Video Card RAM important?

[sqeaky4100]

Just bought a EVGA GTX 285 1GB

But noticed EVGA released the 2GB version.

Should I upgrade using Step-up, or is it simply not worth it when 5boxing WoW?

[wowphreak]

The 1 gig version is overkill for WoW :P

[Herc130]

Just ordered an eVGA GTX285 as well, mine should be here by thursday. You got 90 days to figure out for step-up, I'd suggest you use most of those days. Play with your new toy for a bit and if you still want to step up, do it later and get another new toy. I only do 1 computer 1 account and there is no game I play that 2GB of video ram really matters, but I do know that a few games (read 1) makes use of more then 1gb of video ram and more will come out as far as what difference more video ram has for boxing multiple accounts on one computer, ask people who use 4850x2's. Whatever improvement they got from their last cards in MMO's is probably not because of the dual gpu's.

Maybe in 90 days RV870 releases (actually it should be out next month). Doubtfull GT300 will be out till around Nov. but there are roumors that NV will release GT212 (and I'd bet money it will be right when RV870 releases or shortly after) and although I am not sure how useful a GTX285 with 2gb would be to me over having one with only 1gb, I'd say the next GTX 2XX card will run cooler, faster and probably have an option for 2GB video ram as well and will probably release within 90 days. I think you and I are in a good position. New toy to play with that no doubt will run games better then our old cards and 90 days to figure out if we want to trade it in on whatever the GT212 will be called or go for the GTX285 2gb after all (or maybe jump ship and go ATI with RV870). Also, time enough to see how GT300 is panning out and possibly not do a step-up at all and just live with GTX285 till GT300.

[Sam DeathWalker]

I would think that the more ram you have on the video card the less your cpu has to move data from the system ram to the video card (ususally the bottleneck in boxing), and the less traffic on your pci/ram buss.

If the costs are similar I would get the 2G.

[wowphreak]

I would think that the more ram you have on the video card the less your cpu has to move data from the system ram to the video card (ususally the bottleneck in boxing), and the less traffic on your pci/ram buss.

If the costs are similar I would get the 2G.

it doesn't matter whether or not yeh got 512 megs or 2 gigs of video ram the same amount of data gets move around.
Recommended by blizzard is 128 megs
http://us.blizzard.com/support/artic...rticleId=21054

[Sam DeathWalker]

3D graphics processor with Vertex and Pixel Shader capability with 128 MB VRAM, such as an ATI Radeon X1600 or NVIDIA GeForce 7600 GT class card or better

In the same line where they also recomend a 7600?

I don't think these recomendations are for running 5 wow's, but rather for running 1 wow.

[Sajuuk]

I would think that the more ram you have on the video card the less your cpu has to move data from the system ram to the video card (ususally the bottleneck in boxing), and the less traffic on your pci/ram buss.

If the costs are similar I would get the 2G.

No...just no.

I'm five boxing just fine on a 9600GT with 512MB ram. If anything it's your SYSTEM RAM that's a bottleneck... I just ordered six more gigs because for me wow was going over 1gig per instance in northrend. Granted, I'm not playing at insane resolutions, but still it's system ram that's getting eaten up, not video ram.

Did a quickie newegg search. I'd step-up for kicks, since it's only a 50 dollar or so difference at first glance. Although I don't know if you're going to see any REAL difference in performance.

[Otlecs]

This has piqued my interest because I've often wondered the same, and have no idea how this side of gaming technology works.

If I'm running five WoWs, I would have *thought* that each instance of WoW would be loading textures and other video-graphicy-type gubbins (see, I know all the terminology...) into the video RAM independently.

Like Sam, I would have *thought* that more video memory means that the textures wouldn't get bumped out of video memory so often, meaning less system->video memory transfers.

Why is that wrong?

Is it that the video subsystem is clever enough to recognise that the textures are actually the same even though they come from different processes, so the video RAM demand doesn't increase as you run more WoWs?

Can somebody explain in simple terms how that works? Or point me at an article I can read to understand this a bit better.

Cheers,
Otlecs.

[Kayley]

This has piqued my interest because I've often wondered the same, and have no idea how this side of gaming technology works.

If I'm running five WoWs, I would have *thought* that each instance of WoW would be loading textures and other video-graphicy-type gubbins (see, I know all the terminology...) into the video RAM independently.

Like Sam, I would have *thought* that more video memory means that the textures wouldn't get bumped out of video memory so often, meaning less system->video memory transfers.

Why is that wrong?

I don't think it is wrong. But WoW isn't really taxing on the GPU (Even on Ultra settings you still hit a CPU bottleneck . Bring on more quad optimizations prz) so 1gb is overkill. Unless for some reason you needed to play with all the windows open (somehow hah) at 2560x1600, then you would need the extra vRAM.
That's just my two cents, although I'm just a tech enthusiast.. :P
NOT A PRO PC PERSON!
Ciao

[Otlecs]

I don't think it is wrong. But WoW isn't really taxing on the GPU (Even on Ultra settings you still hit a CPU bottleneck . Bring on more quad optimizations prz) so 1gb is overkill.

Hmmm.

I'm not sure I follow the "wow doesn't strain the GPU so 1GB of video memory is overkill" logic. How is there any relationship between processor (GPU) load and the amount of video memory an application demands?

The more I think about this topic, the more confused I make myself.

I can understand an argument that says that video RAM doesn't matter so much because the frame buffer needs the same amount of memory regardless of whether it's a single app running at (say) 1900 x 1200 or (say) 5 apps running over the same amount of screen real-estate (given the same amount of frame buffering).

But I always imagined that textures (and maybe other graphical objects?) took up a significant amount of video RAM, and that's where I thought having more video memory would be a win for multiple instances of WoW.

I always knew I didn't know very much about this, but it wasn't until I started thinking it through that I realised just how little I really do know :wacko: