FULL Performance reviews by Streamers

[DigitalIP]

Alright..

First time posting as I specifically joined so I could ask this question.

When a youtube reviewer or actual website reviewer benchmarks GPUs and those GPUs have 4GB or less VRAM, why is the difference in Physical RAM usage never mentioned?

 

What I mean is

When using a GPU with 4GB and under VRAM, depending on the game, Shared Memory may go into effect because the game is using more VRAM than the GPU has so Shared Physical Memory is then used to try and offset or normalize the usage.

So my question is

Why is this usage never mentioned by anyone?

 

If a persons system only has 8GB of RAM or less(unlikely these days but still) with a 3 or 4GB or less VRAM GPU, its highly possible that their RAM can max out if Shared Memory goes into effect and cause performance problems.

So again, why in all these years has this never or rarely been mentioned?

[LogicalDrm]

RAM isn't same as VRAM. And shared memory doesn't mean that VRAM and RAM would be combined at any point. VRAM is used by GPU to store commonly used assets so rendering engine doesn't need to draw them from scratch. Same happens with RAM and processes CPU calls from storage. So it isn't taken account because it doesn't change. They don't act in a way that it would make a difference. Would be rather boring graph.

[DigitalIP]

I know RAM isn't the same as VRAM

But its the fact that Shared Memory is used to substitute for low VRAM which increases RAM usage in those instances that it happens.

Shared Memory equals Half of your Physical RAM, so if you have 8GB RAM up to 4GB of it can be used for Shared Memory, so in systems with 8GB or less it can cause problems.

 

This is shown on the Task Manager/Performance/GPU section

 

So what i'm saying is

I don't understand why its never talked about in reviews, because while 16GB RAM and 4GB+ VRAM GPUs are the standard now there are still plenty of people with 8GB and less RAM and 3GB and under VRAM GPUs.

 

I think people with such systems should be made aware that in a case where Shared Memory is being used to help mitigate VRAM usage how their performance may be affected.

-

 

I actually had this happen a few years ago with the game ARK

I had 8GB RAM and was using a 2GB VRAM GPU, because I didn't have enough VRAM to handle the games graphic settings Shared Memory was being used which caused my RAM usage to max out and as such caused slow downs when alt tabbing and so forth due to no free RAM.

 

And this was with a MINIMAL amount of running processes/programs mind you.

Once I upgraded to 16GB specifically for the RAM usage, all my issues went away and the game and system was running smooth as it had an adequate amount of RAM to be used.

[Arika]

it's not talked about because it rarely matters and is going to go straight over most people's heads, they just want to see fps comparisons and general performance numbers

[LAwLz]

9 hours ago, DigitalIP said:

When a youtube reviewer or actual website reviewer benchmarks GPUs and those GPUs have 4GB or less VRAM, why is the difference in Physical RAM usage never mentioned? 

Because 99% of Youtube reviews are really bad and should be watched for entertainment rather than actual information.

Sadly, a lot of them like to mascaraed as educational.

[Guest]

Hardware reviewers use systems with enough RAM so it is never a bottleneck. This is much the case for any benchmark system. This allows the card to operate to its fullest extent - you will always be able to see the maximum FPS achievable by the graphics card and can safely say that the card can achieve xxxx fps in a particular game. Typically 32GB would be optimal. 

[LogicalDrm]

Actually its more like the one post above. Reviews are done in a way that base system isn't bottlenecking. Linus has talked about this when doing soft reviews (checking out something that they already know performance for). They use i9s etc. so that only thing which matters is GPU. Or other way around. When testing gaming performance on CPU they use Titans to eliminate any hindrance caused by GPU. Another youtuber, OC3D tests overclocking capabilities of mobo by running 3-5 chips which he knows are capable to be overclocked at very high frequencies.

[DigitalIP]

Yeah I guess it doesn't matter much with GPUs going the way of over 4GB VRAM these days

 

It just seems many people are unaware/ignorant of the Shared Memory aspect of things, so it would be nice if someone were to mention it every now n then.