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 900p/30FPS on PS4, and 792p/30FPS on Xbox One, following initial claims that the game would run at a much higher frame and resolution rate.
“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
