Impressed with RX 460 overall.

[Vya Domus]

I don't think anyone here is saying that 2GB is enough , what most people are trying to say is that games which use more VRAM and are generally demanding will most likely struggle to run smoothly on this GPU regardless of the amount of VRAM it has , and that the extra memory wont change much of this.

I'll just give an example , Quantum Brake has some serious texture pop-in issues if you run it on a card that has just 2 GB , if you do have more VRAM the issue is gone however the game is still extremely demanding , on my 1060 I don't get a locked 60 at ultra settings.

Point is, if you were to run this game on a 2GB RX460 and on a 4GB one , the only difference you would see is that the pop-in is gone , the game would still struggle to run properly.

 

[EarthDog]

Card continues to impress me.
At my friends house right now.

Running Witcher 3 and AC Syndicate at High settings with AA off - and again 40 to 60 frames with 50 being the avarage to both games.

AA off... buy a console.

 

[Vya Domus]

AA off... buy a console.

Actually most games do use AA , but it's usually cheap post process AA and combined with sub-1080p resolution sometimes it looks really bad especially on a big TV , I dare say most games look better on PC with no AA at 1080p than the blur fest you get on consoles.

I just thought of BF4 on XOne which run at 720p with hardly any AA at all , I still can't believed people looked at that and said : "Yep , that seems next-gen to me".

 

[Kanan]

Point is, if you were to run this game on a 2GB RX460 and on a 4GB one , the only difference you would see is that the pop-in is gone , the game would still struggle to run properly.

That's just a example of why I'm saying it's worth the few bucks for such a important piece of a PC. Also, still, nobody can predict the future and not every game behaves like Quantum Break.

AA off... buy a console.

Better don't play BF1 then, it lacks proper AA, and consoles have post AA too anyway. These silly PCMR comments. Not everybody can pay a expensive PC. Not everybody wants a PC in the first place.

 

[Vya Domus]

That's just a example of why I'm saying it's worth the few bucks for such a important piece of a PC. Also, still, nobody can predict the future and not every game behaves like Quantum Break.

Again , no one said you shouldn't spend those extra bucks I would have picked the 4GB variant as well. But the truth still remains that it wouldn't have made that much difference anyway. Yes, no one can predict the future but game engines will always be built to be robust. When the time comes for a card to not be fast enough for games it wont matter what x amount of memory it has.

In the end I just wish AMD/Nvidia along with AIB partners would stop this idotic practice of releasing multiple variants of lower end cards with different memory siezes , all they do is create confusion , like those 4GB DDR3 cards that people were buying like hot cakes. That would sort out discussion like these lol.

 

[Kanan]

Again , no one said you shouldn't spend those extra bucks I would have picked the 4GB variant as well. But the truth still remains that it wouldn't have made that much difference anyway. Yes, no one can predict the future but game engines will always be built to be robust. When the time comes for a card to not be fats enough for games it wont matter what x amount of memory it has.
In the end I just wish AMD/Nvidia along with AIB partners would stop this idotic practice of releasing multiple variants of lower end cards with different memory siezes , all they do is create confusion , like those 4GB DDR3 cards that people were buying like hot cakes. That would sort out discussion like these lol.

It's pretty okay they do though. Vram amount is decided by Graphics card manufacturer not AMD/Nvidia. And it's payed by the buyer as well. They must know what they do. If they know they are low end gamers kinda or competitive game players like CS:GO etc. it's okay to go with the 2GB card for example. I used to play that game with a HD 5970, that's essentially a 1024mb card for each gpu and it ran perfect on it.

 

[hrp32]

Just take a look at this :

Assassin's Creed Syndicate Recommended System Requirements:

• Operating System – Windows 7 SP1 x64 or Windows 8.1 x64 or Windows 10 x64
• CPU – Intel Core i7 3770 @ 3.5 GHz / AMD FX 8350 @ 4.0 GHz
• RAM – 8 GB RAM.
• GPU – NVIDIA GeForce GTX 760 4GB or GTX 970 4GB or AMD Radeon R9 280X 3GB or higher.
• Storage – 30GB or Higher

You don't want to say that GTX 760 is significantly faster than RX 460.

GTX 760 is in the same performance tier as RX 460 :

How else the developers themselves who created the game could say that it needs this amount of VRAM?

 

[rruff]

Again , no one said you shouldn't spend those extra bucks I would have picked the 4GB variant as well.

People buy cheap cards because they don't have a lot to spend. Increasing your budget 20% for a vram increase that makes no difference at all 90% of the time (and is easily dealt with the other 10%), does not seem wise to me. Better to save your pennies for a real upgrade if you want/need something better.

Manufacturers love to stick more vram on a card than it needs then charge a lot more than it cost them. It's easy to sell to people who don't know better. Most buyers know nothing about the card itself, but they figure 4GB must be way mo better than 2GB. Remember those GT 630s that rocked 4GB of DDR3 on a 64 bit bus? They couldn't even use .5GB effectively.

 

[EarthDog]

Better don't play BF1 then, it lacks proper AA, and consoles have post AA too anyway. These silly PCMR comments. Not everybody can pay a expensive PC. Not everybody wants a PC in the first place.

I play BF1.. no issues with AA.

It's also not a "pcmr" thing..oy frigging vey dude...

 

[Kanan]

I play BF1.. no issues with AA.

It's also not a "pcmr" thing..oy frigging vey dude...

It is a very typical PCMR comment. And you have issues with bf1 AA because there is "none". A guy I know who is a avid PCMR freak doesn't even use "TAA" in bf1 because he says he rather enjoys it at 1440p at highest settings without the blur. He's like "MSAA or nothing".

@rruff : we're talking about a few bucks here not even 30 or even 50. Simply visit your favourite fast food store 2 times less and you have that money back.

 

[Vya Domus]

Vram amount is decided by Graphics card manufacturer not AMD/Nvidia.

I am pretty sure AMD/Nvidia have a word in this as well. They don't let AIB's do absolutely everything they want.

 

[P4-630]

I am pretty sure AMD/Nvidia have a word in this as well. They don't let AIB's do absolutely everything they want.

For example there will never be a GTX1080 with 12GB vram...

 

[Kanan]

I am pretty sure AMD/Nvidia have a word in this as well. They don't let AIB's do absolutely everything they want.

Absolutely, they have. But it's the aib which decides if they do it or not (sell 2 or 4 or both GB cards).

 

[eidairaman1]

Really are we continuing this, I mean seriously the user of the card from the Original Post is happy with it.

 

[crazyeyesreaper]

I don't think it works that way. I tried running different games on higher settings with 2GB cards and the game engine gives a warning or just simply don't allow that. This proves it is not the reserved thing that you and some others say.
You are saying the game itself has no idea how much VRAM is going to be needed or maybe just lying?

Of course you may be able to force the game engine to exceed your card's available amount of VRAM but you get approximately 10-15fps and your GPU usage falls significantly.


View attachment 83750


To summarize :

First some people said there's no performance difference between 2GB and 4GB cards. That's right because there's no difference between 2GB and 4GB cards when you set the game settings on lowest. You are not even filling 2GB of VRAM on both cards. I prefer 30fps with medium-high settings to 60fps with the lowest possible settings:

View attachment 83749

Then again some people said monitoring softwares are not accurate and I'm telling the game engine itself estimates the required amount of VRAM.

Then again people said the game is just reserving VRAM! They mean even the game engine's VRAM usage bar indicates the reserved amount of VRAM that never be used!

Again people said the GPU is too slow to use more than 2GB of VRAM. I shared my screenshots proving while games use about 3.5GBs of VRAM I'm getting 30fps and I think it's enough for many people.

Again people said 2GB is just enough for now. What I say is let's pretend they're right but what about the near future?



I think some people just don't want to admit and that's OK.

First and formost not all game engines function the same.
GTA is one of the few games where listed ram amount vs needed actually is nearly directly comparable.

As each engine is different means the results are different.
Example Call of Duty Infinite Warfare can use up to 8gb of Vram however a Fury X beats the RX480 when its 4gb vs 8gb by a margin dictated so if it can use 8gb and shows 8gbs used why does a 4GB card offer better performance across the board? Key word ram allocated vs actually used is different.

Watch Dogs 2, uses up to 6.6GB of Vram with High res textures at 4k, yet once again a 4GB Fury X trails behind 6GB 980Ti by just 2FPS and just 5FPS behind the 1070. at 2560x1440 the game uses 6gb even then difference between say an RX470 4GB and RX480 is the difference between shaders and clock speed not vram.

Dishonored 2 another game that cracks 6gb of Vram usage.
Yet again. Performance difference is due to GPU core not vram, GTX 1060 3gb performs just 3-4fps behind the GTX 1060 6gb double the vram and extra shaders. however the extras shaders give the performance boost not vram. Pusing it to 4K the 3gb and 6gb cards only 2 FPS apart. That = % wise out to 10% in favor of the 6gb card.. Guess how many extra shaders the 6gb 1060 has? about 10%.

Fact games can and will use more ram than they actually need. Not all game engines will function that way but a large majority do. Rockstars game engine is essentially the odd man out.

Suffice to say as we go forward more ram is definitely useful as textures do not stress a GPU like they once did and as such Textures can usually be cranked. Low vram with textures will generally result in texture pop-in etc when you actually hit a limit. This issue will become more noticeable as time goes on due in part to the direction game engine programmers are taking (streaming of data no load times or minimal load times. An example of this would be Total War series back when Shogun 2 came out no one actually noticed but the game would auto downgrade settings in battles automatically based on vram. However you could manually edit the value in an INI file. Hilariously enough editing the INI file = no drop in performance even on GPUs hitting the vram limit mostly because the feature didnt really work as intended anyway. It also tends to show that Developers over estimated the necessary VRAM required in most situation to avoid potential issues. Some seem to go way overboard CA was one (CPU was the main limit to performance never the GPU). GTA V is again that weird example where whats allocated tends to be what is used in which case props to Rockstar.

 

[Smanci]

First and formost not all game engines function the same.
GTA is one of the few games where listed ram amount vs needed actually is nearly directly comparable.

(Citation needed)

 

[crazyeyesreaper]

The ram amount reported in the Settings menu is fairly accurate in terms of vram required to proper run the game. Essentially it is based on assets and textures along with mipmaps and their required memory space.

Essentially what Rockstars in game settings menu indiciates = minimum vram required to achieve proper playback. In general; however it does use more ram. Essentially Rockstar stands alone in this regard.

Max Payne, GTA IV, GTA V all have this feature and again generally speaking its fairly accurate for the minimum vram required for smooth playback. I messed around with GTA IV a long time ago with Back then I had HD 5850s, bypassing the memory restriction i could generally push about 100-200MB beyond the limit before stuttering and issues developed. Haven't tried with newer GPUs as since then Ive always had more vram than the games have required.

edit* 5850 1GB so 100-200MB over would be around 1.1-1.2GB at which point stutters and hitching would develop or other weirdness. Compared to other games which its just subject to whim. Rockstars VRAM usage reported in menu again is a pretty accurate indicator of vram required. A counter example would be CoD Infinite Warfare that uses 8gb at 1600x900 but only 5gb at 4k??? thats just fucked up. So again Rockstar kinda stands alone. While it does use more the listed vram in the menus is pretty close to what you need. Which is something other developers could learn from.

 

[Kanan]

I'm running GTA O on over 3200mb atm as well, (my card has only 3072mb) and it runs smoothly, just once I had lags because of it for a few seconds, and it didn't came back rest of the session.

With HD 5970 I had it running pretty good over 1024mb usage (card has 1024mb effective), crossfire seemed to set any drawbacks off. Funny thing was, when I over did the settings it was fluid when driving and when standing around a lag fest. Probably because then the game starts tessellating which needs a lot of vram. In the end, the game ran pretty well with about 200-500mb over limit settings.

 

[kn00tcn]

Actually most games do use AA , but it's usually cheap post process AA and combined with sub-1080p resolution sometimes it looks really bad especially on a big TV , I dare say most games look better on PC with no AA at 1080p than the blur fest you get on consoles.

I just thought of BF4 on XOne which run at 720p with hardly any AA at all , I still can't believed people looked at that and said : "Yep , that seems next-gen to me".

i love post AA... SMAA that doesnt do the frame-blend that is, not FXAA or MLAA

bf4 was a launch title targetting 60fps & launch titles usually struggle (as does the xb, but think about how many watts it's using), we now have things like the ps4 pro where some games do intelligent upscaling to 4k rather than the blurry mess of the past, it would be nice if more games had these features

i wouldnt be running pc with no AA since post AA solves a lot without the performance drop (speaking of the topic, it doesnt increase vram usage the way MSAA does)

edit: i do ps3 on my pc monitor so i'm familiar with blurry 720 up close, also have had to turn down settings on pc & sometimes i end up preferring having 'more gfx' at lower resolution than empty or unlit visuals at native... anyway it's the dev's decision to put a specific amount of gfx onto fixed hardware at a specific framerate target, maybe more games should let you choose 1080p30 or upscaledp60 (i think uncharted4 on ps4 pro lets you 1080p60 vs 2160p30)