Battlefield 4 Recommended Requirements - 3GB Vram

[LtMatt]

Have ppl discussing variants of conspiracy theories around the 'misdirecting' of unsuspecting buyers forgotten that the 660ti, recommended Nvidia card for BF4 on the packaging, comes in a 3GB flavour while the 7870 does not? Or is that AMD's double bluff.

DUN DUN DUNNNNN!

Hah!

 

[LtMatt]

They recommend the 660 not 660 ti

Naw.

 

[LtMatt]

From those graphs it just looks like the 4gb GTX 680 has higher clocks/higher kepler/boost clock.

Do they list the specs of the cards in that review? I couldnt find it anywhere. All it says is that the 4gb 680 is an EVGA card and they dont even mention the manufacturer for the 2gb card...

I knew you'd find a reason.

Ask the editor, he'll definitely reply.

https://twitter.com/ryanshrout

I have to be honest i can't see a reason why a slightly potential higher boost clock (which is luck of the draw isn't it?) would be the difference between smooth and stuttery gameplay at such a resolution.

 

[LtMatt]

I was supposed to test the bull**** surrounding how 4GB vs 2Gb on the same card magically provides playable framerate, same clocks etc. Didn't have enough time on the weekend, so never actually started.

Lost interest in the idea now, so i've sold my 4GB 670 meaning i can no longer do the tests myself

I hate to say it as i didn't like it when they brought up the AMD stutter issue but pcper seem pretty good at noticing this sort of thing. They're also normally pretty pro Nvidia so i have no reason to doubt their findings. I also now agree with them on some of their findings regarding crossfire stuttering, at least on a couple of titles they originally mentioned. Not all though i might add.

The point is lack of vram can manifest itself in more ways than simply not having enough and fps dropping to 1.

 

[LtMatt]

What smooth and stuttery gameplay?

http://www.pcper.com/reviews/Graphi...marked-4K-Resolutions/Battlefield-3-Single-GP

From what i can see there are peaks and troughs from both the 4gb and 3 gb 680's but the 4gb just seems to be consistently a bit higher hinting that it is simply clocked higher.

Trust me those blue spikes will be very noticeable when you're playing and pcper say as much. The 4gb 680 has no spikes at all.

Without that PCPER article I think AMD would have taken even longer to sort the issue.

It was actually Techreport who first noted it i believe.

 

[LtMatt]

So that's why Titan is worth so much

Look at the stock 7970 providing excellent frame times though.

 

[LtMatt]

But..but... its 3840x2160 on ultra settings That's a lot of spixels and its only bf3 that the 2gb suffers any performance loss on. It still does better than the 7970 crossfire disaster any many people said they never noticed any problems.

I know, i appreciate its high res but it makes the point that lack of vram can show up in more ways than one. This is how it could show itself in Battlefield 4.

The reason why it sometimes didn't get noticed with crossfire in battlefield 3 was if you used vsync it cured the problem completely. Something that pcper refused to acknowledge. Setting a fps limit would also achieve the same end. You try that on the 2gb 680, it won't cure the problem we see in this bench, it will only make it worse.

Those spikes will almost certainly be because of VRAM. If there isn't enough video memory to cache all the data needed, the game will run - but now and then it will have to go to system RAM (or at worst, disk) to fetch data, causing this kind of blip.

Well said, better than i said it. I forgot it would normally go to system ram first.

 

[LtMatt]

It's also worth noting, you need 2 Titans worth of power to provide even somewhat playable gameplay what roughly translates into 3 680s lol.
So yeah, not really an issue, unless like we've said...you're planning on going Tri-SLI and multi monitor.

It will be an issue if 2gb is exceeded though as predicted depending on settings and res used in bf4. Now you may need two cards to have the grunt required but im not sure you will need three to do it, at least at a reasonable res.

 

[LtMatt]

I've even bet Matt a free copy of the game if i'm wrong. (single card gives playable framerate but exceeds VRAM limit)

Probably need something like 3, 2GB cards to actually provide enough grunt to push the settings required to push over the VRAM wall whilst still maintaining playable FPS.

I'll buy you BF4 if that's not the case.

This is what you said.

As i said earlier i reckon two cards will be able to provide playable fps and exceed the 2gb limit.

Get ready to buy me a copy of Battlefield 4 Tone.

 

[LtMatt]

So what you're saying is DICE got the recommended VRAM wrong for BF3 but if they say 3GB for BF4 then this must be right?

Maybe they realised they got it too low last time so are playing it safe and overestimating this time?

I seem to recall a similar argument around BF3 time saying any card with less VRAM than AMDs current card (2GB 6970) wouldn't be able to max it out. I wonder if any 580 owners managed it then? I seem to recall my 570 SLI doing OK.

That post was based on what was being said/assumed prior to me writing that. I was joking anyway, i don't think you will need 4gb. But if the recommended specs say 3gb you can be sure you're going to need that above 1080p with everything maxed out.

That would be a safe bet to me

I bet you and Matt, that if both of us are wrong, I will buy a 9xxx or a 780 for myself

Probably need something like 3, 2GB cards to actually provide enough grunt to push the settings required to push over the VRAM wall whilst still maintaining playable FPS.

I'll buy you BF4 if that's not the case.

I'm extremely confident two cards will be able to provide playable fps and exceed the 2gb limit. As a result ill be expecting a spare copy of bf4 from Tone in due course.

Anyway as i originally said details may have to be lowered to stop vram usage going up. Its irrelevant whether its playable or not as that was not what i said in the op. It may well not be playable but that wasn't the point i was arguing.

 

[LtMatt]

The game is not playable so the quote in the start of this thread is a bit misleading to make people think that 2gb may not be enough but 3gb is!

Both AMD and Nvidia cards 'Might' be sacrificing image quality much sooner than expected by the '2gb and 3gb will live forever crowd'. <-- looks a tad more realistic.

3gb cards in xfire won't be sacrificing but 2gb cards might was the point. Assuming available grunt is there which judging by the gameplay footage ive seen of 7970ghz crossfire in Bf4, it will be in abundance.

 

[LtMatt]

So i was browsing through CCC looking for the Battlefield 3 CAP profile and look what i stumbled across.

Looks like the AMD optimizations for Battlefield 4 are already in place. Not surprising i suppose given the videos we've watched. However maybe this 13.10 beta driver is for the Battlefield 4 Beta which begins at the end of the month.




EDIT


Maybe i should try the BF4 profile for BF3?

 

[LtMatt]

It's terrible on BF3.

I wouldn't go that far, but it definitely drops usage a bit. Don't think i ever saw 99% usage with it. Probably a placebo but fps seemed higher.

 

[LtMatt]

Haha. I'm always wary of placebo. Once bitten twice shy.

 

[LtMatt]

Only tried one round, was only getting 36% usage on 1 gpu while the other was sitting@99%, could have had ulps enabled at the time though.

Shame on you. I had ULPS off.

 

[LtMatt]

I don't think anyone ever said 2gb wouldn't be enough for 1080p did they? Its only at larger resolutions that one would expect the extra vram to help.

 

[LtMatt]

A number of times you said you'll probably have to turn AA down to 2x with 2GB VRAM at 1080p.

Yes he did.

I said once that maybe AA might have to be turned down to x2, because it might. You can't say for sure and neither can i. No harm suggesting you might. Its all well and good you both saying it won't. The evidence from the alpha benchmarks suggests its a possibility. However if you read what ive written throughout the thread then you'll see i suggest in my opinion 2gb is likely to be fine for 1080p, at least with x2 AA. Its higher resolutions where that limit will likely be exceeded.

 

[LtMatt]

Feature Highlights of The AMD Catalyst 13.10 Beta Driver for Windows:

Rome Total War 2: Updated AMD CrossFire™ profile
improves CrossFire scaling up to 20% (at 2560x1600 with extreme settings)
resolves corruption issues seen while playing the game

Looks like AMD have a profile and scaling but the game issues need to be fixed first.

EDIT

Quick look around seems to indicate crossfire working ok for Tahiti 7xxx line of cards. Not so well on old cards such as 6xxx series. Think its a general problem with the game tbh, buggy is an understatement.

 

[LtMatt]

That's just a EA forum mod by the looks of it. Judging by the way he tried to explain it im not sure he has any idea either.

 

[LtMatt]

Here a question for you guys... They saying 8GB RAM doesn't that mean it will reduce the load on the GPU's Vram?

Only if the vram limit is exceeded in which case dram or page file would get filled with textures. Stuttering or hitching or severe fps drops would then occur.