Why is the amount of graphics ram suddenly so important?
- Thread starter Mendel
- Start date
a-hem, BECAUSE... doubling texture resolution > doubling video card ram.
Today in the few rare tests I've seen at least the 2GB GTX285 doesn't seem to gain anything against a 1GB GTX285. Not necessarily the best measure to compare, but I'd be very surprised if for 2010 2GB framebuffers would make a striking difference.
Blackraven
Newcomer
Haha, so I guess 64 GB video cards will arrive in the near future then 
Those are not mutually exclusive
We've seen 2GB 4890, GTX 285 (and a couple more in fact). So I'd almost bet someone will do a 2GB 5870. It might be possible there will be some game next year which might even benefit from this with highest details, 2560x1600 (or some larger EyeFinity resolution) and 8xAA but I'd guess it will be very rare (and possibly not playable at these settings anyway).
I can certainly see a need for >1GB when/if higher DPI screens start to actually become affordable. 30" is massive for a desktop screen and they're still incredible expensive.
Apple's 27" 2650x1440 display though may usher in an era of cheap ~27" super-high res PC displays though (hopefully). Once those start to become more commonplace I think you'll see situations with 1GB cards and demanding games start to choke a bit.
Apple's 27" 2650x1440 display though may usher in an era of cheap ~27" super-high res PC displays though (hopefully). Once those start to become more commonplace I think you'll see situations with 1GB cards and demanding games start to choke a bit.
Yes, super high res gaming might need more than 1GB of ram.
If you're using Eyefinity for instance - with 4xAA and highest details crysis warhead (http://www.computerbase.de/artikel/hardware/grafikkarten/2009/test_ati_eyefinity_spieletest/7/ and riddick (http://www.computerbase.de/artikel/hardware/grafikkarten/2009/test_ati_eyefinity_spieletest/5/) are very, very limited by not enough memory with 5760x1200. Though realistically for these settings you'd need crossfire anyway (which doesn't work yet with Eyefinity), so you're looking for 2 HD5870 2x2GB...
Interestingly however, even with these high resolutions, the other tested games don't seem to be limited by not enough vram.
If you're using Eyefinity for instance - with 4xAA and highest details crysis warhead (http://www.computerbase.de/artikel/hardware/grafikkarten/2009/test_ati_eyefinity_spieletest/7/ and riddick (http://www.computerbase.de/artikel/hardware/grafikkarten/2009/test_ati_eyefinity_spieletest/5/) are very, very limited by not enough memory with 5760x1200. Though realistically for these settings you'd need crossfire anyway (which doesn't work yet with Eyefinity), so you're looking for 2 HD5870 2x2GB...
Interestingly however, even with these high resolutions, the other tested games don't seem to be limited by not enough vram.
Games today are still designed with 128 meg cards in mind. Hopefully as we move to dx 10 only engines we will seem them move up to 512 megs. I'm not aware of to many cards sold that were dx 10 with less than that . Mabye some g80s with 384 megs ? I think once we see that shift we will see the need for games with more than 1 gig of ram and perhaps even more than 2 gigs of ram.
There are a lot of HD2xxx and HD3xxx cards out there with 256MB memory. My 3850 for instance.
Is that the general case? Because if it is I cannot understand why PC gamers complain about console ports when their target platform is less powerful.
Not all of them. Many new games do not allow you to use highest end settings with a 256 megabyte card. Usually you end up with low res shadowmaps, lower res textures and a limited selectable maximum resolution.
We have cards ranging from 128 megs to 2gigs. Thats aside from main system ram. consoles have 512megs or 522megs.
Also alot of these cards with 128 megs of ram that were sold were low end oem cards thrown into systems or cheap $50 and under cards.
Hopefully with dx 11 they will phase them out and just have 512meg cards.
Why would you consider the consoles 512MB video?
Xbox 360 has 512MB total, not video ram (could be used 100% for video, but I would guess only 50% is reserved for this).
PS3 has 256MB video ram, 256MB rambus ram for system.
It would be more logical to call the consoles 256MB video ram devices.
brain_stew
Regular
Consoles come with fully featured OSes these days as well, so be sure to chop off ~32MB from that 512MB starting total. Calling them 256MB VRAM devices seems fair to me, sure some games will use more than that but none are going to be close to using the full 512MB for graphics either.
No they're not, not by a longshot. You will get significant stuttering on many titles, especially 360 ports, on cards with less than 256 megs of ram.
