3gig vram enough for 1080p gaming?

[</Reign>]

I want to get a gtx1060 to 1080p game. Is three gigs of Vram enough. To play games and run mods at that resolution? Thanks for the advice!

[NTDaws]

Well what games do you play and what are your PC specs?

[MrMcMuffinJr]

I do it with a 2g 750ti

[MEC-777]

If you keep texture settings turned down, it's ok. But I would suggest saving up a little more and go for the 1060 6GB version though. In a few games, I hit the 4GB limit on my 980 at 1080p/ultra settings and have to turn it down a little to get smooth frame rates. 

[othertomperson]

If your card has 3GB vram than it's not got a powerful enough GPU to warrant more. There's no point in having massive textures for a low resolution, and a small number of polygons. If you're looking at a 3GB 1060 or an RX 470 you're not looking at maxing out all games at all resolutions for years on end, you knew this when you decided your budget.

 

11 minutes ago, MEC-777 said:

If you keep texture settings turned down, it's ok. But I would suggest saving up a little more and go for the 1060 6GB version though. In a few games, I hit the 4GB limit on my 980 at 1080p/ultra settings and have to turn it down a little to get smooth frame rates. 

Can you even tell the difference at 1080p? Those texture settings are designed for higher resolutions where the texture resolution becomes more apparent.

[MEC-777]

7 hours ago, othertomperson said:

If your card has 3GB vram than it's not got a powerful enough GPU to warrant more. There's no point in having massive textures for a low resolution, and a small number of polygons. If you're looking at a 3GB 1060 or an RX 470 you're not looking at maxing out all games at all resolutions for years on end, you knew this when you decided your budget.

 

Can you even tell the difference at 1080p? Those texture settings are designed for higher resolutions where the texture resolution becomes more apparent.

To your first statement, that is incorrect. Amount of Vram has no relation to how powerful or capable the GPU is. Many cards are choked by not having enough Vram in relation to how powerful the GPU is. The Fury and Fury X with only 4GB come to mind, as well as the GTX 980 with the same amount. I would consider 4GB Vram to be the minimum for 1080p gaming these days. Games are getting more detailed and thus, require more data (textures etc.) to be stored for quick access. It's better to have more than enough instead of not enough. 

 

In ROTTR, yes, I can tell the difference in terms of visuals and performance. My 980 could run the game with highest textures, but hits the Vram limit which causes stuttering and hitching.  

[smokefest]

1 hour ago, MEC-777 said:

To your first statement, that is incorrect. Amount of Vram has no relation to how powerful or capable the GPU is. Many cards are choked by not having enough Vram in relation to how powerful the GPU is. The Fury and Fury X with only 4GB come to mind, as well as the GTX 980 with the same amount. I would consider 4Gb Vram to be the minimum or 1080p gaming these days. Games are getting more detailed and thus, require more data (textures etc.) to be stored for quick access. It's better to have more than enough instead of not enough. 

 

In ROTTR, yes, I can tell the difference in terms of visuals and performance. My 980 could run the game with highest textures, but hits the Vram limit which causes stuttering and hitching.  

I've hit 7.5 GB VRAM usage in rise of the tomb raider with my gtx 1070

Just so you know

I see many games taking over 3 GB..

All in 1080p

 

Many games takes under 4 gb too..

BF1 is more cpu intense, gpu use only 3.3 GB VRAM...
But i've seen ram usage up to 9.5 GB in bf1 !! RAM not VRAM

[</Reign>]

So the general consensus seems to be on the side of more v ram!

[MEC-777]

1 hour ago, </Reign> said:

So the general consensus seems to be on the side of more v ram!

If you have the choice, more is the better option. If you can save a little more for the 1060 6GB, I would highly recommend it. It has a slightly stronger GPU than the 3GB version as well.  

[EntryLevelScrub]

3 or even 2 gigs is fine for now, but wont be for the next generation of games, get at leat 4 or maybe even six, unless you are upgrading within a short time. But generally no, 3 gigs will not play 1080p max settings any more

[othertomperson]

On 29/11/2016 at 8:53 PM, MEC-777 said:

To your first statement, that is incorrect. Amount of Vram has no relation to how powerful or capable the GPU is. Many cards are choked by not having enough Vram in relation to how powerful the GPU is. The Fury and Fury X with only 4GB come to mind, as well as the GTX 980 with the same amount. I would consider 4GB Vram to be the minimum for 1080p gaming these days. Games are getting more detailed and thus, require more data (textures etc.) to be stored for quick access. It's better to have more than enough instead of not enough. 

 

In ROTTR, yes, I can tell the difference in terms of visuals and performance. My 980 could run the game with highest textures, but hits the Vram limit which causes stuttering and hitching.  

When people start using the 3 GB 1060 for 1440p and 4K like the Fury X get back to me. Until then you're wrong to think they're remotely comparable.

 

Of course amount of vram and strength of the GPU are related. A stronger GPU is needed for high resolutions, and higher res textures are needed to make those high resolutions look good. You absolutely can choke a low end GPU on a low resolution by trying to make it display textures necessary for 4K, but which offer no benefit on a low resolution display, but that is your ignorance causing the issue here, not the specs of the card.

 

If you're causing stuttering on a card as powerful as the 980 at 1080p by choosing "the highest textures" without any thought as to what that means or what that setting is for, then that's your problem. If you are doing such a stupid thing, then you lack the judgement to call anyone "incorrect".

[MEC-777]

38 minutes ago, othertomperson said:

When people start using the 3 GB 1060 for 1440p and 4K like the Fury X get back to me. Until then you're wrong to think they're remotely comparable.

 

Of course amount of vram and strength of the GPU are related. A stronger GPU is needed for high resolutions, and higher res textures are needed to make those high resolutions look good. You absolutely can choke a low end GPU on a low resolution by trying to make it display textures necessary for 4K, but which offer no benefit on a low resolution display, but that is your ignorance causing the issue here, not the specs of the card.

 

If you're causing stuttering on a card as powerful as the 980 at 1080p by choosing "the highest textures" without any thought as to what that means or what that setting is for, then that's your problem. If you are doing such a stupid thing, then you lack the judgement to call anyone "incorrect".

You're not understanding what I said. The 980 (the GPU) is capable of running the game with the highest textures, but is being choked by lack of Vram. If the GPU can do it, then it should have enough Vram to support. Nvidia has been known to skimp on Vram in the past, though they're finally getting better (both AMD and Nvidia) with the latest generation by offering 4-6GB minimum on their cards aimed at 1080p gaming. It's necessary with modern games which are becoming more Vram heavy. 

 

The 1060 3GB is a slightly cut down 1060 6GB, so it's debatable whether 3GB is enough. In most cases it will be ok, but in a few scenarios it's not enough for what the GPU is capable of. IMO, what Nvidia should have done is keep both version with 6GB and named them 1060 and 1060Ti, respectively. 

 

It's a matter of preference, really. If you're ok with turning things down a little to not hit that Vram limit, then all power to you. But I would rather have the choice to turn the game setting up as high as I want (if the GPU can do it) and not have to worry about hitting any Vram limits.

 

One of the things I like to do in many games is run DSR instead of applying various AA filters, which can often be more demanding that simply running the game at higher resolutions without AA. The end result is it often looks better and runs better, but can also end up needing more Vram as well. 

 

So yeah, I'm not doing anything "stupid". I know what those settings are for and I can see the difference at 1080p. The Vram is holding me back from running the game the way I want to, not the GPU. IMO, 3GB is not enough for 1080p gaming. That may not be your opinion, but that doesn't mean my choice is stupid. 

 

You said "if your GPU has 3GB of Vram, the GPU is not powerful enough to warrant more", this is very much incorrect. The 1060 6GB is about on par with a 980, the 3GB version being a little behind it. If 4GB isn't quite enough for a 980 in a number of situations, then 3GB certainly won't be for the 1060. 

[Snadzies]

On 11/29/2016 at 3:53 PM, smokefest said:

I've hit 7.5 GB VRAM usage in rise of the tomb raider with my gtx 1070

Just so you know

I see many games taking over 3 GB..

All in 1080p

 

Many games takes under 4 gb too..

BF1 is more cpu intense, gpu use only 3.3 GB VRAM...
But i've seen ram usage up to 9.5 GB in bf1 !! RAM not VRAM

 

If you have a lot, some games will use a ton of VRAM just because it is there though it doesn't really need that much.

It may help some with pop in and a little with load times but after a certain point the difference is pretty minimal so it can be difficult to tell how much the game really needs to run well.

[othertomperson]

5 hours ago, MEC-777 said:

You're not understanding what I said. The 980 (the GPU) is capable of running the game with the highest textures, but is being choked by lack of Vram. If the GPU can do it, then it should have enough Vram to support. Nvidia has been known to skimp on Vram in the past, though they're finally getting better (both AMD and Nvidia) with the latest generation by offering 4-6GB minimum on their cards aimed at 1080p gaming. It's necessary with modern games which are becoming more Vram heavy. 

 

The 1060 3GB is a slightly cut down 1060 6GB, so it's debatable whether 3GB is enough. In most cases it will be ok, but in a few scenarios it's not enough for what the GPU is capable of. IMO, what Nvidia should have done is keep both version with 6GB and named them 1060 and 1060Ti, respectively. 

 

It's a matter of preference, really. If you're ok with turning things down a little to not hit that Vram limit, then all power to you. But I would rather have the choice to turn the game setting up as high as I want (if the GPU can do it) and not have to worry about hitting any Vram limits.

 

One of the things I like to do in many games is run DSR instead of applying various AA filters, which can often be more demanding that simply running the game at higher resolutions without AA. The end result is it often looks better and runs better, but can also end up needing more Vram as well. 

 

So yeah, I'm not doing anything "stupid". I know what those settings are for and I can see the difference at 1080p. The Vram is holding me back from running the game the way I want to, not the GPU. IMO, 3GB is not enough for 1080p gaming. That may not be your opinion, but that doesn't mean my choice is stupid. 

 

You said "if your GPU has 3GB of Vram, the GPU is not powerful enough to warrant more", this is very much incorrect. The 1060 6GB is about on par with a 980, the 3GB version being a little behind it. If 4GB isn't quite enough for a 980 in a number of situations, then 3GB certainly won't be for the 1060. 

No, it's you who are not understanding what I am saying. "980 is capable of running the game with the highest textures" is a meaningless statement. Textures themselves are not dependant on the GPU. However, the need for higher textures is dependant on the resolution that you are running at, and the higher resolution is dependant on a more powerful GPU.

 

As you dial up the resolution, the same resolution textures will appear blocky and ill-defined as you are able to show more and more of the full map at a time, and need to stretch it across the object. Games that looked fine at 1080p can look awful at 4K for this reason. This is why the very high res texture packs exist. When you use them at 1080p they have absolutely no effect. This is why I am saying that if you are using a GPU like the 980 or the 3GB 1060 and complaining that you can't use textures that only exist to make the game look good at 4K and 5K, you're doing something very wrong.

 

When you talk about the Fury X, your statement is valid. That was a card that was marketed (at least initially) as a 4K card, along with the 980 Ti and the Titan X(M). For that card 4GB was at the time sufficient for 4K but not so much any more. For the 980, however, with textures that make sense for the 980 4GB is fine. It's not a question of "turning things down a little", it's a question of "are you enabling 4K-specific features on a low/mid tier card just because you can and then complaining that it doesn't do it very well".

[Lord Nicoll]

On 11/29/2016 at 7:21 PM, </Reign> said:

I want to get a gtx1060 to 1080p game. Is three gigs of Vram enough. To play games and run mods at that resolution? Thanks for the advice!

I have the R9 380 4Gb from Sapphire, which is overclocked to 1170MHz, on ultra maxed settings in Fallout 4 it pushes upward of 40 FPS even in heated situations, 60 otherwise, the most amount of Vram is ever used was 3.6GB, which is a lot for 1080p, but goes to show even at 1080p, if the memory is there the game can use it, even with a weaker GPU core that you wouldn't think could use it. 

 

[othertomperson]

4 minutes ago, Lord Nicoll said:

I have the R9 380 4Gb from Sapphire, which is overclocked to 1170MHz, on ultra maxed settings in Fallout 4 it pushes upward of 40 FPS even in heated situations, 60 otherwise, the most amount of Vram is ever used was 3.6GB, which is a lot for 1080p, but goes to show even at 1080p, if the memory is there the game can use it, even with a weaker GPU core that you wouldn't think could use it. 

 

That doesn't really mean anything. Just because a card is storing content in vram doesn't mean it needs to be stored. There were a lot of comparisons between the 2GB and 4GB versions of the 380 that showed that regardless of how much vram it was using at a given time there was no performance benefit of one vs the other. You'll just find that the 2GB version was swapping stuff in and out of memory more often than the 4GB version which was storing more at a time.

 

The same was true of the 770 and 780 before it.

[Lord Nicoll]

5 minutes ago, othertomperson said:

That doesn't really mean anything. Just because a card is storing content in vram doesn't mean it needs to be stored. There were a lot of comparisons between the 2GB and 4GB versions of the 380 that showed that regardless of how much vram it was using at a given time there was no performance benefit of one vs the other. You'll just find that the 2GB version was swapping stuff in and out of memory more often than the 4GB version which was storing more at a time.

 

The same was true of the 770 and 780 before it.

Em, for HD textures at ultra 2GB even at 1080p was a complete bottle neck, my previous GPU, the older Radeon HD 7870, although a less powerful (but not by a massive amount as both were overclocked), ran a lot slower with Vram usage pegged at 2048Mb, having the assets stored in memory means it available faster, meaning dips and lows don't happen. Saying that having the memory and it being used doesn't affect much is a bit of a fallacy, going to system RAM for assets is slow, and can hurt performance. The memory usage was often over 3GB, and with a more power chip like the GTX 1060's, and newer games, it will use more Vram even at 1080p. 

[Lord Nicoll]

11 minutes ago, othertomperson said:

That doesn't really mean anything. Just because a card is storing content in vram doesn't mean it needs to be stored. There were a lot of comparisons between the 2GB and 4GB versions of the 380 that showed that regardless of how much vram it was using at a given time there was no performance benefit of one vs the other. You'll just find that the 2GB version was swapping stuff in and out of memory more often than the 4GB version which was storing more at a time.

 

The same was true of the 770 and 780 before it.

I spent all of 5 minutes looking at bench mark and the 4GB version is noticeably faster than the 2GB model, with some comments even going as far as to say that it even stutters less. 

 

A quote from Eurogamer (http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-2015-radeon-r9-380-2gb-4gb-review)

Quote

This all translates into a healthy state of affairs for the R9 380 during the all-important 1080p benchmark run, where we see AMD's latest match or exceed its Nvidia competition in all but one game - Battlefield 4. But what is especially of interest are the results on Ryse, Assassin's Creed Unity and Far Cry 4, where the 4GB version of the R9 380 produces noticeable improvements of the 2GB card. In the table below, the 2fps uplift may not seem like a big deal, but we would strongly suggest that you watch the video to see the difference visualised - stutter in each of those titles is considerably reduced with 4GB on tap. It's also no surprise to see that the older 3GB R9 280 also does well, presumably owing to its additional gig of VRAM over the 2GB cards. The bottom line is clear: these games stutter less with more VRAM, and it seems that 2GB isn't enough to house top-end texture quality on certain games.

 

[othertomperson]

33 minutes ago, Lord Nicoll said:

Em, for HD textures at ultra 2GB even at 1080p was a complete bottle neck, my previous GPU, the older Radeon HD 7870, although a less powerful (but not by a massive amount as both were overclocked), ran a lot slower with Vram usage pegged at 2048Mb, having the assets stored in memory means it available faster, meaning dips and lows don't happen. Saying that having the memory and it being used doesn't affect much is a bit of a fallacy, going to system RAM for assets is slow, and can hurt performance. The memory usage was often over 3GB, and with a more power chip like the GTX 1060's, and newer games, it will use more Vram even at 1080p. 

 

[Lord Nicoll]

7 minutes ago, othertomperson said:

 

Watch here and see the FPS marks in some of the games as they stutter from lack of memory. This is actual test runs and not just graphs with some guy talking about them taking only average FPS, average FPS doesn't tell the tale here.

[othertomperson]

4 minutes ago, Lord Nicoll said:

Watch here and see the FPS marks in some of the games as they stutter from lack of memory. This is actual test runs and not just graphs with some guy talking about them taking only average FPS, average FPS doesn't tell the tale here.

Yeah they're all at complete parity. When the 2GB has a stutter so does the 4GB version. What's your point?

[Lord Nicoll]

Just now, othertomperson said:

Yeah they're all at complete parity. When the 2GB has a stutter so does the 4GB version. What's your point?

The stutters go lower or did you miss that? Particularly at one point in the far cry test. You're saying more RAMon these cards is useless, clearly that is false. Especially if you mod in even higher texture details. It is very difficult to actually measure two different GPU cores though, but saying that more RAM isn't good is a fallacy. In games at max details, sometimes with greater than 100% scaling, more than 3Gb is needed, especially newer games, even at 1080p, will use a lot more RAM. Game tech moves along with GPU tech, what was good enough 2 years ago isn't anymore.

[othertomperson]

12 hours ago, Lord Nicoll said:

The stutters go lower or did you miss that? Particularly at one point in the far cry test. You're saying more RAMon these cards is useless, clearly that is false. Especially if you mod in even higher texture details. It is very difficult to actually measure two different GPU cores though, but saying that more RAM isn't good is a fallacy. In games at max details, sometimes with greater than 100% scaling, more than 3Gb is needed, especially newer games, even at 1080p, will use a lot more RAM. Game tech moves along with GPU tech, what was good enough 2 years ago isn't anymore.

No, I'm ignoring the unoptimised outliers that were specifically mentioned in the previous video that I posted because I assumed you watched it and I didn't need to address the same shit time and time again. Was I wrong?

 

How's this for a novel idea: how about you don't get the cheapest, most low end cards, try to whack ultra settings -- settings which only have any impact at resolutions like 4K and above -- in all games on them and then bitch that they can't do it?

 

The really hilarious thing is that Nvidia could have put 4GB on the cut down 1060 quite happily, but it would have needed to be in two sections with one part running slightly slower like the 660 Ti and the 970, but people tore them a new one for giving them more RAM last time. You've only got gamers to blame for the it only having 3GB

[MEC-777]

18 hours ago, othertomperson said:

No, it's you who are not understanding what I am saying. "980 is capable of running the game with the highest textures" is a meaningless statement. Textures themselves are not dependant on the GPU. However, the need for higher textures is dependant on the resolution that you are running at, and the higher resolution is dependant on a more powerful GPU.

 

As you dial up the resolution, the same resolution textures will appear blocky and ill-defined as you are able to show more and more of the full map at a time, and need to stretch it across the object. Games that looked fine at 1080p can look awful at 4K for this reason. This is why the very high res texture packs exist. When you use them at 1080p they have absolutely no effect. This is why I am saying that if you are using a GPU like the 980 or the 3GB 1060 and complaining that you can't use textures that only exist to make the game look good at 4K and 5K, you're doing something very wrong.

 

When you talk about the Fury X, your statement is valid. That was a card that was marketed (at least initially) as a 4K card, along with the 980 Ti and the Titan X(M). For that card 4GB was at the time sufficient for 4K but not so much any more. For the 980, however, with textures that make sense for the 980 4GB is fine. It's not a question of "turning things down a little", it's a question of "are you enabling 4K-specific features on a low/mid tier card just because you can and then complaining that it doesn't do it very well".

Like I mentioned before, even at 1080p I can see the difference between high/ultra textures in some games. The highest res textures aren't always "just" for 4k. It's mean to sharpen the image quality across all resolution from 1080p and up. You're right, you don't get the "full benefit" of these textures unless actually running the game at 4k native, but I'm know I'm not the only one who can see the difference even at 1080p. As a personal preference, I like to run my games with the best visual quality as possible (while maintaining 60fps+ as well). So knowing the 980 could do this if it had more Vram, that's why I'm saying it's Vram choked in these few scenarios. 

 

I'm not doing anything "wrong". I'm running the game how I want to run it so that it looks the way I want it to look. And again, I can see the difference, especially with DSR.

 

 

[Soundsystem90]

I ran Batman Arkham knight at 39-60FPS on a 2GB 680 and the game said i needed 3GB yet the 680 handled it just fine with no stuttering.

 

 

LOL