How important is video card memory?

[Ackbar]

I'm trying to decide what would be better. I'm assuming it's probably game dependent as well. Any idea how big of a performance difference? Are there particular games that are MUCH better with 256 MB?

 

[amol]

there are, but i dont remember which ones 😛

my philosophy is that it is important to get a better chipset than it is to get a card with more memory

 

[swatX]

more memory is usally better when using high AA/AF and resolutions like 1028/1204 and above.. so if u are going to use like 4xAA/8xAF + and 1028 1024 res + then go for 256mb ram but it also depends on the graphic card you are buying..

i can only suggest to go these if u are going to pick up a 256mb card

6800gt +
x800xt+

 

[BFG10K]

256 MB is better for games even as old as UT2003 but you need a decent card to take advantage of it.

 

[apoppin]

Originally posted by: BFG10K
256 MB is better for games even as old as UT2003 but you need a decent card to take advantage of it.

pretty much the minimum card to really use the 256MB of vRAM is the 9800xt. it is generally helpful with higher resolutions and with AA/AF turned on.

 

[Gamingphreek]

I agree with BFG10K. Slower cards such as the 9600 cannot efficiently address that much memory and also the memory tends to be slower. You need a pretty fast system to overcome that gap.

Far Cry, DIII, and HL2 at max settings benefit from 256mb of RAM.

-Kevin

 

[Mojo027]

256mb of ram is very important if you want to run high end games with large textures at high resolution with anti aliasing and anisotropic filtering on. Games are going to be getting larger over time, and these huge, nice looking, textures are going to be getting more and more common. So if you want your card to last a while, get 256mb of video ram.

But of course, you must take into account, there's no point of having all that ram without a good GPU (6800, x800, etc) that can make use of it quickly enough.

 

[Creig]

It's definitely becoming more useful than it used to be. Newer games are utilizing larger amounts of textures than they used to. I would consider it necessary for any "gaming" card to be used with current and upcoming titles.

 

[Ackbar]

Good points. Which of the modern (PCI-E types such as X300, X700, 6200, 6600, etc) are on the order of the 9800 XT in power?

 

[Matthias99]

The 6600GT/X700XT and up would be faster than a 9800Pro/XT. On slower cards, I doubt the marginal improvement at high res and with AA/AF is going to be noticeable -- crawling at 15FPS isn't much better than crawling at 12FPS, even if it's a 25% improvement. 😛

Basically, I wouldn't care about it unless you're getting a GeForce 6800 or higher, or an X800-based card.

 

[Ackbar]

Originally posted by: Matthias99
The 6600GT/X700XT and up would be faster than a 9800Pro/XT. On slower cards, I doubt the marginal improvement at high res and with AA/AF is going to be noticeable -- crawling at 15FPS isn't much better than crawling at 12FPS, even if it's a 25% improvement. 😛

Basically, I wouldn't care about it unless you're getting a GeForce 6800 or higher, or an X800-based card.

What about a plain 6600 with DDR (not DDR3)? Would that be able to effectively take advantage of 256 MB vs 128?

 

[SonicIce]

just look at the benchmarks for individual cards and ask yourself if the added memory is worth the added price

 

[Ackbar]

Originally posted by: SonicIce
just look at the benchmarks for individual cards and ask yourself if the added memory is worth the added price

I've been trying to look, there are very few reviews for the 6600 (plain) in general and out of those there were none that I could find that pitted a 128 MB version versus 256 MB! Trust me, I'd rather use that as a guide that asking for non-quantitative comparisions.