Video memory, very high or default?

[griffz 1]

I 'm witness of the opposite .

i actually have a 5870 (1GB) and a 7850 (2GB). a very odd thing happen when i use "default" with the 7850 2GB card(and the 5870 of course be cause it's 1GB only). in fact , a performance degradation appears. it is not something subjectivly noticed, because i clearly see the "gpu load" sensors skyrocketting to 100%. clearly without logic reason, picture is the same and 1024 or 1100MB is probably the same for the GPU fillrate .GPU itself can handle 125% 3D reso with 2X SSAA... i use game anisotropic, because its footprint is far lighter.

with "very high" value, the game stay smooth (SP , not so overload house MP etc) but it implies to use detail texture to normal to not let close items "eat" all the GB of VRAM. i monitored a lot, and i can affirm now with very high, the gpu vram load never go higher than 1GB .

a picture to paint the case.

http://img15.hostingpics.net/pics/408896arma2gpubehavior.png

Strange thing is , how the default mode would overload the gpu sensors when it has , at this moment , less VRAM payload ?

i'm clueless.

---------- Post added at 02:08 PM ---------- Previous post was at 01:46 PM ----------

Edited February 21, 2013 by griffz

[dukenukem. 12]

Well your Max VRAM is set to the max. You could set it to 1.5+(1.75) instead so you have some head room when you go to a 2D menu, or alt-tab to desktop etc. Also when that much VRAM being cached on your HDD? it may slow down and hickup? Not sure if you have a SSD or not. But they are helpfull. -maxVRAM=1792

What do you mean by 1.5+(1.75)? you mean my -maxVRAM should be between 1536 and 1792? i will go try it out again, thanks!

Yes i have SSD.

[daleyg 0]

I have tried Default vs Very high for my card HD6950 2GB.

Default i have nice framerates and good detail no blurry textures, popping textures etc. but after awhile once my VRAM is finished (out of memory) my game crashes to desktop or has the black "receiving" screen and i have to kill the game manually. i use the -maxVRAM=2047 parameter still no dice.

Very high i get not so nice framerates and sometimes blurry textures but i can play the game for >2hrs no crashing. But i only utilize ~800mb of video memory... grrrr...

I get exactly this, My GPU is a HD4890 1GB.

Need to put video memory to very high to keep the game stable, with video memory on very high usage never exceed 800MB, but the game keeps running stable and I also flush whenever possible.

When I put it on default it will go all the way to 1024, whenever it reaches this point after a couple minutes my screen will go black 'receiving' in an endless loop.

I've been playing around with -maxvram parameter but it doenst work for me, tried different values like 896,1024 etc but this command gets ignored. ; Please See this post : http://forums.bistudio.com/showthread.php?138584-maxVRAM-does-not-work&highlight=maxvram+work

I get exactly the same results.

Is the -maxvram param working for you guys?

[Leopardi 0]

I get exactly this, My GPU is a HD4890 1GB.

Need to put video memory to very high to keep the game stable, with video memory on very high usage never exceed 800MB, but the game keeps running stable and I also flush whenever possible.

When I put it on default it will go all the way to 1024, whenever it reaches this point after a couple minutes my screen will go black 'receiving' in an endless loop.

I've been playing around with -maxvram parameter but it doenst work for me, tried different values like 896,1024 etc but this command gets ignored. ; Please See this post : http://forums.bistudio.com/showthread.php?138584-maxVRAM-does-not-work&highlight=maxvram+work

I get exactly the same results.

Is the -maxvram param working for you guys?

Sounds like the detection is bugged and it thinks there's more than 1GB memory. My card stops at 1825mb, it doesn't go to the full 2gb.

[dukenukem. 12]

I get exactly this, My GPU is a HD4890 1GB.

Need to put video memory to very high to keep the game stable, with video memory on very high usage never exceed 800MB, but the game keeps running stable and I also flush whenever possible.

When I put it on default it will go all the way to 1024, whenever it reaches this point after a couple minutes my screen will go black 'receiving' in an endless loop.

I've been playing around with -maxvram parameter but it doenst work for me, tried different values like 896,1024 etc but this command gets ignored. ; Please See this post : http://forums.bistudio.com/showthread.php?138584-maxVRAM-does-not-work&highlight=maxvram+work

I get exactly the same results.

Is the -maxvram param working for you guys?

will try and report back

EDIT: ok i did multiple testing with multiple values in -maxVRAM, like 1536, 1792 etc. all of it gets ignored on default video memory setting. it will happily allocate all available VRAM as needed by the game, till it soft crashes with black receiving screen looping.

i have also tried texture detail normal vs high. normal uses ~200mb less video memory than high, and it instantly has a change in my video memory monitoring. (i use ATI tray tools overlay to monitor gpu usage and free VRAM ingame)

in chernarus with its huge expanse of trees you can easily use alot of VRAM just by looking around 360 and zooming in with binocs/scope.

what i normally do now is:

for islands with high VRAM usage eg chernarus, zargabad, takistan. i will use normal texture detail and default video memory, monitor usage, and when it nears ~256mb VRAM free i will do a manual flush or alt-tab to free up VRAM.

for islands with lower VRAM usage eg fallujah. i can afford to use high texture detail with higher viewdistance and monitor, but so far never needed to do any flush after ~2hrs of gameplay.

hope this helps.

Edited March 5, 2013 by DukeNukeM.