14 DAY TRIAL // Crytek, the developer of franchises like Crysis and the recent Ryse: Son of Rome, has warned about the 8GB amount of RAM in the PS4 and Xbox One consoles, saying that it can easily be filled up and that it's up to developers to once again struggle with this limitation.
The PS4 and Xbox One use a similar hardware configuration, powered by an AMD APU. However, the PS4 employs a faster version coupled with 8GB of DDR5 RAM, while the Xbox One has the same amount of DDR3 memory.
The two platforms have already produced some great-looking experiences, and among them was Ryse: Son of Rome, which appeared on the Xbox One at launch.
While talking with GamingBolt, Crytek US Engine Business Development Manager Sean Tracy explained that the studio was delighted with the advancement in configuration, even if the leap in power isn't all that great.
"We are delighted with the updates to the next-gen hardware but of course always want more! The unified architecture of the APU’s allows us to easily leverage massive amounts of resources for all kinds of features including rendering, physics, animation and more."
"Though the PS4 and Xbox-One don’t offer an enormous jump over the previous generation in terms of raw processing power, the custom AMD APU’s within both platforms represent a huge leap forward in terms of integration and capability."
Tracy did, however, emphasize that the amount of RAM in both consoles isn't enough and that developers will easily fill it up in no time.
"I would have to agree with the viewpoint that 8GB can easily be filled up, but also keep in mind that developers don’t necessarily even have access to all 8 gigs of it. For example the Xbox One retains some of the RAM for OS purposes. Since technology progresses exponentially, we will soon find that the computational requirements of games will quickly hit the ceiling of a few gigs of RAM."
Crytek already had to manage the RAM with Ryse, and it seems that this aspect of the two consoles will impose the biggest limitation for new games.
"We already had to manage quite intensely our memory usage throughout Ryse and this will be one of the limiting factors surely in this generation. As hardware gets stronger the complexity of scenes can be increased and the dynamism within them."
Crytek is currently licensing the CryEngine technology to other studios, while working on its own projects.