Are game requirements and VRAM usage a joke today?

[Fizban]

Cities Skylines 2 reportedly runs with 7-12fps on an Intel Core i9 13900KS with AMD Radeon RX 7900XTX at 4K/High Settings (dsogaming.com)

I can believe it, I got 12 fps on my laptop which has a i9-13980HX and a 4090 Mobile. My GPU is usually a fair bit weaker than a 7900 XTX, but does outperform it in some titles that favor NVIDIA.

I remember the days before that when there was no standards at all, just minimum and recommended. And minimum often meant the game would launch.

I still think is mostly what minimum should mean. I have seen people getting furious because they have to use FSR with the "minimum" specs.

Thankfully it's not a game that needs many FPS. I lock the first game to 30FPS because frankly it doesn't matter and it lowers power use.

Agree with this, it's not amazing performance, but it runs fine. At least on high end hardware. Unsure if I'd say it's "fine" on a more modest system though, but as is I can get 30 fps at 4K Medium, and about 70 fps at 1080P high. It's very playable.

 

[iameatingjam]

Is utilising system ram as an overflow area an automatic thing on graphics API's or do dev's have to implement it (this was suggested to me in an earlier reply), as we have seen some games when out of VRAM or low on VRAM have visual artefacts instead of a performance drop off like streaming LOD staying at low LOD, or textures not loading at all. That might explain why performance doesnt necessarily drop off but instead you just dont have the proper visuals.

Also DF noted that when games stutter, it isnt necessarily picked up by benchmarking measuring tools, this is something they observed in FF7 remake when their competitors were reporting smooth performance on a stutter fest game and they knew it was wrong just from eye balling it.

Good question.

I was under the impression, just from experience playing games is that you basically have 3 options, switch to system ram (maintain visuals but potentially cause stutters), flush the buffer (maintain fps but mess up textures) or do nothing (crash).


But I've been told thats wrong before and that the overflow happens automatically, though that doesn't exactly jive with what I've seen from resident evil and the like. For what its worth, I think the ram overflow is the best option, as long as its not a huge amount, it doesn't interrupt gameplay much. And I think, or at least hope it would give an indication to players that they need to turn settings down or upgrade hardware as opposed to just thinking the graphics are bad when they are not.

And I really think people, especially with lower/mid tier cards shouldn't just automatically go to ultra. I find that frustrating. I don't even go straight to ultra with a 4090. Like, don't you want to find the balance where the game looks the best while using reasonable amounts of power? I wonder if this could even be part of the reason why new games have graphical settings that don't actually do anything ( other than upscaling of course).

 

[Gica]

If you follow the latest reviews of the newly released titles, the 6700XT 12GB does not exceed the 3070Ti 8GB. And it will never exceed it, except for titles strongly optimized for AMD. Until vRAM limitation is a problem, GPU limitation appears, but the amount of vRAM is one of AMD's few marketing weapons, taken up with great enthusiasm by AMD supporters even though 99% of reviews contradict them. Fortunately, Hardware Unboxed appears (friends know why) with reviews in which the details are loaded to the maximum, the video card struggles at an average of 50fps and AMD's marketing is saved.
Look at the latest reviews. Most of them, video cards like 6700XT/3070, struggle at 45-60 fps even in 1080p with maximum details. It's clearly a GPU limitation, not vRAM. Are you paying a nice amount for a video card that gives you the igp experience? Since DLSS can't work miracles at this resolution and FSR looks like hell, the only viable option is to reduce the details. Reduce the details, vRAM usage decreases, but if you have flies in your brain you can continue to struggle with 40-50fps because... heh, heh, heh... I have a video card with a ton of vRAM.

 

[iameatingjam]

If you follow the latest reviews of the newly released titles, the 6700XT 12GB does not exceed the 3070Ti 8GB. And it will never exceed it, except for titles strongly optimized for AMD. Until vRAM limitation is a problem, GPU limitation appears, but the amount of vRAM is one of AMD's few marketing weapons, taken up with great enthusiasm by AMD supporters even though 99% of reviews contradict them. Fortunately, Hardware Unboxed appears (friends know why) with reviews in which the details are loaded to the maximum, the video card struggles at an average of 50fps and AMD's marketing is saved.
Look at the latest reviews. Most of them, video cards like 6700XT/3070, struggle at 45-60 fps even in 1080p with maximum details. It's clearly a GPU limitation, not vRAM. Are you paying a nice amount for a video card that gives you the igp experience? Since DLSS can't work miracles at this resolution and FSR looks like hell, the only viable option is to reduce the details. Reduce the details, vRAM usage decreases, but if you have flies in your brain you can continue to struggle with 40-50fps because... heh, heh, heh... I have a video card with a ton of vRAM.

Yeah I don't think my 3070s problems with tlou on launch were a gpu limitation. 1440p high I could run native at 60 fps but it crashed constantly, dlss-balanced and the vram reduction it brought, stopped the crashing. You can call it an outlier or w/e but these 'outliers' are becoming more and more common.

 

[Gica]

Yeah I don't think my 3070s problems tlou on launch were a gpu limitation. 1440p high I could run native at 60 fps but it crashed constantly, dlss-balanced and the vram reduction it brought, stopped the crashing. You can call it an outlier or w/e but these 'outliers' are becoming more and more common.

I don't know how you configure your system, I see the reviews of the games, and their conclusion is clear: the GPU limitation appears long before the VRAM limitation. It is very visible in 1080p, a resolution that works great with 8GB. In 1440p, I see video cards with 12GB that barely reach 40fps and are surpassed by those with 8GB.

In the example below, in one of the most demanding games for a video card, the 2080Ti should outperform the 3070Ti, and the 6700XT should outperform the entire nVidia lot (3070/3070Ti/2080Ti) if the amount of vRAM is an issue. No, the problem is with the GPU because they all offer a horrible fps that forces you to give up extravagant details, a reality that fixes the amount of vRAM where it belongs: at AMD's marketing.

Also below you can see the owner of 6700XT 12GB waiting for the moment when his video card will beat the RTX 3070 8GB.

 

[iameatingjam]

I don't know how you configure your system, I see the reviews of the games, and their conclusion is clear: the GPU limitation appears long before the VRAM limitation. It is very visible in 1080p, a resolution that works great with 8GB. In 1440p, I see video cards with 12GB that barely reach 40fps and are surpassed by those with 8GB.

In the example below, in one of the most demanding games for a video card, the 2080Ti should outperform the 3070Ti, and the 6700XT should outperform the entire nVidia lot (3070/3070Ti/2080Ti) if the amount of vRAM is an issue. No, the problem is with the GPU because they all offer a horrible fps that forces you to give up extravagant details, a reality that fixes the amount of vRAM where it belongs: at AMD's marketing.

Also below you can see the owner of 6700XT 12GB waiting for the moment when his video card will beat the RTX 3070 8GB.

View attachment 320172View attachment 320173

I'm not saying a 6700xt is more powerful than a 3070. All I'm saying is, with 8gb cards, the 3070 at least, the vram limitation can sometimes come before the gpu limitation. And the limitation doesn't always manifest in fps, it can manifest in crashes or missing textures. And missing textures aren't something that are easily shown in graphs.

@Gica

I was actually on your side of this argument before it happened to me.

 

[natr0n]

Back in the day they would put huge amounts of lower spec ram on low tier cards.

Now a days you need the ram more than the cards horsepower.

opposite basically kinda

 

[AusWolf]

And I really think people, especially with lower/mid tier cards shouldn't just automatically go to ultra. I find that frustrating. I don't even go straight to ultra with a 4090. Like, don't you want to find the balance where the game looks the best while using reasonable amounts of power? I wonder if this could even be part of the reason why new games have graphical settings that don't actually do anything ( other than upscaling of course).

Very well said! If you check out the Alan Wake 2 performance discussion, for example, you'll see a lot of people booing and hissing that it doesn't run well on almost anything when all settings are enabled at 4K. But why would it? Ultra graphics have always included experimental features meant for future graphics card generations. Heck, The Witcher 2 can still stutter on modern GPUs when you enable everything, including Supersampling AA, and it's a more than 10 year-old game. Doom 3 didn't even run at Ultra graphics on contemporary high-end graphics cards. I don't get why people started to cry about this now.

 

[iameatingjam]

Very well said! If you check out the Alan Wake 2 performance discussion, for example, you'll see a lot of people booing and hissing that it doesn't run well on almost anything when all settings are enabled at 4K. But why would it? Ultra graphics have always included experimental features meant for future graphics card generations. Heck, The Witcher 2 can still stutter on modern GPUs when you enable everything, including Supersampling AA, and it's a more than 10 year-old game. Doom 3 didn't even run at Ultra graphics on contemporary high-end graphics cards. I don't get why people started to cry about this now.

Oh hey that reminds me, earlier I was looking for the post where we were talking about this before the game came out to tell you how right you were. Alan wake II runs pretty well. I bet they could have avoided a lot of the controversy if they just called low medium and medium high, just to soothe people's egos.

 

[AusWolf]

Oh hey that reminds me, earlier I was looking for the post where we were talking about this before the game came out to tell you how right you were. Alan wake II runs pretty well. I bet they could have avoided a lot of the controversy if they just called low medium and medium high, just to soothe people's egos.

Regardless of how much ego-soothing you're trying to do, people will get angry regardless. That's just life in the 21st century, I guess.

 

[iameatingjam]

Regardless of how much ego-soothing you're trying to do, people will get angry regardless. That's just life in the 21st century, I guess.

I in particular find gamers blow things out of proportion all the time. Though I'm sure there's people like that in all walks of life. Probably all throughout time too. Just now, they can communicate with one another a lot faster.

 

[AusWolf]

I in particular find gamers blow things out of proportion all the time. Though I'm sure there's people like that in all walks of life. Probably all throughout time too. Just now, they can communicate with one another a lot faster.

And they had no time to whine as life in general was a lot harder. In gaming terms, we used to play on 2-3-4 generations old hardware way below 30 FPS most of the time, and were happy if new games even just started, not to mention had decent performance. Nowadays, anything below 60 FPS on Ultra is regarded as crap. People are spoilt, gamers are spoilt, that's the truth.

 

[DAPUNISHER]

Oh hey that reminds me, earlier I was looking for the post where we were talking about this before the game came out to tell you how right you were. Alan wake II runs pretty well. I bet they could have avoided a lot of the controversy if they just called low medium and medium high, just to soothe people's egos.

Why would they want to avoid controversy? It was brilliant marketing. Every tech tuber and game journalist covered the story of the outrageously high requirements. You can't buy publicity like that. The game coming out and running better than expected was great psychology too. Instead of everyone roasting it, most were going "Hey, this isn't so bad."

And they had no time to whine as life in general was a lot harder. In gaming terms, we used to play on 2-3-4 generations old hardware way below 30 FPS most of the time, and were happy if new games even just started, not to mention had decent performance. Nowadays, anything below 60 FPS on Ultra is regarded as crap. People are spoilt, gamers are spoilt, that's the truth.

Gaming is now a complaint culture, like most things in life have become. 1984 2 minutes of hate has been extended to 24/7. Negative content gets clicks; I think it is that simple. From there it becomes bandwagoning.

Those that reference consoles as the cause, I am in full agreement with. That's why we are seeing another big jump in hardware requirements to get a good experience. It's also why upscaling is basically being pushed as mandatory now; consoles need it.

 

[chrcoluk]

Good question.

I was under the impression, just from experience playing games is that you basically have 3 options, switch to system ram (maintain visuals but potentially cause stutters), flush the buffer (maintain fps but mess up textures) or do nothing (crash).


But I've been told thats wrong before and that the overflow happens automatically, though that doesn't exactly jive with what I've seen from resident evil and the like. For what its worth, I think the ram overflow is the best option, as long as its not a huge amount, it doesn't interrupt gameplay much. And I think, or at least hope it would give an indication to players that they need to turn settings down or upgrade hardware as opposed to just thinking the graphics are bad when they are not.

And I really think people, especially with lower/mid tier cards shouldn't just automatically go to ultra. I find that frustrating. I don't even go straight to ultra with a 4090. Like, don't you want to find the balance where the game looks the best while using reasonable amounts of power? I wonder if this could even be part of the reason why new games have graphical settings that don't actually do anything ( other than upscaling of course).

Agreed.

FF15 seems to use overflow, that game when enabling Nvidia hair has a nasty memory leak, and it will initially leak into VRAM, however when VRAM fills up the game doesnt crash, or get artefacts, it then carries on leaking into system RAM, now its been a while since I played it but I am pretty sure there was not a major performance drop off, although I remember been some kind of drop off, it definitely stayed playable though as I would carry on playing the game albeit with an eye on virtual memory utilisation as eventually I would need to restart the game to prevent windows OOM. However I am a visual quality over performance guy, so this is far preferable to having textures downgraded or not loading.

FF15 is the sole reason I added virtual memory usage to my OSD lol.

 

[Vayra86]

?? You are quoting my comment that was a response to Fizban. No idea why you would reply with "like I already said" when you weren't part of the convo to begin with, unless you are posting from multiple accounts on this thread.

The Last of us crashing on 8GB cards was a bug that has since been fixed, so really whether or not DLSS could have helped in that scenario is irrelevant. A 3070 absolutely has too little VRAM on ultra in that game as you seem to be aware of given the stuttering you pointed out. HWUB has a video on the stuttering of 8GB cards including TLOU. This is akin to Resident Evil 4's RT crashing on 8GB cards. It was fixed but it is absolutely not recommended to use RT on 8GB cards with ultra settings because the texture swapping and performance will be horrendous regardless of if you use DLSS or not.



The problem is that some people have benchmarked 4 GB video cards in that game exceeding 4 GB of allocation and have not run into such a massive issue.

For example, we know the game takes 7.4GB at 1080p ultra / max (no RT)

View attachment 317692

and yet the 4 GB 5500 XT doesn't have issues:

View attachment 317693

Neither does the 6GB 5600 XT:

View attachment 317694

When reviews are reporting that 4GB and 6GB cards run fine at settings that take 7.4GB of VRAM (because pushing low priority data to main system memory if VRAM is full is a thing), it's reasonable to doubt a source that says 0.035 GB over VRAM size in the same game is going to cause severe issues There are a ton of games that TechPowerUp and other publicans have benchmarked that go over 8GB of VRAM usage and there is no ill effect on 8GB video cards until you get 1-3GB over their VRAM size. It doesn't make any sense. Yes that could be a VRAM issue, and all the more reason to recommend people advocate for more VRAM, but it appears more likely that it's either a bug or an issue with the test setup itself as in the same game we have reviews that don't display this issue at the same settings with the same GPU and we have cards with an even greater VRAM deficiency not displaying the issue either.

Oh man I only just noticed this...

Apparently, the streets are rivers in FC6 RT. Not the sidewalks no! And if this was rain on the street, please explain those cardboard boxes over there.

What a joke. RTX, so real.
This is really bad, please chase realism more like this, you might be able to release a game as a stand up comedy show. It does succeed at one thing: catching your attention. I've never seen streets look like this ever, quite an achievement.

 

[Shihab]

Apparently, the streets are rivers in FC6 RT. Not the sidewalks no! And if this was rain on the street, please explain those cardboard boxes over there.

What a joke. RTX, so real.
This is really bad, please chase realism more like this, you might be able to release a game as a stand up comedy show. It does succeed at one thing: catching your attention. I've never seen streets look like this ever, quite an achievement.

Don't confuse capability of the tool with the output of one of its users. You should see the atrocities I used to make with Vray, Cycles, et al.
As far as RT is concerned, the reflections look decent enough (edit: this opinion was made from other screenshots, not this specific one. Reflection resolutions look too low on this shot). Overly exaggerated fresnel refs for my taste and no transmission/refraction, but decent nonetheless.
"Where" they were applied is an aesthetic matter, which I agree the artists did so poorly, although not as poorly as you are implying. Not turning everything into an RT-reflecting surface could easily be excused with hardware and operational constraints. Sticking it to where it has the greatest visual impact is the right way to go. This is the "optimisation" everyone keeps yelling about.

"Catching attention" is one thing that can never be a negative when we're talking graphic...

 

[AusWolf]

Oh man I only just noticed this...

Apparently, the streets are rivers in FC6 RT. Not the sidewalks no! And if this was rain on the street, please explain those cardboard boxes over there.

What a joke. RTX, so real.
This is really bad, please chase realism more like this, you might be able to release a game as a stand up comedy show. It does succeed at one thing: catching your attention. I've never seen streets look like this ever, quite an achievement.

View attachment 320232

It looks like ice to me. Why it only covers the road surface and not the sidewalks, and how it got into a tropical setting, I have no idea.

"Where" they were applied is an aesthetic matter, which I agree the artists did so poorly, although not as poorly as you are implying. Not turning everything into an RT-reflecting surface could easily be excused with hardware and operational constraints. Sticking it to where it has the greatest visual impact is the right way to go. This is the "optimisation" everyone keeps yelling about.

"Catching attention" is one thing that can never be a negative when we're talking graphic...

Are you implying that more shiny = good in the eyes of (some) developers? If so, I have to call bullshit on that. One only has to look out of the window to realise that the world isn't shiny at all.

 

[Shihab]

Are you implying that more shiny = good in the eyes of (some) developers? If so, I have to call bullshit on that. One only has to look out of the window to realise that the world isn't shiny at all.

Did not imply that.
RT has little to do with shininess anyway.

That said, the world is shiny. I suppose y'all up in the chronically-overcast Northern Europe don't notice it as much (which would be ironic, considering you get more snow cover), but everyone else can easily point out how everything, and I mean EVERYTHING shines (some may require certain conditions. See Fresnel reflections).

Edit: Remembered this old post by one of Naughty Dog's guys. It's short, and you can skip the maths.

Everything has Fresnel

You can sorta think of this post as part 2 of my “Everything is shiny rant”. While standard specular lighting is pretty common in games, one effect that we rarely see in games is proper fresnel.

filmicworlds.com

 

[Gica]

I'm not saying a 6700xt is more powerful than a 3070. All I'm saying is, with 8gb cards, the 3070 at least, the vram limitation can sometimes come before the gpu limitation. And the limitation doesn't always manifest in fps, it can manifest in crashes or missing textures. And missing textures aren't something that are easily shown in graphs.

@Gica

I was actually on your side of this argument before it happened to me.

Strictly on your comment, when you play, you pay attention to the action (to defeat, to surpass the opponents, etc.), or you count the apples from the tree and the birds in the sky?
All "more vRAM" fans do not recognize the impact of ray tracing in games, but they are very disturbed by a missing pixel. AMD supporters must agree on this issue because they are blatantly contradicting each other.

Do you have proof that the RX 580 8GB now beats the GTX 1650 Super 4GB? The reviews indicated a slight advance for the GTX 1650 Super. According to the conspiracy theory, the roles are now reversed, the 8GB makes the difference and this RX destroy GTX.
Let's clarify: if it beats it at an acceptable fps. Let's say 50-60 fps average and 35-45 fps minimum. If it beats it in a game where the average 20 fps is rendered, the discussion is pointless. It is clear that none of them will get decent fps even with 128GB of vRAM. This is GPU limitation, gentlemen!

Ok, I have one
Low-medium details are used to obtain an acceptable refresh rate. Why?!?!?! The RX 580 has enough vRAM memory for at least High, even Ultra.

 

[iameatingjam]

Strictly on your comment, when you play, you pay attention to the action (to defeat, to surpass the opponents, etc.), or you count the apples from the tree and the birds in the sky?
All "more vRAM" fans do not recognize the impact of ray tracing in games, but they are very disturbed by a missing pixel. AMD supporters must agree on this issue because they are blatantly contradicting each other.

Do you have proof that the RX 580 8GB now beats the GTX 1650 Super 4GB? The reviews indicated a slight advance for the GTX 1650 Super. According to the conspiracy theory, the roles are now reversed and the 8GB makes the difference.
Let's clarify: if it beats it at an acceptable fps. Let's say 50-60 fps average and 35-45 fps minimum. If it beats it in a game where the average 20 fps is rendered, the discussion is pointless. It is clear that none of them will get decent fps even with 128GB of vRAM. This is GPU limitation, gentlemen!

Ok, I have one
To obtain an acceptable fluidity, low-medium details are used to obtain an acceptable refresh rate. Why?!?!?! The RX 580 has enough vRAM memory for at least High, even Ultra.

What are you talking about? Ive never even owned an amd card. All I'm saying is, the 8gb became a limitation on my 3070 well before the GPU limitation did when playing tlou at launch. And that's when I realized vram is important, but that doesn't mean it is the one and only spec you look at when picking a card, just an important one. No one spec should be taken in a vacuum.

And no I don't use ray tracing, but only because I find it a waste of electricity. And frankly I don't see how that's relevant here.

 

[AusWolf]

Did not imply that.

Cool, fair enough.

RT has little to do with shininess anyway.

That said, the world is shiny. I suppose y'all up in the chronically-overcast Northern Europe don't notice it as much (which would be ironic, considering you get more snow cover), but everyone else can easily point out how everything, and I mean EVERYTHING shines (some may require certain conditions. See Fresnel reflections).

Edit: Remembered this old post by one of Naughty Dog's guys. It's short, and you can skip the maths.

Everything has Fresnel

You can sorta think of this post as part 2 of my “Everything is shiny rant”. While standard specular lighting is pretty common in games, one effect that we rarely see in games is proper fresnel.

filmicworlds.com

The ability to reflect light and being shiny aren't the same thing. You see in the image we're talking about that the road surface has turned into a giant mirror. That's not how reflection works in the real world at all.

 

[Vayra86]

Did not imply that.
RT has little to do with shininess anyway.

That said, the world is shiny. I suppose y'all up in the chronically-overcast Northern Europe don't notice it as much (which would be ironic, considering you get more snow cover), but everyone else can easily point out how everything, and I mean EVERYTHING shines (some may require certain conditions. See Fresnel reflections).

Edit: Remembered this old post by one of Naughty Dog's guys. It's short, and you can skip the maths.

Everything has Fresnel

You can sorta think of this post as part 2 of my “Everything is shiny rant”. While standard specular lighting is pretty common in games, one effect that we rarely see in games is proper fresnel.

filmicworlds.com

The world reacts on light.. but its not a mirror. As for optimization... you know as a gamer playing games I really dont care a whole lot about any and alI excuses wrt why things look the way they look. There is just a game and its presentation. Its hit or its miss.

The principle that because its a new effect that is costly on perf, means it defeats an artistic purpose or just logical and immersive game worlds is completely ridiculous. It wanting to stand out 'too much' and that somehow being positive is a world upside down much the same. Its the same thing as poor art or a B movie with the excuse 'yeah, the painter only had highlighter markers for this work'... 'Thanks for the effort, it looks like shit' is all I can say about it. Might as well not have bothered. Just copy the old cliche instead and make it work, thank you.

 

[FoulOnWhite]

Games have become obssessed with looking as real as possible, not everyone want's that, even though game makers, and video card manufacturers think 100% of us do. Look at WoW for example, it is seemingly still doing pretty well looking like it does.

 

[AusWolf]

The world reacts on light.. but its not a mirror. As for optimization... you know as a gamer playing games I really dont care a whole lot about any and alI excuses wrt why things look the way they look. There is just a game and its presentation. Its hit or its miss.

The principle that because its a new effect that is costly on perf, means it defeats an artistic purpose or just logical and immersive game worlds is completely ridiculous. It wanting to stand out 'too much' and that somehow being positive is a world upside down much the same. Its the same thing as poor art or a B movie. 'Thanks for the effort, it looks like shit' is all I can say about it. Might as well not have bothered. Just copy the old cliche instead and make it work, thank you.

Although I don't think RT is inherently bad, praising the method instead of the final image is the wrong way to look at game graphics, imo, as your example shows. RT is nothing more than just another brush in the painter's hand.

 

[Denver]

Strictly on your comment, when you play, you pay attention to the action (to defeat, to surpass the opponents, etc.), or you count the apples from the tree and the birds in the sky?
All "more vRAM" fans do not recognize the impact of ray tracing in games, but they are very disturbed by a missing pixel. AMD supporters must agree on this issue because they are blatantly contradicting each other.

Do you have proof that the RX 580 8GB now beats the GTX 1650 Super 4GB? The reviews indicated a slight advance for the GTX 1650 Super. According to the conspiracy theory, the roles are now reversed, the 8GB makes the difference and this RX destroy GTX.
Let's clarify: if it beats it at an acceptable fps. Let's say 50-60 fps average and 35-45 fps minimum. If it beats it in a game where the average 20 fps is rendered, the discussion is pointless. It is clear that none of them will get decent fps even with 128GB of vRAM. This is GPU limitation, gentlemen!

Ok, I have one
Low-medium details are used to obtain an acceptable refresh rate. Why?!?!?! The RX 580 has enough vRAM memory for at least High, even Ultra.

So does setting the textures to low to avoid a 4GB GPU running like garbage prove anything? With textures at maximum quality it falls below an iGPU. lol