Vram usage at 5900x1080 (when you only have 1.28GB)

[BallaTheFeared]

Using settings that are practical for the amount of gpu power I have..

BF3: Ultra settings, Blur off, AO off, AA off, FXAA High.

Pretty much always at 1200+, gameplay is smooth except when going into different areas and loading occurs. A slight hickup will take place that I get even on a single screen ever since my SSD and HDD died, replacements should be back soon. I think the issue is my old laptop HDD. Online play is good, no problems thus far when I actually find time to play (rare).

Batman AC: Ultra settings, FXAA High.

This one doesn't use as much ram as BF3, typically around 1100, sometimes slightly more, sometimes less. IG is play is fine, same old DX11 slight hitches experienced at lower res with lower settings. DX9 still provides the smoothest playback, regardless of fps.

Skyrim: Ultra settings, all sliders to max, No AA, FXAA. Mods used were high res weapon/armor mods, people retextures, as well as the .ini tweaks (UGrids=7) on Nvidia's website.

Very playable, no issues at all. However Skyrim HD and other advanced texture repacks are not. Vram is quickly exceeded and performance tanks when using several HD texture packs.

World of Warcraft: Ultra settings, FXAA.

Still cpu limited @ 5GHz in towns :thumbsup:

Vram usage is typically around 1GB to 1.2GB in the world where there is a lot of foliage. Instances are much easier on it as the area being viewed is much smaller. Surround can cause up to three zones to be viewable at the same time.

Crysis 2: Ultra settings, this game doesn't have MSAA, it only has FXAA which was set to ultra. DX11 patched, and High Res Textures are in use.

As you can imagine, vram is always maxed out no matter what in this game. Though still surprisingly borderline playable despite my setup's limitations, both in gpu power and vram. Probably best played in DX9 without high res textures, but I can obtain around 36-40 fps on average while in most areas (that island is madness, with tessed water everywhere).

I would say surround is enjoyable with my setup, a few settings need to be reduced, however it's typically due to an actual lack of gpu processing power and not a direct relation to the vram. Though if given more gpu power, those new settings would unquestionably become hard pressed because of the vram.

Happy gaming!

 

[Anarchist420]

5/4 GB vram isn't enough for 5760x1080 with super-high res textures and a 64 bit RGBA + 24 bit Z + 8 bit stencil MSAA'd back buffer. The issue you're describing is not really so much of an issue of processing power especially since you have SLI. That is, your setup's color fill rate should be sufficient since you have 80 ROPs x >500 MHz (I don't know the exact clock speed for GTX 470 but I know it's more than 500MHz). Take about 10-15% from SLI overhead and the fill rate is still super high.

 

[SlowSpyder]

I wonder how a couple of 6950's would compare. I think that's near the same GPU power, but the 6950's have 2GB of VRAM which has to be helpful at that res.

 

[BallaTheFeared]

AMD cards seem to do better at higher resolutions, which could be part of their design (better texture fillrate) as the higher resolution introduces more textures than it does pixels. I would imagine if I was on par or slightly faster at 1080p with 6970CF than at this resolution I would be below them. I'm really not seeing a problem with my vram, mostly due to the fact that I'm not capable of using large amounts of AA. Maybe that is the problem, but as it is right now with the settings I'm using (FXAA no MSAA) I'm already as low as I want to go fps wise in many games. I want to keep it around 60 fps, and will accept some dips into the high 40's when the action picks up (BF3), adding AA in those titles with those settings would not make that possible.

One thing I can't understand, well I can, it's just silly... Is that my vram usage with AA at 1080p on a single screen was virtually unchanged when I went to FXAA and no MSAA with triple 1080p screens. The amount of vram overhead added by MSAA is incredible, it competes directly with triple resolution requirements when FXAA is substituted for MSAA.

@Anarchist I'm not sure which issue you're addressing, BF3 slight hitching when starting new areas (like when going from an open area to a door, there is a slight hitch that occurs right as the guy kicks in the door). Or if you speaking on Crysis 2 which I was able to get over 90 FPS in before on Time Square whereas now I get about 34 avg. The single to triple screen accounts for the fps loss, but what I'm not seeing is a game that already maxed out vram being affected by the increased resolution as far as fps goes. The only other issue is Batman AA's DX11 slight hitching from time to time, which is solved by using DX9 instead and occurs on a single screen as well as triple for me.

 

[superjim]

Very good info, thanks Balla. What's the overlay in the bottom right corner you're using? Fraps always causes random stuttering in my games, hate using it.

 

[BallaTheFeared]

Overlay is MSI Afterburner OSD, it's really just RivaTuner and will accept other programs that use RivaTuner to track other stats as well such as cpu usage/temps/clocks.

Edit instead of double post...

AvP shows with 4xAA I hit a vram wall, causing unplayable jerky frame rates in the first half of the bench. Total vram usage was 1278, it wouldn't go any higher. Also I would assume, looking at the vram usage the buffer is constantly purging and restoring textures. This is probably what is causing the jittery frame playback in the first half of the bench, the latter half become noticeably smoother, and almost playable if it wasn't for the fact that new areas would cause the jittery playback once again.

2xAA reached a max vram of 1262MB during the bench, playback with smooth, no real issues other than the lower than desireable avg fps.

0xAA only used 1010MB of vram, the playback was smooth and avg fps were acceptable.

The increase in vram usage from 0x to 2x was about 250MB, if 2x to 4x saw the same trend that would mean to avoid the jitters I saw in the opening bench to run 4xAA at this res you'd need at least 1.5GB of vram.

 

[Elfear]

AA really does eat up a lot of ram if your testing shows 1080p with 4AA ~= 5900x1080p. I'll try some runs without AA but this is what I get playing Skyrim at 1600p 8xMSAA, 8xAAA, FXAA, HD Texture pack, weapon retexture, and character enhancement.

 

[skipsneeky2]

I would think for 1920x1080,1.28gb would be plenty but i wouldn't buy a 1gb period for anything over 1680x1050.

Got this 2gb gtx560 non ti near ti specs with a oc and it hasn't used over 1.23gb with BF3 at 1920x1080 but i find myself lowering settings now to get the best playable experience almost making this purchase useless as vram usage with the playable settings never hits 1.2gb but settles around 1150mb or so usage.

Had a gtx570 before and feared vram issues but now realize i was just punishing myself,perhaps i will sell off my 560 and grab a gtx570,about the only purchase i could justify until the 600 series is here with a 1.5gb card with the right price and matured drivers or if a 7950 comes along with 1.5gb at $350 which i doubt.

 

[BallaTheFeared]

AA really does eat up a lot of ram if your testing shows 1080p with 4AA ~= 5900x1080p. I'll try some runs without AA but this is what I get playing Skyrim at 1600p 8xMSAA, 8xAAA, FXAA, HD Texture pack, weapon retexture, and character enhancement.

Yeah those texture packs increae vram usage a ton. Typically they're taking 500x500 textures and increasing them to 4000x4000. AA eats up a ton of vram too it seems, taking out AA from my previous settings leaves my vram usage pretty much unchanged when going from 1920x1080 /w AA to 5900x1080 w/o.

I knew I didn't have the setup to drive those types of mods at this res, if I was running skyrim with full mods like I did at 1080p I'd probably need a 3GB 7970. I couldn't even do a lot of AA at 1080p fully modded, I just used FXAA 2xAA /w 2xSGSSAA & AO - was still maxing vram, with the ini tweaks.

I'll have to test out some lesser texture mods that don't go so high, perhaps a few 2000x2000 retextures that are actaul redesigns and not just simply blown up original files.

I'll take 5900x1080 with limited texture mods over 1920x1080 with tons though, I was worried about the center bars but I've been able to totally ignore them which is a major plus... I got a head ache after a while the first few days but since fixing some desktop issues and no longer having to rotate my head all the time they've gone away. :thumbsup: