Let's talk VRAM and BF3

[numanoid]

I made big mistake last year and got a GTX590 thinking it would be an easy solution for my triple monitor gaming. Not only can I not overclock it very well, it only has 1.5 gig VRAM per core, which is giving me problems in BF3. I run it at 5323x1050 (or similar) at "high" settings. Most of the time it works great, but for large outdoor maps with a lot of smoke, it drops from 40-50 fps to 20ish fps. All AA is off.

According to my monitoring, it appears to be maxing out the vram, which seems to be common with BF3.

So my question here is, has anyone been able to run BF3 at 5760x1080 on ultra in a 3 monitor rig? Does anyone know how much memory this will eat up?

I'm thinking of moving to GTX680s (4GB) in SLI. If these can't pull it off, can anything on the market right now? Should I be looking for AMD solutions?

Thanks!

[Haldi]

AFAIK full VRAM results in 2-3 FPS not in 20 FPS...

[Eerazer]

it uses about 1750-1850mb at 5760x1080 on high, med and ultra mix

[Wijkert]

AFAIK full VRAM results in 2-3 FPS not in 20 FPS...

QFT

At 6048x1080 on low-med I have seen as high as 2400mb on Gulf of Oman, but keep in mind that the (frostbite) engine will use as much (to a curtain limit) vram as it can. Which means that although I might use 2400mb, you won't run into a vram limit if your video card has 2gb for example.

[tepescovir]

Vram scales depending on your cards.
I used to run 3 580 3gb cards at 6080x1080 and bf3 would easily use 2500 on medium to high settings with aa set to 2 and locked at 60fps
i now run 3 680 2gigs and vram usage is now 1700 to 1800 with textures on ultra and others on high with aa on 2z and framerate is nearly always locked to 60.

[Massivedance]

has anyone been able to run BF3 at 5760x1080 on ultra in a 3 monitor rig? Does anyone know how much memory this will eat up?

I have to use the Medium setting for an average of 40 fps on large maps at 5760x1080 60hz. And the frame rate still stutters occasionally like 2 fps for 1-2 seconds to the point im wondering is my PC going to crash.
I run: (nothing overclocked)
intel core i7 960 3.2ghz
2x 580 GTX 3GB

If i had a newer generation CPU (and i5 rather than i7) and did some overclocking id probably achieve the ultra BF3 setting.

I'll probably upgrade my CPU/motherboard very soon, but probably wait until next year for the next generation GPU ie 790 GTX.

Using 2x #80 GTX's uses a lot of electricity and produces a lot of heat, id so love to have the 690 GTX as it uses only 300 watts compared to 2x 400 watts (peak), but its just so expensive. Hopefully i'll get the 790 GTX next year. BF4 is going to need it.

[kirisaki-jack]

I play on Ultra with 3x580 3gb and it eats about 2gb VRAM. Frames go anywhere from 40 - 120 during multi-player, using adaptive vsync now to keep it a little more stable.

Have a Asrock Gen7 MB and it has a space between each pcie lane so my cards arent sandwiched together, temps max out at 71degrees on the hottest card (bottom one strangely enough), slightly overclocked core @850

playing at 5870x1080p 60hz.

I would say because you have the 3gb version, its not VRAM, Probably a cpu bottleneck as 64 player online is a cpu hog.

[Wijkert]

I would say because you have the 3gb version, its not VRAM, Probably a cpu bottleneck as 64 player online is a cpu hog.

He has 1.5gb of vram, not 3gb. I really doubt that it is a cpu bottleneck. At 5760x1080p res the gpu is the bottleneck 99% of the time.

[numanoid]

I play on Ultra with 3x580 3gb and it eats about 2gb VRAM. Frames go anywhere from 40 - 120 during multi-player, using adaptive vsync now to keep it a little more stable.

Have a Asrock Gen7 MB and it has a space between each pcie lane so my cards arent sandwiched together, temps max out at 71degrees on the hottest card (bottom one strangely enough), slightly overclocked core @850

playing at 5870x1080p 60hz.

I would say because you have the 3gb version, its not VRAM, Probably a cpu bottleneck as 64 player online is a cpu hog.

Awesome, this is exactly what I was hoping to see. With my 2 680GTX with 4 gig each plan should be able to handle it maxed out. I'm waiting for the classified version with hydro copper as I want to water cool it. The FTW versions are non-reference so existing waterblocks won't work. :((

As stated, my 590 is 3GB combined, so 1.5 each. Not sure what would be causing the fps drop, but it only happens on "large" maps after playing for a long time.

[Wijkert]

As stated, my 590 is 3GB combined, so 1.5 each. Not sure what would be causing the fps drop, but it only happens on "large" maps after playing for a long time.

That’s the weird thing, why would it happen after playing for a long time. The engine would fill the vram right at the beginning. Btw, does it actually feel like an fps drop or more like intermittent stuttering?

[numanoid]

It feels like a frame rate drop. The in-game frame rate counter shows the drop to 20-22. If I move indoors it recovers back to 40s-50s, but some scenes outdoors brings it right back.

[Haldi]

GPU load still at 99% ? like normaly ingame ?

[Ufolog]

Try Metro 64 and you'll see the drop even lower when massivly frags/m320 spamming
....
in game press tilda to enable console and print

Code: Select all

<strong>render.perfoverlayvisible true</strong>

It brings GPU/CPU load graph on the left monitor.
Very useful to analyze.

[tepescovir]

I recently was also getting slight framerate drops using my 3 680's 2 gigs. I turned off aa and used fxaa instead. also used the fxaa injector for colours, and now now more framerate drops and silky smooth at 60fps locked.
And i think it looks better with fxaa then 2x aa which is about all you could run in surround anyway

[fuzioninfinity]

I currently have a single 680 4gb, and it typically uses anywhere from 2100 to 2500mb of VRAM from what i've casually observed. I get around 30-40 FPS on the "Ultra" preset in BF3, rarely dipping down into the 20s, but never lower - at 6060x1080, no settings changed from default. I plan to acquire a second 4gb 680 around Christmas for hopefully a solid 60 frames..