The statement suggests that the 0.5GB partition is a last resort if a game required more than 3.5GB. Presumably due to reduced bandwidth by their admission/confirmation of fewer crossbar resources to the memory system. So it would appear they manage what data gets put there should they need it, to reduce the detrimental impact it could have on game performance.
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970's having performance issues using 4GB Vram - Nvidia investigating
- Thread starter kitch9
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The statement suggests that the 0.5GB partition is a last resort if a game required more than 3.5GB. Presumably due to reduced bandwidth by their admission/confirmation of fewer crossbar resources to the memory system. So it would appear they manage what data gets put there should they need it, to reduce the detrimental impact it could have on game performance.
Soldato
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So no issues with games -
If anyone can tell me which game generates this "issue" then I'll do my best to replicate it on my system.
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It's probably not gonna be an issue for most people who game on 1920 res, but I think it might be helpful to have a sticky telling people that if 970 users getting performance issue when memory usage hitting above 3.5GB, they should try reducing the graphic settings to try to reduce the usage to below that as a solution.
Not clear on why monitoring programs would report 4GB usage when using 3.5GB unless data usage is not being reported back in bits and bytes, rather worked back from a percentage. That would also require the percentage to refer to just the 3.5GB partition which I'm not sure can be assumed either.
Well so far ubisoft games lol but yea... Don't use ubisoft games as a test for anything please. Only other game i've seen is skyrim with texture mods and such but still one could argue certain mods cause the performance drop off.
You could try BF4 maybe but i've not seen anyone report a issue with with this game so far.
Shadows of mordor is the only other game i can think of as well tbh!
But like i said before not long ago, if you can't see how much of the extra 500MB your using how would you know when your hitting the 4GB wall which causes issues such as stutter?
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4gb is the threshold, not 3.5gb. As has been pointed out, the confusion less with how the last 0.5gb is used and reported by monitoring software.
As an example, I posted a screen cap of mordor showing 3.66gb of usage.
Where are these people you're talking about having issues in game?
It's already been said that it's software that can't read correct Vram usage.
Not having a pop
What? The percentage to be referred back to the 3.5GB partition? Did you read what i said or seen what nVidia has said so far?
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Would it be classed as item not as described?
The card was launched and advertised with 4Gb GDDR5 at 224Gb/s memory bandwidth but in reality it's 3.5Gb GDDR5 at 224Gb/s and 512Mb at ~45Gb/s.
The card was launched and advertised with 4Gb GDDR5 at 224Gb/s memory bandwidth but in reality it's 3.5Gb GDDR5 at 224Gb/s and 512Mb at ~45Gb/s.
Cheers
What res do you normally game at please?
2560x1440
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Wolfenstein plays at a steady 60 fps for me with everything turned up at 1080p, DSR at 1440 then not so good, playable but laggy.
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Urgh, I hate people. IDTECH 5 mega texures is crudely inefficient. I had issues with this game on my 780Ti. In actual fact at 1440p this game allocated almost 7GB of VRAM with 4x MSAA on my 290x 8gb cards.
You'll never get a straight answer with this issue because the performance difference is so insignificant when gaming, the stuttering is people saturating the frame buffer entirely, not just 3.5gb.
Monitoring the VRAM usage is the real issue at present
Monitoring programs do report the 4GB in use. I think Nvidia just worded it poorly and it's just the effect that games generally use up spare VRAM that is generally not needed (as in not affecting performance). But with the 970 it will only fill spare VRAM to 3.5GB unlike the 980 which will fill out the full 4GB. This can be seen in Mordor pretty easily.
If the game does actually need more than 3.5GB it will use it and show in monitoring programs.
If the game does actually need more than 3.5GB it will use it and show in monitoring programs.
No at all... their last reported quarterly profits were $1.1 billion... extrapolate that out for the year and let's say an even $4b (it's likely more)... that would equal the return of nearly 6 million 970's... and they can only dream they sold half that many. I'm being very crude in my example of course, but yes they could afford it, if they wanted to, but this will NEVER happen. The best we'll see is some kind of firmware update, but the way things are going it would seem even THAT won't happen.
This is the key point. Clearly needs to be more definitive testing and analysis to determine EXACTLY what's going on with that extra 0.5GB. We can't just take Nvidia's own figures and explanation as gospel on this, as I don't think that's detailed enough to answer the issues others have been reporting in legit benchmarks and games... not definitively anyway. We need unbiased impartial tests to put this to bed one way or the other. At the end of the day, if it does turn out to be a significant performance hit WITHIN that 0.5GB under 4GB, this is where Nvidia have a problem... and we ALL will eventually for that matter. Bottom line, the 970 should function perfectly well utilising UP TO 4GB VRAM... if it doesn't, to any significant degree, either with a game today or in the future, therein lies the fault. Now, I haven't seen definitive evidence either way on this... so that is what I am waiting for.^^^
...if it's the 1 to 3% in general,that nvidia are reporting then biiiiiiiig deal.if it's around the 20% and above region comparative to a 980 then it will be a big deal.obviously frame times would be nice to see on the 1 to 3% results to see if stutter is present.im sure the tech sites are on it now
I read both. Simply expanding your on call/hypothesis, it has a few requirments. You made the statement that the last 0.5GB cannot be seen, ppl may be hitting an actual 4GB wall while the monitoring program reporting 3.5GB usage.
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