32 bit vs 64 bit: How it relates to video cards

[El_Mayo]

Originally Posted by Mussels

cod MW2 uses 950MB at 1920x1080 with 16xaa (thats what the user said/GPU-Z reported)

if you were to run it at 1280x1024 with no AA, it'd probably use <512MB (and thus, less than 512MB to be duplicated into system ram) - leaving you 1GB+ free for the game to run crash free

I GET IT NOW

[DaedalusHelios]

Originally Posted by Mussels

cod MW2 uses 950MB at 1920x1080 with 16xaa (thats what the user said/GPU-Z reported)

if you were to run it at 1280x1024 with no AA, it'd probably use <512MB (and thus, less than 512MB to be duplicated into system ram) - leaving you 1GB+ free for the game to run crash free

The system in my specs and with no background processes MW2 crashes. I would think 2.2GB of ram free with an i7 920 3Ghz and a 4890 1GB would be enough...

Tried multiple graphics drivers and everything is 24/7 stable ocording to the stress test Prime95 and ATi GPU stress tests.

[Mussels]

Originally Posted by DaedalusHelios

The system in my specs and with no background processes MW2 crashes. I would think 2.2GB of ram free with an i7 920 3Ghz and a 4890 1GB would be enough...

Tried multiple graphics drivers and everything is 24/7 stable ocording to the stress test Prime95 and ATi GPU stress tests.

as an example

at max graphics, roughly 1GB in use (from previous example) + 1GB of duplication (DX9 game) = 1GB free

I dont know how much ram it uses, but that 1GB may not be enough, with the OS/background apps eating into some


In your case i'd say lower/remove the AA, and manually set your page file to 4GB min/max (so that the OS can move stuff there, leaving more ram for the game)

[DaedalusHelios]

There is no way they would require more than 3GB's of ram to run the game in vista. When vista launches a game the OS uses less ram to free it up for the game I have heard. But even if thats not true, vista only uses 800mbs of ram on my i7's when I am browsing the internet. So thats 2.2GB's of ram for the game. I only run 4x AA and 8xAF at 1080p with MW2. I don't see how it could need more. Fallout 3 doesn't use that much ram and draws out into the distance at the max setting without a problem. It just strikes me as a game problem and not a ram problem in the case of MW2.

[Mussels]

Originally Posted by DaedalusHelios

There is no way they would require more than 3GB's of ram to run the game in vista. When vista launches a game the OS uses less ram to free it up for the game I have heard. But even if thats not true, vista only uses 800mbs of ram on my i7's when I am browsing the internet. So thats 2.2GB's of ram for the game. I only run 4x AA and 8xAF at 1080p with MW2. I don't see how it could need more. Fallout 3 doesn't use that much ram and draws out into the distance at the max setting without a problem.

its system ram + video ram (twice, with DX9 being as it is)


How much video ram it uses is more important - and thats not shown anywhere in task manager

rather than say how you dont get the theory, try what i said. more page file, no AA. see if it helps.

every computer i've played the game on was crash free, and they all had 6GB + of combined page file + system ram (4GB of sys ram was minimum in every machine)

[DaedalusHelios]

Originally Posted by Mussels

its system ram + video ram (twice, with DX9 being as it is)


How much video ram it uses is more important - and thats not shown anywhere in task manager

rather than say how you dont get the theory, try what i said. more page file, no AA. see if it helps.

every computer i've played the game on was crash free, and they all had 6GB + of combined page file + system ram (4GB of sys ram was minimum in every machine)

Well, my brother's computer runs it crash free with the same setup except its using a GTX280 instead of a 4890. So maybe its just ATi's crappy drivers again idk. I maintain both computers the same but I only update his graphics drivers every two months. He doesn't know how to do it himself so he has to wait.

But when the 4890 i7 computer crashes it doesn't say display driver failure ecetera, it just freezes and I ctrl+alt+delete to task manager to close it.

[Mussels]

Originally Posted by DaedalusHelios

Well, my brother's computer runs it crash free with the same setup except its using a GTX280 instead of a 4890. So maybe its just ATi's crappy drivers again idk. I maintain both computers the same but I only update his graphics drivers every two months. He doesn't know how to do it himself so he has to wait.

But when the 4890 i7 computer crashes it doesn't say display driver failure ecetera, it just freezes and I ctrl+alt+delete to task manager to close it.

3 of the 4 systems i've had no crashes on are ATI 4K series. 4870, 4870 crossfire, radeon 3200 IGP and radeon 4200 IGP. its not exactly every one of their GPU's, but i've messed around with a lot of drivers between them - and i could never make them crash (all vista/7 x64, all 4GB of ram + static 2-4GB page files)

[DaedalusHelios]

Originally Posted by Mussels

3 of the 4 systems i've had no crashes on are ATI 4K series. 4870, 4870 crossfire, radeon 3200 IGP and radeon 4200 IGP. its not exactly every one of their GPU's, but i've messed around with a lot of drivers between them - and i could never make them crash (all vista/7 x64, all 4GB of ram + static 2-4GB page files)

So are you saying page file management always does the trick for you and that is where it is having a problem? If so, I will check it out.

[Mussels]

Originally Posted by DaedalusHelios

So are you saying page file management always does the trick for you and that is where it is having a problem? If so, I will check it out.

it may be. its something i've always set since the XP days, and it makes sense that if low ram is an issue, page file could be related.

[Wrigleyvillain]

I am running out of RAM (have 4GB and a GTX 280 1GB) playing Risen with a hi-res texture pack under Win 7 x64. Disabling a few services to free up mem and or removing the pack remedies the issue which is a Smartheap error crash. What's kind of strange though is that this did not happen with my 4870 which also has 1GB. GPU-Z reports the game is using 973MB w pack last time I checked.

[DaedalusHelios]

While running WCG it says:

Page file 2079M/6356M
Does that mean I have a ton of Page File allocated already... would that mean when everything is off including WCG except my game, I have a ton free? Just curious if that means anything.

[Mussels]

Originally Posted by DaedalusHelios

While running WCG it says:

Page file 2079M/6356M
Does that mean I have a ton of Page File allocated already... would that mean when everything is off including WCG except my game, I have a ton free? Just curious if that means anything.

what i've found over the years is that when you leave it on dynamic, it shrinks on you sometimes - and it cant make itself big enough, fast enough, which leads to some apps crashing (its rare, but MW2 does seem to be quite the RAM hog)

[3volvedcombat]

Lets say i have 2 GTX 260's in SLI and a 8400gs

^^^ Notice the p45, with 3 video cards, Sli hacked, and silly 4Ghz quad

I only have 2gb of ddr2 Pc8500 in my rig, and yet i have 3 video cards, 2 in sli and 1 in physx. Im on Vista x64 bit Ultimate, the only games im stuttering in, is GTA 4 and thats it, so do i need more system ram, because im ready to upgrade to 4gb of system ram, becaue i love gta 4 that much

[Mussels]

i know that SLI doesnt add ram, so whatever is used on card 1 will be used + duplicated.

the card you're using for PhsyX, should only use its ram and nothing more. it wont be running DX9 (rather, CUDA) so it wont be duplicated into system ram.

[3volvedcombat]

Originally Posted by Mussels

i know that SLI doesnt add ram, so whatever is used on card 1 will be used + duplicated.

the card you're using for PhsyX, should only use its ram and nothing more. it wont be running DX9 (rather, CUDA) so it wont be duplicated into system ram.

Ya im ganna buy a fresh gt240-220 and overclock it
Right when the UPS guy comes knocking, im going to open the card box, take pictures, walk to the garage, get the demel out and grind that sucker to pci-e x1, so i can have a proper card for physx, and performance wont be hacked almost at all for a 48-96 stream processor card.

8400gs is useliss for physx but its nice to run what you modded just to run it .

[yogurt_21]

hmm was just talking with programmer at work and he claims the info in ths thread to be incorrect.

he states that directx can be coded to duplicate the video memory in the system memory but it is only done by smaller applications or in situaitons where you are dealing with unlimited memory.

he says that most games then will not use this practice.


I guess a simple test then would be to try running the same amount of system mem as your gpu has and seeing if the game plays normally or stutters.

unfortuantely for me I only have a 512mb card and my smallest ddr2 stick is 1gb.

[Mussels]

Originally Posted by yogurt_21

hmm was just talking with programmer at work and he claims the info in ths thread to be incorrect.

he states that directx can be coded to duplicate the video memory in the system memory but it is only done by smaller applications or in situaitons where you are dealing with unlimited memory.

he says that most games then will not use this practice.


I guess a simple test then would be to try running the same amount of system mem as your gpu has and seeing if the game plays normally or stutters.

unfortuantely for me I only have a 512mb card and my smallest ddr2 stick is 1gb.

if theres methods to program against it, why isnt it the default? I do link to articles (some from MS) saying that one of the key aspects of DX10 is to reduce memory use, by negating the need for the duplicate

[yogurt_21]

Originally Posted by Mussels

if theres methods to program against it, why isnt it the default? I do link to articles (some from MS) saying that one of the key aspects of DX10 is to reduce memory use, by negating the need for the duplicate

actually it's funny you should bring that up as i took advantage of the steam sale and got the jedi knight pack. In dark forces 2 (1997) in the graphics settings you can select and deselect the memory duplication. I'll post a screenie of it tonight.

from what my programmer tells me newer games (since 2000) by default do not duplicate the vga memory in system memory. And you do realize that MS could simply be taking credit for what the game industry already did. As from what I've seen dx10 in no way uses less memory then dx9. you of course can test that with any dx10 game.

[Mussels]

Originally Posted by yogurt_21

actually it's funny you should bring that up as i took advantage of the steam sale and got the jedi knight pack. In dark forces 2 (1997) in the graphics settings you can select and deselect the memory duplication. I'll post a screenie of it tonight.

from what my programmer tells me newer games (since 2000) by default do not duplicate the vga memory in system memory. And you do realize that MS could simply be taking credit for what the game industry already did. As from what I've seen dx10 in no way uses less memory then dx9. you of course can test that with any dx10 game.

i cannot rule this out. it is certainly possible - but i've seen no proof either way.


So far we know that DX9 *can* duplicate into system memory, and due to MS's documents it sounds like its default behaviour - they wouldnt tout windows 7's new WDDM1.1 as having better performance due to not duplicating ram like windows vistas WDDM 1.0 (DX10 vs DX9), if they could already do it in DX9


summary: based on microsofts documentation and logic, it seems like DX9 definitely duplicates ram. This however does not rule out situations where it is NOT duplicated - its poorly documented.

[Goodman]

Originally Posted by 3volvedcombat

Ya im ganna buy a fresh gt240-220 and overclock it
Right when the UPS guy comes knocking, im going to open the card box, take pictures, walk to the garage, get the demel out and grind that sucker to pci-e x1, so i can have a proper card for physx, and performance wont be hacked almost at all for a 48-96 stream processor card.

8400gs is useliss for physx but its nice to run what you modded just to run it .

DON'T cut the card , cut the PCI-e 1x open so the card will fit in , see the link

http://www.tomshardware.com/forum/249291-30-card

[cadaveca]

Originally Posted by Mussels

i cannot rule this out. it is certainly possible - but i've seen no proof either way.


So far we know that DX9 *can* duplicate into system memory, and due to MS's documents it sounds like its default behaviour - they wouldnt tout windows 7's new WDDM1.1 as having better performance due to not duplicating ram like windows vistas WDDM 1.0 (DX10 vs DX9), if they could already do it in DX9


summary: based on microsofts documentation and logic, it seems like DX9 definitely duplicates ram. This however does not rule out situations where it is NOT duplicated - its poorly documented.

I read an interview with some exec from ATI who stated that the 5-series still keeps copies of vga ram in system ram, due to hardware design, not software. He was speaking about how the 5-series doesn't have a unified cache or really a unified buffer(memcontrol is 4x64-bit, not really 256 bit as suggested), and said it was nessecary to keep the system ram copy for times when needed data could not be properly accessed due to the actual buffer where the data resides being busy.

I searched high and low for that article, but could not find it last night...I'll look for it today and post a link later.

[Super XP]

I have a question. I have 8GB of DDR2 memory and 512MB GDDR5 HD 4870 x 2 in Crossfire X. How would this relate to gaming. Am I still memory deficient?

I am sure I have enough ram for gaming. But just curious.

[Mussels]

Originally Posted by Super XP

I have a question. I have 8GB of DDR2 memory and 512MB GDDR5 HD 4870 x 2 in Crossfire X. How would this relate to gaming. Am I still memory deficient?

I am sure I have enough ram for gaming. But just curious.

you'd be capped to 2GB per app on a 32 bit OS, as for 64 bit (with 32 bit games) you're raised to a 4GB cap - including only 1GB of the video ram (second cards ram isnt used in crossfire, therefore no address space used)

[Ahhzz]

Originally Posted by Mussels

..... (second cards ram isnt used in crossfire, therefore no address space used)

Really. I didn't realize that... How about Nvidia Chipsets, or did I miss that statement earlier in the thread?

[Mussels]

Originally Posted by Ahhzz

Really. I didn't realize that... How about Nvidia Chipsets, or did I miss that statement earlier in the thread?

SLI and crossfire behave the same way.

Some small amount of ram/address space may be used, but it'd be small and insignificant.