8GB VRAM not enough (and 10 / 12)

[BFG10K]

8GB

• Dying Light 2, Battlefield 2042, Avatar Frontiers of Pandora, Call of Duty Modern Warfare 3, Starfield, Forza Horizon 5, Horizon Forbidden West, Alan Wake 2, The Last of Us, Tekken 8, FC 24, Detroit Become Human, Death Stranding, Alone in The Dark, Overwatch 2
  3060 12GB higher 1% low than 4060 8GB https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gIfz57wmywg
• Cyberpunk 2077, Diablo 4, Hogwarts Legacy, Horizon Zero Dawn, Microsoft Flight Sim 2020, Witcher 3, Watch Dogs Legion skip to 4K + DLSS for each game https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tPiaWWd0xGc
• Ratchet & Clank, Plague Tale Requiem, Last Of Us, Jedi Survivor, Far Cry 6, Hogwarts Legacy, Forza Horizon 5, Cyberpunk 2077 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wr3MckDxMfE&pp=ygUTMTZnYiB2cyA4Z2IgNDA2MCB0aQ==
• Far Cry 6, Godfall, Hogwarts Legacy, Forza Horizon 5, Forspoken, Doom Eternal, Watchdogs Legion https://youtu.be/fJc--C01P90?t=268
• Last Of Us, Resident Evil 4, Callisto Protocol, Plague Tale Requiem, Halo Infinite, Forspoken https://youtu.be/2_Y3E631ro8?t=429
• Last Of Us, Hogwarts Legacy, Resident Evil 4, Forspoken, Plague Tale Requiem, Callisto Protocol https://youtu.be/Rh7kFgHe21k?t=288
• Hogwarts Legacy, Last Of Us, Spider Man Remastered, Doom Eternal, Forza Horizon 5 https://youtu.be/R943CbDTq_s?t=1473
• Horizon Forbidden West 4060 has issues @ 1080p + DLSS unless you switch off frame generation and reduce settings to high https://youtu.be/3AyKvI23VGw?t=233
• Horizon Forbidden West 3070 requires reducing textures 2 notches https://youtu.be/xTwEGy6HHKo?t=351
• Deathloop https://youtu.be/lu_XHyO-6zY?t=918
• Ghost Recon Breakpoint https://youtu.be/iUGppQVpXzU?t=529
• Resident Evil 2 https://youtu.be/Aa-gsgRjMII?t=796
• Talos Principle 2 https://youtu.be/K6FATQAuEwI?t=337
• Spider Man Remastered https://youtu.be/vRVR_plVSlc?t=1060
• Witcher 3 https://youtu.be/vRVR_plVSlc?t=1240

Horizon Forbidden West 3060 is faster than the 2080 Super despite the former usually competing with the 2070. Also 3060 has a better 1% low than 4060 and 4060Ti 8GB.

Spoiler

Resident Evil Village 3060TI/3070 tanks at 4K and is slower than the 3060/6700XT when ray tracing:

Spoiler

Company Of Heroes 3060 has a higher minimum than the 3070TI:

Spoiler

10GB / 12GB

• Plague Tale Requiem 3080 10GB tanks if you enable ray tracing, would be fast enough if it had more VRAM because if you stop moving, the framerate stabilizes to >60FPS https://youtu.be/7zjrMww3fAc?t=496
• Hogwarts Legacy 4K + RT, 4060Ti 16GB is faster than 4070 12GB https://youtu.be/X-h_R488Mq8?t=191

Reasons why still shipping 8GB since 2014 isn't NV's fault.

Spoiler

1. It's the player's fault.
2. It's the reviewer's fault.
3. It's the developer's fault.
4. It's AMD's fault.
5. It's the game's fault.
6. It's the driver's fault.
7. It's a system configuration issue.
8. Wrong settings were tested.
9. Wrong area was tested.
10. Wrong games were tested.
11. 4K is irrelevant.
12. Texture quality is irrelevant as long as it matches a console's.
13. Detail levels are irrelevant as long as they match a console's.
14. There's no reason a game should use more than 8GB, because a random forum user said so.
15. It's completely acceptable for the more expensive 3070/3070TI/3080 to turn down settings while the cheaper 3060/6700XT has no issue.
16. It's an anomaly.
17. It's a console port.
18. It's a conspiracy against NV.
19. 8GB cards aren't meant for 4K / 1440p / 1080p / 720p gaming.
20. It's completely acceptable to disable ray tracing on NV while AMD has no issue.
21. Polls, hardware market share, and game title count are evidence 8GB is enough, but are totally ignored when they don't suit the ray tracing agenda.

According to some people here, 8GB is neeeevaaaaah NV's fault and objective evidence "doesn't count" because of reasons(tm). If you have others please let me know and I'll add them to the list. Cheers!

 

[marees]

Just turn down texture cache, RT shadows, hair quality etc. (Assuming it is well optimized engine like id tech based on vulkan)

Else you can always play at medium-low

https://twitter.com/x/status/1869733632841064735

 

[SolidQ]

Here is almost near death for N44 and RTX 5060

https://videocardz.com/newz/pcgh-demonstrates-why-8gb-gpus-are-simply-not-good-enough-for-2025

 

[DAPUNISHER]

Here is almost near death for N44 and RTX 5060

https://videocardz.com/newz/pcgh-demonstrates-why-8gb-gpus-are-simply-not-good-enough-for-2025

All of the issues referenced above, is precisely what we have been saying in this thread for years.

 

[SolidQ]

All of the issues referenced above, is precisely what we have been saying in this thread for years.

Yeah, 8 gb should be Max 180-200$, otherwise is doa

 

[marees]

Here is almost near death for N44 and RTX 5060

https://videocardz.com/newz/pcgh-demonstrates-why-8gb-gpus-are-simply-not-good-enough-for-2025

Few questions on N44

1. When is it releasing
2. Is it 3 quarters off
3. If that is the case will 3 GB sticks be available
4. Even if that's not the case, AMD has released 2 versions of 5500xt, 6500xt, 7600xt etc. Maybe there will be 2 versions of the 9050?

 

[DAPUNISHER]

Yeah, 8 gb should be Max 180-200$, otherwise is doa

That is the consensus. Inflation has made $200 and under the old $150 and under which is exactly where 8GB belongs. However, the popularity of the 4060 causes me to question if Nvidia has to pay any attention to reality. They have Apple level cult status at this point; not certain millions of its customers consider other brands. It's as simple as buying whatever Nvidia card fits their budget.

 

[SolidQ]

They have Apple level cult status at this point

Yeah, because random people hear like "NV is good gpu" and he/she doesn't know about vram perf etc, just seeing price and buy it

 

[GTracing]

Here is almost near death for N44 and RTX 5060

https://videocardz.com/newz/pcgh-demonstrates-why-8gb-gpus-are-simply-not-good-enough-for-2025

I'm definitely in the "GPUs need more VRAM" camp. But I don't like Videocardz's or PCGH's articles. They're misleading imo.

Looking at the rasterization chart, things look bad for the RX 7600 until you factor in price. The XT costs 30% more in the US. The 8GB card has better price/perf in 14 games. It's roughly tied in 3 games. And it loses badly in the last 3. Overall, the RX 7600 gives better bang for your buck.

For the ray tracing benchmarks. My issue is that both cards are bad for ray tracing. 12 of the 15 games run at less than 40fps at 1080p. Of the remaining three games, two are playable with both cards. The last one, Indiana Jones, is the only game of the 15 that runs well on the RX 7600 XT and poorly on the RX 7600.

That summary chart includes the average of all resolutions. I can't stress enough how dumb this is. Yes, 8GB graphics cards do worse at 4k with max settings. But the RX 7600 XT doesn't give a good experience at those higher resolutions either. No consumer should use either card for 4k max settings gaming.

Just to give an example how terrible the chart is: In my opinion The Witcher 3 at FHD with ray tracing is unplayable on either card. Playing at ~30FPS is just not worth it to get a little extra detail. Some may disagree with me there. However, no logical person is going to play at WQHD 24FPS. And it just gets worse from there. The 16GB card is technically 2.5x faster at 4k, but in practice, 13FPS is just as unplayable as 5FPS. PCGH included all of these results in the summary chart, and Videocardz happily regurgitated it without mentioning the issue.

 

[DAPUNISHER]

Classic example of vram deciding if you have a smooth experience or not. Horizon FW -

 

[DAPUNISHER]

Grabbed the other 2 examples where 8GB is the problem

Last of Us


Indy Jones

 

[amenx]

Question. We know some games dynamically reduce textures or other settings on the fly when vram limits reached. But is this particular to some game engines or is now a typical thing in all newer games? Do we still have new games that do not do that?

 

[DAPUNISHER]

Question. We know some games dynamically reduce textures or other settings on the fly when vram limits reached. But is this particular to some game engines or is now a typical thing in all newer games? Do we still have new games that do not do that?

Yes, it's engine based. There is no unified solution for how games handle the insufficient frame buffer.

 

[Mopetar]

I think they do it because too many people look at bar charts without any real understanding of them and if people see a game that has bad performance on their card they might not buy it.

Show them a big bar and a muddy texture though and they'll still buy your game though.

I would like it if games did offer better controls for this. For example:

Ultra - torture your GPU for barely noticeable performance improvements over high quality visuals.
Very High - high quality visuals that do not degrade to maintain frame rate.
High - high quality visuals as long as the frame rate stays above 60 FPS.
Medium - good quality visuals that do not degrade to maintain frame rate.
Low - good quality visuals as long as the frame rate stays above 60 FPS.
Very Low - whatever potato quality is necessary to keep the FPS above or as close to 60 FPS as necessary.
Ultra Low - Text only fall-back mode. You are staring at a beautiful vista that would look more impressive if you bought a GPU, cheapwad.

Without a fixed graphical quality benchmarks become useless and will only mislead consumers.

 

[marees]

Question. We know some games dynamically reduce textures or other settings on the fly when vram limits reached. But is this particular to some game engines or is now a typical thing in all newer games? Do we still have new games that do not do that?

UE5 can stream from CPU / RAM (this can result in texture pop-in). This puts heavy load on pci bus, cpu & system RAM

Vulkan based id-tech has a better approach where you can manually adjust the texture cache. But very few engines follow this approach

 

[coercitiv]

I think they do it because too many people look at bar charts without any real understanding of them and if people see a game that has bad performance on their card they might not buy it.

It's also less of a blocker, dynamic allocation means the degradation is gradual, and the fixes can be gradual as well. As long as you can put in the time to make it work well, it's probably a better long term solution.

What's missing here is some kind of flag or indicator that warns the user that assets are getting aggressively swapped and/or downgraded.

 

[mikeymikec]

I think they do it because too many people look at bar charts without any real understanding of them and if people see a game that has bad performance on their card they might not buy it.

Show them a big bar and a muddy texture though and they'll still buy your game though.

I would like it if games did offer better controls for this. For example:

Ultra - torture your GPU for barely noticeable performance improvements over high quality visuals.
Very High - high quality visuals that do not degrade to maintain frame rate.
High - high quality visuals as long as the frame rate stays above 60 FPS.
Medium - good quality visuals that do not degrade to maintain frame rate.
Low - good quality visuals as long as the frame rate stays above 60 FPS.
Very Low - whatever potato quality is necessary to keep the FPS above or as close to 60 FPS as necessary.
Ultra Low - Text only fall-back mode. You are staring at a beautiful vista that would look more impressive if you bought a GPU, cheapwad.

Without a fixed graphical quality benchmarks become useless and will only mislead consumers.

Given the buddy-buddy nature of the GPU/gaming industries, if standardised quality/performance settings saturated the games market, what would happen next is for GPU makers to come up with ways to nullify its benefits so that their GPU can be dishonestly marketed as say 'ultra capable'.

We've got a messed-up situation in general in that software makers should be kind of at war with hardware makers: A game software company should be coming up with innovative means of making the most of several-year-old tech so that as many people can enjoy their game as possible, which is entirely the opposite objective of hardware makers. Instead we've got games being released without optimisations and games that even the latest GPUs can barely handle, because it's what GPU makers need.

 

[jpiniero]

Rebirth on the Deck is technically playable but is rather rough.

 

[poke01]

Rebirth on the Deck is technically playable but is rather rough.

Still very impressive. This port is on a capable PC is good. Can’t wait for my play through.
SE did a much much job better than Forsaken, (ewwwwwwwwww game)

 

[poke01]

FF: Rebirth is another game that requires DX12U so RDNA2 and Turing minimum

 

[poke01]

Uses UE4 and no crazy shuttering. Devs optimised really well unlike FF16.

 

[DAPUNISHER]

You can add Marvel Midnight Suns to the list. Even with high textures instead of epic, 1440 High, RTGI and reflections, FSR 2.2 Quality it uses over 9GB of ram.

 

[Ranulf]

I'd honestly forgotten they had some sort of RT in that game. At least the publisher, 2k got rid of their stupid launcher for all their games.

 

[NTMBK]

We've got a messed-up situation in general in that software makers should be kind of at war with hardware makers: A game software company should be coming up with innovative means of making the most of several-year-old tech so that as many people can enjoy their game as possible, which is entirely the opposite objective of hardware makers. Instead we've got games being released without optimisations and games that even the latest GPUs can barely handle, because it's what GPU makers need.

We absolutely do try to squeeze the most out of aging hardware. It's called the PS5.

 

[DAPUNISHER]

I'd honestly forgotten they had some sort of RT in that game. At least the publisher, 2k got rid of their stupid launcher for all their games.

It was free from Epic and I have it linked to my GOG account so I can launch from there. Without upscaling it uses more ram yet, obviously.

On the RT: I have not run a search, but it seems like the reflections are half res or lower, and GI is tacked on.

 

[Mopetar]

We absolutely do try to squeeze the most out of aging hardware. It's called the PS5.

The PS5 has 16 GB of unified memory. While it's not the fastest and some of it is needed for use by the CPU, contrast with the 5060 which is particularly guaranteed to be launching with 8 GB and it looks to be ahead of its time by comparison.

Optimization for a single platform will always be easier than targeting the comparable chaotic mess of PC hardware configurations, but it's a bit hard to label the PS5 as "aging" when it will deliver better results than a new card with a crippled configuration that has a similar cost to the entire console.