Much has been made about how RAM and processor speed will influence the next generation of games – how else would one describe the beating the Nintendo Wii U has taken in regards to having a lower clock speed or the celebration of the PlayStation 4 for having 8 GB GDDR5 RAM?
We recently spoke to Co-founder and Chief Technical Officer of Avalanche Studios Linus Blomberg about this, especially in concerns to how clock speed plays a role in performance. With regards to clock speeds, would either the PS4 nor Xbox One, despite their speeds being unknown, ever face the same problem that Nintendo’s Wii U is currently facing?
Blomberg stated that, “Clock speed isn’t really a very good measurement of performance. Modern processors are capable of processing much more data than last-gen processors, even at lower clock-speeds. Lower clock-speeds also have the benefit of consuming less power and producing less heat, meaning that that hardware can be more silent.
“What matters the most is the number of processors available, and luckily the PS3 forced developers to become much better at utilizing parallel processing power.”
We even asked if games on the PlayStation 4, which reportedly allocates 7 GB GDDR5 RAM to its games while of the Xbox One’s 8 GB DDR3 RAM, only 5 GB is allocated to games, would look and run better compared to games on Microsoft’s console down the line.
Blomberg responded that, “I think that is too early to say. Naturally it’s easier and cheaper for the developers to develop for the smallest common denominator, but if that difference becomes too large we’ll definitely see specific implementations for each platform.”
Both consoles are due out by the end of 2013, and will appear at E3 2013 starting on June 10th.