Why GFX card with more RAM?

[Ataros]

Originally Posted by KG26_Alpha

Triple buffering is in the default Nvidia panel above Vsync no need to add any other programs.

This one works for OpenGL games only IIRC. This could have changed though as I did not use NV recently.

Enabling Triple Buffering for OpenGL-based games such as Doom 3, Quake 4, Prey or Enemy Territory: Quake Wars is very simple - go to your graphics card's control panel and enable it from there. However this won't work for enabling Triple Buffering in Direct3D-based games, which are the bulk of modern games. Instead, you will need to use a utility called Direct3D Overrider (D3DOverrider) which comes with free RivaTuner utility.

http://www.tweakguides.com/Graphics_10.html

Many reports of "terrible fps" are caused by not switching it On imho having vsynk On.
On my ATI card I have 30 fps with triple buffering off and 40-50 fps if it is on. I force it via creating a game profile for CloD in ATI Tray Tools.
I guess this allows my card to be 98-100% loaded according to a monitor when many others report 70% load only.

PS. Moreover I noticed if vsynk is switched on both in game and in drivers it results in further fps reduction because of some conflict. I prefer to run the game with vsync off recently to get rid of all these limitations altogether and stop screen tearing by reducing graphics settings, overclocking and other system optimisations.

[JG301_HaJa]

Well I don't know if the Athlon II Black Edition cpu is the bottleneck but
my setup produces stable playable fps in DCS-A10, ROF, ARMA2 and
som other titles. It is just here that the problems occur.

EDIT:

I made a test. I turned off VSync and the fps go up but the tearing is completely unbearable when
looking through the propeller arc. That would give me epilepsy even though I don't suffer from it.

The only remedy is to turn on the filter and live without the prop arc. That at least seems to give
acceptable fps without to much tearing even though it's not nice.

The intresting part is that the CPU now gets taxed up to 60% as opposed to about 40% and the
GPU's get taxed up to 95% each as opposed to not above 40%. This to me is very strange!

[ATAG_MajorBorris]

Originally Posted by JG301_HaJa

Well I don't know if the Athlon II Black Edition cpu is the bottleneck but
my setup produces stable playable fps in DCS-A10, ROF, ARMA2 and
som other titles. It is just here that the problems occur.

Im just repeating what others have said but have you? Checked the performance section in the forum?

1) forced the AA in the Ati tray tool to 2x or 4x or off and shut it off in the il2 video options.

2) forced vsync in tray tool, off in game

3) maybe set textures to performance ati tray panel(can you do that in ati)

4) go to RUN and enter "msconfig" go to start up and shut off everthing at start up, go back if you need that stuff later.

5) go to advanced system properties and select performance under the visual effects tab also r click on desktop and personalize so you dont have the aero if you have win 7.

6) lower the trees, lower the buildings, grass off, ssao off, everything else med or so except texture(makes planes look good so that one last)

[Ataros]

Originally Posted by JG301_HaJa

but the tearing is completely unbearable

If this is the case than turn vsynk back on but force triple buffering ON in
ATI Tray Tools >> Game Profiles >> Create a profile for Launcher.exe >> Direct3D tweaks tab >> "Force to use triple buffers" checkbox. >> Save the profile.

Epilepsy filter is not a good solution imho.

[JG301_HaJa]

I will try ATT and RadeonPro if that doesn't work.

I have however tried with both applications before and done everything suggested
even deinstalling everything and just installing the radeon driver and operate it with
ATT but that leaves crossfire disabled since ATT in the latest version is broken in that regard.

It doesn't seems to fare well with my system unfortunately. Perhaps the solution is to
test with a monitor capable of 120Hz?

But i will keep fiddling, sooner or later i will perhaps get it to a state where it is operational.

[icarus]

I have monitored CoD using well in excess of 2 Gb memory on my card and it climbs slowly but surely ever higher. I believe there is a memory leak in CoD.

Ataros's suggestions do nothing for me that I can notice.

[KG26_Alpha]

Interesting stuff Ataros.

It seems since Vista Win 7 triple buffering has had some changes.


"Q
Can anyone let me know whether the triple buffering and vsync in the Nvidia Control Panel work for DirectX games?


A
The 'triple buffering' option does affect rendering behavior within the modern DirectX APIs.
The 'vertical synchronization' control is less cooperative: in Windows XP, it applies to both OpenGL and DirectX 9 APIs; in Windows Vista and Windows 7,
it only affects the OpenGL APIs."

http://forums.nvidia.com/index.php?showtopic=173860

[icarus]

Originally Posted by KG26_Alpha

The 'vertical synchronization' control is less cooperative: in Windows XP, it applies to both OpenGL and DirectX 9 APIs; in Windows Vista and Windows 7,
it only affects the OpenGL APIs.[/I]"

http://forums.nvidia.com/index.php?showtopic=173860

That's curious. I get lots of tearing in W7 DX API's when vsync is off and none with it is on, so it appears it does something in DX???

[Codex]

Originally Posted by SEE

1. Is CloD one of the exceptional tiltles that requires more than 1Gb even for a modest resolution and why?

No. VRAM usage is increasing with many newer games, particularly with more games using tessellation and advanced shader routines.

The thing with VRAM is that its where the developer wants all the scene assets to live, because it's traditionally the fastest RAM on a PC, also DirectX has "direct" access to it. So what the devs do, assuming they use Direct X routines, is load all the 3D models, Textures etc into that memory space and do all the pixel, vertex and tessellation processing on those assets in that memory space.

Remember the actual buffers that hold the final image are fairly small, for example:

1920 x 1080 = 2073600 pixels
2073600 pixels x 32bit pixel (RGBA 8bit each colour) = 8MB (roughly)
DirectX default buffering is double = 16MB of VRAM space

It's all the scene assets that take up the majority of space.

Originally Posted by SEE

2. There seems to be an industry practice of using identical chipsets but by disabling or changing a peformance parameter (i.e No of shaders, reducing clock speeds, etc) marketing a budget version. I.e a Nvidea GTX 2GB 560 is slightly cheaper than the 560ti version yet bench tests show only a 5% reduction in performance across the most demanding games which can be adressed by oc'ing. Would someone looking to upgrade on a budget be better going for the better chipset with lower RAM or the budget version with more RAM?

This is no different to how CPUs are badged and priced. It may surprise you that your 560 GPU would most likely have come from the same silicon wafer that produced a 580 chip. The difference is the 560 chip may not have performed to meet the 580 specs so the factory would have locked down the clocks, the number of shader units etc etc and made it a 560.

The performance gains from having extra VRAM memory is more than likely having enough space to store assets and preventing scene assets from being copied over to system ram. I've only dabbled in rendering and animating basic 3D objects in Direct X but there's a lot of stuff happening in background that needs to be appreciated.

[icarus]

Originally Posted by Codex

No. VRAM usage is increasing with many newer games, particularly with more games using tessellation and advanced shader routines..

Except I have not ever seen any games use over 2 gb vram even at 2650 x 1600 res with AA at 16x super and I have seen Cod use well over 2 Gb with no AA or AF. That seems exceptional to me.