[GameGPU] Mortal Kombat X Benchmarks

[RussianSensation]

1. On the heels of GTA V that hammered performance on 2GB cards, we have yet another game where 2GB of VRAM results in gigantic performance hit in resolutions > 1200p.

2. Kepler cards seem to suffer from VRAM bottlenecks.

Source

 

[jpiniero]

BTW, the PS4 version runs at 1080p60 during gameplay (but drops to 30 fps during menus, cutscenes, and fatalities).

As you can see, it's not very demanding CPU wise.

 

[Rakehellion]

BTW, the PS4 version runs at 1080p60 during gameplay (but drops to 30 fps during menus, cutscenes, and fatalities).

As you can see, it's not very demanding CPU wise.

Why would it drop to 30fps in menus?

 

[casiofx]

2. Kepler cards currently exhibit awful performance compared to Maxwell at 4K.

VRAM problem. GTX Titan 6GB still competes favourably against GTX 970 while 780 Ti tanked.

 

[frozentundra123456]

Maybe, but I dont think many people would use those 960 and below cards for 4K, no matter how much vram they have.

 

[SolMiester]

Maybe, but I dont think many people would use those 960 and below cards for 4K, no matter how much vram they have.

Quite right, I dont think anyone with a 2GB VRAM card would expect to use it for 4k

 

[Silverforce11]

It's more the 780/Ti and especially in SLI configs.

6GB vram is going to be the sweetspot for this console generation.

 

[jpiniero]

Why would it drop to 30fps in menus?

Design decision I guess.

 

[bigboxes]

Why would it drop to 30fps in menus?

Tesselisation. 😛

 

[RussianSensation]

Maybe, but I dont think many people would use those 960 and below cards for 4K, no matter how much vram they have.

Quite right, I dont think anyone with a 2GB VRAM card would expect to use it for 4k

2GB of VRAM is insufficient already at 1440P. No one suggested using 2GB cards for 4K.

I am actually very surprised Mortal Kombat X punishes 2GB cards so much because the graphics aren't spectacular and the game was in development for a long time. It's not exactly cutting edge.

2GB is pretty much the end of the line in 2015 and onward for newer games, even at 1080P. It's only going to get worse.

GTA V, MK X, Wolfenstein NWO, AC Unity, Shadow of Mordor, Dead Rising 3 -- all these games were in development before PS4/XB1 came out and they are already crushing 2GB of VRAM limits. I feel that once we get towards the mid-cycle of PS4/XB1 consoles in late 2016 to mid-2017, VRAM requirements will really skyrocket to 4GB becoming mainstream. I suppose it can already be argued that 4GB has entered the mainstream in 2015 with 960 4GB and R9 290 4GB at the $240-250 price points.

 

[96Firebird]

Huh, wonder why they couldn't enable 4K on AMD cards... Never heard of something like that before.

 

[casiofx]

2GB of VRAM is insufficient already at 1440P. No one suggested using 2GB cards for 4K.

I am actually very surprised Mortal Kombat X punishes 2GB cards so much because the graphics aren't spectacular and the game was in development for a long time. It's not exactly cutting edge.

2GB is pretty much the end of the line in 2015 and onward for newer games, even at 1080P. It's only going to get worse.

GTA V, MK X, Wolfenstein NWO, AC Unity, Shadow of Mordor, Dead Rising 3 -- all these games were in development before PS4/XB1 came out and they are already crushing 2GB of VRAM limits. I feel that once we get towards the mid-cycle of PS4/XB1 consoles in late 2016 to mid-2017, VRAM requirements will really skyrocket to 4GB becoming mainstream. I suppose it can already be argued that 4GB has entered the mainstream in 2015 with 960 4GB and R9 290 4GB at the $240-250 price points.

2GB cards shouldn't turn on any MSAA at all...

They should run fine with post processing AA + lowered texture size settings.

 

[Alatar]

2. Kepler cards currently exhibit awful performance compared to Maxwell at 4K.

What you mean is that most kepler cards ran out of memory and those that didn't are just about where they should be.

So saying that Kepler has awful performance compared to Maxwell in MKX is just plain wrong.

Specific Kepler cards due to insufficient memory yes, Kepler as an architecture, no.

 

[poofyhairguy]

What is going on with the GTX 960 SLI? Geez.

 

[xthetenth]

2 GB memory is simply unacceptable for a theoretically modern card. Same goes for the 285.

 

[thilanliyan]

Why are there no AMD cards run at 4K?

 

[Red Hawk]

1. On the heels of GTA V that hammered performance on 2GB cards, we have yet another game where 2GB of VRAM results in gigantic performance hit in resolutions > 1200p.

So...in other words, 2 GB is still perfectly fine for 1080p?

 

[RussianSensation]

So...in other words, 2 GB is still perfectly fine for 1080p?

I would say no.

- Titanfall
- Watch Dogs
- AC Unity
- Dead Rising 3
- Shadow of Mordor
- Dragon Age Inquisition
- Wolfenstein NWO

I think all of these games exhibit either some stutter with 2GB or you have to reduce the texture quality. I would say 3GB is strongly recommended for all of these titles. And of course any modded games like Skyrim or GTA would suffer.

Batman AK also recommends 3GB.
http://techreport.com/news/28163/arkham-knight-requires-at-least-2gb-of-graphics-memory

I wouldn't buy a GPU with less than 3GB today. In 8 months, HD7970 will turn 4 years old. It's actually surprising how long 2GB limit has held up.

 

[Majcric]

RS, your list looks good with the exception of Dragon Age. In this game a single 680/770 will run out of grunt before it can use all the Vram. I'm going to agree with you that 2gb cards are starting to suffer without reducing texture quality. (you can add GTA 5 to your list as well.


However, with all that being said I still haven't seen very many games where the 3gb on the 7970 card helps it over the 680/770 as a whole. This game might be one of the better examples. Because usually while that extra Gb of Vram is there it's not adequate since the card(7950/7970) will choke out just like the Nvidia card.

 

[poofyhairguy]

Batman AK also recommends 3GB.
http://techreport.com/news/28163/arkham-knight-requires-at-least-2gb-of-graphics-memory

Weird, the recommended is a pretty rare Nvidia card (a 3GB 760). I wonder how it will like a GTX 960 2GB card?

 

[Silverforce11]

RS, your list looks good with the exception of Dragon Age. In this game a single 680/770 will run out of grunt before it can use all the Vram. I'm going to agree with you that 2gb cards are starting to suffer without reducing texture quality. (you can add GTA 5 to your list as well.

Generally extra vram allow mid-range cards to run with higher textures, rather than maxing all settings, especially MSAA since they do not have the grunt to handle it.

A game on medium/high + max textures look a lot better than one without.

Watchdogs in particular, without MSAA, a 7950/70/280/X class card can handle 1080p with Ultra textures just fine. But a similar performance class 680/770 2gb vram cannot.

The advantage of being able to max settings & MSAA only applies in SLI for newer demanding games.

 

[DreamMystic]

BTW, the PS4 version runs at 1080p60 during gameplay (but drops to 30 fps during menus, cutscenes, and fatalities).

As you can see, it's not very demanding CPU wise.

I'm not sure if you played the PC port then. Its horrible, performance problems every where. Many stages have odd fps drops, like the jungle stage, sky temple (running at 30fps and below most of the match). Even players with a Geforce Titan struggle to keep 60fps on those stages.

To anyone who hasn't got the game yet, I'd highly recommend waiting until after they fix the problems.

 

[RussianSensation]

Why are there no AMD cards run at 4K?

The review says you cannot select that resolution in the game's options as it's not even available. Pretty funny for a modern game to ship without a 4K option for one of the vendors, which means whoever did the port didn't even test 4K gaming on AMD cards.