Do we need 6GB vram in the next two years?

[Pray To Jesus]

Or will no games be able to take advantage of it even 2 years from now?

 

[The_Golden_Man]

Next two years... ? No... Maybe 2GB +...

 

[ShintaiDK]

No. Even 2GB will be plentyful.

 

[f1sherman]

TXAA.....

otoh Bindless Textures

 

[skipsneeky2]

Considering a 5 year old 8800gt can still play some games with lowered settings and BF3 at 1080p fully maxed can use at most 1.5gb,i believe we won't see the 2gb vram usage as a normal for at least 3 more years.

 

[d3fu5i0n]

On average, I'd say 2GB, at most 2.5GB of VRAM.
However, for high-res texture modded games and any possible games that would become 'the new Crysis [1]', we may need up to the 4GB amount.
I may have a bad idea of this; but that's what I think.

Also, it depends what the new console generations will require - don't forget that they're better optimised due to standardised hardware.
However, it also depends as to whether the new consoles will be released by then.

 

[GotNoRice]

It depends on the resolutions people go with.

I see 1080p continuing to be "standard" for quite some time. I for one, am more looking forward to upgrading to a 120hz panel than I am a panel with a resolution greater than 1080p.

 

[d3fu5i0n]

It depends on the resolutions people go with.

I see 1080p continuing to be "standard" for quite some time. I for one, am more looking forward to upgrading to a 120hz panel than I am a panel with a resolution greater than 1080p.

Oh, I very much agree.
Rather than having more pixels, I'd rather get to the point where we can have real-time Ray-tracing or Radiosity.

 

[JAG87]

If you're asking because you're buying today, don't waste money.

Whatever game will be out in two years will require GPU power available in two years. It's the nature of this business. A 6GB card from today which will choke on the latest games in two years anyways.

 

[d3fu5i0n]

If you're asking because you're buying today, don't waste money.

Whatever game will be out in two years will require GPU power available in two years. It's the nature of this business. A 6GB card from today which will choke on the latest games in two years anyways.

Indeed. +1
It's like people who purchase the lowest end GPU with a massive amount of VRAM, thinking that they're purchasing a powerful card [usually people new to building or upgrading].

 

[Arkadrel]

@1920x1080/50

Doubt you would need more than 2gb for the next many years.
Most games dont break 1gb @1920x res, so long as your not useing insane texture packs or high AA modes.

6gb on a card is way overkill..

 

[greenhawk]

OP, are you looking at crossfire/sli? then I am pretty sure the question should be "is 3GB enough ram" as the memory in both cards are similar/duplicated to allow for the rendering of similar parts of the same screen image.

 

[dave_the_nerd]

OP, are you looking at crossfire/sli? then I am pretty sure the question should be "is 3GB enough ram" as the memory in both cards are similar/duplicated to allow for the rendering of similar parts of the same screen image.

It's still resolution dependent. If you only need 2GB to do what you want to do, then the SLI/XFire (Mem+Mem)/2=Mem rule is fine as long as Mem=2GB.

It's when you combine video cards to hit those ridiculous EyeFinity and 3D Surround resolutions that you run out of VRAM even in today's more modest titles.

Resolution is king.

 

[3DVagabond]

Depends on resolution. 1080 won't probably ever need 6gig.

 

[poohbear]

OP, are you looking at crossfire/sli? then I am pretty sure the question should be "is 3GB enough ram" as the memory in both cards are similar/duplicated to allow for the rendering of similar parts of the same screen image.

one day it will. over the next 2-3 years, no.

 

[blastingcap]

Or will no games be able to take advantage of it even 2 years from now?

Depends on the resolution. I mean, you might even need 6GB VRAM *today* if you are gaming on three 30" 2560x1600 screens, playing a game with ultra-high rez texture mods, for instance.

For 1080p I think even 1GB VRAM is enough for the next ~12 months if you don't care about anti-aliasing. If you do want AA then you will want more like 1.5+ GB VRAM. For ~24 month timeframes, definitely at least 1.5 GB VRAM.

 

[BrightCandle]

The extra vram just isn't worth anything, at all. Everytime a new set of cards come out this custom ones with 2x VRam arrive and every time the tests show it makes no performance difference at all. Then someone does a test going back with older cards and more vram and shows that the card doesn't run any better because its limited in other ways.

Round and round we go.

 

[Rezist]

The extra vram just isn't worth anything, at all. Everytime a new set of cards come out this custom ones with 2x VRam arrive and every time the tests show it makes no performance difference at all. Then someone does a test going back with older cards and more vram and shows that the card doesn't run any better because its limited in other ways.

Round and round we go.

I agree the only exception was with 512mb/1gb cards in the 48xx series cards the extra vram was nice then. But I don't think the gtx 680 4gb will ever be a smart buy.

 

[Pottuvoi]

The extra vram just isn't worth anything, at all. Everytime a new set of cards come out this custom ones with 2x VRam arrive and every time the tests show it makes no performance difference at all. Then someone does a test going back with older cards and more vram and shows that the card doesn't run any better because its limited in other ways.

Round and round we go.

It only affects things when process would need more memory to do things than is available.
Developers prefer to have games playable with less memory than the current maximum, so is pretty obvious why they aim for something lower and use proper streaming tech.

Currently low VRAM amount limits GPGPU developers and those who use GPU ray-tracers for rendering. (Most of those demand the whole scene to fit within vram.)
For those there is 6GB Quadro out for those who do not mind to pay for the extra memory.

 

[Final8ty]

I have seen Project Cars use 2GB at 1080p

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p8X6C-HAngU

 

[rickon66]

I think 1080p will be going away due to a flood of inexpensive 1440p monitors coming in from Asia(I hope) 1080p SUX!

 

[toyota]

Depends on the resolution. I mean, you might even need 6GB VRAM *today* if you are gaming on three 30" 2560x1600 screens, playing a game with ultra-high rez texture mods, for instance.

For 1080p I think even 1GB VRAM is enough for the next ~12 months if you don't care about anti-aliasing. If you do want AA then you will want more like 1.5+ GB VRAM. For ~24 month timeframes, definitely at least 1.5 GB VRAM.

even without AA, 1gb is not always enough now for a high end card at 1080.

 

[nenforcer]

Quite convenient that the new GTX 660 Ti is suppose to come in next month with 1.5GB GDDR5 VRAM.

 

[blastingcap]

even without AA, 1gb is not always enough now for a high end card at 1080.

Programmers would be a little nuts to have their games require more than 1GB @ 1080p with AA turned off. In this day and age of cross-platform development and catering to the mainstream rather than the high-end, there just aren't that many titles that really need more than 1GB VRAM at 1080p if you lay off the optional settings like AA.

Please note that I said if you do want AA (or other such optional features for that matter), or to use high-rez mods or to game at over 1080p, you will want at least 1.5GB VRAM.

Quite convenient that the new GTX 660 Ti is suppose to come in next month with 1.5GB GDDR5 VRAM.

Obviously that's more than just convenient; it must mean that I'm a shill for Nvidia. :biggrin:

 

[PrincessFrosty]

Depends on the resolution. I mean, you might even need 6GB VRAM *today* if you are gaming on three 30" 2560x1600 screens, playing a game with ultra-high rez texture mods, for instance.

Resolution does matter, however as you increase the resolution you increase the load on the GPU as well, you could argue that 7680x1600 needs a lot of vRAM with certain conditions such as with 8xAA or SSAA, but the GPU will struggle to power that resolution anyway so it's kind of pointless.

Generally speaking video cards come with an appropriate amount of vRAM on them for what the GPU is capable of, there's no such thing as future proofing the amount of vRAM because the GPU would just become a bottleneck.