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Was this measuring vRAM allocated or vRAM in use?
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16GB vram enough for the 6900XT? Discuss..
- Thread starter Satchfanuk
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- 6900xt amd radeon rdna2
Was this measuring vRAM allocated or vRAM in use?
Caporegime
Neither, i monitored frame time spikes using MSI Afterburner overlay and adjusting settings until i worked out which settings were causing the periodic hitching. I then noted that both settings were related to texture quality/ video memory usage.
Can MSI Afterburner now monitor actual VRAM usage vs allocation? Would be interested to try that out.
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Yep, the beta can hook the Direct3D API and read out memory in use for a specific process, rather than what is allocated. You can get the beta here and the instructions to enable this new value https://www.resetera.com/threads/msi-afterburner-can-now-display-per-process-vram.291986/
You'll want to enable "GPU Dedicated Memory Usage \ Process" on your OSD
Bottom line is that usage is typically a lot less than what is allocated, I've tested a load of games recently with this and claims of exceeding certain vRAM thresholds have been kinda shown false. But I've not tested either of the games you've mentioned. Hitching in frame rate can be a good indicator of vRAM running out and disk thrashing but it's not the only thing that can cause that, you can get that kind of behaviour in large open world game even when not vRAM constrained so it's usually best just to measure it. I do own FC5 on steam so I might download it again and test.
Caporegime
Cheers i will download that and have a play with it. I've noticed in Call of Duty Modern Warfare at maximum settings it seems to use 14-15GB of video memory, but i am sure there is at least 4-5GB of caching going on there over time.
I wish I still had my 5700 XT to play around with it. I have yet to see any of the issues (hitching etc) i mentioned above swapping out the 5700 XT for the Radeon VII 16GB in those games. Far Cry 5 is open world, but Cod WW2 is as linear as they come won't let you deviate from a single path throughout the whole campaign.
Can you forward me to where the claims of video memory thresholds were shown to be false? Genuinely interested.
retested dawn just for you matt, 4K, high settings allocated 9989MB, GPU Dedicated Memory Usage: 8.7GB dedicated memory usage, that 20 seconds of testing. running through a forest jumped up to 10,800MB allocated 10,005MB Used
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So my steam copy with the HD texture pack has just installed, and with all the settings maxed out completely in 4k (which is slightly more total pixels than 5120x1440) on my single GTX 1080 I get 7,519Mb allocated but only 5,612Mb in use. This is just a screenshot I took from the benchmark available in the menu.
And the video settings menu as well as the end of the benchmark when you get your results also show you the estimated vRAM usage of the game which is actually fairly accurate, a lot of these menu estimates aren't (i'm looking at you Resi Evil 3)
Warning large images!
And the video settings menu as well as the end of the benchmark when you get your results also show you the estimated vRAM usage of the game which is actually fairly accurate, a lot of these menu estimates aren't (i'm looking at you Resi Evil 3)
Warning large images!
Cod Engine allocates all memory is requires on Launch, Leaving 1GB of so free for the GPU on other tasks, its just how the engine was designed "java" like allocate everything ahead of time & keep it and never clean itCheers i will download that and have a play with it. I've noticed in Call of Duty Modern Warfare at maximum settings it seems to use 14-15GB of video memory, but i am sure there is at least 4-5GB of caching going on there over time.
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You want the Dedicated per process value to get only what the game itself is using. It should be listed as "GPU Dedicated Memory Usage \ Process"
thats what i used, just could not be bothered to type it all
Caporegime
What about the video memory used by the OS and background apps? It’s nice to have an idea of what just the game uses, but it’s not telling the full picture.
Caporegime
My testing was open world driving around from region to region, don’t think I ever ran the in game benchmark to check for stuttering during extended gameplay.So my steam copy with the HD texture pack has just installed, and with all the settings maxed out completely in 4k (which is slightly more total pixels than 5120x1440) on my single GTX 1080 I get 7,519Mb allocated but only 5,612Mb in use. This is just a screenshot I took from the benchmark available in the menu.
And the video settings menu as well as the end of the benchmark when you get your results also show you the estimated vRAM usage of the game which is actually fairly accurate, a lot of these menu estimates aren't (i'm looking at you Resi Evil 3)
Warning large images!
theres the option for overall too, just dont pick /process
Caporegime
Nice, what sort of difference do you see between the two?
The level of Windows 10 3D performance/quality options enabled/disabled will play a part here in how much video memory the OS uses.
Caporegime
Lol, sounds about right.few hundred MB but also watching netflix on my 3rd screen3x4K
I’d be interested to see your results from that other game you mentioned in the other thread regarding video memory usage at 4K.
Caporegime
Associate
You can use that if you like, but if you're doing something on your computer that also uses a lot of vRAM then your measurement of vRAM wont be reflective of what the games actually demanding.
The problem you'll, have as Smogsy quite rightly pointed out, is that memory allocation is done however the hell developers feel like it. It's not that uncommon for AAA games to just request 90% of the available vRAM of the card as they launch, or say the total vRAM minus 1Gb. On lower vRAM cards like 6-8Gb that means allocated vs used is somewhat closer, often 1-3Gb difference. But if you have a 16Gb or a 24Gb vRAM card then usage is going to be out by a massive amount. Trust me I've tested this a LOT over the last couple of weeks and the vast majority of modern AAA games at 4k Ultra are using about ~6Gb on average.
It leads to this pervasive misunderstanding that games need like 16Gb of vRAM for 4k Ultra and it's just not even slightly true. Right now there's only a really tiny handful of games that really use over 8Gb and none that I've seen use over 10Gb. The handful of games I've seen come anywhere close to maxing out 10Gb, if you benchmark you find the GPU simply cannot keep up at those settings, Watch Dogs Legion, FS2020, avengers these are all game that can legitimately push over 8Gb usage but become unplayable even on a 3090
that was the result for Dawn, I would imagine 3 hours in, you would be at 12-14VRAM on ultra easy
Caporegime
No doubt, but you have to factor in the OS as it still uses around 300-500mb of video memory from what I’ve seen at a minimum.
I think I agree with pretty much all you say on the matter, just with the caveat that due to my personal experience of saturating 8GB of video memory I would rather go for a GPU with more than enough rather than just about enough for most games.
Edit, just to add more colour to this... I do agree that typically you’d need a lot of GPU grunt to saturate 10GB+ of true usage and keep playable FPS, however this is not as hard as you might think with 8GB. The games I mentioned are reasonably demanding but are certainly not Watchodgs Legion.
I remember having a similar debate about video memory on This forum back when Battlefield 3 was released, only then we were debating 2GB vs 3GB.
