We’ve known since February that the PlayStation 4 will be utilizing 8GB of GDDR5 RAM. Now we know a little more of the specifics on how much of that memory can be used by developers for their games, courtesy of Eurogamer, straight from PlayStation 4 documentation. Sony has reserved 3.5 GB of the memory for the operating system itself, leaving 4.5 GB available for game code. However, there is an extra gigabyte of what they are calling “flexible memory,” that may be taken from the 3.5 GB being used by the operating system, depending on availability.
4.5 GB is the baseline amount of memory that will be guaranteed for titles and is how much the majority of the launch titles will use. The extra gigabyte of flexible memory can be requested by a developer to enhance elements in their game, but only if the operating system can spare the extra memory.
The Playstation 4 dev kits that are out there now include a “Game Memory Budget Mode,” which includes two different mode, normal and large. The normal mode allows for 4.5 GB of memory while large mode increases the max memory to 5.25 GB. However, the extra memory in large mode is only available for application development.
PlayStation 4 will launch this holiday season.
