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Driving Forces for >4GB Vram @1080p@30fps

ginjaninja

ginjaninja

ginjaninja

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With a view over the next 5 years say....Are there forces at play that will drive a need for >4GB @1080p.

Those in the 'no need camp' i believe have had their say so no need to repeat yourself if not saying something new...im interested to hear if there are any dissenting voices that think >4GB could help to extend the useful life of a card for 1080p@30fps.

thanks.
 
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@30fps? What are you on console or something? Surely you mean 60fps? The main concern with maintaining framerate there is graphical grunt and not necessarily VRAM. Though as time goes on, it seems more games are using more and more VRAM. Perhaps there may soon be games that are capable of easily going over 4GB VRAM at 1080p. I wouldn't be surprised if there was such a game in a couple years time. It could be ineffeciency on the part of the developers. Heck game downloads are already getting ridiculously large, who's to say they won't make similar mistakes with memory usage.
 
higher resolution textures will drive up vram usage. but adopting better data formats such as BC6/7 can improve quality at same file size, or same quality at smaller file size. The formats were released with directx 11 but hardly used since dx9 and 10 hardware cant use them. also developers dont want to nearly double game sizes with two formats of textures.

but directx 11-12 only games could change this.

even on what we consider the most advanced games, a lot of the textures still look like puke up close. the majority of graphical enhancements in many games come from lighting and particle effect improvements.
 
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i did mean @30fps....just to highlight how i am interested in longevity and more than happy to game at 30fps.....run low on gpu grunt and you can still maintain 30fps (for example)...run out vram and fps will plummet/game wont run was my thinking..
 
Checking historical data from 5 years ago the top single GPU cards where the GTX580 1.5gb - 6950 2gb. In terms of GPU grunt they can still run most games @ 30FPS close or at max settings. The 1.5GB/2GB VRAM though are getting breached (max settings with AA).

Lowering settings should still hold there own @ 1080p.

A 3GB GTX580 version was released later at a premium and is still fine in terms of VRAM bar 1 or 2 games.
 
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Until we get new gen consoles that have more video memory I doubt most devs will spend much resources creating games that use more than 4GB VRAM. Current games will most likely be developed with the PS4/XB one in mind.
 
A 3GB GTX580 version was released later at a premium and is still fine in terms of VRAM bar 1 or 2 games.
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Yes and we may be in a similar position now with the late in the day 8gb 390s

Until we get new gen consoles that have more video memory I doubt most devs will spend much resources creating games that use more than 4GB VRAM
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Yes, agree its likely that console will drive matters, but i understood consoles had 8GB of shared memory, so very possible that graphics will be >4GB as the exe is unlikely >3GB.
 
fs123 said:
Until we get new gen consoles that have more video memory I doubt most devs will spend much resources creating games that use more than 4GB VRAM. Current games will most likely be developed with the PS4/XB one in mind.
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And yet a couple of years ago we were using 7970s with 3GB when the PS3 had 256MB of VRAM and the Xbox 360 512MB unified RAM.

3GB was an advantage over 1.5 even then imho.
 
These sort of threads are always to help someone rationalize poor purchases. Kinda like how people would rather buy a "future-proof" (what idiocy!) PC for 5 years than sell and replace sooner.
 
ginjaninja said:
With a view over the next 5 years say....Are there forces at play that will drive a need for >4GB @1080p.

Those in the 'no need camp' i believe have had their say so no need to repeat yourself if not saying something new...im interested to hear if there are any dissenting voices that think >4GB could help to extend the useful life of a card for 1080p@30fps.

thanks.
Click to expand...

In 5 years time, 1080P will be more like 800x600 is today. 1080P is already known as the 'peasant' resolution - even the consoles run many games at 1080P. PC's, being much more poweful than consoles, can run 1440P and even 4K today.
 
ginjaninja said:
With a view over the next 5 years say....Are there forces at play that will drive a need for >4GB @1080p.

Those in the 'no need camp' i believe have had their say so no need to repeat yourself if not saying something new...im interested to hear if there are any dissenting voices that think >4GB could help to extend the useful life of a card for 1080p@30fps.

thanks.
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What do you want to play @ 30 FPS for? I can't see why your baseline is 'barely playable'

Yeah i'd say without fear of contradiction that in 2 year time never mind 5 years time there will be a requirement in some games for more VRAM - if you wish to get the best out of them.

You cannot future proof a GPU for 5 years - in some ways even a Titan X in 5 years will be obsolete. You can make a card last 5 years on lowish settings but it will still be obsolete.
 
Trying to predict what the specification watershed points might be, will help decide value at various price points...of course its not a 100% predictable science, but its of interest to gather feedback to help make a decision.

Current contenders (for watershed specifications) are imo
  • memory (probably in relation to console specification @1080p hence post criteria),
  • gpu grunt (perhaps in relation to console release cycles/process shrinks),
  • dx12 hardware support for features

but to keep things on track i picked discussion of vram first.

If as you say, >4GB will be used in the next 2 years (let alone 5).....then assuming the other contenders have not knocked out the usefullness (far from a done deal), it would be worth attributing some value to >4GB Vram.
 
Most of the people going on about 4gb not enough are people who buy top end cards and and up upgrading not long after maybe year after or two years down the line so these guys saying future proofing is just priceless. Would be future proofing if you kept onto your GPU for more than a year. 4gb will be enough easily for the next couple of years at 1080 and 1440p. 4k is where you will see problems with said certain games where you try to play at highest settings.
 
Poneros said:
These sort of threads are always to help someone rationalize poor purchases. Kinda like how people would rather buy a "future-proof" (what idiocy!) PC for 5 years than sell and replace sooner.
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Exactly, best future proofing plan is to plan to replace it not throw extra money at it now.
 
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