Question 'Ampere'/Next-gen gaming uarch speculation thread

[Ottonomous]

How much is the Samsung 7nm EUV process expected to provide in terms of gains?
How will the RTX components be scaled/developed?
Any major architectural enhancements expected?
Will VRAM be bumped to 16/12/12 for the top three?
Will there be further fragmentation in the lineup? (Keeping turing at cheaper prices, while offering 'beefed up RTX' options at the top?)
Will the top card be capable of >4K60, at least 90?
Would Nvidia ever consider an HBM implementation in the gaming lineup?
Will Nvidia introduce new proprietary technologies again?

Sorry if imprudent/uncalled for, just interested in the forum member's thoughts.

 

[Heartbreaker]

Also note the silly mismatch of architectures and vram bandwidth to base your conclusions on. The 3080 has gddr6x, 320-bit and 760GB/s of bandwidth vs 448GB/s bandwidth of the 2080. So its more than vram capacity as a potential factor in the vids findings.

Also it's just one particular section of one particular game, at 4K, with nightmare textures.

Simply turning textures "down" to Ultra level has alleviated this particular issue in what seems to be the only case of this "problem".

Acting like one extreme corner case, is going to suddenly become the new normal is absurd.

Can anyone actually see a visible difference in turning textures down to ultra?

 

[Stuka87]

There is a bottleneck-old 14ghz GDDR6 same as on 2070 + 8GB Vram will not be enough for 1440p for new gen games.Hell its not even enough for some today games(doom ethernal, SS4, COD games at max settings))
8GB on x70 card in pretty much in 2021 is joke.Polaris rx480 launched with 8GB ram in 2016 for 250usd lol and now we should pay 500USD(i am sure AIb will be 550-600usd anyway) for another x70 8GB card in 2021????

There is literally zero evidence to suggest that 8GB is not enough for 1440P. 8GB is still enough for 4K currently. Future games will utilize more, but its not going to be some overnight gigantic jump. It will be the same slow, gradual increase we have seen for the last decade.

 

[Head1985]

Yeah whatever.This is from SS4(serious sam4) 1440P RTX2070 8GB.Buying 8GB card for 1440/everything max in 2021 for next gen games is stupid.Also try COD warzone 1440P all max on 8GB card.It will stutter after some time.And thats today games not next gen.I had 1080TI 11GB and then switched to 8GB 5700XT and i did realised 8Gb is not enough for some today games.There is no way i am buying another 8GB card.Navi/RDNA2 with 12GB should be optimal for 1440P/everyting max for next gen games or 3070 16GB(that will be overkill, but i rather have overkill than 8GB and need to reduce textures in future games)

 

[Kuiva maa]

People that expect 8GB to be fine for next gen 1440p are setting up themselves for disappointment imho. Late current gen games already have issues. I experienced extremely high VRAM usage on Marvel Avengers too and that reddit thread below confirms the same thing and noticed performance degradation too.

https://www.reddit.com/r/PlayAvengers/comments/i9ydli

 

[Mopetar]

If the problem doesn't show up until 1 or 2 hours, that's a memory leak, not inadequate memory.

Your guesses about 1440p games in the future are not remotely convincing.

Or just developers being lazy and forgetting to remove unused assets from memory or just leaving them around because they might be used again in the future and reloading them would be some kind of sun. If it were a memory leak eventually we should see a 16 GB card fall off as well.

Given that a lot of games will allocate a lot more than they actually need, I wouldn't be surprised if it is because of developer laziness and just leaving things in memory that could be kicked out and reloaded again later if truly necessary.

 

[Heartbreaker]

If it were a memory leak eventually we should see a 16 GB card fall off as well.

If you actually need 7GB of VRAM and a memory leak pushes over 8GB in 1-2 hours, it's a pretty slow leak.

At that rate, you would need another 8-16 hours for a 16GB card to have the same issue.

 

[tviceman]

If you actually need 7GB of VRAM and a memory leak pushes over 8GB in 1-2 hours, it's a pretty slow leak.

At that rate, you would need another 8-16 hours for a 16GB card to have the same issue.

Or you just save, quit game, and then restart. An inconvenience yes, but hardly a major one.

 

[Heartbreaker]

Or you just save, quit game, and then restart. An inconvenience yes, but hardly a major one.

The point was, we can't assume it's not a memory leak, just because higher VRAM cards haven't reported it. Because it will take so much longer on higher VRAM cards, that it's much less likely anyone would notice the leak.

 

[DJinPrime]

Yeah whatever.This is from SS4(serious sam4) 1440P RTX2070 8GB.Buying 8GB card for 1440/everything max in 2021 for next gen games is stupid.Also try COD warzone 1440P all max on 8GB card.It will stutter after some time.And thats today games not next gen.I had 1080TI 11GB and then switched to 8GB 5700XT and i did realised 8Gb is not enough for some today games.There is no way i am buying another 8GB card.Navi/RDNA2 with 12GB should be optimal for 1440P/everyting max for next gen games or 3070 16GB(that will be overkill, but i rather have overkill than 8GB and need to reduce textures in future games)

Something is wrong with your screenshot. 66fps, and only 1217MB VRAM allocated?

Youtube video of SS4 at 4k ultra settings shows no problem with 8GB card. Maybe your card is broken.

 

[tviceman]

The point was, we can't assume it's not a memory leak, just because higher VRAM cards haven't reported it. Because it will take so much longer on higher VRAM cards, that it's much less likely anyone would notice the leak.

If it's fixed by exiting and restarting the game, it's a memory leak.

 

[Head1985]

3070 listed for 650USD(czech shop).Its not placehorder i am sure.Asus 2070 ROG super cost there 620USD

ASUS ROG STRIX RTX3070 OC Gaming, 8GB GDDR6 256b, PCIe 4.0 | SUNTECH Computer - prodej počítačů, elektroniky a spotřebního materiálu

Grafický procesor: nVidia® GeForce RTX™ 3070; CUDA jednotek: 5888; OpenGL® verze: 4.6; Grafická paměť: 8GB GDDR6; Šířka paměťové sběrnice: 256 bitů; Napájecí konektory: 2x 8-pin; Výstupní konektory; 2x HDMI 2.1; 3x

www.suntech.cz

 

[AdamK47]

Got my 3090.

 

[Mopetar]

If it's fixed by exiting and restarting the game, it's a memory leak.

Not a good test to distinguish between lazy developers not clearing out unneeded assets and a memory leak.

Imagine a game where there's a large world with a lot of different assets. You go into a cave, a house, or whatever the case may be. The game loads assets into memory for the interior. After you leave they aren't strictly necessary but you might go back soon so they stay in memory. Play long enough and do that with enough locations and it adds up even with otherwise perfect and non-leaky code.

Restarting fixes that problem equally as well and makes it impossible to determine whether the underlying cause is a memory leak or not.

 

[DJinPrime]

Not a good test to distinguish between lazy developers not clearing out unneeded assets and a memory leak.

Imagine a game where there's a large world with a lot of different assets. You go into a cave, a house, or whatever the case may be. The game loads assets into memory for the interior. After you leave they aren't strictly necessary but you might go back soon so they stay in memory. Play long enough and do that with enough locations and it adds up even with otherwise perfect and non-leaky code.

Restarting fixes that problem equally as well and makes it impossible to determine whether the underlying cause is a memory leak or not.

What you described is a memory leak. It doesn't have to be a bug to be consider a memory leak, forgetting to dereference/release objects is a leak too. The restart will force the game to reload everything needed to be at that point in the game. And if it does fix the problem, then yeah, you have memory leak because either a bug or you forgot to free resources that's not needed.

 

[BFG10K]

8GB is still enough for 4K currently.

That's false. Digital Foundry and Hardware Unboxed have both objectively proven 8GB tanks in Doom Eternal at 4K when there's otherwise more than enough performance.

There's also this absurd myth running around the internet claiming every game automatically fills all available VRAM, when this is easily disprovable by comparing two different sized cards (eg. 6GB vs 8GB) and observing the larger card uses about the same allocation. The vast majority of games I've seen tested behave like that. Also various in-game read-outs (e.g., Resident Evil) have shown to exceed 8GB depending on the settings (especially with various texture packs installed), so you can't blame the tools for that.

We had 8GB in 2016 for $379, on nVidia's number 3 card. Four and a half years later we still have 8GB on nVidia's number 3 card, but it's now $500. See the problem?

If AMD releases high-VRAM cards, watch how quickly we get 16GB/20GB cards from nVidia, despite earlier them telling us 8GB/10GB is just fine.

 

[BFG10K]

Something is wrong with your screenshot. 66fps, and only 1217MB VRAM allocated?

Which part is "wrong"? MSI Afterburner, or the game itself telling him he doesn't have enough VRAM?

Why automatically assume sitting in a menu has equal resource allocation to actually playing the game?

 

[Heartbreaker]

That's false. Digital Foundry and Hardware Unboxed have both objectively proven 8GB tanks in Doom Eternal at 4K when there's otherwise more than enough performance.

One section, of one game, on Nightmare textures.

Show me a visual difference between Nightmare and Ultra textures.

 

[DJinPrime]

Which part is "wrong"? MSI Afterburner, or the game itself telling him he doesn't have enough VRAM?

Why automatically assume sitting in a menu has equal resource allocation to actually playing the game?

He seems to have removed his image from the post. He shown a screenshot with an memory warning message in game. But afterburner was showing only 1217MB in use. So, something must be wrong with his card cause other people is playing the game in 4k running over 60fps.

 

[BFG10K]

One section, of one game, on Nightmare textures.

Show us proof it's only one section of the game. Two full playthroughs with full frametime analysis on 11GB vs 8GB will be perfectly fine.

Show me a visual difference between Nightmare and Ultra textures.

We're talking about objective VRAM usage, not "what guidryp thinks is good enough". Nobody cares what you think.

 

[BFG10K]

He seems to have removed his image from the post. He shown a screenshot with an memory warning message in game. But afterburner was showing only 1217MB in use. So, something must be wrong with his card cause other people is playing the game in 4k running over 60fps.

What are you talking about? I can see the image just fine, and it doesn't mean anything.

The game is obviously pre-calculaing the amount before committing, and issuing a warning before doing so. Again, why do you think a game needs to perform full VRAM allocation in the settings menu?

 

[DJinPrime]

What are you talking about? I can see the image just fine, and it doesn't mean anything.

The game is obviously pre-calculaing the amount before committing, and issuing a warning before doing so. Again, why do you think a game needs to perform full VRAM allocation in the settings menu?

Hmm, must be my browser on my laptop. I can't see the image on current computer.

Cause other people is playing the game fine in 8GB card and even 1660s. So, unless everyone just ignore the message, something must be wrong with his card. And getting 60 fps in 4k with a 2070s, if the message is valid, then the developer is silly lol.

 

[Head1985]

Hmm, must be my browser on my laptop. I can't see the image on current computer.

Cause other people is playing the game fine in 8GB card and even 1660s. So, unless everyone just ignore the message, something must be wrong with his card. And getting 60 fps in 4k with a 2070s, if the message is valid, then the developer is silly lol.

He have GPU memory/Textures on high not ultra
Ultra textures/1440p on 2080TI 9600MB Vram

 

[DJinPrime]

That's false. Digital Foundry and Hardware Unboxed have both objectively proven 8GB tanks in Doom Eternal at 4K when there's otherwise more than enough performance.

Stuka87 is correct. This is not my video, not trying to get money or whatever, it's in the first page of my search and it turn out great for answering VRAM actually. It's one of those side by side comparison with afterburner running.

The GPUs selected was perfect, 1080ti 11GB, 2080 8GB, 3080 10GB and using current game since it's a showcase for the 3080. We see that most of the games at 4K ultra, are allocating under 7GB. 1080ti and 2080 performs around the same, as expected. There are 2 games that allocated more than 8GB and the result was interesting. Horizon Zero Dawn, allocated 10.5GB for the 1080ti, 7.7GB for 2080, and 9.5GB for the 3080. 2080 actually performance about 10% better than the 1080 ti. The other game, Doom Eternal allocated 8.6GB, 8GB, 8.4GB respectively, and again the 2080 was not slower than the 1080ti. So, there are some truth about games allocating more memory than what they use, the extra memory did not help the 1080ti over the 2080. As for the DF video, it might not be the memory size, but rather processing ultra had a bigger hit on the 2080 than 3080 for some other reason. Cause there was no penalty compared to another gpu of similar power with more memory.

 

[DJinPrime]

He have GPU memory/Textures on high not ultra
Ultra textures/1440p on 2080TI 9600MB Vram

My bad, guess my eyes are broken and trusted the title. Well, here's a 3080 running ultra (yes, i double, triple check it's ultra on the 3rd option).

Memory started under 7GB and eventually settled around 9GB. That's 4K, if you're having trouble with 1440p with 8GB, seems like the game might be the thing that's broken :/

 

[Mopetar]

What you described is a memory leak. It doesn't have to be a bug to be consider a memory leak, forgetting to dereference/release objects is a leak too. The restart will force the game to reload everything needed to be at that point in the game. And if it does fix the problem, then yeah, you have memory leak because either a bug or you forgot to free resources that's not needed.

Sloppy but intentional choices to just keep using memory up to what the card can allocate to the program without having to remove it as soon as possible isn't a memory leak. The assumption here is if they did eventually hit an absolute limit they could free up memory for new assets.

A memory leak usually means that the memory can't be reclaimed. References to assets were lost and as a result the memory can't be deallocated. If there's a memory leak in some trivial way like the game leaking a small amount of memory on a weapon swap, then you could degrade performance over time for amount of memory just by swapping weapons back and forth.

In the case I'm describing there's no memory leak, but the game just keeps the textures for the unused weapon in memory under the assumption that it might be used again later and having to load assets from disk can be avoided by keeping it around.

What I'm describing is sometimes referred to as a space leak, though that definition can imply an unintended consequence as opposed to a deliberate choice. The program is just using more memory space than is absolutely necessary, but it's capable of freeing that memory. A memory leak is where the program can't reclaim the leaked memory which necessitates a restart in order to fix it. A memory leak is always a bug. People might use the term a little loosely in plain language but there is a technical distinction between the two cases.

If we have a space leak a card will use memory up to what's allocated and then start replacing data when new data needs to be loaded in. The game is now using far more memory than it needs, but still runs within the allocated amount. A memory leak would eventually crash the game on any amount of memory because it creates memory that can't be reclaimed.