NVidia VRAM limitation is damaging to Pc gaming - rant

[C1REX]

Rant post as Nvidia is really making me salty. They’ve done some weird voodoo magic to people who defend their ridiculously low amount of memory. 8GB is ridiculous. 12GB for mid-tier is absurd. 16GB for high-tier is insulting. And they allegedly plan to do the same for their next gen.

VRAM is the biggest request from devs to make games run and look better. It can help with stutters as well. Some people say that more VRAM can make a much bigger difference for games than more performance while costing less.

Recent Final Fantasy 16 is using almost 11GB at 1080p. Warhammer 40K: Space Marine 2 recently got an update - 90GB download with stunning 4K textures.

The game was beautiful at launch when using 8GB VRAM, but it’s jaw-droppingly impressive now but needs over 20GB of VRAM. Luckily, there is no penalty to performance.

https://youtu.be/S84bZaaSHTA?si=QhWsEgvvWD3NObVI

It will be depressing if Nvidia releases new GPUs with less memory than consoles. People will keep blaming devs for Nvidia's criminally low memory. :(

[De Hollandse Ezel]

firstly I agree with an earlier post this is what you should attack game developers for.

multiplatform games are wrong we should have pc only games.
but if you make them platform than when porting them to pc alter how theu use menory.. do not use vram like consoles shared ram.. use that ddr.!

and ram amount on cards is just fine

900 series in 2015
low end 960 2gb
mid end 970 & 980 : 4gb
high end 980ti : 6gb
extreme : titan x : 12gb.

if we presume upgrading very 2 generations

2000 series in 2019
low end 2060 : 6gb
mid end 2060s, 2070, 2080 : 8gb
high end 2080ti : 11gb
ultra : titan rtx : 24gb

a nice doubling of vram

4000 series in 2023
low end 4060 8gb
mid end 4060ti to 4080s : 12 or 16gb
ultra : 3090 : 24gb

still pretty much double.. but 4080s at 16gb should have gotten 24gb.. and 4090.... 48gb..
all other models have a perfectly fine amount for their class.

so its earlier in the highend nvidea has been ripping off with to little ram.

[_I_]

Originally posted by The_Abortionator:

Originally posted by _I_:

gpu with about half that of system ram has been a normal build for a long time

it is kinda the devs fault for not optimizing the games for pc
not using the system ram/vram effectively as they could
but instead making the game run good on console and assume an over specd' pc can do the same tricks

Trying to equate VRAM to system RAM. Theres no related ratio what so ever, thats not how this works.

but it is exactly how it works on consoles, which is what most pc games/ports now are

a gpu with about half of what is system ram, has always been kinda a mark
8g gpu with 16g system ram, was a good mix
now, 12-16g gpu with 24-32g system ram is still good mix

[C1REX]

Originally posted by De Hollandse Ezel:

Why would you like the RTX5060 to have potentially less memory than almost 4y old 3060 12GB?
Why would you prefer lower quality textures and more stutters in an already overpriced GPU?

[r.linder]

Originally posted by C1REX:

Originally posted by r.linder:

And yes AMD does do the same thing, the 7700-XT is a x70 tier card with 12GB yet the 7600-XT is 16GB... because they mirrored nVidia to cut costs on the 7600 and 7700-XT and compete with the 4060 Ti 16GB.

Lets be serous. By this logic 7900GRE, 7900XT and 7900XTX are all x90series cards. It's just a name that means nothing and AMD is a grand master in making up bad names. It's all about price.

3060 has 12GB and it's a good amount. 3070 has 8 and can't even run some games at 1080p or games have missing textures.

Prices according to pc part picker US:

3060 12GB - $265
3070 8GB - $430
4060 8GB - $284
4060Ti 8GB - $360
4060Ti 16GB - $430
4070 12GB - $490
4070 S 12GB - $590
4070Ti 12GB - $690
4070Ti S 12GB - $740
4080 (super) 16GB - $950

6600 8GB- $189
7600 8GB - $230
7600XT 16GB - $280
6700XT 12GB - $270 - (nice)
6750XT 12GB $290 - (nice)
7700XT 12GB - $370
7800XT 16GB - $440
7900GRE 16GB - $530
7900XT 20GB - $620
7900XTX 24GB - $830

Originally posted by r.linder:

Wrong, GamersNexus' testing easily concluded that the 7600-XT and 4060 Ti 16GB were unable to actually give great performance when running as much of their VRAM capacity as possible because they're too weak for that VRAM buffer.
MOAR VRAM!! does not mean MOAR BETTER!! when the core is too weak to keep up in the first place.

After 8GB version it was not possible to give 12GB as there were no 3GB modules at the time and you had to double to 16GB.

Also there are already games using 12GB at 1080p.
Many of them did the smart thing and hide VRAM limitation by secretly not giving you good textures ignoring your textures settings.

Here is a difference between 8 and 16GB.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rh7kFgHe21k

Why would anybody defend low VRAM when it's arguably the cheapest way to improve performance, visuals, stutters and lower development/optimisation time for devs? Games would feel so much better optimised if GPU had more vram. One of the reason why games can stutter is when they keep decompressing, loading and unloading data within small memory pool.

In the low end where pretty much every dollar counts to millions of people, I don't think they're going to care all that much about their GPU having 8GB VRAM as opposed to 12 or 16 when most of what they're going to play are the latest, most demanding, and overpriced games with developers too lazy to optimise their memory usage. They're also not going to complain when they can't see the finest little texture details at 1080p where everything is already so compressed that it looks like garbage compared to 2160p regardless.

I think gamers are starting to forget what games are actually about... you know, the gameplay?



I've been using a 3080 10GB for the last several years and you don't hear me complaining about the 10GB buffer because I haven't had any issues with it. For most of that time I watched VRAM usage and almost never saw it actually go above 8GB, only game I noticed it did and was also able to use 100% of the 10GB was Cyberpunk at 1440p without DLSS and settings cranked because I was comparing DLSS on vs off.

And what you fail to understand is that even if the 3070 had 12+ GB, it would still be too weak to handle those games at the same level detail as the 6800 because it's almost up to 30% slower than it regardless, that's why it performs so much better. The VRAM would've been wasted on it because it's just a weak card, people are still mad about the 3070 but it still wouldn't have made a positive difference to actual performance in frames per second, just texture compression.

[Mr White]

Yes they could bang up the Video Ram. Here is the problem AMD/NVIDIA sales are in the Mid range cards. And low end hence why the 4GB 1650 topped Steam Hardware list. The makers would take a loss if they lowered priced.

[AD]

I think focusing so much on graphics is detrimental to games overall and wish game devs worked more on making their games play well on lower end hardware.

[r.linder]

Originally posted by AD:

I think focusing so much on graphics is detrimental to games overall and wish game devs worked more on making their games play well on lower end hardware.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yOOk_rIzcgo

When game developers focus too much on higher end hardware every time something new comes out, they end up leaving out the poorest demographics in gaming when they could just do their job properly and optimise their games properly so everyone can enjoy them, not just the people who are buying GPUs with 16GB+ VRAM and overkill GPU cores. Video games are about the GAME, not flashier graphics every 2 years.

[SimicEngineer]

The elephant in the room is that AI workloads benefit disproportionately from VRAM capacity and throughput; there's an incentive for vendors to segment the product line along that axis, and they've clearly done so. That's why a 4060 Ti has markedly less throughput than a 3060 Ti, to the point that even some developers have specifically called it out for being a generational downgrade. That's why HBM is now exclusive to enterprise products despite previously appearing in enthusiast products (Radeon VII, Fury, Titan V). Current consumer GPUs max out at 24 GB because AMD and Nvidia designed everything to work with dual-rank 48 GB configurations for enterprise products and then forbid AIBs from putting more than one rank of chips on the board for consumer products (until they narrowly allowed it for 16GB 4060 Ti and 7600 XT). That's why Chinese hardware hackers are putting 48 GB on 3090s when EVGA never did.

And it's not like they're mustache-twirling cartoon villains trying to defraud us, it's just that there's such an absurd amount of money sloshing around in the AI space right now that they'd be stupid to not squeeze that bubble for all it's worth.

[Philco7a]

Intel makes a gen 5 PCIE GPU card and it's been out awhile 48 gigs memory, Max 1000 and 1100 series.
Sadly no video output, only for AI Data Centers. It's $37,000. lol

[C1REX]

Originally posted by Inspector:

Yes they could bang up the Video Ram. Here is the problem AMD/NVIDIA sales are in the Mid range cards. And low end hence why the 4GB 1650 topped Steam Hardware list. The makers would take a loss if they lowered priced.

And yet the #1 GPU on steam has 12GB.

[Iggy Wolf]

What good is all the VRAM and best GPU on the market if half the games these days come out as an unoptimized slop?! When you get games now, where people complain that their 4090 can't even do 60 FPS at 4K with DLSS Quality, then yeah, people are going to be rightfully pissed. Telling them that they SHOULDN'T expect top of the line performance for a top of the line card is ridiculous.

They paid as much as they did with the expectation and guarantee that it WILL run every game at the highest resolution. And WITHOUT needing to rely on crutch tech like FG just to get there. I don't remember anyone mocking Titan, 1080 Ti, or 2080 Ti users for expecting the best performance for having the best cards. That's why they ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ paid $1K-$2K for. It wasn't just so they can jerk off to having the best GPU. It's no surprise then that even mid-range cards aren't delivering on what they cost these days in relation to their performance.

[UserNotFound]

Guys, ever heard of 'planned obsolescence'?

[r.linder]

What planned obsolescence? People are still using old lower end cards like the GTX 1050 Ti, 1060, RX 570, and 580 (and even weaker cards), these cards are only obsolete if you let them be obsolete. A lot of people seem to be setting their expectations so high that they're never going to be satisfied...

[ChickenBalls]

I think Nvidia assume / expect the low end and mid range gpu owners to upgrade quite often
but yeah many newer games use more than 8GB vrarm even at 1080p ultra settings

Originally posted by UserNotFound:

Guys, ever heard of 'planned obsolescence'?

this

especially laptops
paying $2000-3000 for a laptop with RTX 4070 that only has 8GB Vram is laughable
while the 4050 only has 6gb
but I guess they are still better than Apple...

[The_Abortionator]

Originally posted by _I_:

Originally posted by The_Abortionator:

Trying to equate VRAM to system RAM. Theres no related ratio what so ever, thats not how this works.

but it is exactly how it works on consoles, which is what most pc games/ports now are

a gpu with about half of what is system ram, has always been kinda a mark
8g gpu with 16g system ram, was a good mix
now, 12-16g gpu with 24-32g system ram is still good mix

Again no, not at all. Thats a concept you made up.

This is one of those moments where you see what you think is a pattern and create a reason in your head.

32MB of VRAM was common for people who had 384MB of system RAM. Even 64MB of VRAM.

128MB of VRAM was also common for people with 384/512MB of RAM. (I even ran such a setup for years).

People were running 256MB VRAM cards with 1GB~2GB of RAM.

By the time people were running 1GB+ VRAM cards they were already running 4GB~8GB of RAM.

And this isn't even counting the 320MB, 640MB, 768MB, 896MB, 1280MB, 1536MB, VRAM GPUs. At no point in time were people ever running double those amounts for system RAM.

There is no correlation or optimal ratio between the two, period. You can even run with MORE VRAM than system RAM (which people already do and have for quite some time) and still get the benefit as they aren't related.

And as for consoles, again no. No such ratio between the two.

For most consoles the trend has been one shared pool of memory, and if not it was never a 2:1.

The PS1 had 1MB RAM and 1MB VRAM. Thats a 1:1 ratio.

The PS2 had 4MB of main VRAM and 32MB of RAM. Thats 8:1.

The PS3 had 256MB and 256MB. Thats 1:1 again.

The PS4/4 pro/5/5 pro all use a single RAM pool.

The Xbox had 1 RAM pool as did the 360 and the Xbone.

The XBSX and XBSS are the only asymmetric configured Xboxs to exist with BIGGER pools of faster RAM used for VRAM than slower RAM used as system RAM.

The N64 had a single pool of memory.

The GameCube has 3 pools of memory but to sum it up the faster pools make up most of the memory again being opposite of your ratio rule claim.

The Wii again with a weird configuration was about a 3:1.

The WiiU had two pools 1GB for system junk and 1GB for games in a unified manner.

The Switch has a 4GB pool of memory.

This trend pretty much continues.

VRAM amounts have NOTHING to do with system RAM amounts. There is no ratio. Period. Its not a thing.

The only things that dictate how much VRAM a card should have is what do modern games need (and for the foreseeable future), and what resolutions people play at. It has NOTHING to do with a ratio.

Even 1080p needs 12GB+ 1440p needs 12GB~16GB. None of this increases the need for system RAM, you can literally even have a 20GB card playing at max settings 4k 240hz and not be held back AT ALL by using 16GB of system RAM.