Vram usage?

I was playing Crysis 2 last night and to my surprise GPUz logged vram usage of up to 2030mb! This right up until I quit the game.

The game is played at 1080p and full settings on my 7970M stock clocks and runs well. Just surprised me that a nearly 5 year old game can use so much vram!

Is it normal or not? Scary that I only had 18mb left.

 

The game came out in 2011, so 3 years old, not 5!

Yeah, recent DX11 games are starting to eat more graphical memory due to fancy post process effects, especially now that textures are higher definition in console ports, thanks to the PS4 and Xbox One.

 

Are you using the MaLDoHD texture mod? That'll up the VRAM usage by quite a bit.

I've personally found Crysis 2 to use about the same amount of VRAM as Battlefield 3 when both are maxed out at 1080p. Typically around 1.5GB on a 2GB card. The thing about these two games is that they'll eat up as much VRAM as you give them, even if they don't actually require that much. For example, my desktop has a Radeon 6950 1GB but it uses a few hundred MB's less VRAM running at the exact same settings as my laptop, and performance between the two is nearly identical.

You want a game that'll eat VRAM for breakfast? Try Hitman: Absolution. At Ultra with 4x MSAA it's already maxing out my 2GB. Bumping it up to 8x MSAA and it becomes a stuttering, unplayable slideshow. Probably the only game I know that requires a 3GB video card for max settings at 1080p (modded Skyrim doesn't count ). At the opposite end of the spectrum, Sleeping Dogs at max settings with HD textures and Normal AA uses around 700MB. Even with Extreme AA, which is 4x SSAA or essentially rendering at 4K, it uses less than 2GB, which I find quite amazing. Hitman and Sleeping Dogs are both huge, gorgeous-looking games, but I find it amazing how conservative the latter is with VRAM usage.

 

No mods used at all. Only installed the standard dx11 stuff that comes with crysis 2.

This is interesting. 2GB vram really isn't enough then. The 7970M isn't exactly ground breaking performance right now and it can utilise 2GB that easily. 4GB suddenly looks more than just a marketing gimmick.

Perhaps those 8970M owners actually do get something for their money vs the 7970M!

 

Haha not really. Hitman doesn't use over 2GB until you go 8x MSAA. It won't be playable on a single GPU at that setting anyway. If a 7970M/8970M is just under a 7870, you can take the 29 FPS here and halve it:



But if you've got two of them in CrossFire, I can see how the 4GB VRAM might be put to good use.

Anyway, Hitman is the most VRAM-intensive unmodded game that I've played. Personally, I wouldn't worry about running out. Like I said, some games such as Crysis 2 and BF3 will use up all available VRAM whether or not they actually need it. I bet if you had a similarly-powerful card like a GTX 580 1.5GB and ran Crysis 2 at the same settings, it would consume less VRAM while performing around the same as your 7970M. By the time you're running settings that will actually overload the 2GB VRAM, the game will most likely be unplayable anyway.

 

Why halve the 29 fps? The 7870 runs 1000mhz and stock 7970M 850mhz. 8970M is 900mhz. There isn't a difference large enough to explain a drop that large. Most 7970M cards can just about reach 950-1000mhz on stock voltage so 29 fps is quite likely for many 7970M/8970M owners. Anyways yeah I agree in crossfire 4GB would definitely be an improvement SLI too.

 

Because that benchmark is 4x MSAA and I'm talking about 8x MSAA which is brutal.