Why does a handheld need LLM, AI, Ray Tracing and 4k? It's a fucking handheld with a tiny screen.
We need to go back, desperately, to a simpler time.
First of all, you get
ray treason by default if you use RDNA5, or you know, modified RDNA2 (PS5). Even smartphones have ray tracing these days (the latest Samsung Exynos SoCs even use RDNA2/3 specifically). Certain effects like shadows or reflections can be done with RT while other parts remain rasterized.
A tiny 1080p handheld doesn't change the need for games to run the same. Having handheld-specific games like PSP isn't as viable as games that run on the main console and handheld. If games can run at 4K120 on PS6, they can probably run at 1080p30 on the handheld. Docking + upscaling from the slower handheld chip might get it to 4K, idk.
LLMs and (near?) real-time text-to-speech can be used to make NPCs with dynamic conversations. You can find demos of this. Other structured data like quest lines could also be generated by LLMs. Yeah, this could all suck, but it could be cool if it works.
It sounds like 8-10 GB is the minimum amount of RAM you would want to set aside for these AI/LLM functions, on top of around 24-32 GB for everything else, up from 16 GB of the current generation. So that's how you get estimates like 36-40 GB. Using LPDDR5X, it won't be as expensive as GDDR6 used to be.
If a developer doesn't use AI, they get free RAM to use elsewhere. No developer is going to say no to 36... 40... 48 GB of RAM instead of 24 GB, which would be the absolute minimum cheap-out route you could predict for next-gen.
