A look at VRAM use with AA enabled

[MrTeal]

It won't matter, the discussion will shift to future games. For what it's worth, I believe it was Tweak town that did a review on 285CF. It was pretty close to 280X in most games, but dropped a lot in Tomb Raider (I think? PITA to check on my phone) at 4k Very High. That might be one instance of where 2GB isn't enough.

 

[happy medium]

I will wait for the actual Fury reviews but the 4GB FUD mills are certainly starting to spin around the web.

From the gtx980ti review at Hardocp
http://www.hardocp.com/article/2015..._980_ti_video_card_gpu_review/12#.VYIVTOlRFjo

quote:
At 4K neither the 980 Ti or TITAN X is actually fast enough to truly enjoy the latest graphically demanding games at high IQ settings, so the VRAM point becomes moot. The main problem at 4K is just the sheer amount of GPU performance needed push all those pixels. You will need two GTX 980 Ti cards or two TITAN X cards in SLI to genuinely enjoy newer shooter games at high IQ settings at 4K. This is where the benefits of the 6GB of VRAM over 4GB on the GTX 980 will come in handy. It may though, actually not be enough at 4K, but we will test that when we test SLI.





VRAM




As you can see from our gaming lineup (which is using many new games released this year) we aren't seeing much demand over 4GB just yet. There are some hints that some games might need more; Dying Light for example, and possibly Far Cry 4 and GTA V. We can at least say this, 4GB of VRAM should be the MINIMUM for running games at 1440p today. If you were able to have 6GB of VRAM or more, you will be ensured that games coming this year and next should run fine, as far as VRAM goes at 1440p.



At 4K though 4GB of VRAM is clearly not enough. At 4K you want at a MINIMUM 6GB. It is possible though that more may actually help as you start increasing the number of video cards in SLI. 6GB might actually not be enough for some games in 4K when SLI is involved, we will see.

 

[Elfear]

From the gtx980ti review at Hardocp
http://www.hardocp.com/article/2015..._980_ti_video_card_gpu_review/12#.VYIVTOlRFjo

At 4K neither the 980 Ti or TITAN X is actually fast enough to truly enjoy the latest graphically demanding games at high IQ settings, so the VRAM point becomes moot. The main problem at 4K is just the sheer amount of GPU performance needed push all those pixels. You will need two GTX 980 Ti cards or two TITAN X cards in SLI to genuinely enjoy newer shooter games at high IQ settings at 4K. This is where the benefits of the 6GB of VRAM over 4GB on the GTX 980 will come in handy. It may though, actually not be enough at 4K, but we will test that when we test SLI.

As you can see from our gaming lineup (which is using many new games released this year) we aren't seeing much demand over 4GB just yet. There are some hints that some games might need more; Dying Light for example, and possibly Far Cry 4 and GTA V. We can at least say this, 4GB of VRAM should be the MINIMUM for running games at 1440p today. If you were able to have 6GB of VRAM or more, you will be ensured that games coming this year and next should run fine, as far as VRAM goes at 1440p.

At 4K though 4GB of VRAM is clearly not enough. At 4K you want at a MINIMUM 6GB. It is possible though that more may actually help as you start increasing the number of video cards in SLI. 6GB might actually not be enough for some games in 4K when SLI is involved, we will see.

It's an odd review because their conclusion doesn't match their test results. If 980 SLI is faster than Titan X at 4k, I'm not sure why they conclude 6GB is the minimum.

 

[cen1]

From the gtx980ti review at Hardocp
http://www.hardocp.com/article/2015..._980_ti_video_card_gpu_review/12#.VYIVTOlRFjo

quote:
At 4K neither the 980 Ti or TITAN X is actually fast enough to truly enjoy the latest graphically demanding games at high IQ settings, so the VRAM point becomes moot. The main problem at 4K is just the sheer amount of GPU performance needed push all those pixels. You will need two GTX 980 Ti cards or two TITAN X cards in SLI to genuinely enjoy newer shooter games at high IQ settings at 4K. This is where the benefits of the 6GB of VRAM over 4GB on the GTX 980 will come in handy. It may though, actually not be enough at 4K, but we will test that when we test SLI.





VRAM




As you can see from our gaming lineup (which is using many new games released this year) we aren't seeing much demand over 4GB just yet. There are some hints that some games might need more; Dying Light for example, and possibly Far Cry 4 and GTA V. We can at least say this, 4GB of VRAM should be the MINIMUM for running games at 1440p today. If you were able to have 6GB of VRAM or more, you will be ensured that games coming this year and next should run fine, as far as VRAM goes at 1440p.



At 4K though 4GB of VRAM is clearly not enough. At 4K you want at a MINIMUM 6GB. It is possible though that more may actually help as you start increasing the number of video cards in SLI. 6GB might actually not be enough for some games in 4K when SLI is involved, we will see.

That's what I implied but thanks for the quote I guess.

 

[Aristotelian]

Not to go off topic, but on the 4GB being 'too little for 4k', I think this really depends on the game. Furthermore, regarding SLI/Crossfire - I thought I read that DX12 should solve this, and allow pooling of the vram?

From the reviews I have read it is the GPU horsepower itself that is often lacking, not the vram. Could anyone source links that contradict this perception? Meaning: I think you run out of GPU horsepower before you start worrying about vram amounts.

 

[kasakka]

Not to go off topic, but on the 4GB being 'too little for 4k', I think this really depends on the game. Furthermore, regarding SLI/Crossfire - I thought I read that DX12 should solve this, and allow pooling of the vram?

From the reviews I have read it is the GPU horsepower itself that is often lacking, not the vram. Could anyone source links that contradict this perception? Meaning: I think you run out of GPU horsepower before you start worrying about vram amounts.

It's both. Any AA is likely to push VRAM use at or above 4 GB in 4K resolutions and for single cards (depending on game of course) there's not enough horsepower for 4K. So you're going to want SLI which will still only maybe give you 40-60 fps at best depending on the game and settings.

Running out of VRAM won't make your fps tank or anything, it will just introduce a stutter every now and then which personally I find pretty annoying. In severe cases it could mean that you see texture popup (flashing low textures that then turn into high res after a moment) depending on the game engine. I think for example GTA IV if not enough VRAM was available would not render the world correctly.

 

[Headfoot]

quoting the widely debunked and misleading HardOCP vram article

You do realize this is the VRAM article repeatedly demonstrated to have obvious logical inconsistencies and incorrect conclusions, right?

 

[Azix]

With Pascal i think we will see 16GB cards in the 980ti/Titan segment. While 8GB will be the standard in the 970/980 replacements.

You guys pretend next year is exclusively pascal. HBM is AMDs tech. Even if they don't put out a new architecture they will upgrade something with it and that something will have as much VRAM as anything else.

What we need to see are benchmarks of the 4GB cards from AMD that are coming out now to see if this is a big deal. Because when you have 6GB-12GB and can't play 4K with AA at anything over 20fps, it kinda becomes pointless. If its between using under 4GB and higher fps on ultra or using over 4GB and getting under 30fps all for the sake of some barely there AA...

 

[dave1029]

Games will only increase VRAM usage as time goes on, especially when DX 12 comes out and developers can give us 6x the stuff. When I bought my 290x, everyone called me stupid because 4GB will never be needed. Fast forward a year and 6GB is what everyone is saying will never be needed. In another year that will bump up to 8GB. It is important to note, that resolution, while increasing VRAM, does not increase it as much as you'd expect. F04 with modded 4096x4096 textures will be the most detailed game on market... and expect a draw of 7GB of VRAM.

 

[cmdrdredd]

GTA V even passes 4GB without AA in 4K.

Both GTA V and Shadows of Mordor passes 4GB with AA on at 1440p.

I wonder though if a lot of that was for caching. I seem to remember reading that Shadow of Mordor did this.

 

[cmdrdredd]

You guys pretend next year is exclusively pascal. HBM is AMDs tech. Even if they don't put out a new architecture they will upgrade something with it and that something will have as much VRAM as anything else.

What we need to see are benchmarks of the 4GB cards from AMD that are coming out now to see if this is a big deal. Because when you have 6GB-12GB and can't play 4K with AA at anything over 20fps, it kinda becomes pointless. If its between using under 4GB and higher fps on ultra or using over 4GB and getting under 30fps all for the sake of some barely there AA...

Well, yes we need to see numbers first. 4k might not be viable yet with max graphics options even with HBM on board regardless of the amount of memory you put there. We simply have to wait and see.

F04 with modded 4096x4096 textures will be the most detailed game on market... and expect a draw of 7GB of VRAM.

I dunno where you get those numbers from. For all we know it could go from ~2GB to ~4GB with texture mods. I think it's premature to say it'll be the most detailed too. None of us have played it yet.

 

[bryanW1995]

This is a terrible review they did. Showing consumption measured in Afterburner tells you nothing about how much VRAM you actually need. You can use two different video cards with different amounts of VRAM in the same system, same game and same settings - but see two different values of VRAM consumed. You have to show framerate over time to give a real indication of how much VRAM you actually need. When you actually run out of VRAM your game drops down to sub 5fps and stutters while the memory is refilled. Just because software says the game is using X amount of VRAM, it does not mean that is how much VRAM you need.

For example my VRAM used in Battlefield 4 was different on my 780ti cards vs my Titan X cards; the Titan Xs used more VRAM. This has no impact on visuals or gameplay, both were identical, just different amounts of VRAM consumed.

The only time I've actually ran out of VRAM in recent memory was trying to run Shadow of Mordor at 2560x1600 on my 3GB 780ti cards. The game ran out of VRAM constantly and stuttered horribly. I had to reduce the texture settings to make it playable. On my Titan X cards I saw VRAM usage over 5GB, but if you look at reviews of GTX 980 cards with 4GB, they don't stutter at 2560x1600 with maxed settings. The 980 with 4GB can even run Mordor at Ultra settings 4K without running out of VRAM:

TLDR: This only shows how much VRAM is being filled in monitoring software, not how much VRAM you actually need. To show actual VRAM requirements you need to show minimum framerate over time in a graph that also displays VRAM usage over the same synchronized timeline.

I was just thinking this earlier...best way to test if 4gb is enough is to just sli 2 x 980 and look at frames vs time chart (or use your eyes to see if it drops to 5 fps ofc).

 

[happy medium]

You do realize this is the VRAM article repeatedly demonstrated to have obvious logical inconsistencies and incorrect conclusions, right?

Shoot him a PM about it, he wrote it.

That's what I implied but thanks for the quote I guess.

http://forums.anandtech.com/member.php?u=327114

 

[dave1029]

Well, yes we need to see numbers first. 4k might not be viable yet with max graphics options even with HBM on board regardless of the amount of memory you put there. We simply have to wait and see.



I dunno where you get those numbers from. For all we know it could go from ~2GB to ~4GB with texture mods. I think it's premature to say it'll be the most detailed too. None of us have played it yet.

I get them from comparisons. I saw a draw of 6GB in GTAV and those are with some 2048x2048 and mainly 1024x1024. Imagine a game similar in size but all 4096x4096. It could even reach as much as 8-10GB depending on if you're crazy enough to use MSAA.

 

[skipsneeky2]

Glad my cheap Dell IPS 23'' 1080p and single 970 keep me happy. GTA5 is the only game i currently play that has came close to pushing 3.5gb of vram.Settings i use for performance i desire fall about 3gb.SLI 970 would allow some MSAA but it's just not worth it.

The most demanding game i own is Crysis 3 and its a game that pushes the 970 good,while vram usage is respectably low.SLI 970 would work here too.