Future Vram requirements

[slipoo]

Will future games in 2016+ require a higher vram capacity such as 4+gb even to play at 1080p, or is vram purely focused to render more pixels at higher resolutions. I know it is hard to tell at the moment with technology so variable but is there a trend developing.
I am thinking of a good card for 1080p and potentially 1440p such as the 980ti but I am unsure whether the extra 2gb is going to necessary over the next 2-3yrs.Any information as long as its not overly complicated will be appreciated thanks!

 

[geofelt]

VRAM has become a marketing issue.
My understanding is that vram is more of a performance issue than a functional issue.
A game needs to have most of the data in vram that it uses most of the time.
Somewhat like real ram.
If a game needs something not in vram, it needs to get it across the pcie boundary
hopefully from real ram and hopefully not from a hard drive.
It is not informative to know to what level the available vram is filled.
Possibly much of what is there is not needed.
What is not known is the rate of vram exchange.
Vram is managed by the Graphics card driver, so there may be differences in effectiveness between amd and nvidia cards.
Here is an older performance test comparing 2gb with 4gb vram.
http://www.pugetsystems.com/labs/articles/Video-Card-Performance-2GB-vs-4GB-Memory-154/
Spoiler... not a significant difference.

No game producer wants to make a game that requires so much vram to run well that it limits the market for the game.

 

[slipoo]

Thanks Geofelt, interesting article which has led me to reconsider a gpu. I intended for high frame rates at 1080p but the extra money going from lets say a 970 to 980 to 980ti becomes pointless for that resolution. I'll probs stick with a 970 and then if budget allows a 980. Like all tech, as I buy it some new software will pop round the corner as with skylake and pascal architectures...live's tough