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Games Listed by Video Memory Usage

Randomface74

Randomface74

Randomface74

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This thread is a summary of video memory used by popular games in March 2013. Mid-range graphics card are shipping with 2GB of video memory, AMD 79XX has 3GB, and the NVIDIA Titan has 6GB. Steam hardware survey says that ~65% of user still have 1GB or less.

Instructions
Our Experiment
Measure using Process Explorer or equivalent.
(click the little graphs at the top - screenshots here)

Provide
- Name of game
- Resolution played at
- General indication of quality (Ultra, High, Medium, Low) (xAA if you know)
- Name of GPU
- How much Video Memory was used? (max)
Crossfire: divide the number reported by the number of cards to get the true usage. Post the true usage.

Summary

EGdS7yj.png

Results
Crysis 3
4,174MB - 7680x1440 - Ultra (4xAA) - 3xTitan - andybird123 #117
3,852MB - 5760x1080 - Ultra - Titan - Gregster #27
2,020MB - 1920x1080 - Ultra (Motion Blur Medium, MSAA x8) - Titan - Blackwhite #26
1,750MB - 2560x1440 - Ultra - 7970 CF - oldestgregg #28
1,618MB - 1920x1080 - Ultra (8xMSAA) - 7970 CF - pgi947 #69

Farcry 3
2,829MB - 5760x1080 - Ultra (8xMSAA) - Titan - Gregster #67
1,200MB - 2560x1440 - Ultra (0xAA) - 7970 - LtMatt #58

Tomb Raider
2,822MB - 5760x1080 - Ultra - Titan - Gregster #27
2,319MB - 5760x1080 - Ultra (TressFX) - 7950 - Jarrod #124
1,750MB - 2560x1440 - Ultra - 7970 CF - oldestgregg #28

Skyrim
2,750MB - 1920x1080 - Ultra (Modded) - 7970 - tommybhoy #29
1,997MB - 1920x1080 - Ultra (Modded) - 6950 - tommybhoy #29
1,940MB - 5760x1080 - Ultra (2K HD) - 680 SLI - Rusty0611 #20

Hitman: Absolution
2,600MB - 1920x1080 - Ultra - Titan - Gregster #42
1,800MB - 1920x1080 - Ultra (8xMSAA) - 7970 CF - pgi947 #77

Bioshock Infinite
2,492MB - 5760x1080 - Ultra - 7950 CF - Jarrod #128

Battlefield 3
2,454MB - 5760X1080 - Ultra (4xMSAA) - 7950 - Jarrod #125
1,820MB - 5760x1080 - Ultra - 680 SLI - Rusty0611 #20
1,490MB - 5760x1080 - Ultra (0xHBAO + 0xAA) - 680 SLI - Rusty0611 #20

Max Payne 3
2,050MB - 1920x1080 - Ultra (8xMSAA) - 7970 CF - pgi947 #69

Metro 2033
2,020MB - 5760x1080 - Ultra (4xMSAA PhysX) - 680 SLI - Rusty0611 #20
1,800MB - 5760x1080 - High (4xMSAA) - 680 SLI - Rusty0611 #20
1,495MB - 1920x1080 - Ultra - Titan - Blackwhite #66
960MB - 5760x1080 - Ultra (0xAA PhysX) - 680 SLI - Rusty0611 #20
920MB - 5760x1080 - Ultra (0xAA) - 680 SLI - Rusty0611 #20

Sleeping Dogs
2,000MB - 5760x1080 - Ultra (Extreme AA) - 680 SLI - Rusty0611 #20
1,740MB - 5760x1080 - High (High AA) - 680 SLI - Rusty0611 #20

Dirt Showdown
1,330MB - 5760x1080 - Ultra (4xMSAA + AMD Advanced Lighting) - 680 SLI - Rusty0611 #20
1,240MB - 5760x1080 - Ultra (4xMSAA) - 680 SLI - Rusty0611 #20
900MB - 2560x1440 - Ultra (4xMSAA) - 7970 - LtMatt #57

F1 2012
1,100MB - 1920x1080 - Ultra - 570 2.5GB - Doomedspeed #79

Borderlands 2
1,040MB - 5760x1080 - Ultra - 680 SLI - Rusty0611 #20
510MB - 1920x1080 - Ultra - 7970 CF - pgi947 #14

S.T.A.L.K.E.R Clear Sky
1,004MB - 1920x1200 - Ultra (0xAA) - 480 - arc@css #65

Path of Exile
1,000MB - 1920x1200 - High - 5870 - billysielu #2

Guild Wars 2
830MB - 5760x1080 - Ultra - 680 SLI - Rusty0611 #20

Eve Online
1,338MB - 1920x1080 - Ultra (Dualboxing) - 6850 - Bacon? #23
770MB - 1920x1080 - Ultra - 6850 - Bacon? #4

Cities XL Platinum
363MB - 1920x1080 - Ultra - 6850 - Bacon? #38

Left 4 Dead 2
532MB - 1920x1080 - Ultra - 6850 - Bacon? #38

Modern Warfare 2
503MB - 1920x1080 - Ultra - 6850 - Bacon? #38
Information

Someone did a similar thing in 2007
Well worth a read! [here]

How much VRAM does AA use?
In the past, you'd be mostly interested in resolution, because the framebuffer was by far the largest resource. Today the resolution is generally not a very big factor in the total memory consumption. Although with huge resolutions and excessive MSAA it could matter. At 2560x1600 8xMSAA you need 281MB for the back buffer, front buffer and depth buffer. Normal settings will of course only be a fraction of that. Like 1600x1200 4xMSAA is 66MB, which is not much on a 512MB card. The things you should look for when it comes to memory these days is texture settings and geometric detail. [source]
Click to expand...

What happens when you run out of VRAM?
Modern GPUs will run into a hybrid mode where the drivers/GPU start streaming texture data from system RAM over the PCIe bus to make up for the "missing" RAM. Since system RAM is 3-5X slower than GDDR5 with much higher latency, running out of "VRAM" would translate into a significant FPS loss. [source]
Click to expand...
I ran out of VRAM one time and my computer exploded. Took out two and half blocks around my house. [source]
Click to expand...
 
Last edited:
pgi947 said:
-Borderlands 2 (The Fridge)
-1920x1080
-7970 CF
-Ultra/highest - low physx
-1020mb

Edit: not sure how process explorer is reading vram over multiple cards, the bit at the bottom says 6GB, so my above MIGHT be half of that?
Click to expand...

thx for the result - we can just bear that in mind as more results come in :)
 
ShakeNBake said:
I think you need to standardise AA settings etc. cos they will have an impact.

It's really gonna vary from system to system, especially with all the different options available in graphics card control panels.

Like for nvidia cards, pick an option under "3-D settings -> adjust image settings with preview" for everyone to use etc.
Click to expand...

It changes contribution from being a "do your normal gaming session but run this program and tell us the number" to a "reconfigure everything our way, then do it" type of task. I'd like to avoid that.

It's fine though - our results will represent the real world, if it's a range then so be it :)
 
Rusty - nice one, proves the earlier point about AA making a big difference.

Bacon - rgr, will list it because dualboxing is standard practice for that game. Almost leet vram usage too :)

oldestgregg - yeah, seems unlikely - can list it anyway with a question mark if you let me know: your resolution, gpu, quality
 
You guys have been busy! op updated.

I'll try to make the data useful, just need a larger set first. I'm thinking things like "average vram used as a percentage of total vram" and such like.

I also want to measure the impact on FPS - but that comes later.
 
Something fishy going on with 7970 CF?
I've got a spreadsheet of how much VRAM each GPU has.
Anything reporting more than this will be in a different colour - until we figure out what's going on.
 
The internet believes CF double reports. op updated to reflect that.
SLI inconclusive, so I'm going to assume it's not double-reporting until I see it go over the total vram for the card.
 
I think we need to know more about the strategy that's used when VRAM is full. We can already work out percentage of VRAM used from the information we have - and I'll calculate it all at some point - but if something 90% or more indicates it might be full, and the strategy is always the same, then the outcome will always be the same... only variation being the rest of the system... it's already difficult enough to compare with just the GPU.

I suspect if we think GDDR5 is much faster than DDR3 - graphics guys know that too. So they probably do something like:
- load everything needed right now into vram
- if vram full, use optimisation strategy using ram
- load everything required for optimisation into ram
- if ram full, pagefile will be used
- if pagefile also full, probably game over

... basically trying to use the fastest memory available all the time... but considering contention for that memory.

... so I can kinda make this stuff up... but I don't actually KNOW what happens.
 
In the past, you'd be mostly interested in resolution, because the framebuffer was by far the largest resource. Today the resolution is generally not a very big factor in the total memory consumption. Although with huge resolutions and excessive MSAA it could matter. At 2560x1600 8xMSAA you need 281MB for the back buffer, front buffer and depth buffer. Normal settings will of course only be a fraction of that. Like 1600x1200 4xMSAA is 66MB, which is not much on a 512MB card. The things you should look for when it comes to memory these days is texture settings and geometric detail. [source]
Click to expand...

Gets a bit complicated, but I think there's do-able math there. General idea is that the difference between 0xAA and 8xMSAA is calculatable... therefore predictable... being able to say this sort of thing could be useful:

Using 4xMSAA at 1080p always costs x MB.
 
Last edited:
That link was a good read, and kinda funny being out of date. Added that and other bits of info to op.

With the info we have so far, it's reasonable to say that 1GB cards are done. New cards in the store have 2GB or more, so games will take advantage of that and guys like me with 1GB cards will find it ever more difficult to run games at decent quality with 4xAA.

There's choice out there though, 2GB, 3GB, or even 6GB... tomorrow I'll be thinking if there's a smart way to narrow down the options based on the information from this thread.
 
Information summarised for resolutions with enough data. Original post re-written with the intention of being an archive of this experiment. A new thread can be created when the state of play changes significantly. Thanks to everyone who provided data for this thread :)
 
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