256/512/1024?

[gamerxx13]

So im considering either getting the 8800 gt or the 8800 gts. but what difference does the mb on the video card do. does it really make the card that much better? also are there some benchmarks to show the difference! thanks guys!

 

[requiem1]

i think 512mb is a sweet spot. 256 is low for newer games and higher resolutions and 1024 is overkill for like 98% of the people.

 

[error8]

I agree with Requiem1. The best thing right now is to have a 512 mb video card. The 1024 mb cards does perform better at higher resolutions, but the performance over the 512 versions is so small that it doesn't worth the extra money. But not only the memory amount matters. The gpu is also very important, and memory bandwith. For example a 8600 GTS with 512 DDR3 at 2.0 Ghz gets smoked by a 256 DDR3 at 1.8 ghz 8800 Gt card because the second one has a much powerful gpu and a bigger memory bandwith. So don't pick your next video card only because of the amount of memory.

 

[error8]

Well my above post is quite stupid because I haven't really read your first sentence. The short explination is that the 8800 gt is overall faster than the 8800 Gts with 640 mb because it has a better gpu. In my opinion the best thing is to buy the 8800 GT or the Ati 3870 if it is priced right.

 

[Arkaign]

Originally posted by: error8
Well my above post is quite stupid because I haven't really read your first sentence. The short explination is that the 8800 gt is overall faster than the 8800 Gts with 640 mb because it has a better gpu. In my opinion the best thing is to buy the 8800 GT or the Ati 3870 if it is priced right.[/q]
:thumbsup:

 

[kylebisme]

Originally posted by: error8
The 1024 mb cards does perform better at higher resolutions, but the performance over the 512 versions is so small that it doesn't worth the extra money.

The average framerate difference is small. However, the reason that average drops is because the 512MB card doesn't have enough memory to hold all the textures in memory along with everything else, so framerates plummet for a moment whenever the textures have to swap between main RAM and VRAM. So while the average framerates aren't much different, the benefit can be huge in that the extra VRAM lets you keep the resolution and texture detail and resolution turned up while not suffering though moments of very low framerates caused by texture thrashing.

That said, most if not all games out now will fit even the highest quality textures on 512MB card just fine at reasonable resolutions and levels of AA. More VRAM generally isn't worth buying a slower card for, but it can often help get the most out of a fast card.

 

[LittleNemoNES]

1GB ram can ensure Vsync+3ple buffering. I'd love to have a 1gb card.

 

[KingstonU]

Originally posted by: error8

So don't pick your next video card only because of the amount of memory.

I made this uninformed mistake 4 years ago :laugh:

 

[exar333]

Originally posted by: KingstonU

Originally posted by: error8

So don't pick your next video card only because of the amount of memory.

I made this uninformed mistake 4 years ago :laugh:

Go Geforce FX5200 w/256MB RAM! So fast! *wink*

 

[The Keeper]

Originally posted by: gersson
1GB ram can ensure Vsync+3ple buffering. I'd love to have a 1gb card.

Pardon? Just how much video RAM does vsync and triple buffering require? I've always enabled those two settings without much thought about hardware requirements. Other graphics settings were the first to go down if a game ran slowly.

 

[Cheex]

Originally posted by: The Keeper

Originally posted by: gersson
1GB ram can ensure Vsync+3ple buffering. I'd love to have a 1gb card.

Pardon? Just how much video RAM does vsync and triple buffering require? I've always enabled those two settings without much thought about hardware requirements. Other graphics settings were the first to go down if a game ran slowly.

Good question.
I don't usually use Vsync but I do use Triple Buffering.

I'd like an answer to this also.

 

[secretanchitman]

Originally posted by: ExarKun333

Originally posted by: KingstonU

Originally posted by: error8

So don't pick your next video card only because of the amount of memory.

I made this uninformed mistake 4 years ago :laugh:

Go Geforce FX5200 w/256MB RAM! So fast! *wink*

waiiiiit!!!!! the geforce 6200 512MB is MUCH faster!!! :laugh:

 

[kylebisme]

Originally posted by: Cheex

Originally posted by: The Keeper

Originally posted by: gersson
1GB ram can ensure Vsync+3ple buffering. I'd love to have a 1gb card.

Pardon? Just how much video RAM does vsync and triple buffering require? I've always enabled those two settings without much thought about hardware requirements. Other graphics settings were the first to go down if a game ran slowly.

Good question.
I don't usually use Vsync but I do use Triple Buffering.

I'd like an answer to this also.

You can't use triple buffering without vsync, you can have the option on but it does nothing. With vsync it reserves an extra frontbuffer's worth of memory, for the GPU to store a finished frame in so it can continue to rendering the next one instead of having to wait for the backbuffer to clear on vsync. Without vsync, the frontbuffer is updated as soon as the backbuffer is completed, so there is no use for a third buffer.

I'm not quite sure how much memory that third buffer uses, though I'm fairly certian it is no more than a 24bit BMP of whatever resolution you are running as that is basically what it is, and that comes out to just under 5.5MB for 1600x1200. Lossless compression might be used to reduce that though, so I'll ask around a bit and report back.

 

[The Keeper]

I decided not to be lazy and googled about this myself. Found two good articles;
- http://www.hardforum.com/showthread.php?t=928593
- http://www.ocworkbench.com/2006/articles/DXtweaker/

From the OCWorkBench DXTweaker article:

Triple buffering seems like the perfect solution to cure low frame rate, however, it does not come free. Enable triple buffering also means it requires 50% more frame buffer spaces. Under certain conditions, it can also negatively impact your gaming experience. A simple example can illustrate this potential problem. Let's say we are running a game at 1600x1200 resolution. Each pixel needs 32 bits to store the information, 1600x1200x32 = 61,440,000 bits, converting it to megabytes, it equals to 7.32MB. To use double buffering, it requires 14.64MB video memories; to use triple buffering, it requires 21.96MB video memories. Heck, it's only 21.96MB, what's the big deal? Modern video cards have 256MB video rams onboard. You are certainly right, it does not seem like memory usage would be an issue. However, once we enabled 4x FSAA, the number gets inflated really fast. With 4x FSAA enabled, there are 4 times more pixels being sampled, thus you need to multiple 21.96MB by 4 and it's whopping 87.84MB! That's more than 1/3 of your total video ram. If a game requires 200MB of space to store textures, light maps, bump maps, normal maps......etc., you are going to have a very bad gameplay experience with lots of pauses caused by hard drives accesses. This is just something to watch out for, if you find the game accessing the hard drive too frequently, it can be an indication that triple buffering is eating up too much of your video memories.

 

[kylebisme]

OCWorkBench is wrong. AA only effects the size of the backbuffer, and they completely overlook the fact that the back buffer has to hold z-buffer values for each pixel in 3D rendering as well which increases its size as well. Also, while 32bit rendering is the standard, 8bits of that is for transparency blending rather than color, so once the frame is competed I don't see why it would be anything more than 24bit for the frontbuffer. And then there is compression to consider as well which I know is used both in the z-buffer as well as with AA, if not elsewhere as well. Anyway, I've started a thread on the subject at B3D and I'll report back once I get all the facts straight.

 

[BFG10K]

Don't forget FP framebuffer formats and/or rendering will add to that calculation. In a modern game using 128 bit rendering, triple buffering can add a substantial amount of VRAM usage.

The fact is the figure varies depending on the game assets but loosely speaking triple buffering should add about 50% to the existing framebuffer space when not using AA.

 

[kylebisme]

HDR adds to the size of the backbuffer, it doesn't effect how much is used by triple buffering. And how muh is used by triple buffering is never anywhere close to 50%.