vram usage under 2560x1600 captured by GTX580 3GB x 2 SLI

harmony · 14 Jul 2011 at 17:07

Just some random scenes (not necessarily the most stressful):

Assassin's Creed Brotherhood: 710MB

Alice Madness Returns: 1032MB

BFBC2: 1314MB

Crysis Warhead: 2003MB

Crysis 2: 1873MB

Dragon Age 2: 1550MB

Metro 2033: 1934MB

Napoleon Total War: 1802MB

Shogun 2: 1916MB

Unigine Heaven Benchmark: 1522MB

The Witcher 2: 1322MB

World of Warcraft Cataclysm: 1135MB

Conclusions: to maximise everything under 2560x1600, 1.5GB isn't affluent any longer. Whenever the vram usage is slightly above the dedicated vram available on each GPU, lag spikes/stuttering occur. Unless an enthusiast of 30" monitor/multiscreen is insensitive to lag spikes/stuttering, I recommend staying away from multi-GPU solutions with less than 2GB vram per GPU.

However, keep in mind that 2-way GTX580 SLI does not have sufficient GPU computing power under 2560x1600 for some games like Metro 2033, Shogun 2 etc. It is recommended to have at least 3 GTX580s or equivalent power from 28nm cards.

Duff-Man · 14 Jul 2011 at 17:41

Useful information, thanks

I'm using SLI GTX480s at 2560, so it's good to have a reference. I've only seen full (1500mb+) VRAM usage in Crysis2 and metro2033, but I haven't played Napoleon or Shogun 2.

Out of interest, did you have Windows aero enabled during these tests? That eats 150-200Mb of VRAM, so is well worth disabling when VRAM usage is a concern.

Freddie1980 · 14 Jul 2011 at 18:09

Duff-Man said:
Out of interest, did you have Windows aero enabled during these tests? That eats 150-200Mb of VRAM, so is well worth disabling when VRAM usage is a concern.

Bloody hell that's a lot if you have a 1Gb card or less. Thanks for the tip.

tommybhoy · 14 Jul 2011 at 18:12

You've opened it again! lol

chaparral · 14 Jul 2011 at 18:40

Look at them crappy FPS.....LOL

Alice Madness Returns = 24fps
Dragon Age 2 = 20fps
Metro 2033 = 20fps
Shogun 2 = 30fps
Unigine Heaven Benchmark = 34fps
World of Warcraft Cataclysm = 39fps

Who gives a crap how much Vram is being used when your getting them super low FPS

Freddie1980 · 14 Jul 2011 at 18:45

Shogun 2 is more then playable at 30FPS.

Rroff · 14 Jul 2011 at 18:52

You have to remember that going over the VRAM on a GPU doesn't automatically equally any performance impact at all - it depends on the nature of the VRAM useage - the system memory->bus->GPU is still quite fast even tho nothing like as fast to access or as fast to transfer as direct VRAM access.

rjk · 14 Jul 2011 at 19:06

my 480 SLI handles 2560X1600 easily.

i dont have an fps counter running though.
what i do is put the game on and max everything out.
if it isnt playable then i investigate why.
i dont look at the numbers to tell me if what i am seeing on my screen is playable to me.

chief barker · 14 Jul 2011 at 19:26

£800+ worth of GFX cards and your'e getting those frames?

Madness.

rjk · 14 Jul 2011 at 19:39

that's the price you pay for gaming at a high resolution

arc@css · 14 Jul 2011 at 19:41

For the mean time I am staying put with 1920x1200. Once you go much above that you evidently need some serious graphics horse power.

nalla · 14 Jul 2011 at 19:58

well them fps are very poor indeed, i just tested dragon age 2 with fraps running, turned off vsync, turned all settings to very high, aa x8, af x16, and still get 60-70 fps with 2x gtx480's sli, and at a res of 2560 x 1600

Ch3m1c4L · 14 Jul 2011 at 20:00

480 tri sli runs everything at higher FPS than those screenies at 2560 (40-50 in shogun 2 etc), although metro and shogun cant have more than 2 or 3 x AA without seeing large drops in FPS, so a lot of the above is purely caching of textures etc which isnt "needed", just beneficial. One good thing about 2560 is the fact that you dont need so much AA though, as the pixels are that much smaller in the first place.

harmony · 15 Jul 2011 at 12:25

Duff-Man said:
Useful information, thanks

I'm using SLI GTX480s at 2560, so it's good to have a reference. I've only seen full (1500mb+) VRAM usage in Crysis2 and metro2033, but I haven't played Napoleon or Shogun 2.

Out of interest, did you have Windows aero enabled during these tests? That eats 150-200Mb of VRAM, so is well worth disabling when VRAM usage is a concern.

I don't think AERO still occupies vram as long as the game is running in fullscreen mode. Proof:

chaparral said:
Look at them crappy FPS.....LOL

Alice Madness Returns = 24fps
Dragon Age 2 = 20fps
Metro 2033 = 20fps
Shogun 2 = 30fps
Unigine Heaven Benchmark = 34fps
World of Warcraft Cataclysm = 39fps

Who gives a crap how much Vram is being used when your getting them super low FPS

Alice Madness Returns: PhysX killing fps. Most of the time it stays at 60 fps with vsync.
Dragon Age 2: See the GPU usage. Need more explanation?
WOW: You only get the same fps in Orgrimmar even if you run it under 1024x768 unless you are on a ghost server.

The only problematic games are Metro 2033 and Shogun 2.

Marine-RX179 · 15 Jul 2011 at 12:48

Would be good if what AA is being used was mention.

FMTopfan · 21 Dec 2011 at 06:53

If your system is generally fast then you shouldn't really notice any difference as my friends tell me their 1500MB 580/1280MB 570 or 1GB 5870 is very playable and similar performance to what I'm getting with a 5970 at 1920x1200 despite Nvidia's having more VRAM. As for Metro, I play on Very High settings with PhysX on Advance/High (using GT440), AA, No Tessellation, DOF and achieve averages of 75, max of 135fps, lows of 43fps with VRAM usages at 1240MB and reaches highs of 1500MB - nearly as much as playing at 2560 which was a surprise.

Locky · 21 Dec 2011 at 09:37

People must have broken computers, my 480 sli system handles anything I throw at it.

Random Guy · 21 Dec 2011 at 10:55

rjkoneill said:
my 480 SLI handles 2560X1600 easily.

i dont have an fps counter running though.
what i do is put the game on and max everything out.
if it isnt playable then i investigate why.
i dont look at the numbers to tell me if what i am seeing on my screen is playable to me.

Locky said:
People must have broken computers, my 480 sli system handles anything I throw at it.

480 SLI, 2560x1440, no issues whatsoever.

Point of this thread....?

ElliottJames · 21 Dec 2011 at 11:14

My 6950 2GB unlocked to 6970 should be handling everything @ high, not ultra AA off. Might go Crossfire when I can afford it.

Surveyor · 21 Dec 2011 at 11:41

ElliottJames said:
My 6950 2GB unlocked to 6970 should be handling everything @ high, not ultra AA off. Might go Crossfire when I can afford it.

At the time you made that post you hadn't even tried unlocking it yet :confused: