970's having performance issues using 4GB Vram - Nvidia investigating

[kitch9]

EDIT BY GIBBO: OcUK & Caseking Decision, read post 5028!!
http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showpost.php?p=27557332&postcount=5028



http://www.overclock.net/t/1535502/gtx-970s-can-only-use-3-5gb-of-4gb-vram-issue/170#post_23443729

Hmm, this looks concerning. It appears performance of the 970 nosedives inexplicably when using over 3.5gb of VRam (Bandwidth drops to 20GB/s!) and causes major performance issues.

I was just about to pull the trigger on two, might give it a while to see how this pans out.

 

[kitch9]

In the Nvidia control panel my 970 reports as 4096MB on 64bit Win 8.1.

Yes it will. This is not an amount problem but a speed problem above 3.5gb.

Allegedly, I don't have one to run the tests that are being run.

 

[kitch9]

Contacted OcUK and getting this RMA'd.

For whoever asked the games I'm having an issue with are:

Shadows of Mordor - If you do get to a scene where you use more than 3.5 the fps drop is very visible and game also starts stuttering.

Assasins Creed Unity and Far Cry 4 are both the same and I know these games have had their problems but having installed Hitman Absolution and Dragon Age Inquisition to test whether it might be an unlucky batch of games I was hit with the same issue.

It's a shame as it's the first time I've went to the green team as I built my new machine to make sure DA:Inquisition and The Witcher 3 were able to be played at 60fps @ 1440.
The cards themselves look awesome and feel great, the Nvidia software is so much better than AMD's and as useless as it is in most games I love PhysX but I'm not going to keep a card which clearly has a massive flaw and gimps my games especially having paid £600+ for them.

Maybe see if Nvidia respond first, although I'm glad I didn't buy and did a bit google fu first.

 

[kitch9]

Aren't SSDs advertised as 256/512GB, yet when fitted into a machine you don't get anywhere near that. I have a 250GB Samsung Evo that shows 232GB in windows.

Not making excuses I'm just wondering where the line is drawn and whether Nv will try and worm their way out of it or try and fix it.

Graphics cards have existed for decades. Not sure Nvidia could move the goalposts now.

 

[kitch9]

reading up properly it looks like the benchmark in question isn't up to scratch

I tried it, it showed the same drops as the 660, 770, 780, 970 and 980 yet when I get up in the high vram usage (star citizen maxed out can use 3.6GB granted its not optimised yet) I don't get any slow downs or hint of less performance despite the fact that the 670 was never designed to use the full 4GB.

So who here is actually experiencing issues because of this and could there be some other factor involved (Driver, windows settings who knows!)


could this be down to the MFAA/ memory compression that the 900 series uses?

Where are you "reading up properly?"

 

[kitch9]

http://www.overclock.net/t/1535502/gtx-970s-can-only-use-3-5gb-of-4gb-vram-issue/220
https://forums.geforce.com/default/...gathering-low-gpu-load-and-other-issues-/137/
https://www.reddit.com/r/pcmasterra...gtx970s_have_a_huge_vram_issue_recall_may_be/
and on here, take half an hour to go through the oc.net thread its highly interesting especially people with older cards running the benchmark in question.

Very few are actually benchmarking properly. The benchmark should be run with the display going through the igpu to isolate the Nvidia card from os overhead.

 

[kitch9]

I know I created this thread but the content of them always is the same and this is textbook lol.

You have those in denial.

The purchase justifiers try to explain why the problem wouldn't be that bad if confirmed.

Then there's the armchair software engineers doubting the method of measurement.

The law suit guys.

The impatient refund guys.

And the buying a competing product guys who enjoy the situation a bit too much.

 

[kitch9]

The idiots posting in this thread, the 970 has 4gb of ram and 4gb is available. There is no law suit to be had and people need to grow up. And those spouting this rubbish, could you point me to where Nvidia guarantee memory usage performance?

Now if it is a hardware problem that the performance tanks above a certain usage that is just going to be extremely embarrassing for nvidia.
Now I am in no way defending Nvidia if this is correct, but I am not sure what could be done, apart from voting with your feet and buying AMD in the future.

Wow.

Nvidia advertise memory performance on every card they ever make and have made.

 

[kitch9]

dont forget the sterotyping OP


Anyway,

There's always one denying their denial too lol.

IPhone dude? Really?

 

[kitch9]

well, dropping down to 2560x1080 drops the ram using to 3.5gb and increases the fps from averaging 30fps to averaging 50fps, it that area of the map anyway.



So there is quite a drop there however i dont know if that's because of the ram usage or because i'm hitting bandwidth limits or something else - it is ac:u after all and i'm running everything up full for these screenshots. im trying to find something that allow me to fill the ram without loading the gpu up so much, get a better idea of what's going on.



I'm not in denial, i'm just trying to be factually correct here.

Why are we comparing graphics cards to phones instead of other graphics cards then?

 

[kitch9]

Just a thought and don't know if it has been covered yet but Aero does use a chunk of VRAM and maybe that isn't being read by AB? So basically, you are seeing 3.9GB being used in AB but because Aero uses around 250MB (iirc), it isn't seeing that and your actual usage is 4.15?

Just a thought.

Which is why the benchmark should be run when using the igpu for the display.

Guru3d has picked up on it and are verifying the results. This issue only affects the 970,not the 980 they reckon.

 

[kitch9]

1st world problems!
they dont care their device was made under slave labour conditions but they do care it has less space than advertised to store pictures of their over weight cat being breaded

You appear to have gone full retard on the internet.

 

[kitch9]

Wow, after 2 weeks of investigation Nvidia have admitted "It's by design," and it doesn't matter apparently.
http://www.pcper.com/news/Graphics-Cards/NVIDIA-Responds-GTX-970-35GB-Memory-Issue

The next few days is going to be interesting as this gets pulled apart. Note Nvidias figures only show average fps which doesn't account for stuttery fps.

Looks like Nvidia of old is back.

 

[kitch9]

I'm yet to see any evidence of this affecting a game.

Unless someone can show otherwise?

The reason this got discovered is because users were experiencing anomalies in games.

 

[kitch9]

Sounds like lip-service from Nvidia. Personally wouldn't accept that "statement", although there is no source on pcper as to where that statement was from.

If that statement is directly from Nvidia then that personally isn't good enough. If i owned an Nvidia GPU, i wouldn't accept it.

It took them 2 weeks of "investigation," and that is the best they can come up with. They are in full damage control mode.

 

[kitch9]

It would be good to see something.



The card has 4GB no matter which way you look at it. PCs are sold as having 8GB of RAM, what does it matter if it has two 4GB DIMMs? GPUs have several memory ICs on them, the memory isn't one large chunk.



Of course? Show me the evidence.

There's no point of denial now fella, the issue exists as per the horses mouth and there's nothing they can do about it.

The next few days as this thing gets pulled apart is going to be good.

 

[kitch9]

To be honest I dont care about the VRAM thing like some people get all het up about. I have NEVER EVER seen it be a problem when I play games.

The 970 is still a brilliant card for me.

Nvidia loves punters like you.

 

[kitch9]

Nvidia are taking their time to reply to a non issue...

 

[kitch9]

Reports of Nvidia CAO dumping a load of shares just after this news started to spread.

Hmmm.

 

[kitch9]

How sad do you have to be to be an apologist for this situation?

This is as bad as it gets. They have purposely mislead everyone to the point of even putting false information in the bios.

Nvidias pr is in maximum damage limitation because they know that they have been caught with their hands in the cookie jar and people are still apologising for them.