Battlefield 4 VRAM Wall Performance Drop?

[srhnd]

Hello,

I am running Battlefield 4 on ultra-maxed out @ 1600x900 resolution.

My rig;

3570k @ 4.4 Ghz on air 1.35v
2x4 8GB Kingston HyperX Genesis 1600 cl9 @ 1866 9-10-9-28
2xAsus Gtx 660 DC2(OC) @1175max/6400mem 1.212v
700W 80+ PSU
MSI z77ma-g45 mobo

Situation:

After all the benchmarks I have run on 64man full multiplayer servers the conclusion is:

19 FPS lowest frame rate so far and in most benchmarks it was not lower than 45-50
93 FPS average frame rate, average of all results
203 FPS maximum frame rate, peak of all results

So, obviously the average frame rate indicates to good performance but more often than not I got a stuttering gameplay, not micro-stuttering kind of stuttering but more like laggy kind of stuttering.

Another observation:

I have not seen higher VRAM usage than 1662 VRAM and that was exceptional, mostly VRAM usage seems to be "actually" stuck @ 1532 VRAM.

This makes me think that 192-bit memory is blocking the last 512MB memory and hence the performance is reduced whenever memory is pushed beyond that point hence creating a laggy/stuttering gameplay.

But this is just my idea, what I want to know is what you guys think and if this is actually the case? If so I will actually regret buying the second 660 some weeks ago.

In other games like Crysis 3, Metro LL, Far Cry 3, Battlefield 3, Tomb Raider, Sleeping Dogs, Batman Arkham City, Batman Arkham Origins my setup actually surpasses the performance of a stock Gtx 780, I confirmed this from techspot 1680x1050 benchmarks and other 1600x900 benchmarks I could find online. But again in those games VRAM usage sits at 1400 VRAM and doesn't go much higher than that.

 

[srhnd]

http://i39.tinypic.com/2gsq0cg.jpg

2 770s 4GB hitting 2GB+ at 1440p been as high as 2.5GB no issues

So for those saying you seeing a performance lost im still sitting at 60fps in skyrim ultra settings no mods

Well that is about 50 MB over the addressed 2GB but I am not sure if this is the same situation. Because in 4 GB 760s' design 4GB might be addressed by 256bit all together. In 660 2gb 192 bit memory is addressed unevenly, so the performance drop might be noticable whereas maybe 4GB 760 performs a little lower than 2GB 760, just a guess.

Talking about this;

www.anandtech.com/show/6159/the-geforce-gtx-660-ti-review/2

The best case scenario is always going to be that the entire 192bit bus is in use by interleaving a memory operation across all 3 controllers, giving the card 144GB/sec of memory bandwidth (192bit * 6GHz / 8). But that can only be done at up to 1.5GB of memory; the final 512MB of memory is attached to a single memory controller. This invokes the worst case scenario, where only 1 64-bit memory controller is in use and thereby reducing memory bandwidth to a much more modest 48GB/sec.

Right now I am considering a PSU insufficiency as well don't know how to be sure.

 

[determinologyz]

http://i39.tinypic.com/2gsq0cg.jpg

2 770s 4GB hitting 2GB+ at 1440p been as high as 2.5GB no issues

So for those saying you seeing a performance lost im still sitting at 60fps in skyrim ultra settings no mods

Well that is about 50 MB over the addressed 2GB but I am not sure if this is the same situation. Because in 4 GB 760s' design 4GB might be addressed by 256bit all together. In 660 2gb 192 bit memory is addressed unevenly, so the performance drop might be noticable whereas maybe 4GB 760 performs a little lower than 2GB 760, just a guess.

Talking about this;

www.anandtech.com/show/6159/the-geforce-gtx-660-ti-review/2

The best case scenario is always going to be that the entire 192bit bus is in use by interleaving a memory operation across all 3 controllers, giving the card 144GB/sec of memory bandwidth (192bit * 6GHz / 8). But that can only be done at up to 1.5GB of memory; the final 512MB of memory is attached to a single memory controller. This invokes the worst case scenario, where only 1 64-bit memory controller is in use and thereby reducing memory bandwidth to a much more modest 48GB/sec.

Right now I am considering a PSU insufficiency as well don't know how to be sure.

Ive been as high as 2.5GB on the 760s and been past 1.5GB on the 660ti still havent seen any performance drop and the 660ti has the 192 memory bus as well..Actually when i had the 660ti i loaded crysis 2 and gotten close to 2GB with no performance drops

 

[srhnd]

No lag or stuttering or drops of any kind right?

Well although it is a fact that memory addressing is unconventional in these 660 and 660ti cards I think it should not have been this much of a big performance hit. I am trying to get a friend test 1080p full ultra 4xmsaa in BF4 to see if his near identical setup will get fps drop or stuttering. If he does not experience that then I think my PSU might be the problem here.

 

[determinologyz]

No lag or stuttering or drops of any kind right?

Well although it is a fact that memory addressing is unconventional in these 660 and 660ti cards I think it should not have been this much of a big performance hit. I am trying to get a friend test 1080p full ultra 4xmsaa in BF4 to see if his near identical setup will get fps drop or stuttering. If he does not experience that then I think my PSU might be the problem here.

Its your setup bro. Ive not a gpu master or anything but ive done my testing and i can assure you that ive not ran into the vram wall. As i said before i had the 660ti at 1080p when i first started gaming and theres a few times i broke 1.5GB or more just to see any performance lost and i was sitting at 60fps at all times Crysis 2 can put you there close to 2GB

 

[srhnd]

On OCCT test I am seeing FPS all over the place too, what the heck can be causing this?

http://s24.postimg.org/leensqml1/2013_11_09_19h21_FPS_FPS.png
http://s24.postimg.org/911tltwwl/2013_11_09_19h21_Voltage_12_V.png

 

[nikoli707]

you cant pass your video cards vram... the computer will just offload onto the system memory and yes you will get a drop in fps for sure. that said... i find it hard to believe that 1600x900 run into that problem except in ultra modded skyrim. for the other posts... over at that skyrim.nexus forums... pretty much everybody serious about modding skyrim ditched the 2gb all together with about 80% of users taking amd cards because of their 3gb vram and costing much less than the 4gb nvidia cards. lesson in vram even though it was only one game really with the issue at the time. i personally had a 2gb 670 and it ran skyrim fine at 1440p but as soon as i used mods and enbs performance fell right through the floor... yet... here on toms.... most users affirmed that 2gb vram is more than enough for games and the next gen. i got a 7950 and solved all my problems. here we are over a year later and this issue of vram wall is becoming more and more an issue. i had it with my 1.25gb 570 just a few months before battlefield 3 came out and again... everybody and their mother assured that it was more than enough vram... lairs... 3 months later battlefield clearly used much more than 1.25gb vram at 1080p. lessons man... lessons.

 

[srhnd]

Mate the fellow who posted above shows he runs 60fps solid on 2100mb vram usage on skyrim, I get like 90 fps average even in 64 man server as well but the fps is all over the place and it is unplayable. I was thinking it was the VRAM wall I hit but seems to me like maybe something is wrong with my PSU too I wish some knowledgable fellow about PSUs could help out with this.

 

[determinologyz]

you cant pass your video cards vram... the computer will just offload onto the system memory and yes you will get a drop in fps for sure. that said... i find it hard to believe that 1600x900 run into that problem except in ultra modded skyrim. for the other posts... over at that skyrim.nexus forums... pretty much everybody serious about modding skyrim ditched the 2gb all together with about 80% of users taking amd cards because of their 3gb vram and costing much less than the 4gb nvidia cards. lesson in vram even though it was only one game really with the issue at the time. i personally had a 2gb 670 and it ran skyrim fine at 1440p but as soon as i used mods and enbs performance fell right through the floor... yet... here on toms.... most users affirmed that 2gb vram is more than enough for games and the next gen. i got a 7950 and solved all my problems. here we are over a year later and this issue of vram wall is becoming more and more an issue. i had it with my 1.25gb 570 just a few months before battlefield 3 came out and again... everybody and their mother assured that it was more than enough vram... lairs... 3 months later battlefield clearly used much more than 1.25gb vram at 1080p. lessons man... lessons.

Mate the fellow who posted above shows he runs 60fps solid on 2100mb vram usage on skyrim, I get like 90 fps average even in 64 man server as well but the fps is all over the place and it is unplayable. I was thinking it was the VRAM wall I hit but seems to me like maybe something is wrong with my PSU too I wish some knowledgable fellow about PSUs could help out with this.

Yea there has to be a different issue going on and in the picture i was in the town of winterhold close by the college im sure if i would of went to whiterun or roaming around i would of gotten the vram even higher still hitting 60fps

 

[srhnd]

@moderator can we move the topic to PSU section, I am suspicious of a PSU problem.

UPDATE:

I plugged the monitor cable to second (the one below the top card) graphics card after disabling SLI and then I reenabled it. I played a round silky smooth without so much even as 1 single stuttering moment. Crysis 3 felt a lot playable too and was smooth, benchmarks showed good scores but then I launched BF4 again and FPS was all over the floor.

What can this mean?

 

[iam2thecrowe]

if its just bf4, then its the game.
But, I have heard, some motherboards, share pcie slot bandwidth with other slots/onboard components. But, im pretty sure its just the game, many people are having problems. maybe join in on one of the many "bf4 stuttering" threads. I thought I would let you know, I just sold my cards (for many other reasons besides this vram thing). Plan on getting another card shortly, probably a 7970 at this stage. So I cant help you with comparing/testing now.

 

[17seconds]

if its just bf4, then its the game.
But, I have heard, some motherboards, share pcie slot bandwidth with other slots/onboard components. But, im pretty sure its just the game, many people are having problems. maybe join in on one of the many "bf4 stuttering" threads. I thought I would let you know, I just sold my cards (for many other reasons besides this vram thing). Plan on getting another card shortly, probably a 7970 at this stage. So I cant help you with comparing/testing now.

Moving to the dark side, eh?

 

[srhnd]

I hope you will be satisfied with your purchase. AMD is a bit more heat and power but in the end when I was buying this card people said Nvidia drivers were superior to AMD's drivers, I have yet to see that since the supposedly WHQL driver sucks big time for the game(s) it was prepared for in the first place while I see AMD users doing pretty fine at this point.

MY PCIe slots are gen 3.0 each running 8x/8x in SLI setup, I think this is equal to gen 2.0 running at 16x/16x right?

http://www.cmwgaming.com/topic/2300-battlefield-4-sli-fix/
https://forums.geforce.com/default/topic/618930/battlefield-4-sli-fix/

Going to try out this fix. Linking in case anyone might want to try it.

I will keep it updated.

 

[determinologyz]

I hope you will be satisfied with your purchase. AMD is a bit more heat and power but in the end when I was buying this card people said Nvidia drivers were superior to AMD's drivers, I have yet to see that since the supposedly WHQL driver sucks big time for the game(s) it was prepared for in the first place while I see AMD users doing pretty fine at this point.

MY PCIe slots are gen 3.0 each running 8x/8x in SLI setup, I think this is equal to gen 2.0 running at 16x/16x right?

http://www.cmwgaming.com/topic/2300-battlefield-4-sli-fix/
https://forums.geforce.com/default/topic/618930/battlefield-4-sli-fix/

Going to try out this fix. Linking in case anyone might want to try it.

I will keep it updated.

"I have yet to see that since the supposedly WHQL driver sucks big time for the game(s) it was prepared for in the first place while I see AMD users doing pretty fine at this point."

Seems like your having issues all the way around i also use the WHQL drivers no issues as well

 

[srhnd]

Your cards are 700 series, seems like these drivers were designed mostly basing on the 700 series. Nvidia is infamous for stopping supporting its older generation cards very quickly and forcing us to buy newer generations.

Second of all, you got 2gb vram that is addressed properly by a 256bit bus width. In my case driver support is crucial for managing that last 512 mb issue.


BTW do you have the game installed on SSD? I have a friend who has almost identical setup to mine and he does not use HDDs he only uses SSDs and I asked him to max out the game including AA @1080p. Although his VRAM usage got stuck like mine at 1580 MB he played some time and he said he did not experience any frame drops or stuttering. Which I think indicates to the faster texture load from SSD offsetting the vram issue on these cards.

 

[determinologyz]

Your cards are 700 series, seems like these drivers were designed mostly basing on the 700 series. Nvidia is infamous for stopping to support its older generation cards very quickly and forcing us to buy newer generations.

Second of all, you got 2gb vram that is addressed properly by a 256bit bus width. In my case driver support is crucial for managing that last 512 mb issue.

When i had the 660ti i still had no issues with drivers and did not have issues with as so called 1.5GB vram wall which i was able to pass without any framedropss..Your issues could be somewhere else bro but from gaming on a 660ti i would know for me everything was solid..


Seems to me your stuck on this vram wall thing and i dont know why your having issues with it for what its worth im pretty sure from my experiences i didnt have any issues and my games are loaded on the hdd...Maybe you should check else where on your pc

 

[srhnd]

Yeah but if you gamed on SSD then it could prevent you from having those issues. If you used HDD then is your windows installed on SSDs only? How about the virtual memory/pagefile you got?

As I said my friend has 2500k stock speed +2x660 SLI, windows 8, pretty much same setup and he also has 1080p so more VRAM usage.

He tried ultra preset yesterday and he saw highest VRAM usage at 1580 MB and reported that there has been no lag or frame drop whatsoever.

Only difference is SSD. He has even a lower PSU wattage @ 650Watts and bigger monitor for higher resolution.

I mean what else can it be? My CPU is rock solid, it runs Prime95 for hours without anything.

On my PSU's box it was specifically written that it supported 7870 Crossfire or 660 SLI, I mean specifically these cards were written.

My monitor is even lower resolution, my RAM is good 8 GB.

 

[determinologyz]

Yeah but if you gamed on SSD then it could prevent you from having those issues. If you used HDD then is your windows installed on SSDs only? How about the virtual memory/pagefile you got?

As I said my friend has 2500k stock speed +2x660 SLI, windows 8, pretty much same setup and he also has 1080p so more VRAM usage.

He tried ultra preset yesterday and he saw highest VRAM usage at 1580 MB and reported that there has been no lag or frame drop whatsoever.

Only difference is SSD. He has even a lower PSU wattage @ 650Watts and bigger monitor for higher resolution.

I mean what else can it be? My CPU is rock solid, it runs Prime95 for hours without anything.

On my PSU's box it was specifically written that it supported 7870 Crossfire or 660 SLI, I mean specifically these cards were written.

My monitor is even lower resolution, my RAM is good 8 GB.

Whats up wth you and this vram wall bro?

Im saying that i havent had any issues and i could of installed the games either on a ssd/hdd as well same results and also you wrote

"He tried ultra preset yesterday and he saw highest VRAM usage at 1580 MB and reported that there has been no lag or frame drop whatsoever."

Which tells me theres something else going wrong

 

[srhnd]

He said exactly that. Doesn't it alone indicate to a vram limit to you? Card, even if it can or cannot, does not want to use that last 512MB. I have not seen higher than 1650 or something myself, I am saying what I have seen and he said what he had seen so it is not like I am personally obssessed with the VRAM wall since I would of course not want to have any such thing on the hardware I spent money on. What are you suggesting? I mean I even ran Furmark and Prime95 together along with a 4gb coverage memtest all together for like 1 hour and nothing happened, if it was PSU it would crack so I eliminated that possibility. No game ever even stresses the PC like this anyway.

 

[determinologyz]

He said exactly that. Doesn't it alone indicate to a vram limit to you? Card, even if it can or cannot, does not want to use that last 512MB. I have not seen higher than 1650 or something myself, I am saying what I have seen and he said what he had seen so it is not like I am personally obssessed with the VRAM wall since I would of course not want to have any such thing on the hardware I spent money on. What are you suggesting? I mean I even ran Furmark and Prime95 together along with a 4gb coverage memtest all together for like 1 hour and nothing happened, if it was PSU it would crack so I eliminated that possibility. No game ever even stresses the PC like this anyway.

Hmm only limitation i saw was seeing games could pass the 2GB mark which is why i changed gpus but my 660ti accesed the last 512MB just fine without issues. Its been a back and forth issue with the last 512MB of vram on different websites but i havent seen for it to be true.

 

[srhnd]

Well on my part I have seen it to be true, my friend's max VRAM usage was like that as well. I see it past 1500 only if I force it on an OCCT stress test, have not seen a game using past that point although it technically should be using.

 

[determinologyz]

Well on my part I have seen it to be true, my friend's max VRAM usage was like that as well. I see it past 1500 only if I force it on an OCCT stress test, have not seen a game using past that point although it technically should be using.

Theres a few games that will take it there or pretty close to 2GB easily

 

[srhnd]

Well, BF4 was stated to be one of those games that brings it to 2200MB VRAM at 1080p full ultra. Assuming that my friend ran it 1080p full ultra on his SLI 660 setup and got max 1580MB VRAM usage then I would say there is either a problem with the game's utilization of these GPUs, hence the drivers or architecture support OR with the card's hardware limitation. I hope it is the first one since it can be fixed by patiently waiting. For other I gotta sell my cards as well I hope it is not the case since I got them recently already.

update: maxed out crysis 3 with 8xaa, watched memory with Playclaw+Hwinfo. As soon as the VRAM reached 1504 MB it started to stutter and the max it reached was 1567 and stuttering was existent almost same pattern as in BF4.

What can be the cause of this guys? Is it possible that I somehow damaged my memory chips with overclocking? I ran my memory at 6600mhz and I cannot see the VRAM temps

 

[rubidium]

srhnd, i know this point is not that good but thought it might help. You didnt compare your OS with the iam2thecrowe, i heard that windows 8 is running this game more smoothly than windows 7 http://battlelog.battlefield.com/bf3/forum/threadview/2955064762797785749/ . Some people are complaining from same prob (same specs with decreased performance cause of OS). I didnt read your OS through what i've read in the thread, so if you have windows 7 maybe this is your problem.

 

[srhnd]

My message was somehow weirdly changed here lol. I was saying I had it on windows 8 and thanked you for your reply.

update: maxed out crysis 3 with 8xaa, watched memory with Playclaw+Hwinfo. As soon as the VRAM reached 1504 MB it started to stutter and the max it reached was 1609 and stuttering was existent almost same pattern as in BF4.

What can be the cause of this guys? Is it possible that I somehow damaged my memory chips with overclocking? I ran my memory at 6600mhz and I cannot see the VRAM temps

Crysis 3 @Very High +8xMSAA 1600x900 noVsync

 

[rubidium]

Oh sorry this didnt help. Personally, i would wait for some drivers to show up maybe because your current setup can easily outperform the r9 280x easily in most games (that support sli). However, if bf is your life and you are strictly addicted to it, then why not getting the 280x specially with the mantle drivers coming up to relieve your cpu and maybe improve performance. Finally, i dont recommend doing this now, as your 1.5 gb of vram usage seems normal instead of being a bottleneck in the bus width of the 660s check this out http://www.guru3d.com/articles_pages/battlefield_4_vga_graphics_performance_benchmark,11.html the game @ ultra and 4xmsaa ( i dont know what AA setting are you using), i think that at your res (no offense i personally game at 1600x1200), the vram will be the last thing a person should worry about or think its bottlenecking the gpu performance.