Are 2GB of Video Ram Any Useful For FlightSims?

[BKLronin]

I´m thinking about getting an 460 GTX with 2gig soon. I just wondered if 2GB can have any advantages in Flight sims since we have many texures?

[KillaALF]

Only if you are running at very (very) high resolutions with high AA settings.

[BKLronin]

Hmm my usual setings are 1980 1020 with max AA so it will be useful?

 

Great!

[Konovalov]

I very much doubt it. 2gb is for much bigger than 24 inch screens with all the bells and whistles turned on such as AA.

[EtherealN]

Killalf, I don't see how RAM amount would impact AA. That stuff happens in the cores with their caches, not the vRAM which is mostly a texture storage facility.

 

To the OP's question, I doubt it. 1GB should be the minimum you are looking for at the moment, but 2GB is overkill and will most likely go unused in not only sims but most games. However, if you intend to keep the card for 2-3 years it might be a valid method of future-proofing.

[BKLronin]

However, if you intend to keep the card for 2-3 years it might be a valid method of future-proofing.

 

That was one of my main thoughts when considering the 2GB Palit 460 GTX. Since I don buy new Graphic cards often. My actual card is a 4830 with 512 which i bought used for 50 eur almost a year ago.

 

Maybe it also reduces possible stutters when loading new textures into vram. I always had problems with HDR AA AF on my budgetcards.

 

Proc is a 3400+ AMD BE.

[EtherealN]

Well, the general idea is that you should set your texture detail in a game's settings such that your graphics card never gets overloaded. One possible reason for stutters and graphical issues can be that when you set it "too high" the card will start borrowing regular RAM for additional vRAM, which causes an insane amount of traffick through the PCIe controller and memory controllers.

 

Issues with HDR/AA/AF on budget cards is usually caused by their commonly severely cut compute-core budget (often no more than a quarter of a "fullsize" card, and slower clocked to boot).

 

But yes, future-proofing is definitely an argument here. I am giving it some thought, but since I'm only going for a 470 on my upcoming build it'll be easily replaced whenever I need it, so I'll settle for the 1.28GB option from ASUS on that. (The price diff from the 800MHz 460's to the 470 is so small I went for them, even though the custom chipset ASUS uses on their 460's is very very tempting.)

[BKLronin]

Got it, thanks

 

Well my chosen Palit 260 GTX 2gb is around 180EUR the 270ies 1,25GB start with 220 EUR thats only 40 eur difference.

hat

Thats 10 fps more for additional 40 eur. Have to think about that. I guess I can still overclock it to get those extra fps.

[EtherealN]

A note there - there is sometimes extreme overclock headroom in cards. For example I saw some versions of ASUS 5850's clock up above 1GHz in core clock, making them handily beat 5870's.

 

If overclocking is on your radar you should make sure to choose the card specifically for that, since there are manufacturarers that bin the chips specifically for this purpose and while they charge a premium it is often "worth it" compared to the next step up in architecture version.

[BKLronin]

"On the Radar" but not as soon as I get her instead I will save that option for later when the card reaches it limits in a year or two.

 

Keeping my card healthy :)

[BKLronin]

Based on your suggestion I finally decided myself for a Palit 470 GTX with 1,25 GB. I think that one really does it better :)

 

Thanks for your help!

[Phuz]

old thread, just wanted to update it with accurate info for researchers:

 

dcs a-10c and dcs bs2 in 1920x1080 high settings both use 1.8~2.2gb of Vram on cards with >=2gb vram capacity.

[sobek]

dcs a-10c and dcs bs2 in 1920x1080 high settings both use 1.8~2.2gb of Vram on cards with >=2gb vram capacity.

 

It is *very* hard for me to believe that. What was your method of measuring?

[Kuky]

From short time I could be in game in DCS A-10C on HD7970 with 3GB of vRAM, I saw about 1.4 to 1.5GB of vRAM used on High settings in 1920x1200 single screen setup, so I'm with Sobek on this one. I used GPU-Z to check for vRAM usage in game.

[PeterP]

It is *very* hard for me to believe that. What was your method of measuring?

 

 

I run easily out of V-Ram (HD 6870 2GB) when creating multiple view-ports like

shown here: http://forums.eagle.ru/showthread.php?p=1372974#post1372974

 

JG14 is right.

 

You can create how much view-ports as you want in DCS.

 

I made a example with 5 view-ports for demonstration:

 

The used "MonitorSetup - LUA":

_  = function(p) return p; end;
name = _('5 Screen');
Description = 'Configuration with 5 identical monitors each with its own camera'
Viewports = 
{
     Left = 
     {
          x = 0;
          y = 0;
          width = screen.width / 5;
          height = screen.height;
          viewDx = -1;
          viewDy = 0;
          aspect = screen.aspect / 5;
     },

     Center = 
     {
          x = screen.width / 5;
          y = 0;
          width = screen.width / 5;
          height = screen.height;
          viewDx = 0;
          viewDy = 0;
          aspect = screen.aspect / 5;
     },

     Right = 
     {
          x = screen.width * 2 / 5;
          y = 0;
          width = screen.width / 5;
          height = screen.height;
          viewDx = 1;
          viewDy = 0;
          aspect = screen.aspect / 5;
     },

     Back = 
     {
          x = screen.width * 3 / 5;
          y = 0;
          width = screen.width / 5;
          height = screen.height;
          viewDx = 2.4;
          viewDy = 0;
          aspect = screen.aspect / 5;
     },
     
     Up = 
     {
          x = screen.width * 4 / 5;
          y = 0;
          width = screen.width / 5;
          height = screen.height;
          viewDx = 0;
          viewDy = 1;
          aspect = screen.aspect / 5;
     }
}


UIMainView = Viewports.Center

A additional explanation how this lua calculates the screen positions schown on the "Right" viewport:

 

Right =

{

x = screen.width * 2 / 5;

this line gives following command:

take sceenwidth found in options.lua and divide this value with 5 and multiply with 2.

- so the X starting point for this viewport is = 1536

because:

3840

/

5

*

2

-----

= 1536

 

 

And this is how it will look if used with a resolution of 3840x768:

 

With a eyefinity 5 setup and 5 projectors (and a lot of V-ram and even more tweaking...) you should be able to create a similar projection like seen here:

 

 

 

 

More on this mater:

http://forums.eagle.ru/showthread.php?p=1343099#post1343099

[/quote

 

So when you want to build a military-grade static simulator with more than just one viewport you can't get enough Ram.

Edited January 14, 2012 by PeterP

[sobek]

Uhm, ok, but he's running half your resolution and no multiple viewports, so... how is this relevant? I didn't say it was impossible to run out of vram. Just that under his settings it seemed like a lot.

[PeterP]

Sobek, No offend! :)

 

I don't know what Phuz is running at his screen - no info in his posting.

 

But I also add my 2cents to show how out-of-date the statement is that you don't need more as 2gig nowadays. - and how easily you can use up all ram.

 

Something that has to be really put into consideration when you plan a setup.

And when looking of some posts of Grandsurf http://forums.eagle.ru/showthread.php?t=81200&highlight=fc2 with his highly-insane big textures I have no doubt that 2gig ram will be soon not sufficient even for normal setups to run it fluently.

Edited January 14, 2012 by PeterP

[Kuky]

Sobek was refering to Phuz's post:

dcs a-10c and dcs bs2 in 1920x1080 high settings both use 1.8~2.2gb of Vram on cards with >=2gb vram capacity

and I agree with him, you can't use that much memory in that resolution with single screen. I also agree with you that running multiple monitors you surely can get over 2GB ;)

[PeterP]

I know what Phuz posted -

And the resolution alone and "high" settings is not enough to determined the amount of V-ram he has to use.

 

No info about his graphic-card settings like

MSAA / TSSAA -some folks really use 16xAA (without even knowing what AA is) by default on a 2680x1600 screen and wondering why the slow performance.

or mirrors on/off (this is like rendering a second view-port)

and so on...

"1920x1080 high settings" don't qualify to make any kind of judgement.

:)

Edited January 14, 2012 by PeterP

[sobek]

Sobek, No offend! :)

 

No offense taken and none intended, was just a bit baffled where your post was coming from. ;)