Is 1.5-2GB Enough for Single Screen Resolutions? (Your Benchmarks Requested)

[Elfear]

There seems to be a lot of debate lately about how much memory is actually necessary for today's games. The truth is that the overwhelming majority of games run fine with 1-1.5GB of vram at 1080p and even 1600p works for a lot of cards. Generally mid-range and low-end cards run out of horsepower before they run out of memory so I'd like to focus on the high-end. Lots of speculation led me to run some benchmarks of my own and I would really like some forum participation since I don't have a 1.5-2GB card available to benchmark with.

One of the questions I hope gets answered is whether MSI Afterburner monitors memory usage or memory allocation. If it monitors memory allocation, than what looks like a hard limit for cards with less vram may actually work fine in practice.

For the time being, the only games I can think of that might require more than 1.5GB of vram are Skyrim and Civilization 5. If you guys would like to test other games as well, feel free.

My testing methodology consists of monitoring vram usage with MSI Afterburner and logging fps with FRAPS. The reason for logging fps is to make sure that settings that push the vram limits aren't going to render the game unplayable otherwise. Doesn't do any good to have a card with enough memory for uber settings if it isn't powerful enough to have playable fps.

For Skyrim I am using community mods. I think this is one of the big selling points of Bethesda games and some mods make Skyrim look incredible. Video settings are all maxed but AA and resolution vary. My benchmark consisted of walking the road from Fort Greenwall to Riften and fighting 4-5 soldiers and 5-6 NPCs. From Riften, I walked due east until I got about halfway down into the valley (fighting bears, trolls, and spiders depending on what spawned).

Here is the list of mods:

Bellyaches Animal and Creature Pack v1.6
Deadly Dragons v4.2.1
Deadly Dragons Armory v4.2.1
Millenia Weapons Retexture v0.10a
Realistic Smoke and Embers v1.4
Skyrim HD – 2k Textures FULL – Dungeons v1.5
Skyrim HD – 2k Textures FULL – Landscape v1.5
Skyrim HD – 2k Textures FULL – Misc v1.5
Skyrim HD – 2k Textures FULL – Towns v1.5
Skyrim Sunglare V4 v4.1
SkyUI v2.2
XCE – Xenius Character Enhancment v1.13

ini Tweaks
(Skyrim.ini) in [FONT=&quot]\My Documents\My Games\Skyrim[/FONT]
uGrid = 7
uExterior Cell Buffer = 64


For Civ 5, I'm running a small archipelago map with the following video settings (again AA and resolution vary). My benchmark consisted of engaging the enemy and ship movements for about 6 turns.



*If you can, please use the same mods and settings that I do so that good comparisons can be made.*

Civ 5
Memory Usage


Min/Avg/Max FPS


FPS Log



Skyrim
Memory Usage


Min/Avg/Max FPS


FPS Log


Thought you guys might find this interesting. This is a graph of stock vs overclocked (1325/1600) at 1600p 8xMSAA & 8xAAA. Core was overclocked 43% and memory was oced 16% which yielded a 40% performance increase.

 

[aaksheytalwar]

If you want to play at 1080p, get at least 1.5gig for today and 2gig for 6-12 months down, of course only for intensive games and VRAM hogs that is

For 1440p get 2gb VRAM at least though 1+ year down some games will probably need more VRAM, but those will be few and only maxed out

For games of 2011 1.5 is usually more than enough, for 2012 2gb should be usually more than enough for most situations and for 2013 2-3 at least let's see

 

[Ieat]

I'm pretty sure MSI AB reads memory allocation not use. I remember when I had a gtx 680 on 3 1080p screens and was playing Crysis 2 it would show up to 1.9gb being used. I would pause the game and tweak one of the settings and mem usage would drop back down to 1.1gb or so instantly. This tweak was sometimes raising the resolution or other settings. So I see no reason for the drop if the mem was actually in use. Also after switching to 2 gtx 560 448 cards I could play Crysis 2 at the same setting with only 1.25gb of ram.

 

[imaheadcase]

The confusion people have is exactly what the OP posted. Just because a game is using all the available memory, does not mean jack squat.

 

[Elfear]

I'm pretty sure MSI AB reads memory allocation not use. I remember when I had a gtx 680 on 3 1080p screens and was playing Crysis 2 it would show up to 1.9gb being used. I would pause the game and tweak one of the settings and mem usage would drop back down to 1.1gb or so instantly. This tweak was sometimes raising the resolution or other settings. So I see no reason for the drop if the mem was actually in use. Also after switching to 2 gtx 560 448 cards I could play Crysis 2 at the same setting with only 1.25gb of ram.

Interesting. Sounds like it is just allocation. I'm hoping other people with 1.5-2GB cards will run some benchmarks to get a better idea of what the limits are.

 

[Grooveriding]

I will add some numbers when I am back at home, as I've always been interested in this, particularly at 1600p.

In my experience I was VRAM bottlenecked in a few situations with 1.5GB at 1600P. Notably BF3 with 4xMSAA & HBAO enabled and Skyrim with texture mods and 8xAA. I am talking true VRAM bottlenecks where your game hitches and you get sub 5fps drops as you move through the game to an area that is filling the buffer. Moving to the 680s fixed it for me.

 

[blastingcap]

I'm pretty sure MSI AB reads memory allocation not use. I remember when I had a gtx 680 on 3 1080p screens and was playing Crysis 2 it would show up to 1.9gb being used. I would pause the game and tweak one of the settings and mem usage would drop back down to 1.1gb or so instantly. This tweak was sometimes raising the resolution or other settings. So I see no reason for the drop if the mem was actually in use. Also after switching to 2 gtx 560 448 cards I could play Crysis 2 at the same setting with only 1.25gb of ram.

If true, this is a good point. Sort of like how Windows 7 was erroneously believed to eat a ton of RAM early on. http://arstechnica.com/microsoft/news/2010/02/behind-the-windows-7-memory-usage-scaremongering.ars

I did notice that Unigine 3 was either using or allocating about 900MB VRAM at 1080p with normal tessellation, 4x MSAA, 16x AF settings and high textures, yesterday, according to GPU-Z.

 

[ArizonaSteve]

And this is the reason I'm waiting for the 4GB GTX 680 cards to come out.

 

[Elfear]

Anybody? I'd really like to see some 1.5GB or 2GB cards run some comparisons.

 

[Silverforce11]

Not seeing your heavy OC 7970 tank in performance so its not hitting the vram wall.. if you had a 2gb vram card to test it would be more conclusive.

Skyrim with a few user mods was a dog on my 5850, slideshow. But that's a 1gb vram wall and its obvious.. so far with this card, its running fine. So 2gb vram is still enough for heavy mod usage at 1080p. I guess it could run into trouble at 1600p, would not be surprised.

 

[OCGuy]

Yes, yes it is. How is this even a question?

 

[Elfear]

Yes, yes it is. How is this even a question?

Well there is a question mark at the end so...

Did you read the OP? I show >2GB of vram usage/allocation in AB so the question seems perfectly justifiable IMO.

 

[Atomic Playboy]

I'm not at home so I can't run any specific benchmarks on memory usage. But I will say, I run Skyrim with several GB of texture mods (the bulk of which can be found in this post) on a GTX 680 at 1920x1200 with 16xAF, 8xMSAA and 4xTRAA and I haven't had any dips or stuttering because of VRAM buffering. I run with adaptive vsync and I haven't seen it dip below 60 FPS in 30+ hours. 2 GB of VRAM seems like plenty to run Skyrim with mods and AF+AA at 1080P (1200P technically). 1600P may be a different story, but I don't have a monitor to test that.

I just got Batman: Arkham City and Battlefield 3 yesterday, so if I run into any issues with running out of VRAM, I'll post the results.

 

[Elfear]

I'm not at home so I can't run any specific benchmarks on memory usage. But I will say, I run Skyrim with several GB of texture mods (the bulk of which can be found in this post) on a GTX 680 at 1920x1200 with 16xAF, 8xMSAA and 4xTRAA and I haven't had any dips or stuttering because of VRAM buffering. I run with adaptive vsync and I haven't seen it dip below 60 FPS in 30+ hours. 2 GB of VRAM seems like plenty to run Skyrim with mods and AF+AA at 1080P (1200P technically). 1600P may be a different story, but I don't have a monitor to test that.

I just got Batman: Arkham City and Battlefield 3 yesterday, so if I run into any issues with running out of VRAM, I'll post the results.

Thanks for the input. If you get time, some benchmarks and vram usage info would be great.

 

[aaksheytalwar]

1080p may be okayish but prolly not 1440p