Thanks for the memory: How cheap RAM changes computing

Re:Thanks for the memory: How cheap RAM changes computing by jon_richards on Monday October 17, 2016 @08:25AM (#12724383)

That's what computers are doing by switching entirely to solid states, but I was more thinking your console library would still be on a (very) cheap hard drive and when you start up a game it just starts loading everything it can into RAM while you play.

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Re:Thanks for the memory: How cheap RAM changes computing by theandrewbailey on Monday October 17, 2016 @10:28AM (#12725285)

> when you start up a game it just starts loading everything it can into RAM while you play.

That's kind of what happens now (loading screens), but the problem is that console hardware is designed to barely pull off and play acceptable games and no more. From what I remember, the Xbox 360 was originally designed with 256 MB of RAM, but got bumped to 512. Games up until a few years ago had to deal with that. Many games go through many build cycles of simply optimizing RAM usage. When you have more demands on RAM during gameplay, there isn't any left over to load future levels. Add in that many games today are open world, and you don't know where the player is going to be, it's not worth it. Even PC exclusive games don't have this feature.

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Re:Thanks for the memory: How cheap RAM changes computing by jon_richards on Monday October 17, 2016 @01:42PM (#12727261)

Which side are you arguing? Everything you're saying sounds like reasons to just throw cheap RAM at the problem and load one level, then put the whole game in RAM while that level is being played.

I imagine with some filesystem trickery you could even do it without the game even knowing, it just magically gets everything it asks for virtually instantly.

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Re:Thanks for the memory: How cheap RAM changes computing by theandrewbailey on Monday October 17, 2016 @03:25PM (#12728511)

I'm arguing against it, on the basis of economics and (to a lesser extent) game design.

Console hardware is almost always sold at a loss. No company would build a console full of RAM (no matter how cheap it is) with almost no load times. Most people (having acclimated to loading screens) would rather buy the cheaper "good enough" alternative.

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Re:Thanks for the memory: How cheap RAM changes computing by johansch on Monday October 17, 2016 @03:39PM (#12728750)

Aren't Nintendo rumored to get back to sorta-ROM cartridges with their upcoming NX console? (The cartridges would be made of strictly speaking rewritable flash memory.)

They seem to care about loading times....

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Re:Thanks for the memory: How cheap RAM changes computing by monocasa on Monday October 17, 2016 @04:32PM (#12729430)

There're a lot of unsubstantiated NX rumors.

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