.

Giz's article was quite similar but stated the 360's is apparently somewhere around 32mb

When the PS3 launched, 120MB of its 512MB of RAM were dedicated at all times to the OS. (To put that footrpint in perspective, the Xbox 360's OS only used 32MB.) Luckily, Sony has refined their system.

Over the course of several updates, the PS3's OS has been weaned off RAM, its dependence cut to just 50MB?including the in-game XMB upgrade?meaning that an additional 70MB of RAM is available for game developers to use as they see fit.

No, that's not enough extra oomph to revolutionize the PS3 as a brand new console, but it's likely we'll see a slightly nicer lighting effect (or an equivalent) some time because of it.

Not that different of an article at all, but it brings things more into context when you have actual numbers to look at between the two.

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I stand corrected, what a stupidly low amount :laugh: small wonder it even works.

Aside from the 10MB frame buffer, it's the same in total amount as the 360. While the 360's is unified 512 across the board, the 256 on-board RAM for the PS3 is super-fast.

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How much does the PS3 have? 256 Megs?

Isn't 70 Megs more like 27% of that?

That is a significant amount.

But ... Uh... Are they saying the original PS3 OS used 120 Megs out of the 256 Megs available? Just 136 Megs for games?

If so, going from 136 Megs to 206 Megs is a 51% increase in usable RAM.

Or is this article mixing up RAM/memory and Storage space??

I was thinking the same thing. The OS is stored on the system RAM partition (not the hard drive) and runs from there. It would seem that they've gained quite a bit of system memory for use by devs. I would assume if they were only able to use it for higher res textures or more textures stored in fast memory which should give better frame rates or alow more to happen on screen. The memory situation with the PS3 is really the main bottleneck right now.

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