PS5 has something like 16GB unified RAM, and no game is going to really push much beyond that in VRAM use, we don’t really get Crysis style system crushers anymore.
This isn't really true from the recreational card side, nVidia themselves are reducing the number of 8GB models as a sign of market demand [1]. Games these days are regularly maxing out 6 & 8 GB when running anything above 1080p for 60fps.
The prevalence of Unreal Engine 5 also recently with a low quality of optimization for weaker hardware is causing games to be released basically unplayable for most.
For recreational use the sentiment is that 8GB is scraping the bottom of the requirements. Again this is partly due to bad optimizations, but games are being played in higher resolutions also, which required more memory for larger texture sizes.
[1] https://videocardz.com/newz/nvidia-reportedly-reduces-supply...
While I dislike some of the handmade hero culture, in one thing they are right, regarding how bad modern hardware happens to be used.
A good thing is that I turned myself into libre/indie gaming with games such as Cataclysm DDA:Bright Ness with far less requeriments than a UE5 game and yet being enyojable due to playability and in-game lore (and a proper ending compared to vanilla CDDA).
I know this is going back to Intel's Larrabee where they tried it, but I'd be real interested to see what the limits of a software renderer is now considering the comparative strength of modern processors and amount of multiprocessing. While I know there's DXVK or projects like dgVoodoo2 which can be an option with sometimes better backwards compatibility, just software would seem like a stable reference target than the gradually shifting landscape of GPUs/drivers/APIs
Lavapipe on Vulkan makes VKQuake playable even con Core Duo 2 systems. Just as a concept, of course. I know about software rendered Quakes since forever.
The Unreal Engine software renderer back then had a very distinct dithering pattern. I played it after I got a proper 3D card, but it didn't feel the same, felt very flat and lifeless.
Never got far enough to interact with most systems in the game or worry about proper endings.
500$ 32GB consumer GPU is an obvious best seller.
Thus let's call it how it is: they don't want to cannibalize their higher end GPUs.
Here is a better idea what to do with all that money,
We're already seeing competitors of AWS but only targeting things like Qwen , deepseek, etc.
There's Enterprise customers who have compliance laws and literally want AI but cannot use any of the top models because everything has to be run on their own infrastructure.
That's pretty funny considering that PC games are moving more towards 32GB RAM and 8GB+ VRAM. The next generation of consoles will of course increase to make room for higher quality assets.
Gabe Newell - https://www.gamesradar.com/gabe-newell-says-games-dont-need-...
Detailed assets don't equate good games.
I also believe Gabe Newell was referring more to gameplay mimicking real life rather than art style. Makes a lot more sense when you remember that the Half Life games have a realistic art style and pushed limits of what was capable at the time.
You're wrong. It's probably more like 9 HN posters.