The decision to split the Xbox One's 8GB of RAM into three separate parts is one that will result in a stable environment, innovation and multi-tasking, according to one of the system's main developers.

Xbox director of development Boyd Multerer recently spoke to OXM about the system's architecture and the reasons why roughly 3GB of the 8GB RAM is set aside for entertainment apps, system-wide Kinect features and communication tools.

"The next generation gamer is not necessarily the gamer I was when I was getting into gaming," Multerer told OXM.

"There are real differences, real changes that have happened since we began the last generation.

"There are phones, there are tablets, the whole way that people interact and that they live with devices has fundamentally changed. I walk around with a phone all time, everybody I know walks around with phones. The expectation of the next gen gamer is that these things are just there.

"It's a rapidly changing ecosystem of applications that sit on a rapidly changing ecosystem of devices - fundamentally different to the consoles of the past."

Multerer explained that many of today's gamers are multitaskers, and that the aim was to provide the ability to multitask on one system so they don't have to switch TV inputs or use tables or phones instead.

"They're sitting watching a movie and they're texting all the time," he said. "I just didn't do that! It's not part of my life, right. But it's part of theirs. They don't even think about it, of course they're connected to their friends. Of course they're using services, of course they're being social. They're going through these large experiences and they're constantly multitasking."

It's important to make this section of RAM completely separate, Multerer said, because making it flexible could have resulted in problems. Games could crash if another app pushes the demand beyond 8GB, so limits were set on each segment.

"We have to be extremely careful and offer up a very predictable environment to the game developers to get the best games on your console," he said.

Multerer concluded by suggesting other uses for the section of RAM dedicated to apps, giving an example of a game adding its own social app so that players could switch between the game and the app on the fly.

"You start thinking of it like 'ah, okay, the game developer could really focus on the 3D world, focus on the art and the money they put into it, have this look beautiful'," he said, "while working with a set of apps over here that allows us to have different surfaces, hook into social systems, to add value beyond the 3D world of the game, flip back and forth quickly between them.

"And you end up with a vibrant, changing world that can handle the innovation and the pace of change over on the internet, all the start-ups, that sort of stuff - but can still work with the games, that need the predictability, that need the optimization, that need to make sure they're spending their money on the right things."

Microsoft previously explained that the Xbox One RAM would be split into three areas - a section dedicated to games, another Windows-based section dedicated to apps and a smaller section controlling multi-tasking operations.

Last week Microsoft's Phil Spencer confirmed that indie developers are likely to have full access to the Xbox One's RAM and features such as Kinect support.

Posted: Jul 29, 2013 4:41 pm
Related Forum: Xbox Forum

Source: http://www.computerandvideogames.com/421380/xbox-one-developer-explains-why-splitting-ram-is-beneficial/