10GB vram enough for the 3080? Discuss..

Chuk_Chuk · 9 Oct 2020 at 16:26

@Dirk Diggler
Thank you for that. Out of curiosity what others games did you test? I'm curious as to what game engines they are running on? Maybe there is a connection.

Dirk Diggler · 9 Oct 2020 at 16:28

Chuk_Chuk said:
@Dirk Diggler
Thank you for that. Out of curiosity what others games did you test? I'm curious as to what game engines they are running on? Maybe there is a connection.

I had a quick look with Shadow of The Tomb Raider and it was similar.

Dirk Diggler · 9 Oct 2020 at 17:18

Ok, another previous console exclusive and probably the best looking game I've ever played. If you look in the settings, the game reports usage roughly in line with RTSS actual usage value.

The only game I've seen that uses any where near the 10GB is Horizon, and I'm not convinced it actually needs it.

opethdisciple · 9 Oct 2020 at 17:21

Richdog said:
Oh no... I didn't read the article you posted? My sincere apologies. Please post some more and I will get on them right away, the longer the better.

On a more serious note, the PC doesn't have the same IO architecture as the very specifically-designed PS5, so I would assume (semi-edumacated guess) that they wouldn't be able to port it to run in exactly the same way and so an effect of that could well be more VRAM usage?

Thts what RTX IO is going to solve. No doubt AMD will have similar technology.

Chuk_Chuk · 9 Oct 2020 at 17:34

opethdisciple said:
Thts what RTX IO is going to solve. No doubt AMD will have similar technology.

Unless devs put PCIE 4.0 NVME drives on the recommended spec list, Richdog is right.

Also I'm not certain that RTX IO, wil be as efficient as what is on the consoles, since they have a dedicated chip as opposed to using a portion of the GPU to do the work

Wrinkly · 9 Oct 2020 at 17:49

opethdisciple said:
Thts what RTX IO is going to solve. No doubt AMD will have similar technology.

I think AMD will be using DirectX IO. I wonder if they can work system RAM in to this as a cache as many of us have far larger RAM than games use. My current PCs have 32GB, even my laptop has 32GB.

Freddie1980 · 9 Oct 2020 at 17:58

After yesterday's show you should get Big Navi if 10Gb 3080's are a concern.

Dave2150 · 9 Oct 2020 at 18:35

Chuk_Chuk said:
Unless devs put PCIE 4.0 NVME drives on the recommended spec list, Richdog is right.

Also I'm not certain that RTX IO, wil be as efficient as what is on the consoles, since they have a dedicated chip as opposed to using a portion of the GPU to do the work

I doubt it will ever be anything like the consoles in terms of performance. PC's always have to bruteforce inefficient software, which is why you always need more power than a console for the same quality.

Examples:

Console uses 4C8T for a game. PC needs 8C/16T for same performance, due to windows/driver inefficiencies
Console uses 6GB RAM for a game. PC needs 9 GB, which rounds up to 8GB kits not being enough and 16GB kits being required
Console uses 4GB VRAM. PC games need 8GB.

Over simplification, but you get the idea. I doubt PC games will ever load as fast as PS5 games will, as no developer will write the whole game to only cater to Nvidia 3000 series customers.

Dave2150 · 9 Oct 2020 at 18:42

Dirk Diggler said:
Ok, another previous console exclusive and probably the best looking game I've ever played. If you look in the settings, the game reports usage roughly in line with RTSS actual usage value.

The only game I've seen that uses any where near the 10GB is Horizon, and I'm not convinced it actually needs it.

All games you can test today will work maxed out at 4k mate. The concern is about games going forward, and VR.

The consoles are about to get a doubling of their total memory, which will inevitably translate to games using more VRAM. We already know that 8GB cards, such as the 2080, can't run 4K max settings without getting severe performance penalties in games (Doom eternal, Flight Sim and Horizon are examples). So these games are using between 8 and 10GB.

Next gen games are very likely to use more than 10GB at 4K max settings. I thought Nvidia may have enough influence to convince game developers not to implement large enough textures to push VRAM over 10GB during the 3080's lifespan, but now we know they are launching a 20GB 3080 and a 16GB 3070 - I think they know what's coming. Add to this AMD, who are always super generous with VRAM, and the developers may go crazy for the 4K enthusiast crowd, giving us insanely detailed textures, which will gobble VRAM.

At the end of the day, no-one knows for sure how this will play out. The 3080 10GB will be awesome at 4K for a long time, though may need the settings lowered for the future AAA titles that are ported from PS5 etc. That's worse case scenario.

Dirk Diggler · 9 Oct 2020 at 18:50

Freddie1980 said:
After yesterday's show you should get Big Navi if 10Gb 3080's are a concern.

I think the performance from AMD will fall short of the 1080, else they would have been using the same language as they did to describe CPU performance. When it got to the GPU at the end, it came across very subdued.

Twinz · 9 Oct 2020 at 18:57

People generally have to lower settings on new games at some point due to a lack of GPU horspower anyway though.

The vram discussion sometimes seems to just assume that vram is the only possible way to bring a graphics card to its knees. I have owned a lot of graphics cards over the years and running out of GPU horspower has happened to every single card.

I never got the chance to run out of vram on any of the cards I have owned with any of the games I have played.

My current 1080Ti can't handle my favorite sim at max settings and I am no where near the filling up the vram buffer. I have run out of horspower not vram.

I get that goind from 8gb norm to 10gb is a small enough jump that vram may run out in *some* new games befor horspower....but I still think we will need to back off settings in new games more often for the same reason we usually have....GPU not strong enough for new game at max settings...turn down settings.

Have we forgotten that GPU's just run out of grunt with new titles at some point or do we think ampere is so strong that no new game will ever just be too much for the GPU itself?

Grim5 · 9 Oct 2020 at 19:06

Dirk Diggler said:
It tanked earlier in the game but that was with lots of characters during a battle and heavy rain/storm. I didn't notice high memory usage at the time as I don't have the FPS counter on constantly. With the few titles I've played since owning the card, I haven't really noticed any performance issues.

Yeah don't listen to what he said

It's very difficult to tell how much the game actually needs

opethdisciple · 9 Oct 2020 at 20:30

Chuk_Chuk said:
Unless devs put PCIE 4.0 NVME drives on the recommended spec list, Richdog is right.

Also I'm not certain that RTX IO, will be as efficient as what is on the consoles, since they have a dedicated chip as opposed to using a portion of the GPU to do the work

I think that PCIE 3 SSDs should also work with this DirectStorage API, it's just that the most optimal configuration will be to use PCIE 4 NVME drives.

If RTX IO/Direct Storage isn't the answer then the PC platform is simply doomed as we will have no way to stream assets from disk fast enough to keep up with speeds on consoles so I am pretty sure this is how they plan to solve this issue.

Richdog · 9 Oct 2020 at 21:46

opethdisciple said:
Thts what RTX IO is going to solve. No doubt AMD will have similar technology.

Theoretically could solve... lets not count our chickens before they hatch. Until it's been field tested and proven then it's just another promised technology that sounds great but may not deliver the desired results.

opethdisciple said:
If RTX IO/Direct Storage isn't the answer then the PC platform is simply doomed.

Really... if RTX IO doesn't work the PC is 'simply doomed'? lol...

Twinz said:
People generally have to lower settings on new games at some point due to a lack of GPU horspower anyway though.

Have we forgotten that GPU's just run out of grunt with new titles at some point or do we think ampere is so strong that no new game will ever just be too much for the GPU itself?

I believe we have discussed that more than once in the thread already.

Chuk_Chuk · 9 Oct 2020 at 21:54

opethdisciple said:
I think that PCIE 3 SSDs should also work with this DirectStorage API, it's just that the most optimal configuration will be to use PCIE 4 NVME drives.

If RTX IO/Direct Storage isn't the answer then the PC platform is simply doomed as we will have no way to stream assets from disk fast enough to keep up with speeds on consoles so I am pretty sure this is how they plan to solve this issue.

PS4 and Series X gurantee a minimum SSD speed. Therefore asset streaming will be built around this minimum speed. Player movement speed and level design will be effected by this speed.
Devs will either need to mandate a minimum SSD speed for PC or simply request more VRAM or RAM, so they have a bigger buffer of assets, to compensate for the slower speeds on PC.

turbot1984 · 9 Oct 2020 at 22:03

I would be interested to know what vram usage anyone has got in flight sim 20 with ultra/4k settings. I am maxed out at 8GB but what happens at 10/11/16GB?
RAM peaks at 21GB now i have upgraded to 32GB, crazy amount and this is with nothing else loaded apart from afterburner.

Wrinkly · 9 Oct 2020 at 22:49

Chuk_Chuk said:
PS4 and Series X gurantee a minimum SSD speed. Therefore asset streaming will be built around this minimum speed. Player movement speed and level design will be effected by this speed.
Devs will either need to mandate a minimum SSD speed for PC or simply request more VRAM or RAM, so they have a bigger buffer of assets, to compensate for the slower speeds on PC.

Perhaps next gen, Hopper/RNDA3, PC cards will have a NVMe slot if it becomes an issue. TBH, I can't see it being an issue though.

opethdisciple · 9 Oct 2020 at 23:04

Richdog said:
Theoretically could solve... lets not count our chickens before they hatch. Until it's been field tested and proven then it's just another promised technology that sounds great but may not deliver the desired results.

Really... if RTX IO doesn't work the PC is 'simply doomed'? lol...

I believe we have discussed that more than once in the thread already.

Well you know what I mean.

Not doomed to the point it's unusable, but if they don't find a way to keep pace with the asset streaming technology in the consoles then the PC platform could fall behind.

That's precisely the reason why we have direct Storage / RTX IO.

Will know more probably in around 6 months in to the next gen console life cycle and when Microsoft actually release the technology on PC.

varkanoid · 11 Oct 2020 at 16:06

I was just looking at the FE 3080 PCB and the mem chips are numbered M1-M12 with M5-M6 seemingly missing ? I take it this has already been discussed that it looks like the board should be 12gb not 10gb ? 10gb due to the bus but why put two blank spaces on there for memory ?

signal11th · 11 Oct 2020 at 18:05

for the 5% of pc players that play at 4k it might be an issue in a year or so, anyone else, nope not going to be an issue.