What is the max resolution that 256 MB VRAM can support without stuttering?

[GSquadron]

Hello! Every answer and opinion is welcomed

 

[angelkiller]

It depends on alot of things. Mainly, A) The game because different games need more or less vRAM depending on how they're coded. B) The amount of post-processing. I may be using the wrong term here, but I'm talking about image enhancements such as AF and AA. More of this increases memory usage. C) The resolution.

All three of those variables can affect whether or not you can play a game at a certain resolution. For example, you might be able to play older games at some huge resolution, but newer games will be a slideshow at that resolution.

Then that gets into another issue. Most of the time you'll be GPU bound before you run our of vRAM. In other words, your GPU simply won't be powerful enough to run the game at an acceptable framerate, even though you have extra vRAM to spare. I would think that this situation happens most of the time becasue I can't think of many situations where a card performs badly becasue it ran out of vRAM.

If you want general estimates, here they are, but note that they are very general and may or may not be accurate due to the reasons I've explained above. But generally, 256MB of ram should be able to handle nearly all games up to 1680x1050, without vRAM issues. But that's assuming your GPU is powerful enough to run that resolution.

Hopefully that helps.

 

[marvelous211]

1280x1024 without AA.. I think most games would handle that without any AA.

 

[Melcar]

With most games you'll probably be able to do 1280x1024 with no AA. My kid brother has an old hd3850 256MB and he can play all of his games (recently it's DA:O and ME2) at that resolution with everything high (no AA of course). Crysis Warhead is also somewhat playable at medium.

 

[DonInKansas]

Minesweeper at 1920x1200 ftmfw!

 

[mlee49]

There is no one answer here. A 256MB card can support 2560x1600, the 8800GTS can. It probably doesn't stutter in WoW or CS Source.

On the other hand a 2GB Vram card can support the same resolution but stutter very badly when playing Crysis or the like.

See what I'm getting at here? There's more than one variable at play here, your resolution and what you consider to be 'stuttering' for a certain game/appplication.

 

[afw]

well as everyone here have said .. it mainly depends on the game ... i have played crysis @ 1440x900 @ low settings with my 7600GT-256mb ... that means i can play others @ medium-high settings @ 1440x900 ...

 

[Nick259]

1280x1024 without AA.. I think most games would handle that without any AA.

I'd say this is right.

 

[Mussels]

it depends on the games more than anything.

assuming you're even talking about games, your post was very... brief.

 

[GSquadron]

From a review about 5770 512 and 1 Gb version here in techpowerup, it showed clearly that there was no difference, except that in some cases the 1Gb version was 1 frame ahead
I dont thing the 256 vram is important, only the gpu type. I remember ati 9250 se 128 mb version was much better than nvidia 6100 256mb. So I guess that gpu is now 7600 gs 256 gddr3 version.
I wanted to open this thread about my gpu, but than changed my mind and made it for all people to share their experiences. In some cases assasin's creed stutters clearly in 1024x768, but there are games that even 1280x1024 never stutter, but i am talking without AA.

 

[Fourstaff]

Crysis at 480X320 with everything maxed out.

 

[Mussels]

From a review about 5770 512 and 1 Gb version here in techpowerup, it showed clearly that there was no difference, except that in some cases the 1Gb version was 1 frame ahead
I dont thing the 256 vram is important, only the gpu type. I remember ati 9250 se 128 mb version was much better than nvidia 6100 256mb. So I guess that gpu is now 7600 gs 256 gddr3 version.
I wanted to open this thread about my gpu, but than changed my mind and made it for all people to share their experiences. In some cases assasin's creed stutters clearly in 1024x768, but there are games that even 1280x1024 never stutter, but i am talking without AA.

Vram is very important. Your mistake lies within assuming it would make the FPS higher - that is not the case. You get stuttering and sharp performance drops when it goes above your available memory - its not a case of "1GB gets 5 FPS more", its "512MB suddenly drops to 10FPS and stutters, 1GB stays the same" when you pass that limit.