Project Scorpio devs now have 9GB of GDDR5 RAM to play with

While much of Project Scorpio has been finalised for some time now, including the hardware spec, Microsoft is still making some tweaks to make its platform easier for developers to work with. Project Scorpio is set to ship with a massive 12GB of GDDR5 memory and while previously the planned split was 8GB of memory for games and 4GB for the dashboard/OS, Microsoft has increased the amount of memory available to devs.

Developers working with Scorpio will now have access to 9GB of GDDR5 memory to utilise in their games, leaving 3GB of memory for system-level operations and background applications. This particular bit of information was dropped by Microsoft's Mike Ybarra over on Twitter. As Digital Foundry explains, this extra bit of memory will help developers hit their higher render targets, which are required for a 4K framebuffer and higher resolution assets.

Beyond that, if games don't utilise that extra 1GB of memory, it will be used for caching, which would allow for quicker loading times. This is something desperately needed on current generation consoles, where loading times can often be painfully long. In my personal experience, just waiting for the main menu in Rainbow Six Siege to load can often be a hassle, so anything that could speed that up would be welcome.

We will be seeing the final version of Project Scorpio at E3 in a few days time. We have already seen the hardware reveal for the console, so the hope is that Microsoft's stage time will mainly be spent showcasing games. You can check out our E3 schedule guide for US, EU and UK times for all the major conferences.

KitGuru Says: I'm looking forward to Project Scorpio personally, though I understand why a lot of people aren't too fussed about it. After all, a PC is bound to be stronger in terms of raw power. In the end though, if the price is too high, then Microsoft may end up shooting itself in the foot.

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