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enough vRAM for new games?

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King107s

King107s

Member
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Joined
Oct 27, 2008
Hey guys, just wanted to see what everyone else thought regarding my set up and newer games...

I have a two Sapphire Vapor-X 6870 1GB 970/1150 in crossfire on a ASUS P8P67WS Revolution B board with a i7-2600K @ 4.8GHz and (2 x 4GB) DDR3 2133 RAM scoring about 3DMark11 P8853...

Im concerned that for higher game settings @ 1920x1080 res on the newer games I will be running out of memory on the video cards that only have 1GB each. I know in crossfire there is plenty of processing power but if there isn't enough RAM then its not much good.

Specifically interested in FarCry 3 and Crysis 3...
 
Yea, it's disappointing that nvidia/AMD haven't worked out some way to utilize both banks of vram in SLI/CF configurations. 1GB does seem pretty low for the likes of those games.
 
Well, it kind of does utilize both card's memory but since each card is rendering alternate frames each frame hits each card at full resolution rather than being split in half...
 
?

1GB for each card. Each card's ram has the same data in it regardless of AFR mode or not (AFAIK).
 
I think video ram past 1GB matters more when you run more than 1 monitor. 1GB should still be fine if you play on a single monitor even at 1920x1080.
 
meh just depends on your settings, playing an older game like arma II i can eat 2gb of vram on my 6950 easy yet with medium settings i can play it on my 512 mb 4870 just fine too.
 
EarthDog said:
Again, I emplor those who think this way to read the link I posted. MOST modern games use over 1GB...
Click to expand...

Yet they don't REQUIRE over 1GB, I play BF3 at 1920x1080 and I max at 920-950MB vram, all high settings (not ultra), obviously if I set textures to ultra it'll go higher.
 
Good point. I also dont see the point to play with lower settings. But you can compromise settings to make it work. :)
 
For Far Cry 3 on Ultra with no AA and only at 1680x1050 it spends ~95% of the time using ~900mb. If I use AA it bumps to a bit over 1600mb.

I get the feeling that a good rule to go by is that 1Gb is great for 1920x1080 so long as you don't go for the AA. If you want the jagged edges to go away then 1Gb can leave you lacking.

For example I could play BF3 on high(1680x1050) just fine with my 768mb 460's, I could even use most of the ultra settings. But if I jumped on the AA the lack of VRAM was very evident(zoom in for a sec then come out of zoom and the trees and such near you have to pop back in and players would sometimes fail to draw until they were on top of me). Given 1.5Gb of VRAM on my 480 I was fine on Ultra with the AA at 1680x1050, but at 1920x1080 I had very minor pop-in that I don't get with my 2Gb 7850.

I'd guess that at 1920x1080 Far Cry 3 on Ultra can deal with 1Gb of VRAM, but I feel like there may be issues if you go for AA. Unfortunately I cannot test it.
 
On my card with Far Cry 3, running 4x AA (8x slows it down too much... it's not currently overclocked yet. :p) and otherwise maxed out settings on only a single 1600x900 monitor, I'm seeing my usage at just slightly above 1GB (anywhere from around 20-50MB... SO CLOSE!). So, yeah, I'd say the days of 1GB VRAM are just about over if you want to max out your settings, even at lower resolutions.
 
That's pretty impressive. I got Far Cry 3 when I ordered my 7950 and was gonna sell it, but when I saw gameplay on youtube, it really looked like a game which would tax my system, so I decided to keep it. Haven't installed yet, but I'm glad that it will be up to the test :)
 
TeknoBug said:
Yet they don't REQUIRE over 1GB, I play BF3 at 1920x1080 and I max at 920-950MB vram, all high settings (not ultra), obviously if I set textures to ultra it'll go higher.
Click to expand...
"Requirement" is a relative term, it works at 512 MB but performance will be at the level you usualy may run your stuff at. You can even run BF3 1080P at ultra using 512 MB RAM, so we have meet the requirement because it will "run". To less RAM? No problem we got the main RAM left, nothing to worry.


Ah yes, it wont work at ultra settings without overflow but someone using CF is probably not interested into ultra settings *ironical smile*.
 
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