Christopher Gonzalez :
JackNaylorPE :
The article I linked to make that pretty clear.
Sorry! I didn't see your link! The tests show only a fraction of fps difference between the cards... Clearly 4 Gb is not worth the 100$ more...
I'm curious... What I think is that when you load a map in a video game, it will load the map onto the VRAM, correct? Then when you walk around a corner in the game, it will load up the information of the VRAM and the GPU will draw it and output it to the monitor? So, in that case, what benefits does having 4 Gb give you (at least untill a video game creates a map 4 Gb in size)? I understand that with higher resolutions, it has to load more pixels to the VRAM, so that's where it would help... So how would having more VRAM affect having 3 monitors, as it still has the same map of the game loaded up, wouldn't it just have to draw more pixels, creating a need for a better GPU? Or is my understanding of VRAM in-accurate?
That's more or less correct. Video game maps themselves aren't in a format that can be interpreted by a GPU. They will be loaded into system memory where map data is interpreted by the game logic and graphics API where it is then transformed into geometric primitives that can be interpreted by the GPU.
Graphics memory (VRAM is a particular type of graphics memory that is no longer in use, but the name has stuck) is used to store all of the data that the GPU needs to fully render a scene. This includes the above mentioned scene geometry, models, textures, shaders, mappings, lighting information, depth buffers, colour buffers, stencil buffers, and a final frame buffer.
The graphics memory also serves as a massive scratchpad for the GPU when it's performing tasks that exceed the capabilities of the GPU's internal registers. The larger the scene in terms of pixels, or the more complex the scene in terms of geometry, the more memory is required to store all of the intermediate data.
If the GPU does not have enough available memory, it will have to compensate by either dropping data (such as high resolution textures) from memory, or cannibalizing system memory which can have an adverse impact on performance.
2GiB of graphics memory is appropriate for gaming at 1080p, but there are a number of games which will smash past 2GiB when gaming at 2560x1600. The two that I can think of off the top of my head are Skyrim and Max Payne 3.
Facebook
Twitter
Instagram