How much does VRAM matter?

[Frick]

I tried the demo of Dragon Age Inquisition and I got huge FPS drops. It felt like it was tied to the VRAM filling up, but I'm not sure. Haven't tried in Win10 though, and my Win7 install was a bit buggy..

 

[yogurt_21]

these days 1080p = up to 4GB
1600p(1440p) = up to 6Gb recomended
4K = up to 8GB recomended

granting like windows games will use more memory if its available and it can improve fps but its not necessary. Also as always just because the memory can store more textures doesn't mean the gpu can process more. Which is why the 1.3 fps ( 5.5%) is all that was gained between the RX 480 4GB and 8GB at 4k on W1zzards black ops 3 run.

Not really a bottleneck alleviating gain there. But toss another 480 8GB in and you'll likely notice a difference in crossfire as the gpu HP doubles (or the work it does halves depending on how you look at it) while keeping the same 8GB memory max.

or maybe it doesn't even then...

nominal gains between 4gb and 8gb variants in crossfire even at 4k...

so... more memory is used, but it really doesn't affect performance due to better game coding these days? Perhaps it just looks better? Granting to me that would be worth 80$ in CF... but I have no proof of that just a theory.

 

[eidairaman1]

4GB on my card plus 16 GB ram, im set for awhile, considering for years i was using a card with 512MB and 2GB ram.

 

[Vayra86]

these days 1080p = up to 4GB
1600p(1440p) = up to 6Gb recomended
4K = up to 8GB recomended

granting like windows games will use more memory if its available and it can improve fps but its not necessary. Also as always just because the memory can store more textures doesn't mean the gpu can process more. Which is why the 1.3 fps ( 5.5%) is all that was gained between the RX 480 4GB and 8GB at 4k on W1zzards black ops 3 run.

Not really a bottleneck alleviating gain there. But toss another 480 8GB in and you'll likely notice a difference in crossfire as the gpu HP doubles (or the work it does halves depending on how you look at it) while keeping the same 8GB memory max.

or maybe it doesn't even then...

nominal gains between 4gb and 8gb variants in crossfire even at 4k...

so... more memory is used, but it really doesn't affect performance due to better game coding these days? Perhaps it just looks better? Granting to me that would be worth 80$ in CF... but I have no proof of that just a theory.

Old news isn't it? Games always fill up VRAM however they can and draw from it. Always have, always will. And given the fact consoles have about 5-6GB of available VRAM... filling 8GB is never going to be necessary until those consoles get an update and about 6 months on the market. The vast majority of the rest of the games on the market are indie titles and they are never real performance hogs, and if they are, they're just shit code and badly optimized.

Blops 3 is probably a bad game to test it with though, it seems to really be an outlier in terms of performance on Polaris. I'd be interested in a similar comparison in Crysis 3 or TW3 - those are engines that are actually taxing on all parts of the GPU - and the only games that bring the top-end to its knees, still.

 

[Damocles]

4GB on my card plus 16 GB ram, im set for awhile, considering for years i was using a card with 512MB and 2GB ram.

If you don't play at 4k you're probably good with those 4GB but bear in mind that some games can use a lot more VRAM even on 1080p maxed out. When I max out everything in AC Syndicate, the memory bar in the top right corner shows roughly 4,2 GB usage. But when in game the usage is about 5 GB to 5,5 GB. Same goes for GTA V and some other games as well.

Strange though, Witcher 3 never exceeds 1,8 GB usage.

 

[Intervention]

I would not buy anything with 4GB of VRAM or less. Set GTA5 to very high settings on a 2GB or 4GB card, change the weather to rain, and start driving, hehe. My GTX 960 4GB would max out of VRAM and stuttering begins. I don't care about speculations and or what if's. I have seen first hand the results of memory swap between VRAM and system ram and its not cool. Get yourself a 6 or 8GB card and go buy some cake and share

 

[rtwjunkie]

Strange though, Witcher 3 never exceeds 1,8 GB usage.

Because it was well-written and compressed code. Would that all studios would put that effort in.

 

[Aquinus]

Because it was well-written and compressed code. Would that all studios would put that effort in.

...or because it's still a 32-bit application and not everything can reside in the application's 32-bit memory space at once? I would rather have texture data cached whether is was being used or not. If that VRAM isn't needed for something else, there is no reason to not just make other resources more highly available should they be needed (caching!) It's the same reason why any form of cache exists; why waste the extra resources when you can smooth things out a little bit?

 

[rtwjunkie]

...or because it's still a 32-bit application and not everything can reside in the application's 32-bit memory space at once? I would rather have texture data cached whether is was being used or not. If that VRAM isn't needed for something else, there is no reason to not just make other resources more highly available should they be needed (caching!) It's the same reason why any form of cache exists; why waste the extra resources when you can smooth things out a little bit?

RedEngine 3 is a 64 bit application. That is the engine developed for TW3. http://witcher.gamepedia.com/REDengine

RedEngine 2, had 32 bit and 64 bit forms. Perhaps you are thinking of that?

 

[Aquinus]

RedEngine 3 is a 64 bit application. That is the engine developed for TW3. http://witcher.gamepedia.com/REDengine

RedEngine 2, had 32 bit and 64 bit forms. Perhaps you are thinking of that?

I don't have TW3 installed anymore but, I thought I recalled the actual process running to be 32-bit. I could be wrong.

 

[FireFox]

I would say 6GB and if it's not enough get a GTX TITANX-12GD5 and have fun​

 

[R-T-B]

I would say 6GB and if it's not enough get a GTX TITANX-12GD5 and have fun​

I did exactly that on the 1080 launch. The prices on Titan X's are dropping like a stone.

 

[P4-630]

I did exactly that on the 1080 launch. The prices on Titan X's are dropping like a stone.

Had been thinking about that as well, but my 500W PSU was against it, so I ended up with a GTX1070 to satisfy my PSU