TurboCache Video Cards - Please explain how this works

[rxblitzrx]

Can someone explain to me how this works? I just ordered a 64MB (on board) pciE video card that can expand to 256MB. How does this compare to a 256MB video card? And how much of a performance hit can I expect if I have 2GB of RAM?

 

[Serp86]

Basically, when the onboard 64mb are used up, it will use an additional 192mb from your ram. However ram access is significantly slower than ddr, so the card will be slower than a comparative GPU with a full 256mb onboard.

You will be fine in 2D, though, but games will run slow if at all, but that is mainly due to the weak gpu's assosciated with such cards. Overall system performance shouldnt be affected, especially with 2gb.

 

[dfuze]

My wife has one for her pc (a XFX 6200 256mb). It runs her games (sims2 and
ceasar IV) decently at native resolution of 1280x1024. I don't know what the in
game settings are exactly, I just know they are not much higher than medium if
that.

I agree with Serp86, they are not the greatest for gaming. If that is what you want
to do with your machine, look into a non-turbo chace card.

 

[A554SS1N]

I'm thinking of getting a 7300le for a extra PC for LAN gaming (old games such as CoD and UT2004 would still run fine on it and I already have a main gaming PC anyway, so I don't want to pay out for some unnecessarily faster PC parts) - the one I am looking at is made by Asus and has 128mb of it's own memory, and 512mb supported for silly turbo cache. As an owner of a turbo cache card, do you know whether it is possible to change a setting in the drivers so that only the video memory is used, as I don't want it stealing useful system memory!!? 128mb would be enough for those games, I if it doesn't have to go to system RAM then that should help performance.

 

[aka1nas]

It doesn't use system RAM unless it runs out of video memory. Pretty much any game that needs more than 128MB of video RAM is not going to be playable with such a card.

 

[A554SS1N]

Originally posted by: aka1nas
It doesn't use system RAM unless it runs out of video memory. Pretty much any game that needs more than 128MB of video RAM is not going to be playable with such a card.

ah so long as it's not allocated permanently - games like CoD and UT2004 run ok on my mates 128mb fx5200 card, so It should be enough for them old games. Cheers.

 

[Zap]

Nvidia's Turbocache and ATI's HyperMemory are IMO just marketing to be able to sell video cards with low amounts of memory. Now, it may be handled a bit differently, but in essence nearly ALL 3D video cards can do texturing from system memory. It was possible on the PCI bus, AGP and now PCI-E. Any time that the GPU doesn't have enough local memory to hold textures, it sends out to main memory. Now, that's kinda slow, right? Traditionally, yes. However, it is becoming less of an issue these days. Why do I say this? Well, a PCI-E 16X slot has tons of bandwidth, and DDR2 800 RAM in dual channel also has tons of bandwidth. This "tons" is compared to previous technologies. Indeed on a fast system with a really slow video card, there may not be much of a difference at all between using Turbocache/HyperMemory versus more onboard memory running at, say, a paltry 400-500MHz. Not that people with fast systems generally use these kinds of cards, so may be a moot issue since people using these cheap cards will often be using lower end systems, thus taking that performance hit.

I own a Turbocache 6200 and it played Enemy Territory and WoW just fine, in reasonable resolutions at reasonable quality settings with acceptable framerates. As long as you don't expect it to work as well as, say, a 7600GT, then it is completely playable in most games as long as you are willing to run in low resolutions with graphics quality turned down.

Note that the "new" 7100GS cards are really 6200TC GPUs repackaged, kind of like BITD when ATI repackaged the 8500 series to become the 9000/9200 series.

 

[IntelUser2000]

Performance impact is at most 5% even with the RAM sharing feature, I doubt you'll have a problem unless you severly lack system memory(like 512MB) or you are running apps that require LOTS of system memory. Of course on 3D apps, that's a different story, since the graphics core is slow. Usually if you have 1GB RAM, most of the performance impact comes from sharing memory bandwidth, not the memory capacity. Going from 1GB RAM to 840MB or w/e isn't really going to impact you most of the times.

However ram access is significantly slower than ddr, so the card will be slower than a comparative GPU with a full 256mb onboard.

Didn't you mean to say: "however ram access is significantly slower than video RAM..."

 

[eplebnista]

Originally posted by: Zap
Nvidia's Turbocache and ATI's HyperMemory are IMO just marketing to be able to sell video cards with low amounts of memory. Now, it may be handled a bit differently, but in essence nearly ALL 3D video cards can do texturing from system memory. It was possible on the PCI bus, AGP and now PCI-E. Any time that the GPU doesn't have enough local memory to hold textures, it sends out to main memory. Now, that's kinda slow, right? Traditionally, yes. However, it is becoming less of an issue these days. Why do I say this? Well, a PCI-E 16X slot has tons of bandwidth, and DDR2 800 RAM in dual channel also has tons of bandwidth. This "tons" is compared to previous technologies. Indeed on a fast system with a really slow video card, there may not be much of a difference at all between using Turbocache/HyperMemory versus more onboard memory running at, say, a paltry 400-500MHz. Not that people with fast systems generally use these kinds of cards, so may be a moot issue since people using these cheap cards will often be using lower end systems, thus taking that performance hit.

I own a Turbocache 6200 and it played Enemy Territory and WoW just fine, in reasonable resolutions at reasonable quality settings with acceptable framerates. As long as you don't expect it to work as well as, say, a 7600GT, then it is completely playable in most games as long as you are willing to run in low resolutions with graphics quality turned down.

Note that the "new" 7100GS cards are really 6200TC GPUs repackaged, kind of like BITD when ATI repackaged the 8500 series to become the 9000/9200 series.

Thanks for the info! :beer: