Would 6GB of VRAM last me 5-6 years?

[mm_1994]

I want to buy a 3060 laptop but I'm worried that the 6GB of VRAM wouldn't last. I don't mind lowering settings or resolution btw.

[Zando_]

Nobody can say for sure. A lot of commonly used cards, probably most, have 6-8GB VRAM, so it'd be foolish for game devs to not have texture options that fit within that without looking like shite. But 5-6 years is a damn while in the tech space so it's not a given. 

[Rivettz]

It depends on the types of games you play. For the vast majority of games I play I dont use more than 4 or 5 Gb on my 2080 Super. I cant speak for games in the future. 

[mm_1994]

2 minutes ago, Rivettz said:

It depends on the types of games you play. For the vast majority of games I play I dont use more than 4 or 5 Gb on my 2080 Super. I cant speak for games in the future. 

I meant for AAA games, I don't mind lowering settings but I don't want a situation where I lower the resolution to 720p and the VRAM still isn't enough.

[venomtail]

Loaded question.

Will you be playing esports game for the next 6 years? Then yes.

Will you be playing the latest Crysis game of each respective year from 2022 to 2028 at Ultra 8K? Then most likely not.

[mm_1994]

1 minute ago, venomtail said:

Loaded question.

Will you be playing esports game for the next 6 years? Then yes.

Will you be playing the latest Crysis game of each respective year from 2022 to 2028 at Ultra 8K? Then most likely not.

I don't really game much but every once in a while a AAA game releases and I wanna play it. Cyberpunk is an example. I'm gonna be playing at 1080p mainly but I don't mind lowering it to 720p and lowering settings. I don't care much about graphics, I just wanna play the game.

[Dukesilver27-]

I've seen a lot of gaming laptops with 1440p screen yet the GPU is only a mere 3060 6GB version.

1440p requires a lot of VRAM, 78% more pixels than 1080p, I'm not sure 6GB VRAM would be enough for future 1440p AAA gaming, with FSR/DLSS maybe. So you'd have to depend on whether future games would have FSR or DLSS. Not to mention the processing power of the GPU itself, 3060 desktop barely reach 60 avg fps on current AAA games, the laptop variant might be only as fast as a 3050, laptop variants usually a step or two below the desktop.

Personal experience, I used to game with a 1660 Ti laptop, some games used to went above 5 GB of VRAM on 1080p, several games actually managed to use up all 6GB of VRAM on high settings, I forgot which games. 

[Chiyawa]

Here's my thought:

 

6GB VRAM will still do good for the next 2 or 3 years. AAA titles can't utilised that much RAM because they also need to consider low end system to widen their sales spectrum, so you should be fine. However, with how rapid technologies changes over the years, it's still a debate whether 6GB VRAM is sufficient or obsolete in 5 or 6 years. But VRAM is probably not the most critical part of the game, the GPU processor is. You'll find your GPU are not capable to process the game (in a decent frame rate that is) long before any game hits the maximum capacity of the RAM.

[mm_1994]

34 minutes ago, Dukesilver27- said:

I've seen a lot of gaming laptops with 1440p screen yet the GPU is only a mere 3060 6GB version.

1440p requires a lot of VRAM, 78% more pixels than 1080p, I'm not sure 6GB VRAM would be enough for future 1440p AAA gaming, with FSR/DLSS maybe. So you'd have to depend on whether future games would have FSR or DLSS. Not to mention the processing power of the GPU itself, 3060 desktop barely reach 60 avg fps on current AAA games, the laptop variant might be only as fast as a 3050, laptop variants usually a step or two below the desktop.

Personal experience, I used to game with a 1660 Ti laptop, some games used to went above 5 GB of VRAM on 1080p, several games actually managed to use up all 6GB of VRAM on high settings, I forgot which games. 

The laptop I'm looking at has a 1080p 165Hz screen. But I'm fine with 60 fps or even 30 fps. The laptop 3060 is about 10% slower than the desktop one from what I've seen.

[mm_1994]

2 minutes ago, Chiyawa said:

Here's my thought:

 

6GB VRAM will still do good for the next 2 or 3 years. AAA titles can't utilised that much RAM because they also need to consider low end system to widen their sales spectrum, so you should be fine. However, with how rapid technologies changes over the years, it's still a debate whether 6GB VRAM is sufficient or obsolete in 5 or 6 years. But VRAM is probably not the most critical part of the game, the GPU processor is. You'll find your GPU are not capable to process the game (in a decent frame rate that is) long before any game hits the maximum capacity of the RAM.

Yes this is what I want actually, I want to get a GPU that wouldn't be able to run a game before the game itself utilizes the whole VRAM if that makes sense. I'm worried because the desktop 3060 is only 10% faster than the laptop one and is 12GB.

[Chiyawa]

Again, VRAM should not be an issue. You won't see lots of benefit having more than 8GB VRAM unless you're into 4k or more gaming. GPU processor will be the greatest bottleneck.

 

The desktop 3060 with 12GB VRAM is overkill, but nVidia might be preparing to support Direct Storage technology, which cache game files to GPU memory because they are going to use GPU to decompress the game files instead of CPU. So, yeah, when this new technology comes out, it might impact the loading time of your game, but should not have a drastic effect on the game itself. The desktop GPU has high performance is because it has more cores than its mobile counterparts because it has less restriction. you mobile 3060 is probably a little better than 3050Ti desktop due to power limitation as well as heat sink capacity.

[mm_1994]

10 minutes ago, Chiyawa said:

Again, VRAM should not be an issue. You won't see lots of benefit having more than 8GB VRAM unless you're into 4k or more gaming. GPU processor will be the greatest bottleneck.

 

The desktop 3060 with 12GB VRAM is overkill, but nVidia might be preparing to support Direct Storage technology, which cache game files to GPU memory because they are going to use GPU to decompress the game files instead of CPU. So, yeah, when this new technology comes out, it might impact the loading time of your game, but should not have a drastic effect on the game itself. The desktop GPU has high performance is because it has more cores than its mobile counterparts because it has less restriction. you mobile 3060 is probably a little better than 3050Ti desktop due to power limitation as well as heat sink capacity.

I'll only play at 1080p so I don't care about 4K.

 

Fast loading times are a nice to have but as long as it doesn't affect in-game fps I don't really care. Thank you!

[Chiyawa]

Just now, mm_1994 said:

I'll only play at 1080p so I don't care about 4K.

 

Fast loading times are a nice to have but as long as it doesn't affect in-game fps I don't really care. Thank you!

You're welcome. This is what I'm aware of at the moment, maybe there are other thing in store.

 

I don't think game developers will limit the game to only run on the latest technology, after all, they need to get their game to the wider market to make more money. So, you should have no worries playing AAA title games in the future, unless the game developer shot themselves in the foot by locking up the game from being played by an incompatible system.

[mm_1994]

24 minutes ago, Chiyawa said:

You're welcome. This is what I'm aware of at the moment, maybe there are other thing in store.

 

I don't think game developers will limit the game to only run on the latest technology, after all, they need to get their game to the wider market to make more money. So, you should have no worries playing AAA title games in the future, unless the game developer shot themselves in the foot by locking up the game from being played by an incompatible system.

Yes I don't think they will, especially considering the Xbox Series S specs. Thank you!

[Falkentyne]

7 hours ago, mm_1994 said:

I want to buy a 3060 laptop but I'm worried that the 6GB of VRAM wouldn't last. I don't mind lowering settings or resolution btw.

6 GB of VRAM in 2022?  Avoid that.

Higher end laptops were shipping with 8 GB GTX 3070's (the value / performance king) and 3080's (high end, especially if you had the 200W versions!) and lower spec 3060's (3060's were 6 GB) back in **2016**!  That's 2016.  SIX years ago.

 

Why would you want to go backwards like that?

[ewitte]

Your probably fine at 1080p there likely needs to be some settings reduced in some titles. 

[venomtail]

4 hours ago, Falkentyne said:

(3060's were 6 GB) back in **2016**!  That's 2016.  SIX years ago.

There were 3060's in 2016...?

 

12 hours ago, mm_1994 said:

I don't really game much but every once in a while a AAA game releases and I wanna play it. Cyberpunk is an example. I'm gonna be playing at 1080p mainly but I don't mind lowering it to 720p and lowering settings. I don't care much about graphics, I just wanna play the game.

VRAM is mostly for shaders and textures. Meshes and vertexes that most of the time are the ones rendering your stuff on screen take up very little VRAM, just computationally heavy. Just because you have a lot of VRAM doesn't mean your GPU is able to keep up with all the tasks of rendering. Lets create fake specs: I'd gladly take a 6GB 3070ti over some 16GB 1080ti.

And when you do start running out of VRAM, firstly just lower the textures. They disproportionally take up more VRAM than the rest of rendering.

[Sir Beregond]

Its a laptop, you'll be turning down settings anyway by the time its 5-6 years old (and probably sooner than that). VRAM won't be the bottleneck. No offense, but if longevity to the point of 5-6 years is important, than a laptop is the last thing you should be looking at.

[ewitte]

53 minutes ago, Sir Beregond said:

Its a laptop, you'll be turning down settings anyway by the time its 5-6 years old (and probably sooner than that). VRAM won't be the bottleneck. No offense, but if longevity to the point of 5-6 years is important, than a laptop is the last thing you should be looking at.

Mostly because they tend to use one tier below the naming scheme for the desktop counterpart.  It is a "3060" only in name.

[Sir Beregond]

1 hour ago, ewitte said:

Mostly because they tend to use one tier below the naming scheme for the desktop counterpart.  It is a "3060" only in name.

Precisely.

[mm_1994]

13 hours ago, Falkentyne said:

6 GB of VRAM in 2022?  Avoid that.

Higher end laptops were shipping with 8 GB GTX 3070's (the value / performance king) and 3080's (high end, especially if you had the 200W versions!) and lower spec 3060's (3060's were 6 GB) back in **2016**!  That's 2016.  SIX years ago.

 

Why would you want to go backwards like that?

I'm confused, wasn't the 3060 released last year? Or are you talking about the 1060?

[mm_1994]

8 hours ago, ewitte said:

Your probably fine at 1080p there likely needs to be some settings reduced in some titles. 

Yeah I don't really mind lowering settings.

[mm_1994]

8 hours ago, venomtail said:

There were 3060's in 2016...?

 

VRAM is mostly for shaders and textures. Meshes and vertexes that most of the time are the ones rendering your stuff on screen take up very little VRAM, just computationally heavy. Just because you have a lot of VRAM doesn't mean your GPU is able to keep up with all the tasks of rendering. Lets create fake specs: I'd gladly take a 6GB 3070ti over some 16GB 1080ti.

And when you do start running out of VRAM, firstly just lower the textures. They disproportionally take up more VRAM than the rest of rendering.

Do high textures at lower resolutions take less VRAM? For example would high textures at 720p take less VRAM than high textures at 1080p? Or is the texture resolution based on the texture quality setting only and isn't affected by resolution?

[mm_1994]

4 hours ago, Sir Beregond said:

Its a laptop, you'll be turning down settings anyway by the time its 5-6 years old (and probably sooner than that). VRAM won't be the bottleneck. No offense, but if longevity to the point of 5-6 years is important, than a laptop is the last thing you should be looking at.

I'll need a laptop anyway so instead of getting both a lower-end desktop and a cheaper laptop why not just get a gaming laptop with higher specs than both?

[mm_1994]

3 hours ago, ewitte said:

Mostly because they tend to use one tier below the naming scheme for the desktop counterpart.  It is a "3060" only in name.

I've looked at benchmarks and the laptop 3060 is only about 10% slower than the desktop one. It's the 6GB VRAM that worries me.