** 2GB GFX RAM VS 1GB GFX RAM IN BF3 (560Ti 1GB VS 560Ti 2GB) TESTING RESULTS!
- Thread starter Gibbo
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Card averaging only 34FPS ? I wouldn't be playing an FPS at that level.. so would turn the settings down anyway.. which would then negate the difference. Nice price on the cards themselves though if you want 2GB for SLI 
Soldato
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Same, I'm surprised they're still selling so well.
1080p and over + All bells and whistles will eat vram for breakfast. people that are saying they've experienced no slow downs, The amounts of Vram used varies depending on where in the game you are. Its not always going to use 1.5gb+ but when it does, and you're on 1GB, You will see the dip. Obviously the solution is to drop some of that prettiness. But basically, If you're getting a new system, Stay away from 1GB Cards now. it's just not enough
I posted up some VRAM usage results in another thread, I'll go find it out.
And remember people, 2x1GB Cards in SLI. Does not equal 2GB Usable VRAM within game! It's still just 1GB. I think most know this, but it doesnt hurt to reiterate.
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Soldato
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I am finding that hard to believe. 5870, 965 @ 4Ghz & 4GB ram and I cannot play on ultra at 1080. It plays, but I am getting 25-35 FPS.
its not possible benchmarked with the 5850 on all settings whole reason i upgraded to a better card 
(unless you enjoy playing at 30 fps or lower which is bad in bf3)
6950 / 6970 and the framerates are double at 1920x1080 of the 5850 i had
(unless you enjoy playing at 30 fps or lower which is bad in bf3)6950 / 6970 and the framerates are double at 1920x1080 of the 5850 i had
8gb of ram seemed to make a difference. Maybe I find 30fps ok ? It seemed ok to me..
The Pc is now sold as was built for a friend so can't run any tests and find out what fps it was running.
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Well to be fair, I have 8GB of Corsair Vengeance RAM on the way so will report back. I have read enough on these forums to see that this may well be the cheapest and best way to boost FPS.
For an FPS 30frames is not good enough really, for third person games 30frames would be acceptable IMO. To suggest that the 2GB card is worth getting when the example show's 34FPS average is giving a really bad account for the card. You would have to lower the settings to get it to be properly playable anyway, which would then negate the issue of not enough memory on the 1GB card anyway, bringing both cards to the same level again.
So.. basically... given the price difference, FOR THIS LEVEL OF CARD... I don't think it's really worth than much more to get the 2GB to be brutally honest. I would probably be looking at the 6950 2GB instead.
(bear in mind I have a 560TI and I think it's a very good card, but I bought on price). If I try too much (i.e. lots of AA), the performance dives, to stupid levels, and I would say that this IS because of a lack of memory, so it' a trade off for me. AA will kill performance anyway, so I use the alternative AA and ultra textures, and get constant 60FPS (Vsync) @ 1920*1200.
So.. basically... given the price difference, FOR THIS LEVEL OF CARD... I don't think it's really worth than much more to get the 2GB to be brutally honest. I would probably be looking at the 6950 2GB instead.
(bear in mind I have a 560TI and I think it's a very good card, but I bought on price). If I try too much (i.e. lots of AA), the performance dives, to stupid levels, and I would say that this IS because of a lack of memory, so it' a trade off for me. AA will kill performance anyway, so I use the alternative AA and ultra textures, and get constant 60FPS (Vsync) @ 1920*1200.
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Soldato
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I think Scougar makes a good point.
Based on these results I wouldn't buy either card if you're looking to play BF on Ultra. 35fps is far from ideal for this sort of game.
I think if you're going to be playing BF3 with one of these cards you have to accept that you can't play on Ultra settings and turn things down. After all I'm sure DICE initially said that Ultra was designed for multi-GPU setups.
Maybe the tests could be re-run so that they're actually more useful?
Maybe run the game on High settings and see how the cards do?
Or even a custom setup used to get the 2GB card to average between 50-60fps (but a custom setup that is not design to use VRAM purely for the sake of lowering the 1GB results)?
Would this show the same 220% average fps margin?
Or maybe what those results in fact tell us is that 2GB is no longer enough for modern games as it only achieves 35FPS at 1080p. Maybe we all need to go out and buy 3GB cards? How long before the 4GB cards are out?
Based on these results I wouldn't buy either card if you're looking to play BF on Ultra. 35fps is far from ideal for this sort of game.
I think if you're going to be playing BF3 with one of these cards you have to accept that you can't play on Ultra settings and turn things down. After all I'm sure DICE initially said that Ultra was designed for multi-GPU setups.
Maybe the tests could be re-run so that they're actually more useful?
Maybe run the game on High settings and see how the cards do?
Or even a custom setup used to get the 2GB card to average between 50-60fps (but a custom setup that is not design to use VRAM purely for the sake of lowering the 1GB results)?
Would this show the same 220% average fps margin?
Or maybe what those results in fact tell us is that 2GB is no longer enough for modern games as it only achieves 35FPS at 1080p. Maybe we all need to go out and buy 3GB cards? How long before the 4GB cards are out?
By your logic, neither is 4 Gb ram enough for 1080p+.
Its only ever people with 4 Gb that get poor performance with 1 Gb Vram.
The Vram argument is always the same circles being spun around and around by people who dont realise how important data caching is, and that Vram monitoring adds cached data to the total vram consumpion reading, while your ctrl-alt-del > performance graph does not.
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Soldato
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I often use upto 6gb playing so would say 8gb or more s a good idea and cheaper before then taking more vram also if still needed
30fps is enough to play smoothly if it never goes any lower and both those results are still not consistent enough.
The game should get smoother after a few mins as textures are already loaded or cached. Ive had this problem for years with some of the mods for bf2 requiring the whole enlarged map in memory to play right
30fps is enough to play smoothly if it never goes any lower and both those results are still not consistent enough.
The game should get smoother after a few mins as textures are already loaded or cached. Ive had this problem for years with some of the mods for bf2 requiring the whole enlarged map in memory to play right
You wont only be using 'up to 6 Gb'.
Your total ram use will be higher than that if you also add the amount of cached ram shown in smaller text underneath the graph.
When you look at Vram usage in afterburner, you get your current vram use + cached data in your vram combined together into the vram usage graph. When you look at ram usage under the performance tab, it doesnt add used ram and cached ram together, it displays them seperately.
When you only have 4 Gb system ram, you will have nothing left over for data caching. Combine this with 1 Gb Vram and you are going to constantly see lag spikes and stutter in so many games because you simply have non existent data caching on your system.
This is resolved via either more Vram, or more system ram, and right now 8 Gb system ram is so cheap compared to +1 Gb vram that I really have no idea why people who are still only using 4 Gb ram expect to be able to play anything without lage, especially if they only have 1 gb Vram.
UPGRADE TO 8 GB SYSTEM RAM BEFORE BLAMING VRAM AS THE CAUSE OF YOUR LAG, ITS CHEAPER!
30 AVERAGE FPS is nowhere near enough to play a competitive online FPS game, you are going to have a lot of lag, and even if you genuinely dont notice it, you are going to be losing a lot because other people with higher FPS have far quicker and smoother accuracy and response than you do. 60 average FPS and 30 minumum is playable for a game like BF3 while playing online, this is a completely different scenario to the graph in the OP showing a 2 Gb GTX 560tis performance as constantly dipping well below this. Those figures in a game like BF3 will be unplayable for everyone.
When I enable video recording at 30 FPS, my games slow down and begin to lag. If I increase that up to 35 FPS, the lag smoothens out, but camera turning / map movement still has a lot of stutter and skipped frames. I only experience fully smooth gameplay if I can maintain a minimum FPS of 35-40, and an average of 50-60.
Having said that, a single card pretty much never provides me with playable framerates in the latest games, regardless of whether it has 1 Gb Vram, or 100 Gb Vram. On the other hand 2 x 1 Gb GTX 560 tis coupled with 12 Gb of very low latency ram has yet to produce any kind of lag or microstutter in any game out there today. BF3 on Ultra graphics settings but at 2x AA would be fine if I maintain a 50+ FPS average, and 35+ FPS minimum. I strongly doubt that a pair of 2 Gb 560tis would manage this at 4x MSAA over my 1 Gb cards at 2x MSAA, so the extra Vram would be entirely pointless if the GPUs cannot push enough FPS for smooth gameplay in the first place.
Also Vram cant be the reason why BF3 lags with 4x MSAA, judging entirely by the same amount of performance loss on 2 Gb AMD cards.
Your total ram use will be higher than that if you also add the amount of cached ram shown in smaller text underneath the graph.
When you look at Vram usage in afterburner, you get your current vram use + cached data in your vram combined together into the vram usage graph. When you look at ram usage under the performance tab, it doesnt add used ram and cached ram together, it displays them seperately.
When you only have 4 Gb system ram, you will have nothing left over for data caching. Combine this with 1 Gb Vram and you are going to constantly see lag spikes and stutter in so many games because you simply have non existent data caching on your system.
This is resolved via either more Vram, or more system ram, and right now 8 Gb system ram is so cheap compared to +1 Gb vram that I really have no idea why people who are still only using 4 Gb ram expect to be able to play anything without lage, especially if they only have 1 gb Vram.
UPGRADE TO 8 GB SYSTEM RAM BEFORE BLAMING VRAM AS THE CAUSE OF YOUR LAG, ITS CHEAPER!
30 AVERAGE FPS is nowhere near enough to play a competitive online FPS game, you are going to have a lot of lag, and even if you genuinely dont notice it, you are going to be losing a lot because other people with higher FPS have far quicker and smoother accuracy and response than you do. 60 average FPS and 30 minumum is playable for a game like BF3 while playing online, this is a completely different scenario to the graph in the OP showing a 2 Gb GTX 560tis performance as constantly dipping well below this. Those figures in a game like BF3 will be unplayable for everyone.
When I enable video recording at 30 FPS, my games slow down and begin to lag. If I increase that up to 35 FPS, the lag smoothens out, but camera turning / map movement still has a lot of stutter and skipped frames. I only experience fully smooth gameplay if I can maintain a minimum FPS of 35-40, and an average of 50-60.
Having said that, a single card pretty much never provides me with playable framerates in the latest games, regardless of whether it has 1 Gb Vram, or 100 Gb Vram. On the other hand 2 x 1 Gb GTX 560 tis coupled with 12 Gb of very low latency ram has yet to produce any kind of lag or microstutter in any game out there today. BF3 on Ultra graphics settings but at 2x AA would be fine if I maintain a 50+ FPS average, and 35+ FPS minimum. I strongly doubt that a pair of 2 Gb 560tis would manage this at 4x MSAA over my 1 Gb cards at 2x MSAA, so the extra Vram would be entirely pointless if the GPUs cannot push enough FPS for smooth gameplay in the first place.
Also Vram cant be the reason why BF3 lags with 4x MSAA, judging entirely by the same amount of performance loss on 2 Gb AMD cards.
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You have no idea what you're talking about...
Any decent new game runs a deffered engine, Deffered engine suck up VRAM and destroy it when AA is used.
And excess Vram data can be stored in the shared ram, I.E memory caching which still allows the game to run well.
Tell me why people on this forum who have gone from 4 Gb - 8 Gb ram were then capable of using ultra settings in BF3 without any lag on 1 Gb video cards if you claim I have no idea
On a system with 8 Gb ram, you have up to 3 Gb automatically allocated for shared video ram - this is working for so many people to remove lag from games like BF3.
Its ridiculous really, just about everyone that complains about lag or vram shortages and suffereing from lag spikes due to this are still only using 4 gb system ram.
With ram being as cheap as it currently is, I dont see why people are still on 4 Gb. Upgrading your GPUs from whatever you currently have to 2 Gb ones is far more costly than simply pugging in more ram.
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And excess Vram data can be stored in the shared ram, I.E memory caching which still allows the game to run well.
Tell me why people on this forum who have gone from 4 Gb - 8 Gb ram were then capable of using ultra settings in BF3 without any lag on 1 Gb video cards if you claim I have no idea
On a system with 8 Gb ram, you have up to 3 Gb automatically allocated for shared video ram - this is working for so many people to remove lag from games like BF3.
Its ridiculous really, just about everyone that complains about lag or vram shortages and suffereing from lag spikes due to this are still only using 4 gb system ram.
With ram being as cheap as it currently is, I dont see why people are still on 4 Gb. Upgrading your GPUs from whatever you currently have to 2 Gb ones is far more costly than simply pugging in more ram.
Is this advice also for people still using older mobos with DDR2 ram, like me? I'm wondering whether I should fork out for more ram :s
Depends on how much DDR2 costs, I doubt it would be advisable because I dont think its as cheap as DDR3 currently is.
Shared ram isnt based on mobo or ram type, its an inherent feature of the latest graphics cards drivers on virtually any graphics card!
For Nvidia cards, simply right click > Nvidia control panel > System information in the bottom left corner >
You should have 3 Gb shared ram on anything over 8 Gb. This is used while you play games to cache Vram data which makes it faster to access than reading it from the HDD.
Games will use excess Vram for caching first, then if that gets full use the shared system ram. Plenty of people have now fixed lag and stutter problems in games including BF3 on Ultra settings by simply upgrading to 8 Gb ram.
You can currently get 8 Gb DDR4 ram for <£40, I seriously have no idea why anyone still only has 4 Gb installed in their system if it has DDR3 support.
Also if you want to check how much cached ram your PC is using, you look under 'cached', not on the memory usage graph:
^^ That was PC completely idle after a normal day of usage and gaming.
Shared ram isnt based on mobo or ram type, its an inherent feature of the latest graphics cards drivers on virtually any graphics card!
For Nvidia cards, simply right click > Nvidia control panel > System information in the bottom left corner >
You should have 3 Gb shared ram on anything over 8 Gb. This is used while you play games to cache Vram data which makes it faster to access than reading it from the HDD.
Games will use excess Vram for caching first, then if that gets full use the shared system ram. Plenty of people have now fixed lag and stutter problems in games including BF3 on Ultra settings by simply upgrading to 8 Gb ram.
You can currently get 8 Gb DDR4 ram for <£40, I seriously have no idea why anyone still only has 4 Gb installed in their system if it has DDR3 support.
Also if you want to check how much cached ram your PC is using, you look under 'cached', not on the memory usage graph:
^^ That was PC completely idle after a normal day of usage and gaming.
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Do you jump into a game with this stuff open? Maybe I'm alone in normally shutting 'most' things down before gaming, as I don't want something else grabbing the resources at inopportune moments.
My vram usage is around 80-100 meg before I start gaming. I have found MSN Messenger is a bit of a resource hog as well.. so nearly always shut that down as well.
My vram usage is around 80-100 meg before I start gaming. I have found MSN Messenger is a bit of a resource hog as well.. so nearly always shut that down as well.