Wow Doom3 Ultra Quality ACTUALLY IS for 512MB videocards!

[Piuc2020]

I've been playing around with the video memory hardware monitor plugin in RivaTuner and I've found out Doom3 uses a whole whooping 495MB of memory at Ultra High 1280x1024 and only 2XAA, I've found this to be surprising as the most I've logged in UT3 has been like 430MB and in Crysis around 400MB.

Just a curious tidbit I felt like sharing.

 

[IL2SturmovikPilot]

What video card?

 

[Jax Omen]

Yeah, it makes me sad because my 8800GTS (320MB) can't run the game properly on ultra high for that very reason.

 

[NikolaeVarius]

What about HL2 with the ultra high res texture mod installed?

 

[shortylickens]

That isnt really news. They pointed it out when the game finally hit the shelves.
None of the video cards available at the time could play Doom 3 in Ultra detail.
Only a handful of special cards like the Quatro and FireGL had 512MB of video memory and those werent gaming cards.

 

[Strebor]

Originally posted by: tenshodo13
What about HL2 with the ultra high res texture mod installed?

No kidding, I was up to 800+ megs on Oblivion, albeit with a ton of mods.

 

[Fox5]

Yeah, but doom 3 is wasteful. Uncompressed textures is a lame use of resources, they could have used compressed textures at double the resolution in the same space. But yeah, any card without 512MB gets heavy stuttering.

 

[BTRY B 529th FA BN]

Originally posted by: Piuc2020
I've been playing around with the video memory hardware monitor plugin in RivaTuner and I've found out Doom3 uses a whole whooping 495MB of memory at Ultra High 1280x1024 and only 2XAA, I've found this to be surprising as the most I've logged in UT3 has been like 430MB and in Crysis around 400MB.

Just a curious tidbit I felt like sharing.

thats really cool, didn't know that and often wondered

Cheers

 

[andrei3333]

well i duno but i can play quake 4 on ultra quality with 2xaa at 1280x1024 on my 7800GT OC 256MB

so i dunno it plays fine, stutters at heavy times but its very enjoyable

 

[CP5670]

Originally posted by: Piuc2020
I've been playing around with the video memory hardware monitor plugin in RivaTuner and I've found out Doom3 uses a whole whooping 495MB of memory at Ultra High 1280x1024 and only 2XAA, I've found this to be surprising as the most I've logged in UT3 has been like 430MB and in Crysis around 400MB.

Just a curious tidbit I felt like sharing.

It doesn't really matter though, since the actual improvement from ultra quality in D3 is barely noticeable even in screenshots. As someone pointed out earlier, all it does is use uncompressed textures.

 

[HannibalX]

The same is true for Quake 4.

 

[TheVrolok]

Originally posted by: Pale Rider
The same is true for Quake 4.

Yep. I just started replaying it with my 8800GT, I had played it previously on a 6800.

 

[KMFJD]

You need that much vram to paint the screen black?

 

[schizoid77]

ha

I ran at Ultra settings with my 2 8800GTS 512's and all I saw was super textured rooms full of darkness.

Game looked no better than when I ran it on my 6800....

 

[Drako]

Originally posted by: KMFJD
You need that much vram to paint the screen black?

LOL, turn on the flash light!

 

[BFG10K]

Even with 512 MB cards you can still get texture swapping, but I've found 640 MB or higher is okay.

As IQ, some textures are crispers such as characters?' faces, plus there's no banding in Mars' or Hell's skies.

 

[Throckmorton]

People always act like video memory only has to do with resultion and anti-aliasing. They forget textures!

 

[toyota]

runs just fine on Ultra with a 7600gt 256mb and also on my 8600gt 256mb. no hiccups or stuttering.

on the 8600gt at stock speeds I got 54.8fps at 1280x1024 Ultra Quality and 2x AA. again the actual game is perfectly smooth on those settings.

remember if you run the in game demo that first run is caching so there will be some stutter no matter what settings. always run it the second time for the real fps result

 

[BFG10K]

They forget textures!

Not to mention geometry, shaders, additional render buffers, etc.

runs just fine on Ultra with a 7600gt 256mb and also on my 8600gt 256mb. no hiccups or stuttering.

I played the game from start to finish on a 7900 GTX (512 MB) and there were areas with noticeable hitching/stuttering due to texture swapping.

 

[angry hampster]

Originally posted by: Drako

Originally posted by: KMFJD
You need that much vram to paint the screen black?

LOL, turn on the flash light!

But WTF I can't shoot at the same time! There's no duct tape on mars?!

 

[Sureshot324]

Originally posted by: Fox5
Yeah, but doom 3 is wasteful. Uncompressed textures is a lame use of resources, they could have used compressed textures at double the resolution in the same space. But yeah, any card without 512MB gets heavy stuttering.

Agreed, but double res textures would have meant a lot more work on the texture artists' part when there were no 512mb video cards anyway. They just put the ultra quality mode in because they knew when 512mb cards came out it would make more sense not to use texture compression. Unfortunately this made some graphics whores run the game on ultra quality with 256mb cards when they should have been running on high quality.

 

[Lazlo Panaflex]

Originally posted by: angry hampster

Originally posted by: Drako

Originally posted by: KMFJD
You need that much vram to paint the screen black?

LOL, turn on the flash light!

But WTF I can't shoot at the same time! There's no duct tape on mars?!

Actually, there's a "duct tape" mod that will let you use the flashlight at all times

 

[toyota]

Originally posted by: BFG10K

They forget textures!

Not to mention geometry, shaders, additional render buffers, etc.

runs just fine on Ultra with a 7600gt 256mb and also on my 8600gt 256mb. no hiccups or stuttering.

I played the game from start to finish on a 7900 GTX (512 MB) and there were areas with noticeable hitching/stuttering due to texture swapping.

I will gladly make you a video if you doubt me. This topic has come up several times over the last few years and plenty of people including reviewers questioned the 512mb requirement because they could easily get the game to play smoothly on 256mb cards. Of course it would have to be a fairly powerful 256mb card like 7600gt or better but your 7900gtx 512mb should have had no problem whatsoever. maybe if I had the res higher than 1280x1024 and more than just 2x AA I would run into some hitching but with those settings on Ultra it is perfectly smooth on the 8600gt 256mb.


EDIT: I just went and played through a level and with 2x AA and there was a fraction of second hitch when doors would open. it wasnt really noticeable but I was looking hard for any hitching. going with NO AA seemed to completely eliminate that too. so Ultra at 1280x1024 is perfectly smooth with no AA on an 8600gt 256mb.

 

[imported_Section8]

OK I admit it. I like the Hello Kitty flash light mod!

 

[BassBomb]

Originally posted by: Strebor

Originally posted by: tenshodo13
What about HL2 with the ultra high res texture mod installed?

No kidding, I was up to 800+ megs on Oblivion, albeit with a ton of mods.

800+ VRAM?

Yeah right