320mb of 640mb?

Since everyones wondering, does that 320mb vram actaully make ANY differnence, ill just test it. I only have the 320mb version on me, but Ill test how VRAM usage in the virtual memory make any difference to the framerates. This has probably been done before but I wanted to do it for myself

Game: Oblivion

Setup:
Asus p5k Motherboard
1 gig kingston 667mhz ram. (333mhz) DDR2
Evga Geforce 8800 gts OC (576, 837, 1350)
19 inch screen at 720p
600 watt psu
Hitatchi IDE 250g hard drive 7200rpm
Intel core duo E6750@ stock speed, 2.67mhz
Case: Thermaltake shark. Temps of CPU, 13/17 (core 1 core 2), when idle O.O On air cooling, broken sensor? I dont know. Temps of GPU: 60-65 idle, 70-75 load.

Settings are on:
720p
Max everything (large textures), HDR, No AA, No AF

Tests:

1 save, on a fort near chorrol, static test

Moving around as the VRAM starts to build up.

Ill be using Normal Settings, Lod replacement maps, (2024 X something), And qwarl TP3.


Test 1:

Static with Normal Settings

(the view)
http://i87.photobucket.com/albums/ [...] -27-25.jpg

Static with Normal Settings
http://i87.photobucket.com/albums/ [...] Normal.jpg

Static with LOD
http://i87.photobucket.com/albums/ [...] ticLOD.jpg



Not very accurate, its impossible to tell, so im just going to turn LOD on anyway and walk around getting more usage in the vram.

I walked around the north west side of the map, from chorrol to bruma hugging the 'you cant go this way, turn back' signs . Then I fast traveled a few times to places. Thats why there are sudden drops in frame rates.

http://i87.photobucket.com/albums/ [...] oving2.jpg

http://i87.photobucket.com/albums/ [...] oving3.jpg


Its still impossible to tell if its making any difference. The vram usage graduly rose as I moved around the map. It peaked at around 430megs, using 123megs of virtual ram and 307 out of 308 of the vram. And around here the framerate was an average of 60. I think this was me doing a 360 turn near the roxey inn, as I did this, it didnt pause at all. When I went back to the snow, a daedra worship place in the north west area of the map, the vram usage went up to 412, 307 vram, 105 virtual. The framerate was 40-60 with the 3 worshipers on screen, and then 72-75 when I walked away. Virtual ram slowing it down? Maybe by 1 framerate.

The lowest framerate when playing was when there were 3 people fighting on screen, which it 'dipped' to around 30. 388 vram usage, 300 vram, 88 virtual. It wasnt because of this though, its because most graphics cards hate oblivion when theres lots of people fighting on screen.

You can look at the 3rd screenshot yourself, I might do the TP3 pack later, but it will be hard to tell if it would be my graphics card slowing me down or my hard drive/ram.

Between 11:19 and 11:22, I was in the forest


*edit*

Is there a way to make it not in the scrolly box ...I also spelt the title wrong =/

I think it matters most on oblivion when you start using insane texture mods, that's when it'll stutter like you won't believe it. Other than that there are only 3 games I believe that will make use of more than 320MB of vram. GRAW, GRAW2, and Colin McRae DiRT (When using "Ultra" Shadows setting I believe), and I believe so far your results are proving that is nothing that really makes me want to spend that much more money over my 320MB anyway.

Oh well I don't know, that's what I've heard anyway. I haven't used my GTS on oblivion yet, because I formatted and lost my level 30 Emp that I had put well over 50-60 hours on, so I didn't feel like starting over on the same RPG with the same quests.

Pretty interesting read, I think.

Well here's what I beleive.

When a vid card starts to use virtual memory, aka, normal ram, framerates 'drop'. Well they should 333mhz is alot lower than 850 mhz (speed my vid card is clocked too). Did I notice any drops? Nope, there were probably a few. Crysis recomended ram is 2 gigs, I reckon the game will use around 1 gig to 1.5 . In the recomended specs for ram, I doubt they included virtual ram for vram. I might buy another 2 gigs so I can use the ram for normal game storage and vram.

Also:

I think the reason why in some games the framerates drop CONSIDERABLY, look at the charts in the new directx10 ati VS nvidia, is because the vidcard isnt using virtual ram. Quake wars dosent, try this if you have an 8800 320mb. Riva tuner, put vidmem.dll on in setup>plugins under hardware monitering, and put 16 AA on because it uses just enough vram more to go over the 308 limit. It says:

Amount of local memory in use, 308 (full)

Amount of non local vid mem in use, 0.00, none, it even uses it on windows.

When ALL games use virtual VRAM, expensive vram will be kind of pointless.


My theory.

320 vs 640 benchmarks in 10 games from Xbit Labs review of 8xxx family

Also you can use THG's own Video Charts and compare 8800GTS 320 vs 8800GTS 640