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

SiDeards73 · 29 Jan 2015 at 10:20

deuse said:
I don't see the point in paying near enough £300 then spend more on another cooler.

cant tell if serious....

Gibbo · 29 Jan 2015 at 10:21

Kaapstad said:
I have a plan B

If one is not enough I have a second one for SLI.

Those EVGA 960 SCC cards are really nice looking too when you see them for real. They are also quite big and only an inch shorter than a GTX 690.

I will say it again.

GOOD LUCK!

Gibbo · 29 Jan 2015 at 10:21

sebianoti said:
In the last 2 months I seen the price go up ever so slightly, the cheapest 980 I seen in December was at £399, now the cheapest is somewhere around £450

OcUK is back to £399. Only company in UK so cheap and on a really good 980 as well, not a junk one!

Kaapstad · 29 Jan 2015 at 10:25

Gibbo said:
I will say it again.

GOOD LUCK!

Thanks.

On a serious note the reason I will be using them @2160p is to test out a new watercooled build before I put the 290Xs and waterblocks into the PC.

Andy__C · 29 Jan 2015 at 10:26

Gibbo said:
Well in my view a 290/970 were fine for 1440P in pretty much most games at high details, some might not have the FPS you desire on maximum details, but that is the beauty of being able to add a second for SLI/Crossfire.

I will be honest I never thought I'd see games starting to use more than 4GB of VRAM so easily at 1440P let alone 1080P, it just seems in the last 12 months the game developers have got sloppy or its due to console ports.

Either way whereas 2GB and 3GB cards were acceptable for so long at 1600P gaming and less, it seems 4GB will be very short lived and if your planning on 4GB well if you want to play maximum textures in future releases you most probably won't be able too with silky smooth frame rates, and will have to adjust a setting or two lower.

But then ask yourself this, noticing the difference between high and ultra setting on a game when your actually playing the game is pretty hard to notice, as when I game I am gaming, not stood still looking at close detail to a brick wall admiring textures. Then the fact is running at such high settings means lower FPS so reducing a setting not only improves gameplay due to higher FPS but of course your less likely to run out of VRAM so less stuttering also.

I would now recommend VRAM on the following:
720P: 2-3GB
1080P: 4GB
1440P: 4-6GB
2160P (4K): 8GB

That is what I would suggest to be upto 2-3yr approx. future proof on future gaming on VRAM.

Great answer, cheers mate. I may be better dialling back aspirations of going 1440p if keeping the 970 and look at 120hz instead.

I can't help but feel the 970 situation has been made worse by these games demanding much more vram over the last 6 months.

Mal X · 29 Jan 2015 at 10:29

Spacedeck said:
If that's the case and the VRAM doesn't tally. What is the point of going SLI in the first place?

because 4 months ago this 4GB limit was a non issue...... it wasn't talked about at all. so we just went ahead and got a 2nd card without realising

Gibbo · 29 Jan 2015 at 10:30

Andy__C said:
Great answer, cheers mate. I may be better dialling back aspirations of going 1440p if keeping the 970 and look at 120hz instead.

I can't help but feel the 970 situation has been made worse by these games demanding much more vram over the last 6 months.

Well I prefer FPS and fluidity over some slightly improved textures/details which I will never notice when I am running and jumping all around the place fragging every one.

The 970 is an epic card, the card only a week ago was the rave, it still is and I am not defending NVIDIA I am just not willing to bash what a great card it is and if NVIDIA can fix/improve this issue then great, I am sure they can.

~>Dg<~ · 29 Jan 2015 at 10:30

sweet spot for a 970 gtx 290 is 1080 120/144hz.

anything above is too much really.

Harlequin · 29 Jan 2015 at 10:30

games want more ram thanks to more ram being available on the real money maker for playing on - consoles.

both the xbox one and P4 have 6GB of ram they can use , so , devs use it.

being fxied frame rate and fixed res (max res) - once you start pushing your pc res higher , say 4gb on a PS4 , becomes 5 or 6 on a pc at 1600 or higher along with AA as well

Harlequin · 29 Jan 2015 at 10:32

Gibbo said:
Well I prefer FPS and fluidity over some slightly improved textures/details which I will never notice when I am running and jumping all around the place fragging every one.

The 970 is an epic card, the card only a week ago was the rave, it still is and I am not defending NVIDIA I am just not willing to bash what a great card it is and if NVIDIA can fix/improve this issue then great, I am sure they can.

the only realistic fix is by blocking access to the extra 512mb - maybe with a 3rd party tool to `unlock it` with the caveat of `your know it *might* slow your fps down a bit , at certain times in certain games, maybe`

and ofc the 970m and 980m have different fused off parts so it isn't effecting them

andybird123 · 29 Jan 2015 at 10:32

Locky said:
People are complaining about the stutter that occurs way before the 3.5GB threshold as seen on many frame-time analysis against the 980..

I don't see it my self but that's down to the awesome Asus Swift Gsync monitor.

Gibbo said:
If it is before the 3.5GB then that makes no sense at all, unless the driver is not addressing the memory right.

Based on what your saying, that is without doubt a driver related issue and one which can be fixed. I am fairly sure NVIDIA can programme the driver to only use the 3.5GB faster pool first if it is already not which would prevent that issue. The more difficult part would be if they can programme the driver so that the OS operates out of the 500MB slower pool reserving the full 3.5GB for games as then it would resolve the issue and in effect you'd be no worse off as the operating system typically uses around 200-600MB of VRAM anyway.

Its a 4GB card, it can use all 4GB at same time, the issue is and what is being questioned is how it uses that 4GB.

This is the problem trying to discuss this issue. Some games like watchdogs and Ac Unity are giving a very slight stutter on the 970 at lower settings (below 3.5), these are games that also stutter on my titans so i really struggle to blame vram issues.
Any issue that affects a 970 user is now being blamed on the 970, even where the same issue crops up on other nvidia/Amd cards.

Ive seen some of the frametime analysis on the 970/980 and on the higher settings the 980's are running rubbish as well anyway, the graphs are worse for the 970 but the 980 wouldnt be playable either.

Mal X · 29 Jan 2015 at 10:35

Andy__C said:
Great answer, cheers mate. I may be better dialling back aspirations of going 1440p if keeping the 970 and look at 120hz instead.

I can't help but feel the 970 situation has been made worse by these games demanding much more vram over the last 6 months.

yes exactly, but now it has to last till April

Kaapstad · 29 Jan 2015 at 10:36

andybird123 said:
This is the problem trying to discuss this issue. Some games like watchdogs and Ac Unity are giving a very slight stutter on the 970 at lower settings (below 3.5), these are games that also stutter on my titans so i really struggle to blame vram issues.
Any issue that affects a 970 user is now being blamed on the 970, even where the same issue crops up on other nvidia/Amd cards.

+1

Harlequin · 29 Jan 2015 at 10:36

random thought! NVidia throw masses of resources at NvAPI , its own direct to metal pathway

Gregster · 29 Jan 2015 at 10:37

Harlequin said:
the only realistic fix is by blocking access to the extra 512mb - maybe with a 3rd party tool to `unlock it` with the caveat of `your know it *might* slow your fps down a bit , at certain times in certain games, maybe`

and ofc the 970m and 980m have different fused off parts so it isn't effecting them

I sure hope you get your 970 exchanged. The way you have acted in this thread makes me see how angry you are that you got one and I feel sorry for you.

H3x0rc!st · 29 Jan 2015 at 10:37

No complaints here with my MSI 970 @ 1440p with ROG Swift. Games are silky smooth

setter · 29 Jan 2015 at 10:39

andybird123 said:
This is the problem trying to discuss this issue. Some games like watchdogs and Ac Unity are giving a very slight stutter on the 970 at lower settings (below 3.5), these are games that also stutter on my titans so i really struggle to blame vram issues.
Any issue that affects a 970 user is now being blamed on the 970, even where the same issue crops up on other nvidia/Amd cards.

Id hazard a guess that issues below 3.5gb in certain games is likely down to lazy development. All too often games are released with a pile of bugs, then an endless supply of patches to try and fix them. Taking bf3 as an example, only became playable without major issues a full year or so after release. Though still not 100%.

~>Dg<~ · 29 Jan 2015 at 10:39

andybird123 said:
This is the problem trying to discuss this issue. Some games like watchdogs and Ac Unity are giving a very slight stutter on the 970 at lower settings (below 3.5), these are games that also stutter on my titans so i really struggle to blame vram issues.
Any issue that affects a 970 user is now being blamed on the 970, even where the same issue crops up on other nvidia/Amd cards.

never judge anything on ubisoft games.

always buggy always a mess.

Mei · 29 Jan 2015 at 10:39

yeh there hasnt been enough good tests done to prove the problems, they need to separate the real vram issues from all the buggy games lately, and nvidia drivers havent been at their best lately either

sli seems to show up a lot more problems than a single 970 compared to 980
but without more tests its just guessing so..

Mal X · 29 Jan 2015 at 10:40

the other way to fix it is to turn down your settings...........amazing isn't it :rolleyes: