How long till 1GB of vram is not enough?

[qubit]

i dunno. its an MSI brand

download GPU-Z from here and that should tell you if you have 1536 MB (1.5 GB) or 3072 MB (3 GB) Model

The driver control panel also tells you - click on System Information at the bottom left of the window.

 

[Jeffredo]

Its a bit frustrating - I can fill up 1GB with Skyrim on Ultra @ 1680x1050. The GTX 460 @ 875 Mhz has the power to run that setting and rez, its the VRAM filling up after ten minutes or so that leads to stutter. Prior to that its running between 45-60 FPS.

 

[Aquinus]

Honestly, my rig doesn't slow down too much for very long if I exceed 1gb. It may have something to do with the quad-channel main memory though, since that's a lot of bandwidth to swap video memory and two full 16x PCI-E channels for each video card. Not to say it won't slow down, but I think it doesn't slow down as much as other machines running with dual-channel setups and PCI-E bandwidth impacts loading speeds to the video card more than anything else. So I guess the faster you can swap that memory out, the less impact you will notice from it. I can't complain too much.

 

[Dent1]

Its a bit frustrating - I can fill up 1GB with Skyrim on Ultra @ 1680x1050. The GTX 460 @ 875 Mhz has the power to run that setting and rez, its the VRAM filling up after ten minutes or so that leads to stutter. Prior to that its running between 45-60 FPS.

You are simply exceeding your main physical ram (8GB) is my bet and its probably causing your HDD to compensate.

Play Skyrim and when it stutters, press CTRL + ALT + DEL and do a print screen of your resources and show me. I bet it's almost exceeding 8GB.

 

[n-ster]

for 2560x1440, def not enough

 

[Disparia]

Strictly speaking I don't need more than 1GB for gaming at 1920x1200, but could certainly take advantage of more.

Next card will be 2GB or greater.

 

[blibba]

It depends on the game. My 9800GTX+ rig has 512MB GDDR3, and has yet to run into any problems at 1440*900 4xAA or 2048*1152 2*AA. That includes Skyrim (+texture patch), SCII, Crysis and Metro 2033, though admittedly not at maxed out settings.

 

[D007]

I say now.. Actually right now is that time.. Games are exceeding 1 gb useage on a fairly regular basis..

 

[Jeffredo]

You are simply exceeding your main physical ram (8GB) is my bet and its probably causing your HDD to compensate.

Play Skyrim and when it stutters, press CTRL + ALT + DEL and do a print screen of your resources and show me. I bet it's almost exceeding 8GB.

I'll give it a try next time I play, but I can use the console command "PCB" (purge cell buffer) and it instantly smooths out. I really doubt I'm exceeding 8GB of system RAM.

 

[Mussels]

I'll give it a try next time I play, but I can use the console command "PCB" (purge cell buffer) and it instantly smooths out. I really doubt I'm exceeding 8GB of system RAM.

you wont be. the games 32 bit so it CANT go over 4GB.

 

[INSTG8R]

As I discovered today running Skyrim even without the texture patch(I'm behind a little and am downloading it now) On Ultra Skyrim is definitely using over 1GB of VRAM unmodded.

 

[Dent1]

you wont be. the games 32 bit so it CANT go over 4GB.

Not Skyrim but overall system resource, including Skyrim.

Windows 7 is using 3.71GB sitting here right now.If load up any game I would be almost touching 8GB total.

 

[eidairaman1]

Not Skyrim but overall system resource, including Skyrim.

Windows 7 is using 3.71GB sitting here right now.If load up any game I would be almost touching 8GB total.

sounds like a memory leak somewhere, less if the coding is designed to expand as more memory is in the system...

 

[Dent1]

sounds like a memory leak somewhere, less if the coding is designed to expand as more memory is in the system...

Nah, no memory leak. I keep only the essential background processes alive. It's just the more memory you have the more Windows caches. Remember i've got 16GB total and hard disk page filing is disabled. My feeling is a lot of you guys whom have 4GB and 8GB are running into trouble with Skyrim is because windows is always writing to the HDD.

 

[eidairaman1]

Nah, no memory leak. I keep only the essential background processes alive. It's just the more memory you have the more Windows caches. Remember i've got 16GB total and hard disk page filing is diasbled. My feeling is a lot of you guys whom have 4GB and 8GB are running into trouble with Skyrim is because windows is always writing to the HDD.

ya i used to do that in XP to reduce the footprint for gaming, but 7 processes are a lil more unpredictable

 

[repman244]

Not Skyrim but overall system resource, including Skyrim.

Windows 7 is using 3.71GB sitting here right now.If load up any game I would be almost touching 8GB total.

3.7GB Both my desktop and my laptop have 8GB of RAM and usually sit around 1.8GB of usage...

 

[yogurt_21]

using 2.8GB out of 8GB sitting mostly idle on my work pc right now. Biggest thing running is internet explorer.

 

[Dent1]

3.7GB Both my desktop and my laptop have 8GB of RAM and usually sit around 1.8GB of usage...

using 2.8GB out of 8GB sitting mostly idle on my work pc right now. Biggest thing running is internet explorer.

You've got lesss memory to cache, so windows simply doesn't cache as much.

lol. It wasnt after a fresh boot. At the time I said it my computer was running for 24+ hours and I had about a few internet explorer windows open. I use the CMD > fsutil behavior set memoryusage option to further increase the amount of data cached into RAM.


http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/windows-vista/increase-the-filesystem-memory-cache-size-in-vista/

 

[phanbuey]

When does the next XBOX come out? - bout that long.

 

[Jeffredo]

Here's the stats with vanilla Skyrim on Ultra @ 1680x1050. After about 30 minutes (and going through a lot of doors in Riften which finally started the stuttering until the game could clear its buffer):

Idle: Memory committed: 1671 MB
Load: Memory committed : 4769 MB

GPU Memory used: 1016 MB

I knew I wasn't maxing my system memory (or even coming remotely close).

 

[repman244]

You've got lesss memory to cache, so windows simply doesn't cache as much.

lol. It wasnt after a fresh boot. At the time I said it my computer was running for 24+ hours and I had about a few internet explorer windows open. I use the CMD > fsutil behavior set memoryusage option to further increase the amount of data cached into RAM.


http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/windows-vista/increase-the-filesystem-memory-cache-size-in-vista/

And I wasn't talking about a fresh boot as well, my laptop is now running for almost 6 days. I didn't know about caching so that explains the higher usage.
However isn't it a bit "dangerous" to run with no page file?

 

[Dent1]

Here's the stats with vanilla Skyrim on Ultra @ 1680x1050. After about 30 minutes (and going through a lot of doors in Riften which finally started the stuttering until the game could clear its buffer):

Idle: Memory committed: 1671 MB
Load: Memory committed : 4769 MB

GPU Memory used: 1016 MB

I knew I wasn't maxing my system memory (or even coming remotely close).

^ Which software are you using to monitor the game?

However isn't it a bit "dangerous" to run with no page file?

Not at all. Never had any adverse affects. Page file decreases the overall performance, if you've got enough ram there is no benefit having it enabled.

 

[Aquinus]

Not at all. Never had any adverse affects. Page file decreases the overall performance, if you've got enough ram there is no benefit having it enabled.

I have the paging file disabled with 16gb of memory and it's working out pretty well. Just have to make sure not to use up all 16gb and if I do, that's just an excuse to add another 16gb to the 4 slots I'm not already using.

 

[Benetanegia]

Its a bit frustrating - I can fill up 1GB with Skyrim on Ultra @ 1680x1050. The GTX 460 @ 875 Mhz has the power to run that setting and rez, its the VRAM filling up after ten minutes or so that leads to stutter. Prior to that its running between 45-60 FPS.

When that happens to me I just ALT+TAB out to desktop and then into the game again and it fixes it. Takes 2 seconds. It doesn't happen every 10 minutes to me tho, only every once in a while. Same card, lower clocks here.

I doubt it's related to low memory amount anyway, rather a memory leak and basically bad code. Bethsoft as never been good at that.

 

[Aquinus]

When that happens to me I just ALT+TAB out to desktop and then into the game again and it fixes it. Takes 2 seconds. It doesn't happen every 10 minutes to me tho, only every once in a while. Same card, lower clocks here.

I doubt it's related to low memory amount anyway, rather a memory leak and basically bad code. Bethsoft as never been good at that.

Half of the reason I replaced my Phenom II 940 is because the memory controller was a little lacking. It had plenty of CPU horse power but some games were slowing down and overclocking memory was the only thing that made some games run faster (like SC2.)