Watch Dogs

[IceX]

I can only imagine that the reason for the 6GB of RAM needed minimum would be because it buffers the whole open world at once, instead of loading a portion at a time like most open world games do.

Wouldn't that be stupid as ****?

 

[DaRkOwNs]

I very, very highly doubt there's a 6 gb minimum. I wouldn't worry about the specs. They'll be embelished a bit to give them breathing room when they release.

 

[Deverz]

Back in the day when I had a terrible PC I ran Kotor with half the min specs

There's always wiggle room

 

[hleV]

Wouldn't that be stupid as ****?

Considering the player has 6 GB RAM, it's not stupid.

 

[Henry]

Considering the player has 6 GB RAM, it's not stupid.

I wouldn't call it "stupid", but a really bad practice. Loading the entire map for an open world game would consume way too many resources practically for nothing.

IF the 6GB ram is true, I'm guessing it's because of the game's advanced NPC system they developed, each and every single one of the NPCs has unique characteristics and an unique behavior. I don't know how exactly that would work code-wise, but treating every single NPC as an unique/different entity and having so many devices that you can control around you, probably takes alot of RAM to process.

 

[Zeonix]

It's probably just optimized terribly, like most of their pc games.

 

[KarrdeKNR]

Also, 6 GB RAM should probably be minimum specs for ANY PC these days

 

[hleV]

I wouldn't call it "stupid", but a really bad practice. Loading the entire map for an open world game would consume way too many resources practically for nothing.

What is "too many"? Again, considering the player has 6 GB RAM, it's actually a good practice to load as much as possible. It saves the computer the trouble of loading shit real-time.

 

[FalconFury]

The only Watch Dog guy is Frank Abagnale. The king of all thieves.

 

[Deverz]

The only Watch Dog guy is Frank Abagnale. The king of all thieves.

Nothing to do with the topic at all. Don't post here

 

[DaRkOwNs]

Shut up, ED.

I wouldn't -think- they would load an entire world at once, because I can only assume that would increase the shit out of load times, but it is entirely possible. Even still, I would assume there'd be an option to disable this and have the normal load scaling feature.

 

[Grega]

Im guessing itll be used for that CTOS sumulation running in the BG. Especially since they claim to have individual info on individual people. Meaning no cloning or instancing allowed. That can be quite a shock to the system if not done though the RAM as loading up all that info or every char that pops in to existence on the fly would probably cause some lag if not done though the faster storage.

 

[Henry]

What is "too many"? Again, considering the player has 6 GB RAM, it's actually a good practice to load as much as possible. It saves the computer the trouble of loading shit real-time.

It doesn't matter how much RAM the player has. You can't develop a game assuming how much resource the players will have, you develop it using as much resource as you need, and the less resource you make it consume, the better. Is simple as that.

Why on earth would you load a resource that the player doesn't need at the moment? Have an entire city cache in your RAM just to render the block you're in? The good practice is not to load as much as possible, but as much as needed. Is called optimization.

 

[hleV]

So making the game perform better by caching everything to RAM so CPU wouldn't need to do it real-time is not optimization? I really think you need to think this through before arguing any further.

I only have 4 GB RAM myself, but I don't judge their decision to use more RAM because I understand how allocating more memory may help reduce the need for calculations by the CPU.

 

[Grega]

So making the game perform better by caching everything to RAM so CPU wouldn't need to do it real-time is not optimization? I really think you need to think this through before arguing any further.

I only have 4 GB RAM myself, but I don't judge their decision to use more RAM because I understand how allocating more memory may help reduce the need for calculations by the CPU.

Thats not how games work. They work by loading cells in to RAM. The far away cells are all represented by a low poly mesh while the near cells are loaded fully in a higher poly variety.

Thats what causes the "pop-in" effect in games. So its not a question of loading the entire world, since they are not doing that at all. The question is what they are using it for.

As said i think itll be mostly used to reduce the real time loading of the NPCs in your local cell when moving round the city.

 

[hleV]

Thats not how games work.

To which part in my post are you exactly referring to?

 

[Grega]

To which part in my post are you exactly referring to?

So making the game perform better by caching everything to RAM so CPU wouldn't need to do it real-time is not optimization?


RAM is storage area. The CPU still has to handle it in real time.

Also loading the world in to RAM is pointless since, you then have to juggle the data between the VRAM and RAM and you end up loosing time that you could have saved in a dynamicly loading system (what we have now)

VRAM handles the models, shaders, textures and so on, while RAM handles the AI calculation related stuff. (speaking strictly in a data read/write manner ofcourse)

 

[hleV]

... I didn't say games work that way nor I was talking about how Watch Dogs uses the RAM.
I thought we were discussing a comparison between higher RAM usage for caching more stuff and letting CPU do that dynamically when needed.

 

[DaRkOwNs]

I think he was saying that there'd be no point to caching everything to the RAM, and would actually decrease overall performance, because the CPU still has to actively process it. It doesn't just store there free of charge. The NPC's would be stored on the local RAM storage because they are an active part of the landscape and need governing, while a lot of the modeling and texture will be governed by the VRAM.

Correct if I'm wrong Grega 'cause I am definitely not the expert in this area.

 

[Grega]

Well its like this CPU related stuff is stored in the RAM while the GPU related stuff is stored in the VRAM.

If there is not enough VRAM, then the GPU asks the CPU to use the regular RAM. But since the communication between the GPU and the regular RAM has to go though the motherboard, it takes longer then simply accessing the VRAM and thus causes the performance to tank.

So loading everything related to the open world in to RAM would mean that you are totally ignoring you even have VRAM and thats horrible optimization. Especialy since everything you can see is handled by the GPU and not the CPU. The CPU handles the synchronization, AI, BG calculations and so on. So requiring such an amount of RAM means that they are planing a whole shitload of BG calculations to be running, not related to graphics or maybe even the city itself.

As said im guessing they will be using it ti simulate the CTOS and how its integrated in to the society of the game. That could cause a big load on the RAM itself. But this is just a guess, and quite personally it would be a shitty idea from an optimization standpoint.