Quick question ref 970SLI and 4k

[stealth80]

Hi all,

          I recently got my 2nd 970 installed for SLI and on the whole its been great. I have had a couple of occasions (seems to be isolated to GTA 5) where the game crashes due to low system memory. Ive read this could be due to the way the game is handling the extra texture information at 4k. Now the fact it says "low system memory" made me think about adding another 2x8gb ram to my system to try and alleviate this issue, would it have any effect?

[PlayStation 2]

It's not your RAM, it's your drivers... and the fact that you were wasteful enough to SLI 2 970s

[thatguyyouknow75]

It's not your RAM, it's your drivers... and the fact that you were wasteful enough to SLI 2 970s

how is a second 970 wasteful?

[stealth80]

It's not your RAM, it's your drivers... and the fact that you were wasteful enough to SLI 2 970s

 

Don't know why people keep saying this lol, its the Bit-tech recommended 4k platform. I already had 1x 970 with a waterblock from release, adding a second was the cheapest option and as I said, largely it works flawlessly

[PlayStation 2]

Don't know why people keep saying this lol, its the Bit-tech recommended 4k platform. I already had 1x 970 with a waterblock from release, adding a second was the cheapest option and as I said, largely it works flawlessly

who is bit-tech

[stealth80]

@Dan Castellaneta

 

http://www.bit-tech.net/

 

Website of the UK's leading PC magazine​

​

[TheRandomness]

how is a second 970 wasteful?

4k needs VRAM. @OP enjoy non stacked 3.5GBs of it.

[MMKing]

Tone down the most Vram intensive graphical settings, or turn the resolution down to 1440p, which is the maximum resolution i would recommend for a 970 setup. At least in such demanding games as GTA 5.

[stealth80]

so helpful ..

 

Ok so would lack of vram cause a game to crash with "low system memory" ? It doesn't seem right to me, normally running out of vram causes stutter and video driver crash

[ApolloX75]

Hi all,

I recently got my 2nd 970 installed for SLI and on the whole its been great. I have had a couple of occasions (seems to be isolated to GTA 5) where the game crashes due to low system memory. Ive read this could be due to the way the game is handling the extra texture information at 4k. Now the fact it says "low system memory" made me think about adding another 2x8gb ram to my system to try and alleviate this issue, would it have any effect?

I got a chance to run my 970 with a twin for a couple hours at 1080p and was quite impressed with the performance increase.

I dont have the capability to test in 4K though, other than DSR. What kind of settings do you run at? And how stable are your framerates? Did you OC your cards at all or leave them stock?

Personal curiosity really. For your memory issue is it just GTA5? It may simply be a driver bug if it is.

[stealth80]

I got a chance to run my 970 with a twin for a couple hours at 1080p and was quite impressed with the performance increase.

I dont have the capability to test in 4K though, other than DSR. What kind of settings do you run at? And how stable are your framerates? Did you OC your cards at all or leave them stock?

Personal curiosity really. For your memory issue is it just GTA5? It may simply be a driver bug if it is.

 

Hi there constructive answer /non 970 bash

 

Its purely isolated to GTA V at 4k. I'm running a pair of EVGA 970 superclocked at their "standard" clocks on some brutal water cooling (alright it aint nitrogen or phase change)

 

Odd thing is the game runs fine at like 7gb video memory usage (2x 3.5gb makes sense) push it to 7.5gb and I get the low "system" memory.

 

Ive done a little reading and apparently GTA V can suffer from a memory leak. My chain of thought was to just throw in 32gb ram and see if that cures it ......

 

I actually have another 2x8gb ram sat in my wifes PC (however its Gskill ripjaws) I may try that later tonight and see if it solves the issue before buying another 16gb

 

 

TLDR seems odd I would crash for low ram if it's related to vram, as I said, I thought the video driver would just crash

[ivan134]

Hi there constructive answer /non 970 bash

Its purely isolated to GTA V at 4k. I'm running a pair of EVGA 970 superclocked at their "standard" clocks on some brutal water cooling (alright it aint nitrogen or phase change)

Odd thing is the game runs fine at like 7gb video memory usage (2x 3.5gb makes sense) push it to 7.5gb and I get the low "system" memory.

Ive done a little reading and apparently GTA V can suffer from a memory leak. My chain of thought was to just throw in 32gb ram and see if that cures it ......

I actually have another 2x8gb ram sat in my wifes PC (however its Gskill ripjaws) I may try that later tonight and see if it solves the issue before buying another 16gb

TLDR seems odd I would crash for low ram if it's related to vram, as I said, I thought the video driver would just crash

Thats not how SLI or crossfire works. Your VRAM doesn't stack. You are playing one of those most VRAM hungry games on 3.5 + 0.5. Gta 5 uses more than 4gb vram at 1440p. 4k is dragging your cards to their knees.

[stealth80]

Thats not how SLI or crossfire works. Your VRAM doesn't stack. You are playing one of those most VRAM hungry games on 3.5 + 0.5. Gta 5 uses more than 4gb vram at 1440p. 4k is dragging your cards to their knees.

 

I know its not, but its how gta v sees it and hence my reasoning in this scenario. However still doesnt explain the the low system memory crash

[ivan134]

I know its not, but its how gta v sees it and hence my reasoning in this scenario. However still doesnt explain the the low system memory crash

You are crashing because a 970 doesnt have enough vram for gta5 at 4k. It already uses more than 4gb at 1440p alone.

[thatguyyouknow75]

4k needs VRAM. @OP enjoy non stacked 3.5GBs of it.

funny though. People with 780's running at the same resolutions never (and still don't) complain about 3 gigs. And it has 4 gigs, the last .5 simply shares a channel. I have dual 970s and run 1440p sometimes and other times 5760x1080 and have run into exactly 0 issues

[stealth80]

turns out I put 2x 4gb in the wifes PC, however just tried it with that plus mine so 24gb and it didn't crash. Obviously fully maxed (8.4gb textures ish) the textures swamped the gpus and the FPS slumped after around 10 mins. I have a usage readout mapped to my G15 and I noticed the ram usage climb from 5gb to 9gb in this time. I think this is down to the way windows handles the texture data once the 3.5gb vram has been used. I'm guessing at 16gb it swamped the ram with all the texture swapping hence the low system memory crash. So as I figured the crash is caused by the ram being low (as per the error message) but its caused by the Vram being swamped. I will add another 16gb after xmas to stop the crashes. (and no I don't think this will make it playable lol, obviously I will be dialling the settings down, it will just prevent the crashes)

 

Interestingly when I dial the settings to below predicted 7gb in game I have zero issues, which I believe is odd as others have rightly said, its I a mirrored 3.5 (4gb) so I don't understand why it is fine below 7gb

[stealth80]

interestingly I just had the same crash with Watch Dogs at 1080P ....

 

Ram usage was at around 8gb and climbed to 10.2gb

[stealth80]

Got the new ram installed and just ran GTA V at 4k ultra at around 7.7gb of texture memory with no issues, some weird stuff but at least the ram was worth it

[jjohnthedon1]

Thats not how SLI or crossfire works. Your VRAM doesn't stack. You are playing one of those most VRAM hungry games on 3.5 + 0.5. Gta 5 uses more than 4gb vram at 1440p. 4k is dragging your cards to their knees.

no but gta v is fucked up and stacks what u have and doubles the usage

And technically u do u 7 Gigs just that the vram is a copy on both cards

[ivan134]

no but gta v is fucked up and stacks what u have and doubles the usage

And technically u do u 7 Gigs just that the vram is a copy on both cards

No, it doesn't. VRAM stacking is not a thing, yet.

[jjohnthedon1]

No, it doesn't. VRAM stacking is not a thing, yet.

Essentially how it works is

The vram get used on both cards, they mirror each other

So having 2 cards u use twice as much so u don't gain anymore to use but it is utilised on both cards

That's why gtaV shows 8gb on sli 970's

The usage is twice as much tho as the same thing is produced on both cards

Hence 4 gb one card

8gb 2 cards but they don't share the vram so each card has to have its own source

So no u don't gain any benefit vram wise but it is all used because both cards need the same information