Do we need more than 512MB at current?

I

ihira

Gawd
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I hear lots of voices like "waiting for 1GB 4870" "GTX260 is more futureproof with 896MB of VRAM vs 512MB on 4870" "2GB on 4870 X2 is gonna rock!!1!"
but after seeing things like these I'm wondering if theres much point in investing on more memory (paying the extra).

http://diy.pconline.com.cn/graphics/reviews/0806/1321655_3.html
http://techreport.com/articles.x/14230

I realize VRAM is only 1 of the many factors that determines the performance of the card (and gets the most attention it seems) but by the time mainstream games need more than 512MB wouldnt a GTX260 896MB or any current card with 1GB be too weak compared to whatever card realeased then?
GTS 640MB wasn't really futureproof when 8800GT 512MB came and 8800GTX 768MB isnt better than 48x0 512Mb cards.

I guess my question is what games need more than 512MB currently?
 
I dont think for games it matters, I think whats more important is what resolution are you gaming at? I think 512 is PERFECT if you are gaming at a max of lets say 1680x1050. However if you game at 2500x1600 512 becomes insufficient and you may need 1GB. I mean I'm sure if you game at 1680x1050 with 1GB you might see higher fps then if you game with 512mb but I mean when the 8800gt 1GB came out compared to the 512mb version, there was not THAT much of a difference in fps at lower resolutions (1680x1050 and less) however at higher resolutions (greater then 1680x1050) a difference became more pronounced.
 
I will say this: I am questionable as to the value of the 4870 with only 512MB of ram - while the 4850 is a great deal with 512MB, the 4870 has an eye to the future, with much higher core clock, and more memory bandwidth.

Unfortunately, ATI's decision to use DDR5 means the 1GB 4870 cards will be slow in coming, and almost as pricey as the GT 200 cards. Yes, I know, every other aspect about the card is excellent, but it really puts people in a bind who want good FUTURE performance at the higher resolutions this card is aimed at.
 
Right now, there's very little that can use it. I think Quake 4 might be able to if you want it to use completely uncompressed textures, but then there's really no compelling reason to do that. 512MB should be plenty to run all games at high detail.

In the future, well who knows? Games could decide to start using tons more textures now that there's cards that can handle it, or they could decide that there aren't enough out there that do to be worthwhile.

It could also go the other way, as shaders continue to get more and more powerful, more games could decide to start describing textures as mathematical formulas (how it is often done in professional 3D work) rather than having texture maps.

All in all I wouldn't worry too much. Games will have to support 512MB of VRAM simply based on the fact that there are a massive number of cards out there with it. Given that a large amount of the 8800s, all the 9800s, and all the 4800s (so far) are 512MB, they don't really have a choice. So you might find a game that you can't set everything to super ultra maximum detail without more VRAM, but I doubt you find one that doesn't work fine.
 
Sycraft said:
It could also go the other way, as shaders continue to get more and more powerful, more games could decide to start describing textures as mathematical formulas (how it is often done in professional 3D work) rather than having texture maps.
Click to expand...


/Side Question pertaining to quote

Do you have any links to articles describing the description of textures as mathematical formulas. The nerd is me is very interested in reading about this.

/End Side Question.

As for 512MB, I am pretty sure that will last quite some time. Although, I vaguely remember reading somewhere that those running AoC at max settings find that it easily uses 320+MB (Seems to be the reason why so many folks funning the 8800GTS 320 are reporting lots of texture popping until they reduce the settings enough). So maybe in a few years games will easily saturate it. Who knows.
 
Yes, we do need more than 512MB of RAM. This was apparent when comparing the 8800GTS 512MB or 9800GTX 512MB to the 8800GTX and 8800 Ultra cards at 2560x1600 when AA and AF was used.
 
How much of that is based on the architecture and memory bandwidth? The 4800's dont seem to take the same hit going from 1680 x 1050 to 1920 x 1200 then with no AA to 4xAA that the G92 cards seem to hit.

And that's considering that the 4850 has less bandwidth than the 3870 and the 1GB variants of the 3800's didn't seem to boost performance whereas the G92's certainly used it.
 
I wonder if the 4850/70 is quicker than the 8800GTX at 2560 etc with aa, af...hmm..
 
UtopiA said:
Are you referencing a particular review specifically?
It obviously sounds true, but I'm interested in seeing the numbers.
;)

Not really seeing much of a difference here:
http://enthusiast.hardocp.com/article.html?art=MTQ0NiwxLCxoZW50aHVzaWFzdA==

512 MB 8800GT vs 1 GB 8800GT.
Click to expand...

You don't see it on the 8800GT because that card has a 256bit bus. It just isn't enough to feed the memory at higher resolutions when AA and AF are used. In comparison the 8800GTX and Ultra have a 384bit bus.
 
Extra memory makes for longevity.

If you plan to upgrade your graphics card(s) eventually I wouldn't worry about extra memory.

If, however, you're like me and you're trying to get every last drop out of your cards (I've still got a 128mb GeForce 6600GT, though I hardly play PC games anymore... for obvious reasons given that card) you might consider holding out.

Another consideration is resolution. You'll want the extra memory if your monitor supports very high resolutions with AA and AF.

I'm personally planning on dual 4850s (512mb each) to pair with a 24inch LCD monitor.
 
abudhu said:
/Side Question pertaining to quote

Do you have any links to articles describing the description of textures as mathematical formulas. The nerd is me is very interested in reading about this.

/End Side Question.
Click to expand...

Its usually referred to as procedurally generated content. kkrieger is a perfect example: http://www.theprodukkt.com/kkrieger

That said, I only know of one game coming out that will use procedurally generated content, and it is an MMO called "Love" http://www.quelsolaar.com/love/

However, procedurally generated content only reduces the install footprint. During the loading stages standard textures and models are created by the game to keep things playable, so vram and such will still be important. Think SVGs for game textures and models :)
 
If you play at 46000x19000 resolution (sarcasm for the insanely high)... You gotta be pretty [H]ard for that...

Without a doubt it's me, but after 1680x1050, I can't really notice the difference. At least not enough where it changes my experience.
 
I've got AoC running in 2560x1600 4xAA and 16xAF with everything max except for shadows and a few of the more hefty sliders such as grass set to sensible values.

I'm getting about 40fps in OT and anywhere upto 100fps in other areas. Im running 2x 4870's in Crossfire with a Q9450 @ 3.6Ghz and 4Gb PC8500 RAM.

I'm not sure about shadows in this game, are the world shadows baked onto the textures? If so that might be causing the incredible frame rate issues on these cards. enabling world shadows just completely rapes the frame rate, right down from 100fps to about 10fps in some places, that awful!

But for me 512mb memory seems OK, Im running everything except Crysis in 2560x1600 with some level of AA and max textures res, all the source games even with very high textures set in TF2, CoD4 is the same all max in 2560x1600 with 4xAA 16xAF. GRID in 2560x1600 all ultra settings with either 2x or 4xAA I can't remember now.

Certainly theres nothing today other than Crysis which a crossfire 4870 rig can't deal with, nothing that i've played anyway.
 
Not any great links. This mental ray link gives an overview of basically what I'm talking about.

The benefits are that there's none of the typical worries with textures and it doesn't take much space to stop. The problem is it is very computationally intensive (hence why it's pretty much an offline rendering thing) and it isn't always easy to come up with a shader that looks like what you want.

At any rate I don't really expect games to go this route, and indeed it isn't how everything is done in the professional world. There's been some really neat techniques developed for taking a bunch of pictures of an object and then using those to construct a very realistic looking map of it. I'm just saying it is a possibility in terms of the future. We aren't necessairily going to go the larger and large texture route, though I do think that is likely how it'll go.
 
ATi's current card already demonstrates that 512MB is enough for current games......
 
Frostex said:
I've got AoC running in 2560x1600 4xAA and 16xAF with everything max except for shadows and a few of the more hefty sliders such as grass set to sensible values.

I'm getting about 40fps in OT and anywhere upto 100fps in other areas. Im running 2x 4870's in Crossfire with a Q9450 @ 3.6Ghz and 4Gb PC8500 RAM.

I'm not sure about shadows in this game, are the world shadows baked onto the textures? If so that might be causing the incredible frame rate issues on these cards. enabling world shadows just completely rapes the frame rate, right down from 100fps to about 10fps in some places, that awful!

But for me 512mb memory seems OK, Im running everything except Crysis in 2560x1600 with some level of AA and max textures res, all the source games even with very high textures set in TF2, CoD4 is the same all max in 2560x1600 with 4xAA 16xAF. GRID in 2560x1600 all ultra settings with either 2x or 4xAA I can't remember now.

Certainly theres nothing today other than Crysis which a crossfire 4870 rig can't deal with, nothing that i've played anyway.
Click to expand...

That has been my experience as well with 4870 512mb X-fire: no frame rate issues at all in AoC, Sins of a Solar Empire, Assassin's Creed at 1920x1080, highest settings, 4-8xAA. I haven't yet seen any instance of hitting the frame buffer limit. In any case, 4870 X-fire is leaps and bounds better than my old 8800 GTX OC SLI setup, so the memory isn't an issue... yet.

That said, I really would have liked to have gotten 4870 1gb if they had been available at launch.
 
Well, I don't want to make another topic, so let me ask here.

Currently I am playing at 1280x1024, with q6600 g0@stock, 4gb of ram memory and x38 gigabyte motherboard. As for PSU, it's bequiet straightpower 600w.

Should I get two 4850 and crossfire them, or wait for 4870 1GB? I would like to max everything while gaming, and I'm planning to switch into 1650x1080 in some near future.

I'm curious as well if 512 video memory will be enough for upcoming games to play with aa and af settings on.

best wishes and thanks for the advice
 
As mentioned, at 1650x1080 with the settings cranked, you'll have no problem whatsoever with 512mb. 1gb memory would really be overkill at that res, even for upcoming games.

We're just now seeing 512mb as a limitation at 2560x1600 with AA in some games - and that's 66% more pixels than 1650x1080.

In answer to your question, I'd choose 4850 X-fire now, or wait a month for 4850 X2.
 
It just comes down to resolution. If your playing on a 19" or a 22" you'll probably be fine for a while with 512. If you've got a 24" or a 30" you might be in trouble in the future, or now on 30" with SLI/TRI-SLI setups. iirc, the 9800GX2 in SLI setups has problems at high resolution and high AA levels. I don't remember if it was because it ran out of memory or it was a bandwidth issue. Probably a bit of both.

Also, going from the G80 to theG92 there was some added compression technology that let it use a 256 bit bus more effectively. (Same through put rate, but needed to pass less through).
 
well http://www.roboblitz.com/ had early access to UT3 to build their game because of some project they did, but the interesting thing is everything is generated when you install the game. The down side is that it looks like it. To get really good looking textures you can paint them in photoshop and be good to go, but to get photo real textures you often have to start with something that had more detail in it, like photos or scanned banana peels, etc... Which means you need space to store those details. Compression has come a long way from even early dx games, but the bigger the game the higher res those textures need to be. What looks good at 800x600 is a joke 1280x960 and what looks good at 16x12 does not cut it at 1080p. That not to say every object in a world with be a 4k plate, many will only need 128x128res but you still need space for everything that is not zoned or otherwise told not be rendered. So having 512MB x 256MB in game means that you can see everything that fits in 256MB and as soon as you need to see something that is not in memory your system has to unload something in the 256 dump to a cache file on your hard drive, load the obj and textures from your hard drive into memory. Which is why games seem to stutter every once in a while. Something to think about is that many single player and most mmos simply are too large to load more than one or two zones into memory.
 
This is what i think.

BIG TOYS like 30 inch screen gamers. GET a 1GB card or Crossfire X, or SLI. when doing 2560x1600

Anyone with 22" inches and under dont bother.

If youre [H]ard enough to go 30 get a serious card and spend the serious bucks.

for many of us this is our hobby. Your gonna spend on what makes you happy. Youre gonna need/want a1GB card. face it resistance is futile! lol
 
FragMan said:
This is what i think.

BIG TOYS like 30 inch screen gamers. GET a 1GB card or Crossfire X, or SLI. when doing 2560x1600

Anyone with 22" inches and under dont bother.

If youre [H]ard enough to go 30 get a serious card and spend the serious bucks.

for many of us this is our hobby. Your gonna spend on what makes you happy. Youre gonna need/want a1GB card. face it resistance is futile! lol
Click to expand...

Pretty much my thoughts.
 
Gah It's so frustrating to see people talk about 1680 x 1050 being fine for whatever (512mb, older cards, etc) and 2560 x 1600 needing more memory, new cards, etc.

what about 1920 x 1200? everyone just jumps that res and go to the next highest :p

I'm on a 24" with a 8800gt and I'm wondering if changing to the HD4870 is a waste because it's the same amount of vRAM, not stronger enough to make it worth...
 
Lord Magus said:
Gah It's so frustrating to see people talk about 1680 x 1050 being fine for whatever (512mb, older cards, etc) and 2560 x 1600 needing more memory, new cards, etc.

what about 1920 x 1200? everyone just jumps that res and go to the next highest :p

I'm on a 24" with a 8800gt and I'm wondering if changing to the HD4870 is a waste because it's the same amount of vRAM, not stronger enough to make it worth...
Click to expand...

You are also missing 1920x1080 as well. In any case those are more demanding on a video card than 1680x1050 yes, but 2560x1600 has almost twice the amount of pixels as 1920x1200 does. If a card can handle a game at 2560x1600 everyone else should have all the performance they'd need for quite some time.
 
Lord Magus said:
Gah It's so frustrating to see people talk about 1680 x 1050 being fine for whatever (512mb, older cards, etc) and 2560 x 1600 needing more memory, new cards, etc.

what about 1920 x 1200? everyone just jumps that res and go to the next highest :p

I'm on a 24" with a 8800gt and I'm wondering if changing to the HD4870 is a waste because it's the same amount of vRAM, not stronger enough to make it worth...
Click to expand...


You'll see a FPS improvement, not questions. A side note, the 260 was seen at 300 at the egg today.
 
http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/video/display/gainward-bliss8800gt-1024gs.html

Gainward’s idea to install 1 gigabyte of graphics memory on a GeForce 8800 GT proved to be not as totally useless as we had anticipated. We had thought the performance gain would be zero or provoked by the pre-overclocked frequencies only but the Bliss 8800 GT 1024MB GS has saved the manufacturer from the accusation in squandering. There was a considerable effect from the double amount of memory in such games as Call of Juarez, Call of Duty 4, Enemy Territory: Quake Wars, Tomb Raider: Legend, Hellgate: London, and Gothic 3. This is 6 out of 15 games we use for benchmarking graphics cards. That’s a serious achievement. The performance gain is really valuable in Call of Duty 4, Enemy Territory: Quake Wars and Hellgate: London as it allows playing at high resolutions and (in the latter case) at the highest graphics quality settings without investing into Nvidia GeForce 8800 GTX/Ultra.
Click to expand...


I'd say that if an 8800gt can benefit so much from 1gb of ram, then yes, bring on the 1gb graphics cards please!
 
chameleoneel said:
http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/video/display/gainward-bliss8800gt-1024gs.html




I'd say that if an 8800gt can benefit so much from 1gb of ram, then yes, bring on the 1gb graphics cards please!
Click to expand...
well its the fact that it goes slightly over 512mb in several games. Once Nvidia cards go past the memory on the card they tank much worse than ATI cards in the same scenario. I guess ATI just handles the memory better or something. The 8800gt 256mb was a terrible idea and I feel sorry for anybody that bought it. The gpu itself was strong but only having 256mb killed it in many games even at 1280.
 
uacn8 said:
Well, I don't want to make another topic, so let me ask here.

Currently I am playing at 1280x1024, with q6600 g0@stock, 4gb of ram memory and x38 gigabyte motherboard. As for PSU, it's bequiet straightpower 600w.

Should I get two 4850 and crossfire them, or wait for 4870 1GB? I would like to max everything while gaming, and I'm planning to switch into 1650x1080 in some near future.

I'm curious as well if 512 video memory will be enough for upcoming games to play with aa and af settings on.

best wishes and thanks for the advice
Click to expand...

I used to game at that res. Dual GPU setups are completely wasted on such a small screen. A single GPU will be fine! Seriously, your computer is crying because it can do so much more but the screen is too small ;)
 
chameleoneel said:
Xbit labs used forceware 169.25 and [H]ardocp used 169.28, even thought Xbit-labs's review is a month newer. Maybe the 28's borked 1GB performance? I'll have to checkout some other reviews and compare.
Click to expand...

Well, Xbit's 512mb results were very low compared to [H]'s numbers. The 1gb results were sorta similar, xbit just had really low 512mb results. Then again, Xbit uses canned tests, whereas [H] does in game, so....
 
kllrnohj said:
Well, Xbit's 512mb results were very low compared to [H]'s numbers. The 1gb results were sorta similar, xbit just had really low 512mb results. Then again, Xbit uses canned tests, whereas [H] does in game, so....
Click to expand...

Yeah, I dunno. I haven't been able to figure out what was going on. I'm not pledging allegiance to Xbit or anything. How do you know they use canned tests? they tend to benchmark the most games of any site? Is it possible to get pre-made time demos for that many games?
 
chameleoneel said:
Yeah, I dunno. I haven't been able to figure out what was going on. I'm not pledging allegiance to Xbit or anything. How do you know they use canned tests? they tend to benchmark the most games of any site? Is it possible to get pre-made time demos for that many games?
Click to expand...

http://www.xbitlabs.com/articles/video/display/gainward-bliss8800gt-1024gs_6.html#sect0
Performance was measured with the games’ own tools and the original demos were recorded if possible.
Click to expand...
 
FragMan said:
This is what i think.

BIG TOYS like 30 inch screen gamers. GET a 1GB card or Crossfire X, or SLI. when doing 2560x1600

Anyone with 22" inches and under dont bother.

If youre [H]ard enough to go 30 get a serious card and spend the serious bucks.

for many of us this is our hobby. Your gonna spend on what makes you happy. Youre gonna need/want a1GB card. face it resistance is futile! lol
Click to expand...

Remember that adding 2x 512Mb cards together doesn't give you 1Gb for SLI or Xfire, the memory on each card is loaded with the same data.

The agument here is that is 512Mb enough or not, if indeed its the memory that turns out to be the bottleneck in some games then simply adding another card in SLI or Xfire isnt really going to help.

As well as AoC and CoD4 and all the other games I mentioned above, Assassins Creed also runs at 2560x1600 very smooth, all max settings in DX10.
 
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