Question about GTX 970

[Tuluras]

Hello, everyone. As all of you might know the last few days are full of articles about the 970 memory config and so on... So basically since I do not understand how that works... My question is. How does that memory config influences games and theyr fps? Is it more like for higher resolutions or the complaints I saw are also for resolutions like 1080p? Sorry if I'm not asking clearly... Kind of hard to think a correct question 😛

 

[Entomber]

While the GTX 970 was originally advertised to have 4GB of VRAM, in actuality it has 2 sections of VRAM: 1 section with 3.5GB and 1 with .5 GB. The .5 GB section is much slower, so it will cause textures over 3.5GB to be loaded much slower than the other parts.

VRAM is mainly used to load and store textures for fast access by the GPU, and the way that different games use VRAM will affect how much of a performance hit you see, as well as your resolution. Higher resolution = more VRAM used.

While the whole memory thing doesn't strictly affect FPS, it will cause stuttering and drops in FPS when the 3.5GB of VRAM is filled up

 

[Xibyth]

The memory on the GTX 970 and 980 GPU's have more advanced communication between the graphics processing units. This means they can communicate faster on smaller memory buses. What this translates to is the GPU gets information and processes much faster, resulting in it being able to create an image on the display faster. It's relevant at any resolution but much more noticeable the higher you go.

With resolutions a good example of how much more work a GPU has to do with higher resolutions, a 4K display has 4 times more pixels the GPU has to process and handle. Meaning the amount of memory consumed is nearly 4 times greater, and needs 4 times as much and 4 times faster to provide the same framerates. That is if the GPU itself was not being considered.

They now use better compression and decoding techniques with the new cards that allow them to do the same work, but with less effort. So to answer your question they work smarter. Even many games on 1080p use more than 2GB, they just don't see it being used on 2GB cards as the card doesn't collect it all at once if it's too large. On top of that about 256MB (or 512 in the case of the GTX 970) of your VRAM is strictly held by the GPU itself for its own needs, it has an OS inside of it, not like windows or anything, but it's their to manage how the card functions. So the card will only report ~1.75GB of your VRAM being used.