GTX 660M not using all the gddr5 memory?

Hello so I'm noticing that my Lenovo Y580 is only using around 500 - 700mb of the 2gb that it says it has, as a result at 1080p I dont get very stellar performance. Here is a video I made as proof. Top left for the stats

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1L4_RCgxrSI

Anyway, does anyone know of a fix for this? As I have a feeling I could get a lot better performance if it was using more video ram....

Thanks in advance!

 

a GPU works in 3 different "states"

state 1= 2d..............(normal using (writing, lighter web browsing)....the GPU core runs quite slow

state 2= half 3d..............(more heavily using (videos, movies, light games).....the GPU core runs ~60-70%

state 3= 3d..............(high shader games such as BF3, Bioshock, etc, etc)........the GPU core runs in max speed

you have many different software to see the state/core speed and GPU memory........i use Everest ultimate.

try another software to monitor you GPU specs when you play a high shader game......(some software are not showing 100% right)

 

Your GPU usage is a bit difficult to see but it says over 90% most of the time right? Your memory is a staging area/buffer to store your frames (among other things) before the frames are pushed out to the display via a DAC. So if your GPU is not able able to process frames fast enough, your memory won't get used. Your memory usage has nothing to do with your performance UNLESS you are using almost 100% of your memory. It is how fast the core can crunch out frames.

 

GPU speed is about polygon count and stuff. Memory is more about texture detail.

 

Okay, well if you think that the performance is about what I should be getting on a 660M, then I guess I'm okay. On my desktop my GTX 670 (2GB GDDR5) is using 1800mb with the same settings (and resolution) so I still think something is wrong. I do believe memory is also a big role in performance in terms of resolution, 2GB is what you need for 1080p gaming. And the higher the resolution, the more ram to make sure you aren't bottle-necked.

 

This is incorrect. 2GB is not what you need for 1080p gaming. You are using more memory on your GTX670 because your GPU core is able to process more frames which it keeps in the VRAM. If you use up 500 MB of VRAM with GPU X and GPU Y is roughly two times the processing power, your GPU Y's VRAM will have about 1GB of it filled. This is assuming we are only looking at frames. Other stuff is also stored in the VRAM which may change numbers a bit. However, 2GB is in no way what you NEED for 1080p gaming. You need less than a GB. Look at your GPU usage in that video. It is working at almost peak capacity all the time. How do you expect it to fill up more VRAM?

 

Alright thanks. I guess I can understand that. Thanks for the info.

 

That is not entirely true. Both DirectX and OpenGL render maximum of 3 frames ahead of the one being displayed. Frame buffer is a very small portion of VRAM today. A single frame in FullHD is 1920x1080x3bytes (for 24-bit color) = 6220800 bytes = less than 6MB [although it can also be 1920x1080x4bytes (24-bit color + 8-bit alpha channel for transparency) = 8294400 bytes = less than 8MB] . VRAM usage depends on a game and the amount of textures it uses. Civilization V can easily use over 1.5GB of VRAM in FullHD, even though GPU usage would be around 60-70% (i.e. with V-sync enabled). That's because it keeps huge amount of textures in VRAM, not because it renders lots of frames per second.

 

It also uses the vRAM for all the post-processing effects, triple buffering, AA, etc which can also consume a considerable amount of RAM. But bottom line is that even if you only had 1GB vRAM and played Civ V in FullHD, it would cache the extra textures to system RAM and still have no issue processing it without affecting performance, especially on a 660m since the performance of the GPU and vRAM bandwidth won't deplete the available vRAM before it can be cached in from system RAM.

 

This is true, but I am inclined to believe, that textures in contemporary games use much more more VRAM than any amount of AA, post-processing, triple buffering etc.
Maximum texture size supported in DX11 is 16384x16384 pixels (source: New Features of DirectX 11 Explaned - 3D Tech News and Pixel Hacking - Geeks3D.com), so with a 24-bit color palette it's 768MB FOR A SINGLE TEXTURE.
In DX10 maximum texture size was 4096x4096, with 24-bit color palette that's 48MB already. Also, 4096x4096 is 6x more than 1920x1080. All frame buffer effects (tripple buffering, AA, post-processing) are done on the already rendered frames, so in case of FullHD - 1920x1080 pictures. I think that for all those effects, it's the VRAM bandwidth that matters more than VRAM capacity. Hence the most beefy desktop GPUs today have 384-bit VRAM bus, mainstream desktop (or top end laptop) cards have 256-bit bus, and so on, and freaks like Inno3D GeForce GT 630 4GB - Price Comparison - Buy Cheap in Australia are not performance monsters, even though they have large amount of VRAM on board.

 

I wonder if there are any courses on GPU processing. It'd be good to get a basic understanding about the whole thing. I think I have a basic grasp on it, but would be good to get all the down and dirty.