[SOLVED] Can we use many different VGA to get more VRAM for video editing?

Lancelotsan

Commendable
Jul 8, 2019
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I have a GTX960 2gb.
Now, I want to improve my PC's VRAM to work for video editing software.

I know a guy who uses different VGA to render. He says he has a GTX980 and a GTX1080. He run two vga together, not for SLI, but to get more VRAM when he is rendering.
So, I wonder if I buy another GTX950 ( in the present-day, VGA's price is higher and higher. It is difficult to find another GTX960,too), and put the SLI cable to connect them together, can we use VRAM of GTX950 to get more VRAM for GTX960 to work ( of course, GTX960 maybe slowdown, but it will get more VRAM?)????

The same question, but can we do the same with other VGA that doesn't support SLI ( can't put SLI cable to connect these vga)?
Finally, the same question, but if we connect GTX960 with another AMD VGA ( that support Crossfire - RX460)????

It is the complex question. Sorry, everyone. --'
 
Solution
It's not combining VRAM, because the VRAM in video cards is fixed and one video card trying to access another's video card may as well just be accessing RAM at that point because it'd be talking over PCIe.

In theory for video editing, it's possible to split the work up to any arbitrary number of arbitrary video cards and combine the results later. But I'm not aware of any video editing software that actually does this.
It's not combining VRAM, because the VRAM in video cards is fixed and one video card trying to access another's video card may as well just be accessing RAM at that point because it'd be talking over PCIe.

In theory for video editing, it's possible to split the work up to any arbitrary number of arbitrary video cards and combine the results later. But I'm not aware of any video editing software that actually does this.
 
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Solution

InvalidError

Titan
Moderator
nope.
nope
and nope

vram is on the gpu, not shared
VRAM could can be shared over PCIe, you only need a CPU, motherboard and GPUs that support resizable BAR so all PCIe devices can have flat access to all memory in the system regardless of where it is. Not an option with OP's GTX960s though and it would also require that the GPUs and drivers be designed to leverage this possibility.

Of course, even if this was fully supported, it would be limited by PCIe bandwidth that can more easily and efficiently be served from system memory, which makes multi-GPU for "VRAM expansion" completely pointless, especially on mainstream platforms where multi-GPU means splitting the x16 bus with the other cards. Better off having only one GPU with full x16 access to system RAM when the GPU is starving on RAM.
 

Lancelotsan

Commendable
Jul 8, 2019
34
2
1,535
VRAM could can be shared over PCIe, you only need a CPU, motherboard and GPUs that support resizable BAR so all PCIe devices can have flat access to all memory in the system regardless of where it is. Not an option with OP's GTX960s though and it would also require that the GPUs and drivers be designed to leverage this possibility.

Of course, even if this was fully supported, it would be limited by PCIe bandwidth that can more easily and efficiently be served from system memory, which makes multi-GPU for "VRAM expansion" completely pointless, especially on mainstream platforms where multi-GPU means splitting the x16 bus with the other cards. Better off having only one GPU with full x16 access to system RAM when the GPU is starving on RAM.

follow my knowledge, when making video clip. You just need:
  • CPU that has more cores,
  • More RAM.
  • The GPU has at least 4gb VRAM for 4k clips.
The only thing we should care about is almost video editing software doesn't support well with AMD GPU. So, use Nvidia GPU if you want to edit the videos.
Besides it, they don't care about what strong GPU is, right? I mean, a GTX1050 4gb VRAM just as same as GTX 1650 Super 4gb VRAM when they working on video editing software?
 

InvalidError

Titan
Moderator
Besides it, they don't care about what strong GPU is, right? I mean, a GTX1050 4gb VRAM just as same as GTX 1650 Super 4gb VRAM when they working on video editing software?
Depends on whether the editing software supports some form of general-purpose GPU (GPGPU) acceleration (CUDA, OpenCL, OpemML, DirectCompute, etc.), how resource-intensive those GPU-accelerated effects are and how many of those effects are running concurrently.
 
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