what is a lag spike and how would it affect me?
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Is 1GB VRAM enough?
- Thread starter Cleeecooo
- Start date
what is a lag spike and how would it affect me?
Soldato
- Joined
- 22 Apr 2011
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- 3,859
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- Nottingham
In Rivatuner it regularary shows me going over 1024MB use at 1080p in games such as Dirt 3. BF3 Alpha used as much as 1.4GB.
All the games run smooth for me, that is proof that *I* do not need to buy 2 Gb cards.
That doesnt mean that the game is going to stutter or lag because the shared memory is actually sufficient to prevent that from happening in every single case where it should be happening for most people with 1 Gb cards.
I think its meant to be a tiny spike downwards on the Y axis of harmony's graphs, which you actually cant notice or see with your eyes when watching that benchmark or playing the game.
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A lag spike can be defined as a time gap or a set of time gaps greater than a certain period of time, say, 33ms, between two consecutive frames. When the gap is greater than a certain threshold, say, 33ms, most people can notice it and feel laggy in game. The threshold can vary among individuals, but I'd say 33ms (which is indeed 30fps) serves well.
This is already demonstrated in post two. My previous results were not using the latest drivers.
So can you prove that this only happens because of not enough Vram? If so then why do even the 2 Gb GTX 560s get lag spikes when only 1.3 Gb of vram is actually being used?
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Then obviously you need to buy tri SLI GTX 580s. I hear that harmony is going buy them for everyone here so that they dont have to experience lag spikes anymore.
I am not saying that you'll need more than 1GB vram in most (popular) games. I am saying if you are going to get a multi-GPU setup, then you are likely to need more than 1GB vram. Don't get me wrong. So I could also ask this question: how many of these games actually need more than a single GTX560 Ti 1GB?
Why do you say that? What difference does it make?
Quite a few if I want to use lots of AA and settings as high as possible. SLI / CF also vastly improves FPS across most games you play. 2 GTX 560s cost the same as, and vastly outperform a single GTX 580.
They also run a lot cooler and silent compared to higher end cards, thats actually the main reason why I want mid range cards with decent coolers.
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Lag spikes happen all the time, even with the top-end cards. However there is a correlation between the total number of lag spikes you can meet in games, and whether the cards have more than 1GB vram per GPU, when you crank up the AA settings at 1200p or greater. If you have more than 1GB vram available per GPU, then the game is less likely to get lag spikes due to swapping between the dedicated video memory and the system main memory.
When we optimize code for GPGPU, we need to minimize the PCI-E communication as much as possible, because it is usually the bottleneck of the algorithm in most cases.
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oh yeah, to answer your question about my 8800GTX, all the games i played could easily have looked better on a GTX 560Ti+
with multi GPU setups, 1GB is more than enough as by the time you NEED 2GB, the GPU power won't be enough anyway
yes, but the fact remains that if you put AA down a notch the lag will go away!
Because typically if a game requires more than a single GTX560, then you have already cranked up the AA settings under 1200p or higher, and the game must be hardware-demanding itself. In such case, 1GB is likely to be insufficient to avoid swapping through PCI-E communications.
Or you can turn off DoF / Ubersampling.
What evidence do you have for this because I havnt noticed it on 5 sets of CF / SLI 1 Gb cards.
Even my 512 Mb 3850s in CF didnt have this problem back when I had them.
Yes at 1200p and lower.
Irrefutable proof that VRAM over 1 Gb desnt affect performance at 1920x1200 (according to harmony's methods of proof finding).
For more performance, you need faster GPUs, not more Vram.
how the hell can this be right after looking at the first two pictures posted? they prove your point wrong!!
But when you put AA down, usually you don't need more than a single GTX560 Ti 1GB.
You missed #5 of this thread.
There is seriously absolutely no difference you could possibly see with your eyes in the Metro bechmark between a 1 Gb and 2 Gb card of the same GPU at 1200p.
Post #5 is nothing but pure jargon.
Trolololololololol.
I try to run Dragon Age origins maxed out with 8x SSAA. It runs too slow. I drop it down to 4x SSAA, it runs fine. I disable CF, 4x SSAA is too slow, so I need to change to 4x MSAA or turn CF back on to use SSAA.
That was on my 5770s by the way, not my current cards.
Post #5 is nothing but pure jargon.
Trolololololololol.
I try to run Dragon Age origins maxed out with 8x SSAA. It runs too slow. I drop it down to 4x SSAA, it runs fine. I disable CF, 4x SSAA is too slow, so I need to change to 4x MSAA or turn CF back on to use SSAA.
That was on my 5770s by the way, not my current cards.
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