How Much Video Memory Is Needed For Higher Resolutions? (Techreport)

[Rekx]

One question we haven't answered decisively in our recent series of graphics card reviews is: how much video memory is enough? More pressingly given the 4GB limit for Radeon R9 Fury cards: how much is too little?

 

Will a 4GB video card run into performance problems in current games, and if so, when? In some ways, this question is harder to answer than one might expect. Some enthusiasts have taken to using monitoring tools in order to see how much video memory is in use while gaming, and that would seem to be a sensible route to understanding these matters.

 

Trouble is, most of the available tools track video memory allocation at the operating system level, and that's not necessarily a good indicator of what's going on beneath the covers. In reality, the GPU driver decides how video memory is used in Direct3D games.

 

My weapon of choice for this mission was a single game, Shadow of Mordor, which I chose for several reasons. For one, it's pretty widely regarded as one of the most VRAM-hungry games around right now.

 

I installed the free HD assets pack available for it and cranked up all of the image quality settings in order to consume as much video memory as possible. Mordor has a built-in benchmark that allowed me to test at multiple resolutions in repeatable fashion with ease. The results won't be as fine-grained as those from our frame-time-based game tests, but a big drop in the FPS average should still serve as a clear indicator of a memory capacity problem.

 

Benchmarks:

 

AMD

 

 

Nvidia 

 

 

 

For whatever reason, a 4GB memory capacity limit appears to create more problems for the Fury X than it does for the GTX 980. As a result, the GTX 980 matches the performance of the much pricier Fury X at 5760x3240 and outdoes it at 33 megapixels.

 

 

As you can see, the color compression in Nvidia's Maxwell chips looks to be quite a bit more effective than the compression in Fury X. The Fury X still has a tremendous amount of memory bandwidth, of course, but we're more concerned about capacity. Assuming these GPUs store compressed data in a packed format that saves capacity as well as bandwidth, it's possible the Maxwell GPUs could be getting more out of each megabyte by using stronger compression.

 

More details can be found on Techreport website

News Source: http://techreport.com/blog/28800/how-much-video-memory-is-enough

[byalexandr]

Well my GTX 760 runs out of video memory in GTA V before it's processing power is fully utilized. I would say 2GB is okay for most games but 4GB is the standard amount you want. Maybe 6GB or 12GB at most for rendering and all.

[Kyuubixchidori]

this is stupid. how much is enough? then goes to one of the most demanding Vram games, then gets a mod to use even more? because that's a normal use case scenario. 

[XtraBuzz]

In my opinion 2GB of GDDR5 RAM is the standard for 1080p gaming.

 

While 4GB of GDDR5 is more for playing games on 1080p 144hz monitors and for gaming on a 1440p display.

 

Just my opinion

[Shhuks]

The fury cards are using HBM memory. You can't really compare it do the normal GDDR5 that other cards have lol

[OAcesync]

3GB is standard now imo for 1080p but how is using a VRAM hungry game with high settings and HD assets pack proving anything on how much you need

[ChineseChef]

So, maybe give more of a synopsis or some results.  All you did was post a teaser about an article.  What were the results?  Were they definitive?  Is there no good answer?  What is your opinion?

 

Edit:  Results added/updated.

Edited August 12, 2015 by ChineseChef

[Oshino Shinobu]

SoM was a bad choice for testing. It uses a lot of vRAM, but it's not vRAM hungry. At 1080p, it uses the full 6GB of my cards, but it sure as hell doesn't need that. It uses what's available. Modded Skyrim may have been a better choice. If that uses all/more of your vRAM, it drops to below 10FPS, as it actually needs that  vRAM. 

[SeanAngelo]

i'd say 4gb is the standard these days. though my gtx 670 2gb is still capable at 1080p lol

[ChineseChef]

this is stupid. how much is enough? then goes to one of the most demanding Vram games, then gets a mod to use even more? because that's a normal use case scenario. 

 

I think it is a rather good and normal scenario.  Buy a modern game, install the free official HD pack, see how much VRAM it needs.  Sounds like something a normal user would do, so it fits the bill for seeing how much will you need.  Because you can always turn down settings, but what does it actually take to turn up the settings is what is important.

 

Edit:  I will say that something like Skyrim or a better optimized game may have been a better choice, but that may not best represent the regular user experience since Skyrim has been tweaked quite a bit to make it better at this point.

[Syfes]

I've done some testing on this myself when I compared my old 780ti to the 980ti. From running those test I've noticed that a lack of VRAM doesn't necessarily show itself clearly when only measuring or watching for a drop in fps (which it would BUT could also be attributed to lack of performance of the chip) but rather the game becoming very noticeably "laggy" and unresponsive.

[Valkyrie Lenneth]

How much video memory is enough?

 

^^^^^^

 

depends wht settings u use and what gpu, if u use a low end gpu .. alot of vram is wasted and useless coz the gpu cant render it anyways

 

if u use a high end gpu that can handle enough vram like 4gb/6gb ect but only use low settings in games u dont need the 4-6gb either

 

if u are going on high end... 4gb should be enough ( maybe in 4-5year that becomes 6-8gb ;x )

 

if u going on midrange gpu/low end 2gb / 1gb should be enough

[Psykomantis00]

I have 12 gigs and I rarely go past 5, just barely under 6. 

[Rekx]

So, maybe give more of a synopsis or some results.  All you did was post a teaser about an article.  What were the results?  Were they definitive?  Is there no good answer?  What is your opinion?

 

Edit:  Results added/updated.

Yeah i was having some problems with the images :-) 

[Me1z]

The fury cards are using HBM memory. You can't really compare it do the normal GDDR5 that other cards have lol

 

You absolutely can compare the two. 4GB of VRAM is 4GB of VRAM regardless of how much bandwidth it has. What this guy was testing was the effects of VRAM storage capacity in relation to frame rate. If there isn't enough VRAM to hold all of the textures required to run a game then there will be a performance hit because it needs to request the textures from your SSD/HDD and cycle out the textures it currently has stored. Bandwidth between the VRAM and the GPU doesn't matter at all if the bottleneck is the constant of uploading of textures to  your VRAM.

[Linus_torvalds]

In my opinion 2GB of GDDR5 RAM is the standard for 1080p gaming.

 

While 4GB of GDDR5 is more for playing games on 1080p 144hz monitors and for gaming on a 1440p display.

 

Just my opinion

no, i have HD 7970 and it's 3GB is not enough at 1080p gaming, it does have enough proccesing power to play modern games at 1080p resolutions but in some of that games it just runs out of VRAM. so in my opinion today because of bad developers and ubisoft 4 GB is standard for 1080p gaming.

 

Nvidia LOL 970 3.5 GB

[Trik'Stari]

No such thing as "enough". You either have progression, or stagnation and eventual death. In all things.

[soaringchicken]

2gb minimum

 

3gb/4gb recommended

[Deletive]

Architecture plays a role in this. It's different for each architecture. 

 

no, i have HD 7970 and it's 3GB is not enough at 1080p gaming, it does have enough proccesing power to play modern games at 1080p resolutions but in some of that games it just runs out of VRAM. so in my opinion today because of bad developers and ubisoft 4 GB is standard for 1080p gaming.

 

Nvidia LOL 970 3.5 GB

 

GCN 1.2 and Maxwell manage Vram better then Kepler and GCN 1 so mileage will vary. 

[nims0c]

I'm much more interested in how much VRAM games will require in the future, although no one really knows.

[Raichuboy17]

The fury cards are using HBM memory. You can't really compare it do the normal GDDR5 that other cards have lol

RIP in peace

[Dabombinable]

I think it is a rather good and normal scenario.  Buy a modern game, install the free official HD pack, see how much VRAM it needs.  Sounds like something a normal user would do, so it fits the bill for seeing how much will you need.  Because you can always turn down settings, but what does it actually take to turn up the settings is what is important.

 

Edit:  I will say that something like Skyrim or a better optimized game may have been a better choice, but that may not best represent the regular user experience since Skyrim has been tweaked quite a bit to make it better at this point.

*sigh* I love being able to enhance Skyrim to the point that at even 1080p my GTX 970 struggles badly.

[LAwLz]

Before you post that comment you're about to post, please remember these things.

 

1) More VRAM does not increase performance if your GPU is the bottleneck. 12GB of VRAM won't help you if the GPU core can't handle to process as much data as it should. So don't blame a lack of VRAM for low performance unless you have done tests and is absolutely sure that more VRAM would in fact increase performance. One of the few ways to validate this is to get the exact same GPU but with more/less VRAM. For example the 290X with 4GB and 290X with 8GB of VRAM. Or the GTX 960 with 2GB or 4GB.

 

2) Just because a game uses let's say 5GB of VRAM doesn't mean it actually needs 5GB to perform well. It might perform 99.99% as well with just 4GB of VRAM and the last 1GB is mostly useless junk that won't get accessed anyway.

 

 

 

I'll read the article tomorrow before commenting on it. Just wanted to do something to prevent the torrent of "X GB is enough! I looked at the VRAM usage when I played so I know!" and "I upgraded from a 2GB card to a 4GB card and I got a lot better FPS! I am totally going to ignore that the GPU core is far more powerful in my new card though!" comments.

 

 

 

 

 

The fury cards are using HBM memory. You can't really compare it do the normal GDDR5 that other cards have lol

That's like saying you can't compare the 980 Ti vs the Fury because they are different architectures. Of course you can compare them. You make them run the same software and then compare the performance of the two. It's as simple as that.

[Linus_torvalds]

Architecture plays a role in this. It's different for each architecture. 

 

 

GCN 1.2 and Maxwell manage Vram better then Kepler and GCN 1 so mileage will vary. 

actually maxwell manages memory much better then even R9 fury 

As you can see, the color compression in Nvidia's Maxwell chips looks to be quite a bit more effective than the compression in Fury X. The Fury X still has a tremendous amount of memory bandwidth, of course, but we're more concerned about capacity. Assuming these GPUs store compressed data in a packed format that saves capacity as well as bandwidth, it's possible the Maxwell GPUs could be getting more out of each megabyte by using stronger compression.

[That Norwegian Guy]

this is stupid. how much is enough? then goes to one of the most demanding Vram games, then gets a mod to use even more? because that's a normal use case scenario. 

 

Because it's required to show the expected scenario for immediate-future games.

 

The Division, Fallout 4 and Star Citizen all are likely to reach beyond Shadow of Mordor levels in their worst case scenarios.