Different Question: 2GB GTX 460, or 1GB GTX 560 Ti?

[Grail]

I understand the 560 is thought to be on average 25-30% faster, but what if I want to avoid spending more than 250? For our purposes, would the speed or the memory be of advantage. This question is for a single card solution for five-boxing with a good quad core and Ultra settings are nice but not necessary on the main. Medium settings the rest of the way with capped fps on the help.

Thanks in advance for any thoughts or input.

-Grail

[Sajuuk]

Either will be fine, although I bet Sam Deathwalker will say MOAR VRAM.

Wow is old, go with what you want.

[Bollwerk]

1GB of video ram is more than enough for WoW. Go with the 560. 2GB only begins to make a difference at 2560x1600 with extremely high resolution textures.

[Sam DeathWalker]

As its for 5 boxing I say MORE VRAM!!!!

I was not aware you get get a 460 with 2G, guess you can humm ...

http://www.overclock.net/nvidia/801683-surround-gaming-nvidia-gtx460-mainstream-card.html


You have to add all 5 clients resolutions to get "effective resolutions" if you use IsBoxer and full rendering on all slaves for fast swaping. So what you render may very well be way more then your monitors native resolution.

[Bollwerk]

Unless I'm misunderstanding the way things work, if all 5 toons are in the same location, then the textures should only need to be loaded once in vram.

Surround gaming is definitely a different story though. In those cases, you need to add up the resolution of all the monitors to get your effective resolution, as you said.

For us multiboxers, we are far more limited by CPU and GPU horsepower than VRAM.

I wonder if there is a tool out there to measure VRAM usage...
Edit - Turns out GPU-Z can measure VRAM usage for Nvidia cards, but not ATI. Something about sensors.

P.S. Using AA will also increase VRAM usage.

[daanji]

I recently upgraded to a nvidia 560 ti. When I x5 box at good settings, gpu-z will measure about 900/1024 MB used with the gpu almost maxed out.. I have not tried it at higher settings.

[Sajuuk]

As its for 5 boxing I say MORE VRAM!!!!

I was not aware you get get a 460 with 2G, guess you can humm ...

http://www.overclock.net/nvidia/801683-surround-gaming-nvidia-gtx460-mainstream-card.html


You have to add all 5 clients resolutions to get "effective resolutions" if you use IsBoxer and full rendering on all slaves for fast swaping. So what you render may very well be way more then your monitors native resolution.

Told you so. And while more VRAM certainly won't hinder performance, only having 1GB won't hurt it, as many of us have been running 1GB


Unless I'm misunderstanding the way things work, if all 5 toons are in the same location, then the textures should only need to be loaded once in vram.

Surround gaming is definitely a different story though. In those cases, you need to add up the resolution of all the monitors to get your effective resolution, as you said.

For us multiboxers, we are far more limited by CPU and GPU horsepower than VRAM.

I wonder if there is a tool out there to measure VRAM usage...
Edit - Turns out GPU-Z can measure VRAM usage for Nvidia cards, but not ATI. Something about sensors.

P.S. Using AA will also increase VRAM usage.

We generally don't use AA when multiboxing to increase performance. Far as how many times things are loaded in VRAM, I am unsure. That would be handled on the code side of things, at least I think.

[Sam DeathWalker]

if all 5 toons are in the same location, then the textures should only need to be loaded once in vram.



Ya if the code was written with multiboxers in mind .... why would would that be the case?

The concept that one client knows about what other clients need or have in ram is just hopeing for way to much.

MAYBE windows might look into system ram to see if data is there before going to the hard drive for it but I really doubt that one client looks into another clients memory space to see if the other client has data it needs ......

I am not even sure applications under windows can share memory space. Microsoft word looking into Photoshop memory space to see if it has data it needs ....



I think that all would agree the IF data in vram is not shared at all and each client is given its own exclusive chunk of vram then with 5 clients and 1G you have like 200M of Vram per client. Clearly you would want more VRAM if that is the case.

[Sajuuk]

I will agree that more is generally better, but you shouldn't necessarily run out and buy something BECAUSE it has more RAM. Go with whatever is cheaper.

[Bollwerk]

@Sam - I was talking more about how DirectX works and not WoW. It seems logical to me that if DirectX is told to load a texture, it might check to see if it's already in VRAM before it goes looking for it. This seems like it wouldn't matter if you are boxing or not. But I don't know if the graphics for each instance of WoW takes up separate space in VRAM or if it's all in one giant pool.

The only way to know for sure is to use a tool like GPU-Z to test on an Nvidia card. Since I have one, I'll try to test this myself sometime.

[Sam DeathWalker]

Ya Direct X, didn't really think about that part I guess I have to read up on it.

Ya knowing if a texture in vram can be accessed by multiple clients would really help on making these kinds of decisions so as not to waste money.

[Grail]

Alright, well we have a project.

I will say I was measuring my vram usage using the EVGA precision tool and when I was running my one account in Ultra with some settings turned down, I was using close to 875 - 925 of my 1024 mb on my brother's EVGA GTX 460 1 GB that I am borrowing. (This was in Outland and Northrend.) That to me doesn't sound like it leaves a lot of room for another four clients. That said, I understand lots of people have been 5 boxing successfully with 1 GB and I can always go to lower settings on my main.

If you have access to the EVGA Precision tool, left click on the main window with the stats and drag your mouse up which will scroll the stats down... and at the bottom is a memory usage graph that you can also set to run in your task bar. I have been running WoW in a window and keeping an eye on it.

Also, when I log off a character and go into the log in screen, my memory stays at the same usage. It only drops down to 30 mb or so when I quit the game. Is that just how it works? Let's say I am flying around Outland and my memory usage is around 900 mb. I then log onto my level 5 alt who is staring at a wall in an upstairs room at the Goldshire Inn and it is still 900 mb. No, now it is 920. Can anyone confirm this is how it works for them as well?

Thanks for all the info and conjecture!

Grail

[Grail]

Well, I got the EVGA GTX 460 2 GB card. It arrived via UPS today. The $199 price tag (after rebate) was just too good I thought. Once I start 5 boxing I will try to report back some data. I can also switch that out for the GTX 460 1 GB and provide some comparables.

Don't anyone hold their breath though. It might be June or so before I have my new system built.

-Grail

p.s.- Thanks to everyone who chipped in to help me decide which card I should get. And to anyone disappointed I didn't go with the 560, my thinking was that with the 460 at $199. it would make it easier to get two 560's or so a year from now.

I have already started saving!

[Sajuuk]

199 is a good price tag. Remember the 260/280s? I have no idea what the prices on those were at launch, but I think they were expensive.

[Sam DeathWalker]

Good Choice at a very Good Price imnsho.