Consoles have a unified memory architecture so can afford to stream in realtime without issue. PCs do not have this (yet). DirectStorage should change all that but it's still early days for the tech and we won't see the real gains until at least gen 2 DS games are out in full force. So likely 2025 onwards at the earliest.
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is the extra VRAM really that beneficial?
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Unified memory has nothing to do with it. It’s about streaming data from storage (the PS5 has dedicated hardware for this). The reason it’s done for consoles is, they have less memory so its needed. The almost fixed hardware allows devs to optimize and fine tune things so its smooth. It is used on PC, but it’s difficult to do well and keep things smooth. It just easier to use lots of VRAM.
And if anything it would be better on nvidia cards.
As I have said many times. Not had a single issue with vram on my 4070 Ti yet. But then I always use DLSS when available.
That said 16gb should be the minimum for mid range cards in 2025 imo.
As I have said many times. Not had a single issue with vram on my 4070 Ti yet. But then I always use DLSS when available.
That said 16gb should be the minimum for mid range cards in 2025 imo.
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Would be interesting to see some videos on the 10gb 3080 (having said that, it's easy to see from his "dedicated" vram readings, 10gb would also be just fine), I'm sure there would be some cases especially if at 4k with no upscaling but as said earlier, I have played a lot of games and just not encountered any issues outside of a couple poorly optimised games on launch day (which got resolved) to modded cp 2077.
Yup that is very true, I forgot about amd gpus not being as well optimised when it came to vram usage/allocation:
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better to have too little RAM than a disgusting doubling of the price of the XX80 range
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sometimes its just a case of developers abusing additional resources
another example: why optimize the game when you can meet 60 fps target with dlss enabled?
true for windows as well.. i believe: oh now since the computers are getting faster lets throw in a truckload of bloatware
another example: why optimize the game when you can meet 60 fps target with dlss enabled?
true for windows as well.. i believe: oh now since the computers are getting faster lets throw in a truckload of bloatware
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Exactly.
And the fact that most people still aren't answering the "has the extra vram proved beneficial enough to justify the extra cost" says it all (well humbug answered tbf to him)
But the one's that have more don't last any longer anyways. Unless you are happy to game at 30fps or less?
The GPU’s 16x PCI-e bus on the PC is massively underutilised. This is easy to test as dropping down from gen 4 to 3 or 16x to 8x (50% drop) hardly affects performance (< 5%). Asset streaming will have to become a must have thing as VRAM will always be limited and the cost of adding more will increase as node shrinks are not great for RAM.
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Nah. Plenty info out there. Even purgatory is posting it. And even in such cases my 12gb 4070 Ti comes out ahead of the 3090 with it's 24gb. Nuf said
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That chart also has the 3080 at about two thirds of the performance of the 68000Xt though, they're generally fairly close other than the VRAM amount, but here it's a marked difference.
Neither are playable, but comparing same generation architectures shows a reasonable difference here.
Neither are playable, but comparing same generation architectures shows a reasonable difference here.
That chart is taken from launch day review of AW 2, the game has had many patches since to improve performance etc.
Exactly.
Also, surprise surprise, using a benchmark from when the game first came out and has had multiple patches to improve perf etc. since
PCGH did an update recently with the new dlc that came out, if we're looking at 1440P:
Aside from 4080+ there, no gpu has playable performance there imo so question is then, is likes of a 4080/4090 worthwhile purchase for the rare demanding titles like this?
No doubt, AW 2 is a game which will prefer more vram at res such as 4k, even if you were to use dlss, 12+GB probably is required for the "best" experience (and even more if using nvidias frame gen since it uses more vram).
The only way a 3090 would have ever been worth it imo was:
- if you really couldn't get a 3080 for <£900
- you need the extra vram for workloads
- you mod your games with extreme high res texture packs
"future proofing" as shown is a stupid reason when it comes to purchasing anything these days.
There was a questionable time with some awful releases last year about vram, more so for 8gb gpus but as shown, a few patches came out for such games like TLOU and sorted most of the issues out and now with ue 5+, as also picked up by a few channels, vram optimisation is in a far better place where EU 5 seems to be generally using quite low amounts compared to other games. Snowdrop engine is the best engine to date for vram optimisation and the way it works with the buffer system and thankfully, all of ubi titles will now be using this engine to my knowledge.
The fact that nvidia changed this approach with the 4080 and 4090 shows that they needed to make the xx90 more worthwhile and given how successful the 4090 has been, it's safe to say, from their pov, they did the right thing.
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That does include upsampling, however. I was just trying to isolate the vram impact.
Yup don't deny that if you insist on not using upscaling or/and are happy to use no upscaling and play at low fps then grand but as we have said, it then becomes a moot point as even the gpus with more vram will either have to sacrifice settings or/and use upscaling too.
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