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Does 120hz vs. 60hz affect VRAM usage?

A

Ajiki-kun

Limp Gawd
Joined
Mar 7, 2012
Messages
484
I understand that VRAM amount comes into play at higher resolutions, like how the 2gb vs. 3gb debate only really affects those above 1080p (so not me)

But what about at 120hz? Does higher fps/hz affect VRAM usage?
 
It seems to me that unless you were running 3D, it would not matter. The ram would simply be accessed twice as often. If running 3d you would be rendering twice as much which would mean more ram (I would assume most objects would not need to be duplicated in memory).
 
3D is the same thing as 120 Hz, from the hardware's perspective. You're simply rendering double the frames. It's when you're running larger resolutions and higher AA that requires higher vRAM. Custom mods and increasing view distance can also increase vRAM usage.

@jdraughn: When running 3D, the display runs at 120 Hz, and the graphics card alternates outputting left and right frames. The glasses will block the right eye when the left image is displayed, and vice versa, resulting an overall feel of 60 Hz. That's why all 3D displays are at least 120 Hz.
 
No, that's like saying running at 60fps requires more VRAM than 30fps. It's simply a matter of overall video power. However, running in 3D requires a bit more VRAM because the video card is ACTUALLY keeping both the right and left eye images in VRAM until they are sent to the display, whereas with normal 2d after a frame is sent, it is truncated (unless otherwise specified by the rendering engine).
 
Are you 100% certain about that? There's no reason I can think of why maintaining a deeper swap chain for stereoscopic support would be necessary.
 
You have to realise, the monitor is displaying at 120hz, yet the game may only be rendering at 24-50 fps. The monitor can't just slow down the 3D refresh, and say render 24 fps 3d (which would be 48hz) instead, in that 24th of a second the monitor still alternates between the left and right images at 120 hz. Let me explain more technically:

The monitor will ALWAYS be swapping out between left and right images at 120hz, 60 fps per eye. Lets say the game is only rendering at 30 fps, that means in one 30th of a second, the same two images for the left and right eye are displayed twice. It gets more complicated in the odd frame rates, for a random example 54FPS, where it is so close to the maximum 60FPS 3D 120hz allows. Its so close but occasionally the right or left image will have to be repeated every second or so because the video card simply cant push the 60fps to equal smooth 1-to-1 with every refresh, so occasionally that duplicate frame is needed. that is why both frames are stored in VRAM.

That, and when an application crashes/hangs in 3D, the image still refreshes between right and left eyes, thus proving that both frames are still stored on hardware.
 
Thanks for the replies.

I kinda get the principle for how it works in stereo 3d, but how much would that practically raise VRAM usage by? Are we talking GBs worth of ram here?
 
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