Why Nvidia is giving not enough VRAM? - rant.

[C1REX]

New GPUs were announced.

16GB for $1000+ just to match PS5 VRAM.
12GB for $550+ just to match the incoming Switch 2.

If the 5060 will have 8GB, it will match the PS4.

I understand and agree that many devs are doing a very bad job recently, but this tiny amount of memory for ridiculous money only makes it worse. Sure, games can be optimized for VRAM better, but it often comes at the cost of worse looking textures, stutters, or increased CPU demand for data streaming and decompression.

Nvidia tries to condition us into believing that VRAM is made of gold and ultra expensive. Same as what Apple does. Nintendo is super stingy, and they understand that VRAM gives more than computing power for less money. It would be cheaper for us to have games optimized for more memory but weaker GPUs. Nintendo gives 12GB to a GPU similar to the RTX 2050.

BTW: Something odd is happening on the forum. My previous topic was closed for being too old when it was made just before Christmas. Other topics commenting on Nvidia were also closed.

[Monk]

Escrito originalmente por Ontrix_Kitsune:

Escrito originalmente por Monk:

Then you never set your system up properly to begin with.

There's nothing wrong with my machine. I'm not sure why you are having difficulty understanding why Microsoft releasing an update for the Processor Scheduler in windows 11 results in increased performance.

Escrito originalmente por Monk:

Put it this way, a 3070 with 24GB of vram woukd still be pointless as it doesn't have the raw power to run the settings that NEED that much memory.

I have a 3070 Ti. There are several games I have tried to play where it's 8GB VRAM is maxed out at 8GB while GPU utilization is 80% or less. I've seen it with my own eyes. Which means this card is capable of running faster but can not in those titles because it's VRAM is full. This card was my mistake. I should of never bought a 8GB card. My next card will be MINIMUM 16GB, although 24 GB would be nice. I don't think we'll see a 24GB card at an affordable price any time in the next few years though.

If your gpu is at 80%, the cpu is the limiting factor there, not the vram.

Though, again, it is a 4 year old card and 8GB works for 99% of games, faster memory and bandwidth also helps.

Instead of just saying you have this problem, you could share which games and what settings / fps you are getting when you are using more than 8GB, which, for a hopefully final time I'll point out, I never said would never be the limit, just that I'd only spotted a couple of games exceeding it with standard texture packs and sensible settings for the hardware (that is giving atleast 60fps consistently).

[C1REX]

Escrito originalmente por Monk:

I'd only spotted a couple of games exceeding it with standard texture packs and sensible settings for the hardware (that is giving atleast 60fps consistently).

How do you spot VRAM limited scenarios on 8GB if you can’t compare to anything else?

What do you call sensible settings?
Is 1080p high setting OK? Or 1440p with DLSS? Should a GPU be able to copy ps5 settings and upscale to 4K or are console setting not reasonable?

Is asking 4060Ti 8GB and potentially 5060Ti 8GB to run ps5 games like Final Fantasy 16, The Last of Us, Jedi Survivor, Ratchet and Clank at the same settings too crazy to ask?

[XDC-Kingslayer]

I'm 50 years old. I've watched video games move the computer industry for the past 25 years. My peak of setup in 1999 was an ATI Rage 4 MEG card with 2 Voodoo 2s in SLI. Back then, in Southern California, you walked down to the corner computer store and grabbed a video card. And by the time you get home, a new one was out. I watched the ATI vs NVidia war play out. They didn't even have to advertise back then. Everything was word of mouth, and forum.

Why do they keep upping the video card RAM? 25% is need and the other 75% is because you'll buy it. If they put 512 Gig of memory on a card with a $5000 price tag it'll be under every Christmas tree. You're paying more for your video card than the rest of your system. (Another reason my old behind went to console, we're on a limited budget you whippersnappers!)

A few games need that amount of memory. Very few will utilize it. But you've been programmed since you've started playing that you NEED it. So you'll buy it. And honestly, this is my generations fault. We dutifully turned around and went back to that computer store for the new shiny.

Future proofing? Please. There is no future proofing in video cards. Never has been, never will be. Because as soon as the next wonder game is produced, new AMAZING video cards will follow. They don't need to be future proofed in design because the brainwashed consumer IS the future proofing. New game, new video card. That was the cycle then, that is the cycle now. That is the way.

But the good thing about being old is that we can use our RX580s on ultra low settings because our wallets are empty and our eyes are bad.

[Monk]

By 'nothing to compare it to' does my 4090 system on the same screen I can use a kvm and switcher to swap between it and the 3050 system not count?

Consoles are rarely at high settings, id say 1080p/ 1440p maintaining 60fps at some medium and high settings.

Again though, their are exceptions but 99% of games will run fine.

Edit.

Kingslayer gets it, oddly another 'old man' like myself

[C1REX]

Escrito originalmente por Monk:

Edit.
Kingslayer gets it, oddly another 'old man' like myself

Kingslayer has an old 8GB GPU that costs $130. This GPU had “way too much” VRAM when came out.
4060Ti has 250% of that performance with the same amount of VRAM.
It clearly has waaaay too high VRAM to performance ratio. It should have 3GB if we follow Nvidia VRAM standards. It aged way too well for Nvidia’s standards.

Also Nvidia made a huge mistake with 3060 12GB. It ages too well and stops people from upgrading. It costs too little while being the most popular GPU on steam. The value is clearly too good.

[Ontrix_Kitsune]

Escrito originalmente por Monk:

If your gpu is at 80%, the cpu is the limiting factor there, not the vram.

Nope. That ain't the problem. I can play games that are multi-threaded DirectX-12 games where my CPU is < 50% utilized and still see the video card at 80% usage. Then I could turn down settings to make the game use less VRAM and watch GPU usage jump up to 99% again.

Escrito originalmente por Monk:

Though, again, it is a 4 year old card and 8GB works for 99% of games, faster memory and bandwidth also helps.

Nope that's not true either. I have a handful of games I can not play because the VRAM usage requires more than my card has and I'm not comfortable playing at medium-low just to get 60 FPS.

Escrito originalmente por Monk:

Instead of just saying you have this problem, you could share which games and what settings / fps you are getting when you are using more than 8GB, which, for a hopefully final time I'll point out, I never said would never be the limit, just that I'd only spotted a couple of games exceeding it with standard texture packs and sensible settings for the hardware (that is giving atleast 60fps consistently).

I already linked you to the video that shows you which games use more than 8GB of VRAM at 1080p. If you want to know so badly then go see it yourself. I'm not going to sit here and skip through the video to write down every single game listed in the video just for you. I have better things to do with my time.

As I said before: This is NOT a discussion. You're just arguing just to argue / AKA argument baiting in the steam forums to stir up drama and arguments. It's very, very obvious what you're doing.

[r.linder]

Escrito originalmente por C1REX:

Escrito originalmente por Monk:

Edit.
Kingslayer gets it, oddly another 'old man' like myself

Kingslayer has an old 8GB GPU that costs $130. This GPU had “way too much” VRAM when came out.
4060Ti has 250% of that performance with the same amount of VRAM.
It clearly has waaaay too high VRAM to performance ratio. It should have 3GB if we follow Nvidia VRAM standards. It aged way too well for Nvidia’s standards.

Also Nvidia made a huge mistake with 3060 12GB. It ages too well and stops people from upgrading. It costs too little while being the most popular GPU on steam. The value is clearly too good.

The RX 580 8G only had 2G more than the 1060 6G, that really wasn't considered too much considering there were already a few instances where 6G was able to be stretched thin. Both cards were suitable with 8GB because they performed quite well and still do perform adequately for many people.

VRAM usage doesn't scale perfectly with increases in core performance either, you can have a much faster core and still be fine with 8GB, the 1080 Ti is much faster than the 1060 and 580 and it seldom actually needed the full 11GB it was given, 8GB used to be enough even for 4K in a lot of games back in its time. Things only started changing after 2020 because both NVIDIA and AMD started throwing out GPUs that offered more VRAM than before, more so from AMD but NVIDIA still jacked up their flagship from 11GB all the way to 24GB. But that's still just for higher settings, if you don't have a card that can run higher settings, then don't run higher settings, simple, and you can turn off specific settings that make little to no visual impact to get good visuals without running out of VRAM. I think this is basically turning into an argument of people whining because they can't absolutely crank their settings in every game, getting too focused on graphics instead of the actual gameplay, which is also detrimental to gaming because if all people care about is graphics, may as well watch a movie instead if the developers can't make a good game because they're wasting their time on making things look better.

Regardless, NVIDIA is making changes to DLSS that would also "prevent" users from upgrading, they're increasing the quality of DLSS while bringing VRAM usage down for all generations of RTX, that helps people with older cards, even older and weaker than the 3060 if they're able to get usage down to the point that even the 2060 is acceptable.

[Monk]

Memory is expensive, 99% of games run fine on 8GB with sensible settings.
That less than 1% don't isn't really a great reason to raise the price another 50 or 100 bucks for everyone because people don't want to adjust settings.

You have made no argument to counter that, though you have given evidence that you refuse to stuff at lower settings to alieviste your problems, honestly, it seems your issue is budgeting more than the vram limit, budget better and buy the better cards or go AMD / Intel, you'll get more vram but you will lose all of the benefits nvidias offers due to no dedicated hardware, no one is forcing you to buy a card that doesn't meet your needs.

We are talking about a luxury item here, not a loaf of bread.

And I don't need to watch a video for my point to be valid, I asked you to specifically share which games had issues running on 8GB, as I'll bet I can get them running fine on a 3050 8GB as you don't NEED to max stuff out, especially on a limited budget.

[C1REX]

Escrito originalmente por Monk:

Memory is expensive,

Is it really that expensive?
Then why 3060 12GB costs less than 3060Ti 8GB? $329 vs $399 msrp. How much cheaper would the 3060 12GB be if Nvidia cut 4GB?

Why is Nintendo planning 12GB for their potato switch2?

Why Sony gives 16GB of GDDR6 and only 0.5GB of DDR4 if VRAM is that expensive?

[Omega]

Escrito originalmente por Monk:

Memory is expensive

RAM is dirt cheap. ~$25 for 8GB of GDDR6, sometimes as low as $18.

[r.linder]

Escrito originalmente por C1REX:

Escrito originalmente por Monk:

Memory is expensive,

Is it really that expensive?
Then why 3060 12GB costs less than 3060Ti 8GB? $329 vs $399 msrp. How much cheaper would the 3060 12GB be if Nvidia cut 4GB?

Why is Nintendo planning 12GB for their potato switch2?

Why Sony gives 16GB of GDDR6 and only 0.5GB of DDR4 if VRAM is that expensive?

The 3060 was never intended to have 12, it was originally designed for 6. If it wasn't initially designed for 6 before being hastily doubled, then it would've had an 8GB buffer the whole time.

It's a choice to go with more memory, not a requirement, 8GB is still usable if you don't care about maximising every feaking graphics setting, and there are people who want NVIDIA GPUs at a lower price, increasing VRAM isn't going to help.

[C1REX]

Escrito originalmente por r.linder:

The 3060 was never intended to have 12, it was originally designed for 6. If it wasn't initially designed for 6 before being hastily doubled, then it would've had an 8GB buffer the whole time.

It's a choice to go with more memory, not a requirement, 8GB is still usable if you don't care about maximising every feaking graphics setting, and there are people who want NVIDIA GPUs at a lower price, increasing VRAM isn't going to help.

So what if NVidia didn’t intend 12GB for the 3060? Why do you keep repeating this argument? How does is it make the GPU less relevant or excluded from the discussion?
They accidentally made the GPU too well balanced and well priced. One that runs some recent ps5 ports better than the 3070. An actual good value. A mistake that NVidia will likely try to avoid.

If people don’t want more memory then why the 3060 12GB is the most popular GPU in the world? Why isn’t it more expensive if they had to double the intended vram?

[r.linder]

Escrito originalmente por C1REX:

Escrito originalmente por r.linder:

The 3060 was never intended to have 12, it was originally designed for 6. If it wasn't initially designed for 6 before being hastily doubled, then it would've had an 8GB buffer the whole time.

It's a choice to go with more memory, not a requirement, 8GB is still usable if you don't care about maximising every feaking graphics setting, and there are people who want NVIDIA GPUs at a lower price, increasing VRAM isn't going to help.

So what if NVidia didn’t intend 12GB for the 3060? Why do you keep repeating this argument? How does is it make the GPU less relevant or excluded from the discussion?
They accidentally made the GPU too well balanced and well priced. One that runs some recent ps5 ports better than 3070. An actual good value. A mistake that NVidia will likely try to avoid.

If people don’t want more memory then why the 3060 12GB is the most popular GPU in the world? Why isn’t it more expensive if they had to double the intended vram?

The 3060 is not popular just because of VRAM, it's because it's an NVIDIA GPU at a low enough price that happened to release at a time when people were upgrading, and when a lot of people were stuck at home. They still would've bought it if it was 6GB, or 8GB, having more only accounted for a small number of sales, otherwise by that logic AMD would've been destroying them in sales, yet their market share is at best 12%.

It's relevant because you keep bringing up the 3060 having 12GB and it being out of place with other cards of that generation, because it was, it wasn't their original intention to give it more than the 3060 Ti, they just panicked because AMD didn't make any 6GB cards like NVIDIA thought they would. The 4080 only having 8 only supports that fact, it was apparently just too late to go back and change the bus.

And it probably was cheaper when it was planned to be 6GB, thing is, NVIDIA is a company that has to make money and their cards cost more to produce than AMD's. Jensen isn't some evil greedy money hoarder, he has actual plans for the future of his company that stretch beyond just GPUs and things are only going to get more expensive over time, NVIDIA needs profit in order to ensure they can keep going for as long as possible and to fund new projects, new innovations. Average consumers such as yourself have no clue how the business world works.

Where is AMD landing themselves by doing what they're doing in contrast to what NVIDIA's doing? In worse shape, they dropped out of the high end because they can't even afford to compete, their business model isn't sustainable enough to go up against NVIDIA so they have to take a step back and focus on the lower end price ranges where most of their buyers are and try to chip away at NVIDIA's market share at the low end/affordable areas.

[C1REX]

Escrito originalmente por r.linder:

It's relevant because you keep bringing up the 3060 having 12GB and it being out of place with other cards of that generation, because it was, it wasn't their original intention to give it more than the 3060 Ti, they just panicked because AMD didn't make any 6GB cards like NVIDIA thought they would. The 4080 only having 8 only supports that fact, it was apparently just too late to go back and change the bus.

It seems to me you really don’t like the 3060 example because it disproves that extra memory has no benefit at that level of performance or that few more GB of VRAM costs a small fortune.
It accidentally exposed Nvidia and their Apple like memory pricing.

[r.linder]

Escrito originalmente por C1REX:

Escrito originalmente por r.linder:

It's relevant because you keep bringing up the 3060 having 12GB and it being out of place with other cards of that generation, because it was, it wasn't their original intention to give it more than the 3060 Ti, they just panicked because AMD didn't make any 6GB cards like NVIDIA thought they would. The 4080 only having 8 only supports that fact, it was apparently just too late to go back and change the bus.

It seems to me you really don’t like the 3060 example because it disproves that extra memory has no benefit at that level of performance or that few more GB of VRAM costs a small fortune.
It accidentally exposed Nvidia and their Apple like memory pricing.

It doesn't have a benefit, it's just a placebo. Low end GPUs like the 3060 and 7600-XT lack the performance to adequately take full advantage when games are actually using as much VRAM as they can supply. You might have the VRAM to run higher settings but that doesn't mean the core can keep up, and memory bandwidth helps as well, 8GB GDDR7 will be fine for the 5060.

Allocation and usage are two completely different things.