Maxwell unified virtual memory: Current games to benefit?

[*NixUser]

I was wondering about nVidia's next architecture, Maxwell. I'm aware it will feature unified virtual memory that will make the life of programmers easier, however I would like to know if this represents performance gains for already released games.

 

[alcoholbob]

It's not real unified memory, it's virtual...the roadblocks to CPU/GPU communication are still there...I can't see how games benefit from this unless you are using a memory starved entry-level 1GB Maxwell playing at 1440p. in which case maybe you go from 10 fps to 12 fps...

The purpose of this virtual unified memory is to address the high cost of GDDR5 for Tesla or compute operations which need lots of RAM; Keplar can address terabytes of data but due to cost issues only ships with 8GB of GDDR5.

 

[BrightCandle]

It has no direct performance benefits for games using directX.

It won't make life much easier for developers, its a minor step towards the ultimate goal of a true coprocessor to allow the execution of an program thread where we choose. This might let me execute complex sequences on GPU data and stream the IO but it won't make a dramatic difference.

 

[Pottuvoi]

Things like CPU and GPU working together should be easier with it. (GPU write something directly to main ram which is then used by CPU and so on.)
This should have positive impact on performance as it opens more possibilities to developers.

What affects even more is that the Maxwell should be SM6 compliant.