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Author xbox360 vx ps3 question
David Parkes

2006-11-19, 9:51 pm

What advantage would the PS3 256Mb of video memory have over the 360's 10Mb
video memory.

I know the theroy is the more the better but is that true in this case.


Paul Smith

2006-11-19, 9:51 pm

"David Parkes" <wibble@wobble.com> wrote in message
news:%23vXWHV$BHHA.144@TK2MSFTNGP02.phx.gbl...
quote:

> What advantage would the PS3 256Mb of video memory have over the 360's
> 10Mb video memory.


None.
quote:

> I know the theroy is the more the better but is that true in this case.


The PS3 has less of an advantage.

The PS3 has 256MB for the CPU and 256MB for the GPU.

On the Xbox 360 however both share the 512MB of RAM, this allows developers
to use say 350MB for video and the rest for the CPU or vice versa and gives
them more flexibility.

The 10MB of RAM built into the GPU is extremely fast and handles things like
anti-aliasing.

--
Paul Smith,
Yeovil, UK.
Microsoft MVP Windows Shell/User.
http://www.windowsresource.net/
Get ready for Windows Vista: http://www.windowsvista.com/getready/

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David Parkes

2006-11-19, 9:51 pm

Thanks for the prompt response!

:-)

"Paul Smith" <Paul@nospam.windowsresource.net> wrote in message
news:FC2198A3-C411-4457-9EC5-C4759FCFC551@microsoft.com...
quote:

> "David Parkes" <wibble@wobble.com> wrote in message
> news:%23vXWHV$BHHA.144@TK2MSFTNGP02.phx.gbl...
>
> None.
>
>
> The PS3 has less of an advantage.
>
> The PS3 has 256MB for the CPU and 256MB for the GPU.
>
> On the Xbox 360 however both share the 512MB of RAM, this allows
> developers to use say 350MB for video and the rest for the CPU or vice
> versa and gives them more flexibility.
>
> The 10MB of RAM built into the GPU is extremely fast and handles things
> like anti-aliasing.
>
> --
> Paul Smith,
> Yeovil, UK.
> Microsoft MVP Windows Shell/User.
> http://www.windowsresource.net/
> Get ready for Windows Vista: http://www.windowsvista.com/getready/
>
> *Remove nospam. to reply by e-mail*
>
>



WDS

2006-11-19, 9:51 pm

On Nov 14, 8:28 am, "Paul Smith" <P...@nospam.windowsresource.net>
wrote:
quote:

> On the Xbox 360 however both share the 512MB of RAM, this allows developers
> to use say 350MB for video and the rest for the CPU or vice versa and gives
> them more flexibility.


They used to do this sort of thing on PCs too and it never worked as
well as just having the GPU have its own memory. You won't see shared
memory designs on any PCs except those with cut rate MBs any more.

I suppose that the XBox360 design could be better but I suspect it
suffers the same problems.

Paul Smith

2006-11-19, 9:51 pm

"WDS" <Bill@seurer.net> wrote in message
news:1163517866.296313.48840@f16g2000cwb.googlegroups.com...
quote:

> They used to do this sort of thing on PCs too and it never worked as
> well as just having the GPU have its own memory. You won't see shared
> memory designs on any PCs except those with cut rate MBs any more.
>
> I suppose that the XBox360 design could be better but I suspect it
> suffers the same problems.


The PC however is a bit different. Generally speaking most high-end
graphics cards have much faster RAM onboard the graphics card than the
system RAM. That's why you have dedicated RAM for graphics, simply because
system RAM is generally slower.

On the Xbox 360 however the shared RAM is fast, it's GDDR3 so similar to
what you'd have on a PC graphics card. The RAM is also wired into the GPU,
so technically you could argue the CPU is sharing graphics memory. 8-)

--
Paul Smith,
Yeovil, UK.
Microsoft MVP Windows Shell/User.
http://www.windowsresource.net/
Get ready for Windows Vista: http://www.windowsvista.com/getready/

*Remove nospam. to reply by e-mail*


Ray

2006-11-19, 9:51 pm

On 14 Nov 2006 07:24:26 -0800, "WDS" <Bill@seurer.net> wrote:
quote:

>On Nov 14, 8:28 am, "Paul Smith" <P...@nospam.windowsresource.net>
>wrote:
>
>They used to do this sort of thing on PCs too and it never worked as
>well as just having the GPU have its own memory. You won't see shared
>memory designs on any PCs except those with cut rate MBs any more.
>
>I suppose that the XBox360 design could be better but I suspect it
>suffers the same problems.


I know of no PC that could dynamically allocate RAM between system
memory and video memory based on the program being run. All shared
memory systems I have ever worked with required a reboot, and then the
user needed to enter the system setup routine to allocate memory. THEN
the user could boot the OS and run a program.

There is NOTHING similar between the way PCs and the XBox 360 handle
the shared memory pool.
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