Are game requirements and VRAM usage a joke today?

[Waldorf]

@PumpTheKin
except im not stating this to be the purchase reference to anyone.

@Beginner Micro Device
then (only) those uneducated gamers should pay for it

while i enjoy graphics that surpass the consoles (one reason why i have a pc),
but the days i blindly maxed out settings are gone, after i started reading reviews with side by side comparison of visual impact.
for the stuff i/friends/family play, you can always lower a setting here and there, without having a big impact on visual IQ (e.g. shadows).

my problem was actually less with the maxed out, but the "min 8gb".
more than 50% of gamers run 720/1080p on cards with 3/4gb vram, so for most even a 1060/6 would be an upgrade,
and one that works fine, as they play on existing hw with half the amount of vram,
and thats not even going into detail about the different games themselves, as they will vary in amount of vram needed,
e.g. 3d puzzle game wont require 8GB...

 

[Sithaer]

After i started reading reviews with side by side comparison of visual impact.

Thats what I'm also doing for a good while now, honestly in most new-ish games I have a hard time telling the difference between high-max heck sometimes even medium is all good to my eyes nowadays.
Sure if I have the spare GPU power to max out settings and still have an acceptable performance for my taste then I will do that but otherwise I will just tweak/lower settings and game on all the same.

For me personally the best looking game I've played in the past years is still Plague Tale Requiem and it had no issues with my 8 GB card whatsoever. 'launch day version maxed out with DLSS Quality since to me it looks better than the in game TAA'

 

[Deleted member 234997]

What if you want sharp visuals instead of a smudged look that DLSS still cannot avoid?

Also as much as people hype DLSS with good reason, they usually crap all over FSR even when it truly depends on how you use it.

In RE2 for example FSR 1.0 combined with VSR looks insanely good and way better than the default presentation.

 

[oxrufiioxo]

while i enjoy graphics that surpass the consoles (one reason why i have a pc),
but the days i blindly maxed out settings are gone, after i started reading reviews with side by side comparison of visual impact.
for the stuff i/friends/family play, you can always lower a setting here and there, without having a big impact on visual IQ (e.g. shadows).

I blindly max out setttings on my main PC but also enjoy tuning settings on my secondary PC sometimes just to compare in person...... I also like to look at FSR side by side with DLSS..... RT on vs off side by side.

I even have an all AMD PC just to make sure there is no funny business going on with FSR on Nvidia cards...

I like having two capable PC to compare those sort of things and make my own decisions on how I want to play the game.

I also realize I am probably in the minority lol.

What if you want sharp visuals instead of a smudged look that DLSS still cannot avoid?

Also as much as people hype DLSS with good reason, they usually crap all over FSR even when it truly depends on how you use it.

In RE2 for example FSR 1.0 combined with VSR looks insanely good and way better than the default presentation.

DLSS with DLDSR looks amazing as well but you need a 4090 to do it at 4k so very limited except for older games that support DLSS.

 

[Deleted member 234997]

I blindly max out setttings on my main PC but also enjoy tuning settings on my secondary PC sometimes just to compare in person...... I also like to look at FSR side by side with DLSS..... RT on vs off side by side.

I even have an all AMD PC just to make sure there is no funny business going on with FSR on Nvidia cards...

I like having two capable PC to compare those sort of things and make my own decisions on how I want to play the game.

I also realize I am probably in the minority lol.

I used to run Battlefield 3 on a 2500k with a GTX 480 with most settings maxed, MSAA off, lowered shadows and no one would know the difference, but we are talking when the GTX 580 3GB and 670 / 680 2GB were available.

 

[AusWolf]

They're synonymous... allocated VRAM is being utilized.

That's factually wrong. Some games load assets that are not currently being used, but might be at some point. The Resident Evil remakes are famous for this. I tested Village which ran fine on an 8 GB 2070 despite allocating all of the VRAM and then some from the system memory.

It's kind of the same with system RAM. The more you have, the more Windows will allocate for background functions that may not necessarily need it at the moment (or at all).

 

[Deleted member 234997]

You've just described every 3D video game ever...

As in to the point of a uniformed visual look.

Dishonored is one of the best at this, Half Life games.. even GTA's.

Took quite a while to upload, recorded in 5K.

The video looks crushed on YT, it did not look like that on the PC... Youtube has converted AV1 poorly.

Example...

Execution of visuals play a big part in how we treat the game and if we get immersed along side audio and the mechanics of the game.

If we start turning down visual settings, we need to make sure they fit within Vram but also present well enough to bring the experience the developer was aiming for.

Cyberpunk, don't manage to do this, it is not uniform. But for such a large game with RT at it's focus point and being an Nvidia advert, it makes sense to cut corners, it once was a broken unplayable mess and in a lot of ways still is broken but is playable. But it is now a nice tech demo for RT. Standards have dropped just so people can justify their purchase and FOMO and need for the "fastest".

Do we need more than 8GB Vram? If the game can't express the way it is meant to.. to it's original presentation the dev wanted, then yes it's an issue.
Likewise of the game is technically crippled because of a lack of Vram so FPS, loading in and out textures and other bugs, yes it's a problem.

Both exist so yes Vram is an issue. The dev's decided for you all to have a lesser experience uniformly so they could push their vision to GPU's (Cash bags to recoup the losses) that were more popular, IE: Nvidia RTX, nice cash horse and sell out whilst you lot gulp it down like it's the new way to play video games. Then when you guys complain, you don't look to the culprit, you blame every other studio who indirectly now has to compete with them.

They took a loss on Cyberpunk because it was trash. Still is IMO, but decided to hit the right target audience, FOMO and people who need the best and something to showcase "The best".

Where did all their money come from?

Witcher 3?





Oh Cyberpunk, what you could have been...

2013 trailer has more detail than 1 square foot of the latest rendition of it. No RT.

UE4 Infiltrator.

We never needed RT here either, yet we are barely matching it visually. The demo is 10 years old.

Wasted potential thanks to "RT"

Ignore the fact this video is not representative of the game now, it does however highlight the reality behind it all.
Just follow the money to find the truth.

Even reviews were paid off to gain, just as letting Nvidia use it as their talking piece for their latest GPU's, only gives CDPR more money and wider spread of eyes seeing it's title and the game, regardless of quality. The people playing it now in the majority are not people who originally saw CDPR's vision.

 

[Assimilator]

Look at a game like Dishonoured for example, simple textures, not the most details, but the style is carried out throughout the entire game with no breaks in the way it is presented, it's much more convincing as a game than a game that cannot keep it's presentation complete."

I 100% agree that games that excel at worldbuilding and immersing you in their world, are able to get away with a lot of "sins" that other games can't. But you are ignoring the fact that Dishonored (and Half-Life 2, designed by the same guy) are very much on-rails games with one path to take - they're not open-world in any way shape or form. That allows them to take a lot of shortcuts, optimise heavily, and overall just not have to deal with the problems that open-world games do. So it's not really fair to compare either of those games to Cyberpunk.

 

[3DVCash]

That's factually wrong. Some games load assets that are not currently being used, but might be at some point. The Resident Evil remakes are famous for this. I tested Village which ran fine on an 8 GB 2070 despite allocating all of the VRAM and then some from the system memory.

It's kind of the same with system RAM. The more you have, the more Windows will allocate for background functions that may not necessarily need it at the moment (or at all).

That's what I mean though. It is loaded with assets, so it is in use. That's the figure VRAM monitoring software reports as being utilized, even if it includes a bunch of excess allocation. That's why I'm saying it's not a great measure of how much a game requires to run smoothly.

You can configure Afterburner to monitor dedicated VRAM too, which ideally rules out some of the allocated stuff that isn't being accessed, but even that isn't exact. So it's a bit of trial and error on the user's end. When you do hit a hard VRAM limit though... it's paaaainful.

 

[datnoz]

Well, we have 24GB on the enthusiast-level cards now, so I wouldn't be surprised if we get 96GB/128GB cards on this decade in recent times the growth of cards' VRAM has been pretty quick compared to, let's say, 10 years ago for example. I guess that modern games with their sharp textures etc. has the most to do with it.

I'll remember this and revive this thread in 10 years.

 

[Shihab]

As in to the point of a uniformed visual look.... etc

I think you're confusing aesthetics with visual fidelity. The former has very little to do with hardware, which I believe is the context of this thread (and underwhich falls the previous talk of polycount and texture resolutions).

Dishonored franchise in general, while I agree* it had some of the greatest art direction in video game history, had relatively simple levels mesh-wise. Karnaka was masterfully crafted, but it isn't even quarter the size of night city. The comparison doesn't make sense (in the current context).

No one is telling you to like the CP2077 or that it looks objectively great. But as far as modelling and mesh quality goes, it dosn't deviate from what is expected of an expansive, open-world AAA game (and games in general, in that it doesn't exhibit the fractal nature of reality).

* I'm agreeing while also acknowldging the subjective nature of this view. There is no objective metric for aesthetic quality.

 

[Macro Device]

10 years ago for example

ORLY?

GTX 570 (2011) is 1.25 GB.
GTX 670 (2012) is 2 GB.
GTX 970 (2014) is 3.5+0.5 GB.
Performance segment GPUs became ~3 times more VRAM capable in 3 years last decade.

GTX 1070 (2016) is 8 GB.
RTX 2070 (2018) is 8 GB.
RTX 3070 (2020) is 8 GB.
RTX 4070 (2022) is 12 GB.
Performance segment GPUs became 2 times more VRAM capable in 6 years this decade.

Even if we compare highest end GPUs then we get GTX 580 (1.5 GB, 2011) to GTX 980 Ti (6 GB, 2015) resounding 4 times the VRAM in 4 years, and Titan Pascal (12 GB, 2016/17) to RTX 4090 (24 GB, 2022) resounding 2 times the VRAM in 5.5 years.

 

[Deleted member 234997]

ORLY?

GTX 570 (2011) is 1.25 GB. XBOX 360 / PS3.
GTX 670 (2012) is 2 GB.
GTX 970 (2014) is 3.5+0.5 GB. PS4 / XBONE
Performance segment GPUs became ~3 times more VRAM capable in 3 years last decade.

GTX 1070 (2016) is 8 GB. PS4 / XBONE
RTX 2070 (2018) is 8 GB. PS4 Pro / ONE X
RTX 3070 (2020) is 8 GB. PS5 / XBSX
RTX 4070 (2022) is 12 GB. PS5 XBSX
Performance segment GPUs became 2 times more VRAM capable in 6 years this decade. Which shows that GPU manufacturers were skimping.

Even if we compare highest end GPUs then we get GTX 580 (1.5 GB, 2011) to GTX 980 Ti (6 GB, 2015) resounding 4 times the VRAM in 4 years, and Titan Pascal (12 GB, 2016/17) to RTX 4090 (24 GB, 2022) resounding 2 times the VRAM in 5.5 years.

FTFY

 

[AvrageGamr]

The vram issue started when the 680 4 gig came out. It was the last high-end card I bought. Filled up that vram easily in Skyrim with 250+ mods

 

[Shihab]

Filled up that vram easily in Skyrim with 250+ mods

Bruh...

 

[pavle]

Again - if in 2012 with GeForce GTX 780 Ti we had 3GB of RAM and then or in 2014 biggest new games were ~11GB (Portal 2), that means roughly game_size/3=amount of VRAM to properly run the latest game.

That means with today's 100GB+ games / 3 = 33GB of VRAM is standard to enjoy the games best, but sadly, thanks to nvidia, a world leader in forced market stagnation (years and years of 8GB cards), we now have this confusion and bad performance all around for break-neck high prices.

 

[Vayra86]

I 100% agree that games that excel at worldbuilding and immersing you in their world, are able to get away with a lot of "sins" that other games can't. But you are ignoring the fact that Dishonored (and Half-Life 2, designed by the same guy) are very much on-rails games with one path to take - they're not open-world in any way shape or form. That allows them to take a lot of shortcuts, optimise heavily, and overall just not have to deal with the problems that open-world games do. So it's not really fair to compare either of those games to Cyberpunk.

While you're not wrong... Here's another comparison to Cyberpunk then. Open world. The Division 1 - 2016.

Let's appreciate some differences here.

- The city is extremely low on 'empty streets with low geometry'. There are certainly empty streets. But, there is consistency throughout the whole thing. Either an area has a purpose, or there is a generic cityscape that is rich in detail and varied enough not to give you the idea your walking through a fabricated world. In the Division, emptiness is carried by the game's setting - it feels logical, and adds to the atmosphere of a city where shit happened. Cyberpunk lacks this consistency - it even lacks it in areas you normally wouldn't expect. You can turn a corner from a richly populated and bustling city center and end up in no man's land just like that - and every time it does that, its an immersion breaker. It makes it harder to take the whole simulation seriously.

- The game runs on anything with the full featureset, including high quality reflections and extremely well directed lighting in virtually every scene - even the generic ones. Its not even thát demanding in doing so. Dynamic weather, day/night cycle. Take a look at the pic below. In the far distance, we can almost read the letters M BRANCH in the reflection of the windows there. Nearby, we have hard and soft shadows overlapped near the car with the dude leaning against it.

- The mechanics in the game are fully functional, random events happen and the city is 'alive' to the point it needs to be alive. The game doesn't struggle with how there are battles happening in public, because there is no public. While Cyberpunk now has a half functional police/wanted system, it still lacks in that aspect. Gunning down all the Arasaka patrols around their factories? No big deal, the corp ain't coming out to get ya.

 

[oxrufiioxo]

While you're not wrong... Here's another comparison to Cyberpunk then. Open world. The Division 1 - 2016.

Let's appreciate some differences here.

- The city is extremely low on 'empty streets with low geometry'. There are certainly empty streets. But, there is consistency throughout the whole thing. Either an area has a purpose, or there is a generic cityscape that is rich in detail and varied enough not to give you the idea your walking through a fabricated world. In the Division, emptiness is carried by the game's setting - it feels logical, and adds to the atmosphere of a city where shit happened. Cyberpunk lacks this consistency - it even lacks it in areas you normally wouldn't expect. You can turn a corner from a richly populated and bustling city center and end up in no man's land just like that - and every time it does that, its an immersion breaker. It makes it harder to take the whole simulation seriously.

- The game runs on anything with the full featureset, including high quality reflections and extremely well directed lighting in virtually every scene - even the generic ones. Its not even thát demanding in doing so. Dynamic weather, day/night cycle.

- The mechanics in the game are fully functional, random events happen and the city is 'alive' to the point it needs to be alive. The game doesn't struggle with how there are battles happening in public, because there is no public. While Cyberpunk now has a half functional police/wanted system, it still lacks in that aspect. Gunning down all the Arasaka patrols around their factories? No big deal, the corp ain't coming out to get ya.

View attachment 318219

Idk the division looked terrible even on release and gameplay wise it's a total bore but just like movies every one has different tastes.... Now the tech demo Ubisoft showed pre release looked pretty impressive but they did the same thing with watchdogs until reality set in and they had to run it on actual usable hardware.


lol pretty hard every time I see this and remember how much they missed the mark visually.

 

[Deleted member 234997]

On that topic...

 

[Vayra86]

Idk the division looked terrible even on release and gameplay wise it's a total bore but just like movies every one has different tastes.... Now the tech demo Ubisoft showed pre release looked pretty impressive but they did the same thing with watchdogs until reality set in and they had to run it on actual usable hardware.


lol pretty hard every time I see this and remember how much they missed the mark visually.

The game has most of those features, even if they're not quite as detailed and pronounced as they're implied to be in the video. Also, the general look of the game is what this video shows ya. Except the areas are made playable for teams of 4, as the game demands, so no, streets aren't as cluttered as they are here. But they ARE cluttered with all sorts of stuff nonetheless, and the atmosphere of this video is true to the game as well.

As for gameplay sure, its not an FPS, more of an FPS ARPG. But the execution of that, again... wasn't bad. The Dark Zone similarly was a pretty interesting game mode. But the gist of my post was not if every technical promised feature was delivered or anything. The point I and some others make is that presentation of a game is much more than graphics and 'quality' expressed in a resolution, or featureset.

 

[oxrufiioxo]

On that topic...

It's a real shame Ubisoft got so conservative post AC unity because that game actually looked nextgen on release shame it was so broken on release though.

The game has most of those features, even if they're not quite as detailed and pronounced as they're implied to be in the video. Also, the general look of the game is what this video shows ya. Except the areas are made playable for teams of 4, as the game demands, so no, streets aren't as cluttered as they are here. But they ARE cluttered with all sorts of stuff nonetheless, and the atmosphere of this video is true to the game as well.

As for gameplay sure, its not an FPS, more of an FPS ARPG. But the execution of that, again... wasn't bad. The Dark Zone similarly was a pretty interesting game mode. But the gist of my post was not if every technical promised feature was delivered or anything. The point I and some others make is that presentation of a game is much more than graphics and 'quality' expressed in a resolution, or featureset.

It's been like 5-6 years since I played it I just remember being extremely underwhelmed was actually pretty excited for it but it just ended up a Destiny rip off with worse mechanics.

Some people dig it though good for them.

 

[Deleted member 234997]

If we go to a more basic form, the RE2 1997 demo is not the same game we got in 1998.

Visually it's.... similar, this was a very different time though.

 

[oxrufiioxo]

If we go to a more basic form, the RE2 1997 demo is not the same game we got in 1998.

Visually it's.... similar, this was a very different time though.

Leave RE2 alone still one of the best games ever made.

 

[Vayra86]

It's a real shame Ubisoft got so conservative post AC unity because that game actually looked nextgen on release shame it was so broken on release though.




It's been like 5-6 years since I played it I just remember being extremely underwhelmed was actually pretty excited for it but it just ended up a Destiny rip off with worse mechanics.

Some people dig it though good for them.

I went pretty deep into it from release, because thats the best moment to be entering a new persistent economy... oh man. Good times, but the bugs... the exploits... the HACKS... The Dark Zone was still fun even despite all of this, it was super vibrant in the early days.

 

[Deleted member 234997]

Leave RE2 alone still one of the best games ever made.

One of my fave, I am trying to paint an objectively fair picture though.