how do consoles manage with so less ram

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armaan

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Just goofing around the net and came across the ram available for the ps3 and xbox360 which is quite low.Could any one from TE explain the reason for it being competent enough when compared to a pc.
 
Well I'm not a Tech Expert but I can give this information by experience (others are welcome to correct me if I'm wrong):

1. There are very less background activities on a console as compared to a PC.

2. PCs are constantly accessing the RAM for multitasking, unlike a console.

3. Developers are usually able to maximize the ability of even small amount of RAM through a good engine.

4. The frequency and bus speed is also to be taken into account during such comparisons.
 
on a console, the hardware doesn't change at all, so the devs can fully utilize whatever the amount of RAM the console has to it's fullest (fine example being Uncharted 2).

PC - hardware change is imminent.
 
Like PS3 slim has low ram but it runs at 3.2 GHz, which theoretically is equal to 3 GB of computer RAM @ 667 MHz.
Also, consoles do mostly one or few things at a time and the console's OS is not that demanding.
 
Consoles can utilize all their resources to the full potential since the games are tailor made for the respective consoles.. But for a PC the factors like the range of hardwares available, different softwares in systems, tasks that run in background during gaming bog down the potential of the PC's game performance..

But the PC still way ahead of the consoles when it comes to cutting edge graphics.. But you need to have a good system & update it regularly..
 
They are built from the ground up for one purpose only - gaming.
Dedicated software for dedicated hardware makes all the difference in the world.

Though the weak chinks in the armor begin to show through when attempting to apply stuff like anti-aliasing which requires brute strength hardware like the kind found in modern PCs.
 
One more thing.. Even if the console has 512MB RAM, the whole of it will be available for the games & that too without any other processes interfering.. But in a PC the running game has to share the RAM with the OS & other background programs using the same RAM.. Though there may be many times more ram than the consoles, the access times will be severely hit as the other programs & processes will be using the same ram..
 
thanks for the replies guys but isnt the amount of ram more important than the speed of it.I mean if the ram of the PS3 is clocked at 3.2ghz why doesnt the same apply to the pc
Also how important is ram compared to vram.
Once again thanks for the replies.
 
Amount of RAM is important, but more important is the accessibility.. There is no point in having a lot of RAM if the game can't access it fully & efficiently..

Just as an example.. Consider a 8600GT 256MB GDDR3 & a 8600GT 1GB DDR2.. Which one would be faster?? Obviously the 256MB GDDR3 version as it can access all the RAM (though less) very quickly. On the other hand the card with the 1GB DDR2 won't be able to use all the available RAM since it is slower & the performance will also be low..
 
to answer your question in layman's terms. xbox 360 or ps3 does not need to run windows xp. for ex - in xbox 360 , it has an ATI graphics processor, 512 mb memory gddr 3, memory bandwidth of 22.4 GB/s interface bus, 256 GB/s to EDRAM and 21.6 GB/s front-side bus, or brilliant resources high speed for parallel programming tasks during video rendering of a video game. added to this you have 3 core of 3.2 ghz processor for fast processing. of course the specs are inferior to a really high end computer rig, but come on. they are still better than any budget PC in the market.
 
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