New Nintendo HD Console to be revealed at E3; Launches after April 2012

[Tornado]

com·put·er   
[kuhm-pyoo-ter]
–noun
1. Also called processor. an electronic device designed to accept data, perform prescribed mathematical and logical operations at high speed, and display the results of these operations. Compare analog computer, digital computer.


Oh, I get it, because they crammed it into a Set-top Box and doesn't run Windows it's not a computer to you. Well, too bad, because you don't get to decide what words mean.

I imagine that this seemed amazingly clever when you typed it up.

Not so impressive on my end, though, because its pretty clear that you knew exactly what I meant and decided to be "witty" anyways.

(Edit) I may not be a great programmer, but I was a system tools engineer for 2 years and worked on two shipped games, one for Xbox 360 and one for Wii. There isn't a developer in the entire industry who would say any of these consoles or the computers they develop on have "enough" RAM.

I know the score too. Of course more RAM is always better, because more RAM means they can be lazy when it comes to code optimization. Why design something to be efficient when it is easier to make it messy and be a memory sponge instead?

That doesn't mean that Nintendo has to cater to incompetence and throw 2GB of RAM into a system when 512MB would be more than enough for the average developer.

 

[Terronium-12]

I am a welsh man. I have nothing against Ram.

Shut up.

 

[Bonefork]

I know the score too. Of course more RAM is always better, because more RAM means they can be lazy when it comes to code optimization. Why design something to be efficient when it is easier to make it messy and be a memory sponge instead?

That doesn't mean that Nintendo has to cater to incompetence and throw 2GB of RAM into a system when 512MB would be more than enough for the average developer.

Incompetent programming produces excess processor cycles.
Incompetent compression creates RAM problems.

The ultimate goal is to remove the compression, because higher fidelity is always and will always be better (except in porn). More RAM would also assist in handling more clients in P2P play and allow for more objects to exist at any given time in a game world, among other things. It's just storage for data, more data equals more good. If anything, more RAM for a bad programmer is like more water to a bad swimmer.

If you're hiring incompetent programmers that's another issue entirely.

 

[Alex p.]

Ok, hm, interesting, if the Cafe does NOT need more ram, why were so many developers complaning about the 256mb ram in the 360 or ps3?

You know what. I am not even gonna bother anymore, so pointless with you. More ram=better textures, bigger gameworlds, more detail in general, oh wait, now you're going to tell me that ALL of that goes into the V-ram right?

 

[Moot]

More ram is better for a new gaming console, a few here don't want to budge on a strongly held belief, or know what could be done in a game with huge great wad of ram...

 

[Terronium-12]

Ok, hm, interesting, if the Cafe does NOT need more ram, why were so many developers complaning about the 256mb ram in the 360 or ps3?

You know what. I am not even gonna bother anymore, so pointless with you. More ram=better textures, bigger gameworlds, more detail in general, oh wait, now you're going to tell me that ALL of that goes into the V-ram right?

Good lord, man.

If you think system RAM computes 3D data and not the SGRAM alloted to the actual GPU then...wow.

 

[Alex p.]

Good lord, man.

If you think system RAM computes 3D data and not the SGRAM alloted to the actual GPU then...wow.

Oh come on you can't tell me the normal ram is used ONLY to run the system!

 

[Terronium-12]

Oh come on you can't tell me the normal ram is used ONLY to run the system!

Okay...try this:

Buy a cheap (if you can find it) 512MB stick of DDR2 or 3 RAM (or even DDR if you have an older motherboard somewhere), run any game that you have and tell me if anything related to the textures, DOF, or overall detail has changed before and after. Then you'll have your answer.

 

[Alex p.]

Okay...try this:

Buy a cheap (if you can find it) 512MB stick of DDR2 or 3 RAM (or even DDR if you have an older motherboard somewhere), run any game that you have and tell me if anything related to the textures, DOF, or overall detail has changed before and after. Then you'll have your answer.

Why do most games have a 2GB MIN demand? (well it says so on the package of the game)

 

[Terronium-12]

Why do most games have a 2GB MIN demand? (well it says so on the package of the game)

To minimize the paging file...

EDIT: Actually there's a bit more to it than just minimizing the paging file size but none of which have anything to do with what you've mentioned.

 

[iGuitar93]

Good lord, man.

If you think system RAM computes 3D data and not the SGRAM alloted to the actual GPU then...wow.

On intergrated graphics system ram is used for graphics processing.

 

[Azuremen]

Okay, then why has it not been done? We have 32GB of RAM right now in PCs.

And why haven't you produced a ProTools competitor with your amazing coding skills? You know they charge like $300 for the base version... just think, you could be a millionaire with your implied coding skills. I imagine all of Silicon Valley will bow to you when you figure out how to process uncompressed high-res 7-channel discrete audio in real time with only 512MB of RAM and a 2GHz CPU.

(Edit) I may not be a great programmer, but I was a system tools engineer for 2 years and worked on two shipped games, one for Xbox 360 and one for Wii. There isn't a developer in the entire industry who would say any of these consoles or the computers they develop on have "enough" RAM.

Rofl, implying consumer computers have or need 32GB of RAM. Are you serious? RAM may be dirt cheap compared to when ever you care to look, but 32GB is still several hundred dollars of RAM, and completely worthless in a PC 99% of the time. I do a lot of photo editing, streaming, and gaming, and I rarely use more than 5gb at ANY given time, even with PS open while running SC2 and numerous instances of my browser, several programs for communication software, music, and whatever else.

Honestly, I don't even know what to really tell you. Congrats, you have some experience in the industry, but you clearly have no clue how the real world, pricing, and all that actually works. The reason things use so much RAM these days is because it is simply cheaper to pay programmers for less time to compile less efficient programs.

On intergrated graphics system ram is used for graphics processing.

No one uses integrated graphics for rendering or gaming, unless they are using a laptop. A cheap one.

 

[Terronium-12]

On intergrated graphics system ram is used for graphics processing.

True enough. Some IGPs (most notably AMD/ATI's) have a memory sideport that's dedicated to the chip and acts (as far as I know) in much of the same ways dedicated SGRAM does.

 

[buggs1a]

How can we watch Nintendo speech? On tv.