Something that doesn't seem to have been explored...

[dug777]

and is FEAR the first example of this?

i KNOW nvidia have said the production version will run FAR better on their hardware than it currently does, but i can't see how they'll make up what IIRC was a massive deficit to the x1800xt without seriously IQ damaging optimizations?

But back on my topic title, what of it?

 

[Gstanfor]

Well, *of course* any app that makes use of more than 256mb video memory will perform better on X1800XT - or any 512mb card (6800 U, X850 512mb models, future G7x cards) etc.

The only alternative is swapping out to system memory (on 256mb cards) and even with PCI-E abndwidth that is painfully slow comapred to on card memory.

 

[dug777]

so should this be an issue to consider for people upgrading in the next few months?

 

[BenSkywalker]

The question then becomes does my GPU have enough power that it will be able to push the games that require 512MB at a pace where it will be an issue?

Of course having the extra RAM will benefit in some instances, how much and if that will be a playable one or not is another matter entirely(with that said, CoD2 is already showing big benefits running 512MB on last gen ATi parts).

 

[Topweasel]

The reason it hasn't been explored is, Nvidia isliekly to have a hard luanch for the 512MB GTXs beofre we actually see any XTs and the XL is decidenly slower then the GTX so if around the same price you would be stupid to get the XL.

 

[LTC8K6]

Will the advantage really be considerable? I don't recall the advantage of 256MB as considerable even with AGP.

Doesn't PCI-E lessen the memory swap penalty?

 

[Genx87]

I dunno, when looking at the benchmarks at higher resolutions with AA, it seems to me the 512MB is already helping.

 

[biostud]

in future next generation cards will be walking all over G70/r520. So unless you can take advantage of the 512mb now it doesn't seem a good investment IMHO.

 

[biostud]

Originally posted by: Genx87
I dunno, when looking at the benchmarks at higher resolutions with AA, it seems to me the 512MB is already helping.

we would need a 256mb version of the XT to confirm this.

 

[ZobarStyl]

Originally posted by: biostud

Originally posted by: Genx87
I dunno, when looking at the benchmarks at higher resolutions with AA, it seems to me the 512MB is already helping.

we would need a 256mb version of the XT to confirm this.

Agreed. I'm more apt to attribute the AA perf of the XT to its RAM bandwidth than the amount of RAM. I don't think we've seen a 512 version (x800XL, 6800U) yet that actually had improved performance over its 256 brethren, so I doubt that's it.

And would you guys stop talking up FEAR like it wasn't a beta version that was tested? If they haven't even optimized a single bit of code for the GTX then it has a lot to gain between beta and release version...and then maybe by that time we'll have a GTX 512 to test your theory.

 

[eastvillager]

Would it see a big advantage? IF the game used over 256MB of textures for every scene, , and you had no option to run with smaller textures, then yes, the 512MB cards would see a big advantage.

That won't happen, though. They'll keep supporting 256MB cards, with maybe an option for 'enhanced' textures for the 512MB boards, but the differences in that scenario won't be very large. They're not going to do all of that extra texture work for a handful of users.