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VRAM usage tests - anyone seen one?

Pulseammo

Pulseammo

Pulseammo

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Hello folks,

I'm wondering if anyone has seen any recent VRAM usage tests. Basically I'm curious as to the amount of VRAM current games use at various resolutions (mainly 1680x1050 and 1900 x 1200).

Something with a reasonable selection of engines would be good (UE3, Cryengine, Source, CoD4 engine etc).

I'm basically trying to determine what the better buy is for 1680x1050: £80 for the 4870 512mb that OcUK are selling (ok its a refurb) or trying to source a second hand 260 GTX 216sp for around £65. Something feels safer about the 4870 even though it has only a small warranty... graphics cards seem to have a higher failure rate than any other component I've owned within an unreasonable lifespan (i.e. 2 years).
 
Not sure of a dedicated app mate but MSI Afterburner has a Vram usage graph amongst it's other goodies:)

Most of my games at 1900x1200 high detail setting use between 800-900 meg of my GTX470
 
Couple of screens below showing Vram usage in crysis and COD4, all max settings 4xAA, 1680x1050.

31140853.jpg



65766055.jpg
 
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Afterburner is good for this, got it outputting, fps, gpu temps, and ram usage to the lcd screen on my g15 keyboard.
 
RavenXXX2 said:
Forget 512mb, go with the 260 or 4890/5770 1GB, Loads of todays games go over 512mb.
Click to expand...

Sort of contradicts slightly what you were saying in Big Waynes 768MB 460 thread last night somewhat?......Oh and look getting close to that 768MB vram limit @ just 1680x1050 with just 4xAA :p

I should imagine if you were running at 1080p you'd be well over 768MB?

Below is a screenshot showing Company of Heroes a 4 year old game using up nearly 1GB of vram with only 4xAA @ 1080p.

RelicCOH_2010_10_18_03_09_59_564.jpg



So what's it to be Raven? Is 768MB enough or not?
 
Wow ok, thanks guys! This is pretty helpful - I'll see if I can source something with more memory on it then. I was under the impression that at 1680x1050 the memory usage was around 512mb but it seems it can get way above that. Those screens are definitely VRAM usage right?

I'm a bit reluctant to pick up a used 5770 1gb since I'd guess they go for around £80 when a £65 260 216sp GTX or 4870 performs better iirc (albeit it can't do DX11).

Guess I'll shop about and see what's in my budget, perhaps checking the mm along the way :).

Edit: To ask a follow up question, did any revision of the 260 stop the whole cracked solder / dying cards issue? And feel free to continue with more ram usage shots to keep the thread on the original topic :)
 
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coupe69 said:
Sort of contradicts slightly what you were saying in Big Waynes 768MB 460 thread last night somewhat?......Oh and look getting close to that 768MB vram limit @ just 1680x1050 with just 4xAA :p
Click to expand...
I would imagine in non-demanding game that the graphic card delivering average frame rate well over the 80~90fps up to 3-figures range, the lack of memory probably won't have noticable impact on the actual smootness of the game with the GPU fast enough to compensate for it and enough to delivering over 30fps at all time, but for more demanding games with the GPU itself is fighting to keep up with, the lack of memory could be fatal blow to the frame rate. That's my opinion anyway :p Card like the GTX460 768MB can be overclocked quite high, so I don't think we can really ask for much more for a £120 card :P

While some games at 1920 do use more than 768MB of memory, the little bit over probably won't be that huge a performance hit...but of course, in game like Metro2033 which will be WAY over the 768MB VRAM at 1920, the frame rate would be totally crippled for say GTX460 768MB making it delivering lower frame rate than even the 5830 1GB (but 5fps vs 14fps...neither card would be capable of playing that game at that res anyway :D)
 
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Where the hell is the switch to turn on VRAM usage in Afterburner, i can find everything but that, in the list of items to show on screen...

Ffs..typical.
 
Cooper said:
Where the hell is the switch to turn on VRAM usage in Afterburner, i can find everything but that, in the list of items to show on screen...

Ffs..typical.
Click to expand...

What card you have?..someone told me a while ago on here it doesn't allow you to see it on ATI cards, and alas, I couldn't find out how to enable it on my 4800's.
 
It's very annoying as my 4870's are only 512's and I don't know if they're struggling or not :p

Need to give my inner me some more evidence about upgrading.
 
MooMoo444 said:
What card you have?..someone told me a while ago on here it doesn't allow you to see it on ATI cards, and alas, I couldn't find out how to enable it on my 4800's.
Click to expand...

Grrrr....you see its annoying little stuff with ATI cards like this that has made my mind up to go Nvidia next time..

Apart from just fancying a change, last Nvidia card i had was the 6800GT, there always seems to be some little annoying quirks with ATI hardware/drivers...:mad:
 
I was able to view VRAM usage under Windows XP on my 4870, but I couldn't do it in software after switching to W7. Apparently something to do with the differences in DX10/11!
Nice to know you can still do it on NV cards though :)
 
Don't modern graphics cards cache data in vram and flush it once they have something new to write or more space is needed? It is possible that cards with more vram will show higher usage, even when it is not needed. The only way to know for sure that vram is bottlenecked is when framrates dive. Most reiews indicate that the 768MB cards "hang on" to 1024MB 460's until they reach very high res with lots of AA.
 
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555BUK said:
Don't modern graphics cards cache data in vram and flush it once they have something new to write or more space is needed? It is possible that cards with more vram will show higher usage, even when it is not needed. The only way to know for sure that vram is bottlenecked is when framrates dive. Most reiews indicate that the 768MB cards "hang on" to 1024MB 460's until they reach very high res with lots of AA.
Click to expand...

most reviews use console ports :P
 
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