People say VRAM doesn't matter?

[Master&Puppet]

I'm gonna highjack this thread a bit with something i've been wondering about VRAM.

Next gen consoles (i know, i know) have got what, 5-7gb of RAM available for games right? Is this a reasonable indication of what games will start to demand over the next few years? I know there are a lot of factors that go into this, as the consoles both support 4K TVs, and the graphics processors are fairly mid-range anyway, but i've just been wondering whether 2gb will be enough to keep up in the coming years, even for running games on standard 1080 resolutions. Are we gonna see 4-6gb VRAM becoming more of the "minimum" fairly soon, or am i way off the mark?

That's slightly different. The consoles do not have dedicated VRAM. They both have 8gb of RAM which is shared by the platform and the graphics card. On PCs most of us have 8gb of RAM and the graphics card has it's own dedicated VRAM.

 

[pete21121]

I figured because it was in a similar vein it wasn't worth another thread, and i was expecting the answer to be fairly basic.

I was just wondering whether that extra RAM would give the consoles some sort of edge over a card that was limited to say, 2gb. I know the graphics processors themselves don't come close to current high-end PC GPUs, but just curious as to what it might mean for games, seeing as development is driven primarily by consoles.

 

[pete21121]

That's slightly different. The consoles do not have dedicated VRAM. They both have 8gb of RAM which is shared by the platform and the graphics card. On PCs most of us have 8gb of RAM and the graphics card has it's own dedicated VRAM.

That's what i thought. 8gb total RAM vs 2gb-4gb VRAM and 8gb+ system RAM.

Just i've seen this discussed in huge threads on different forums, and i thought the answer should really be much simpler haha.

Cheers dude.

 

[NeverBackDown]

That's slightly different. The consoles do not have dedicated VRAM. They both have 8gb of RAM which is shared by the platform and the graphics card. On PCs most of us have 8gb of RAM and the graphics card has it's own dedicated VRAM.

PS4 has a system ram of 8gb GDRR5. So it has a system dedicated vram where a xbox one has 8gb DDR3 ram also dedicated to the system. So most of us are already on par with xbone. Ps4 on the other hand none of us are

Not saying your wrong but just clarifying.

 

[Netroxen]

Yes, VRAM does effect performance at higher resolutions however it doesn't directly impair performance at standard resolutions 720/1080. This is part of the old-time sales trick for lower/mid ranged graphics cards. The manufacture will always advertise a large amount of VRAM (Say 1GB on an x1650 - Which was massive back then) on a card that has a small bus width and a slow gpu. Essentially the slower the gpu, the less likely it is to take full advantage of a memory pool because it simply can't process and dump cached files fast enough to fill the memory up.

For theories sake, imagine we had a gpu that was blisteringly fast, if it was fast enough 256/512mb of memory would be sufficient for most modern day games because the gpu would be processing the information faster than the memory is being filled - Hence memory is and old-times sale trick and doesn't necessarily mean better performance.

Memory speed and bus width on the other-hand, is far more important...

 

[vorticalbox]

Yes, VRAM does effect performance at higher resolutions however it doesn't directly impair performance at standard resolutions 720/1080. This is part of the old-time sales trick for lower/mid ranged graphics cards. The manufacture will always advertise a large amount of VRAM (Say 1GB on an x1650 - Which was massive back then) on a card that has a small bus width and a slow gpu. Essentially the slower the gpu, the less likely it is to take full advantage of a memory pool because it simply can't process and dump cached files fast enough to fill the memory up.

For theories sake, imagine we had a gpu that was blisteringly fast, if it was fast enough 256/512mb of memory would be sufficient for most modern day games because the gpu would be processing the information faster than the memory is being filled - Hence memory is and old-times sale trick and doesn't necessarily mean better performance.

Memory speed and bus width on the other-hand, is far more important...

I have the x1650 pro lol but it's 512MB and upto 1GB using system memory (attached picture just for the lolz)

Same in PC World when they try and sell you more RAM, better to have a slighter less but faster RAM then more slow RAM.

 

[NeverBackDown]

Same in PC World when they try and sell you more RAM, better to have a slighter less but faster RAM then more slow RAM.

Not always but sometimes yes. :mellow:

 

[Netroxen]

PcWorld, a word synonymous amongst the satanic worshipers. Last time I went in there they were selling a PNY GTX 260 on the shelf, hello but incase you hadn't noticed, this is 2013.

 

[Vicey]

Generally speaking if you're getting close to pushing 3GB of VRAM on a midrange card the GPU is probably not up to the task. That is to say if a game is demanding that much memory the poor midrange GPU certainly isn't going to keep up with a game of that calibres general graphic intensiveness.

But that isn't a hard rule there are exceptions obviously. VRAM can matter a lot especially at the high end of gaming using very high pixel density displays or multiple displays. I found 1.5GB for multiple displays to be too little and in games like Battlefield 3 even my players gun would disappear and re-appear over and over again as the game tried to load in and out textures. I have no such issue with my newer 780's that have 3GB of VRAM however.

 

[ShaunB-91]

Just to clarify, unless I missed something at E3, next gen consoles don't support 4K. Well Sony said that it won't be supporting 4K for games and movies but you can for photos. :S

It was on a interview with some dude from Sony that was lurking around GameSpot somewhere.

 

[vorticalbox]

Just to clarify, unless I missed something at E3, next gen consoles don't support 4K. Well Sony said that it won't be supporting 4K for games and movies but you can for photos. :S

It was on a interview with some dude from Sony that was lurking around GameSpot somewhere.

"The Xbox One will support 4K resolution (3840×2160) video output and 7.1 surround sound. Yusuf Mehdi, corporate vice president of marketing and strategy for Microsoft, has stated that there is no hardware restriction that would prevent games from running at 4K resolution."

nothing is stopping devs using 4k for games on the xbox if they so wish.

 

[ShaunB-91]

Is this the same on PS4? The article I read was before E3, so I don't know if they announced something then. But PS4 did say it would only be photos. I will try and find it now and post a link.

Sod that, typed PS4 4K on GameSpot and loads of results came up, from the headlines title some say it will, others say just movies, others say games. Will never find the article from GameStop themselves.

 

[nepas]

Is this the same on PS4? The article I read was before E3, so I don't know if they announced something then. But PS4 did say it would only be photos. I will try and find it now and post a link.

Sod that, typed PS4 4K on GameSpot and loads of results came up, from the headlines title some say it will, others say just movies, others say games. Will never find the article from GameStop themselves.

it was for movies only not games(that was was the reveal earlier in the year).

 

[NeverBackDown]

They can display 4k games. But that will max out the console and everything else won't look so great. Both can display photos and movies in 4k. Movies are filmed at 4k @ 24fps so it's really not hard to view.

 

[vorticalbox]

They can display 4k games. But that will max out the console and everything else won't look so great. Both can display photos and movies in 4k. Movies are filmed at 4k @ 24fps so it's really not hard to view.

they will likely use hardware up-scaling to 4 k.

 

[NeverBackDown]

they will likely use hardware up-scaling to 4 k.

Obviously...:huh:

 

[vorticalbox]

Obviously...:huh:

yeah, bit obvious my bad, and 4k on an xbox which are known to be hot....

red ring anyone?

 

[NeverBackDown]

After reading many different articles on Xbone yesterday, M$ have made it so big to allow as much cooling as possible along with very low acoustics. And also because they think it's attractive.... Sarcasm if you didn't catch that.