Very impressive for Sony to do this i didnt know it was even possible through firmware. Playb3yond

Looks like the disagree fairies are out.
They must be mad at Sony or optimizing the PS3.
Jealousy? I think so, even though it's something that would be foolish to be butthurt about.

Aside from that, it's great news, interested in seeing what devs will do with this extra boost.

Why take RAM away from the the OS? It just decreases the chance of cross-game chat, universal custom soundtracks (and maybe in-game web browsing?)... =(

If they have been slowly unlocking system ram then that certainly explains why the texture quality has been improving over time. Well done Sony! I wonder though if that ram was being saved for a feature that didn't work out...

@beefstewforu
Perhaps sony was able to optimize the xmb to not require so much ram?

"Why take RAM away from the the OS? It just decreases the chance of cross-game chat, universal custom soundtracks (and maybe in-game web browsing?)... =("

The "universal sound tracks" issue has been left up to the devs. Sony made it so that THEY decide whether we can listen to our own music in their games. Most devs ignore it or don't allow it for whatever reason.

Your other two thoughts are worth more consideration though.
Though *strokes chin* in-game web browser is also something the game devs *should* be able to have control over. I'm pretty sure they do when you think about how severs work and look at games like White Knight Chronicles, Metal Gear Solid 4/Online, and MAG.

Cross game chat was in the premium psn survey so maybe they cleaned MORE code than the 70 additional mbs and the extra 70 was just part of a higher total that was made available.

Remember all those useless updates people used to complain about? "But bu bu... this FW upgrade is useless cuz it ain't gona do nothing!", well this is your answer.

I don't know why guys at Joystiq and some guys here think that 70mb is not a lot of ram. That's a LOT of ram people! It means the games can load faster, it means that the XMB can function smoother, it means you can add buttload of new features in each game etc.

Imagine what developers like NAUGHTY DOGS, SONY SANTA MONICA, DAVID JEFF, KOJIMA can do with even more memory available. I mean back 2008 there wasn't that much memory free. If MGS4 can look THAT amazing, I can't help but wonder what smart developers who know how to optimize their codes can do with even more memory available.

WELL DONE SONY. Now, try to compress it even more and reduce the mem. footprint to around 20MB.

That makes more sense. Refining the amount of memory used in the background by the system leads to improved running of game code. It can also lead to other features becoming activated (xgame chat).

At first, the way the initial notation was written was a spec increase as in physical increase of RAM by 70mb. 70mb...WTF? why not make it something worth while like 128mb or another 256mb. You see where I'm going with this.

I was actually a bit surprised that sony didnt take the opportunity to physically increase the RAM in the slim ps3. They took an opportunity back with the psp going from 32mb in the 1000 to 64mb on the 2000/3000. They could have doubled it again to 128mb for the GO.

The sales of the psp really boomed when they brought out the slim and they improved the memory inside. Imagine if they had doubled the memory in the ps3 with the slim.....BOOM.

@Beefstew4u

Well if you play burnout paradise on the PS3 there is somewhat like in game web browsing. When booting the game up to a ps3 hooked up to the internet the broswer boots up and shows the developers web site i think it is with other stuff.

This has been happening for some time, and its not been a case of 120mb Os footprint one day, BOOM 50mb the next. When PS3 first launched sony had the future in mind. They reserved an extremely large amount of memory (video AND system) for possible future functions, as we all know PS3 did not for example have in game XMB, friends lists, inbox etc. Games are built to the amount of free memory available, once games have been built for example using 400mb (e.g 200+200 system/video) of memory, sony couldnt simply add a feature to the operating system that meant PS3's operating system then used more than 112mb, because all those released games obviously would no longer work!

By reserving this memory early on, they would not find themselves unable to add features. As we know, sony have added a great deal of features and as time has passed they have slowly released more of this reserved memory back to developers as a new function is realised, and memory requirements are set. The footprint dropped to 96Mb (64 XDR+32 GDDR3) after a few months, into the 80s (52+32), and the very newest games should find that 43mb of the system 256 is reserved, 7mb of the video 256 (ergo 50mb total). The latest i heard is that sony have shipped a future firmware spec to first party developers where usage is reduced even further than this, possibly as little as 24mb system memory....

Some features as mentioned still require additional memory to be reserved by developers, like in game music, or sometimes cross game functions- if you can spare 40mb then you CAN have an in game web browser on PS3- but 40mb is A LOT for a console with only 213mb system memory free. Microsoft love them or hate them, are a huge software company, this is their specialty....360 has used just 32mb of its memory for the OS since day one, including the dash, in game music and all the online features together. This is partly an explanation why developers have often said PS3 has less memory, they meant that 360 always had a smaller operating system, and 512mb of unified memory you can assign to work as system usage or video usage.

Physically increasing the RAM in the newer PS3s would alienate older PS3 owners (like it did with older PSP owners (we have less features)) AND it wouldn't be of any extra use to devs comparable to the 360s HDD situation. The games have to run on ALL variations of the system.

This is definitely the proper way to have gone. Not to mention the fact that they wanted to lower manufacturing cost with the slim and adding physical ram would slightly increase cost compared to it's current state.

@above

what the d1ck man?

How are people supposed to read that?

likebasically im confused i thought the ps3 os ingame or on idle took less ram then the 360 os hence why ps3 games if utilized by good devs are better quality....but then i hear the 360 os takes less ram like its alittle confusing.

This has been my favorite Gen for systems. There are so many cool advances this time around on both systems. I feel good every morning when I wake up and see my PS3 and 360 sitting on the shelf.
Anyway, I have a question for the more tech oriented guys here. Please answer this with out fanboy banter please. What is the difference between this and, when Microsoft gave their developers the extra 512mbs of ram on the development systems? I was to believe that first 360 development kit were limited to using the on board memory for debugging and development. The new system I think allows them to program outside the 512mbs on board so that they can now utilize the full amount of ram? Is this why the new 360 games are starting to look better? So my question is this I guess, what are the pros and cons of the way they both added more ram, or more to utilize? How are they different?

I think it is a good thing that Sony frees up RAM as well as introducing new features, but you might also ask how inefficient they must have been when you can reduce almost 60% of your memory footprint and at the same time introduce new features?

That is some serious overhead? What did Sony have in mind that they needed at least an 140% extra RAM? ... and that is coming from my viewpoint as a programmer not to mention that the system had 256 MB SYSTEM RAM. That is almost half that amount the initially reserved... It seems then that they didn't provide enough physical RAM to the system at all at the outset.

That is mind boggling!

I'm too Busy Playing THE GAME [you know what Game so..] and I'll only Say:

70MB of RAM for DEVS = BETTER GAMES FTW!!!

"I don't know why guys at Joystiq and some guys here think that 70mb is not a lot of ram. That's a LOT of ram people! "

welcome to 2010

where my pc has over 6000MB of ram and my wifes pc has over 4000

im only 3GB short of being over 9000 :D

oh wait you're talking about 70mb of ram....um...oh...thats...inter esting

I'm sure with that you can haz native 1080p games now at 60fps right?

no?...well...one day maybe in 5 years when a new console is released then. But I'm already gaming at 1080p 120fps right now. wonder what I'll have in 5 years.

With Uncharted 2 and Gog Of War III being the best looking games ever on any console, you can only imagine what could have been done with a touch more RAM. Good move Sony!

... Sony has always been sneaky like that but it's all good. It's still up to devs though to make better games.

well there goes custom music for all games. If they had the 70 Mb, why didn't they use it for that?

YES PCs have a crap load of memory, and 70mb might not seem like a lot to you. But when you only have 512mb to start with, giving developers 70mb extra than they had when the thing launched, thats a pretty large and extremely useful chunk. The most use will be the amount of video memory developers have gained, as that is crucial for textures that most people notice in cross format games.

does Sony bring Ken K. back?

Sure because PS3 need an antivirus, an Ares/limeware etc. anti spyware, codecs and a tons of other programs running on background, like the computer do...

just the fact it can be done is amazing.
PS3 Just gets better and better

"Sure because PS3 need an antivirus, an Ares/limeware etc. anti spyware, codecs and a tons of other programs running on background, like the computer do..."

yup I get to watch a downloaded blu-ray movie on one monitor, while burning a movie in the background

Play any game I want on another monitor while listening to music or talkin to my friends no matter what game I'm playin in the background on another monitor

On my third monitor I can leave open for streaming anything I want news, sports, another movie :D

Ya have fun quitting your game on the ps3 whenever you want to do anything lol. oh wait 70mb free you guys can do it now right?

no?

console nex-gen iz teh bestezt evARRR!!!11!!11 lol

you dont get it right?
for a console you do not need that much of memory, when i play a game i only play a game, a console its for play games!, that it. but when im not playing a game i can do the other benefits of my console. i want to know if you can see a blu-ray movie with "512mb" Ram in your computer has the PS3 do.

A lot of the OS that wasn't optimized could slowly have been shifted out of ram and into a system HDD swap file right? From my understanding a lot of the those features could be shifted out of main memory. This would of course slow things down if the OS needed to move them into main memory.

I assume that the original footprint kept the entire OS in RAM and was later optimized. I can also assume that some of the RAM was reserved by Sony at the beginning for future updates but later they decided to reserved small portions at a time.

you do realise a ten year life cycle is them restricting potential hardware output, thus making you spends loads of money.
go sony ^^

I don't get it. The PS3 already has a Blu-ray player.

Edit :
@tdrules. Spend more money?. How?.

@cmrbe i think Francophone was making fun of the 360 not having a blu-ray player lol. Playb3yond

Lets theoretically say that the PS3's hardware could be maxed out at launch, this would be an absolute disaster for Sony, therefore they have managed to stretch it out by slowly opening up more RAM to developers.

im not saying its true, because the way it is now is pretty awesome in terms of progression in games, from something like Drake's Fortune to Heavy Rain

@tdrules.
You still haven't explained how Sony making there be more ram available translates to "making you spends loads of money".

LMAO @ Francophone's comment. =D

^ maybe just maybe... what he is trying to say is that now when there is even more ram available, SONY will produce even more and better looking AAA titles that you just can't pass thus making you pay more.

LOL its not a matter of ten life cycle.Consoles architecture doesent have much to do with it.As soon as you begin to know something about development you will see what matters and that is devs technique.They simply reserved more for other implantations in OS,nothing have to do with 10 yr cycle.You see how dumb would that be,4 yrs making games with lack of AA just to unlock it in half of life cycle and reserve more memory for AA,it doesent make sense.It would seriously make 3rd party mad because they are struggling and wasting money in development to even put 2xaa 720p on consoles and then you unlock more.

Same with architecture,that was purely PR for "hungry" fanboys.Who would be so crazy to make hardware intentionally harder to develop for because of 10 yr old cycle.That would make 3rd party pockets loose millions of dollars.That was their architecture choice and if they wanted they could easily turn of some spus or one core in 360 and unlock it later,it really has nothing to do with intentionally making hardware more complicated,it is all up to devs but PR in those companies are like food for not really educated people(as long as hardware and development goes). ;)

i see it in a different light. The way i see it if the devs could get the absolute best out of the PS3 in its first or second year it will leave little or no room for progression in later years.

What this will mean in turn will shorten the lifecycle of the PS3. Getting a game like GOW3 in the first year of the PS3 would be amazing but it will get stale soon after for consumers fast if every other games after GOW3 will be on the same level as GOW3 3-4 years later.

Shorting the lifespan of a console is not beneficial to anyone. Devs don't like to invest in next gen game devs every 3-4 years. Console holders don't want to spend billion is R&D for consoles that last only 4 years and the majority of gamers want their investment to last and not forced to upgrade every 4 years as well. The way i see it it will save more money.

The opposite approach is the PC. I love my PC but i hate it when i am forced to upgrade every two years.

@Sharman : My point is everything that Sony have done is to ensure the 10 year lifecycle of the PS3. This move included. Soon they will introduce 3d gaming when the time is right. Its all planned for their strategy to maintain the 10 year lifecycle. Thats why Sony never removed blu-ray or HDMI 1.3 or standard HD etc. They know its needed in their ultimate goal of lasting at least 10 years.

Thats really something stupid you said there!

I think Sony hardware advantage is:Blu ray,wire less and reliability and MS:OS,Live.

But real hardware specialists in those consoles are:IBM,Ati and Nvidia ;)

Sony is involved in The Cell development (along IBM and Toshiba), BluRay, PS1/PS2/PS3 design. Sony is a hardware company. MS not that much.

Sony Toshiba and IBM made The Cell
Sony made Bluray
Sony has hardware experience. Movie cameras TV's Walkman CD PLayers HD cameras etc.

That crappy RSX graphics accelerator in the PS3 is holding it back from being GPGPu efficient. (Thanks Nvidia) The Cell is the sole muscle in the PS3 and lack of Ram.

As a Pc gamer I'm jealous. I wish Microsoft would shrink Windows 7 but then again that's what GAME MODE is for.

good job Sony. they are dedicated to squeezing all the power out of the Ps3 that they can.

Well Sony was involved in Cell architecture,but IBM put those features in it.Its the same with MS and Ati,MS engineers worked together on the gpu,but that doesent mean MS would do job if it wasnt for Ati.Its well known thing that neither Sony or MS are experts when it comes to gpus and cpus,its just what company they work with suggests them.Its very debatable who made better system as long as hardware goes,i would bet 99% of devs will agree,MS had better design and dev kit.