holygeesus
Banned
You can't play Dying Light maxed out because it is a horribly optimized game pumped out by a horribly inept studio. I wouldn't use that game, this early in it's life, as any kind of benchmark at all.
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Nvidia responds to GTX 970 memory issue
- Thread starter ashecitism
- Start date
You can't play Dying Light maxed out because it is a horribly optimized game pumped out by a horribly inept studio. I wouldn't use that game, this early in it's life, as any kind of benchmark at all.
I agree. The issue is not really about the card but the fact NV were not upfront about the card configuration.
If you play at 1080p then it is still a good card for the money. What sucks are those who purchased 2/3 for SLi @ 4K.
dr_rus
Member
So presumably 980 owners can, right?
Well, at least you won't have any stuttering I suppose?
TAJ
Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.
1080p is a waste of that card for most games. Has he heard of DSR yet?
SkullHydra
Member
Dictator93
Member
If what you are saying about the 970SLI in this game is true, we should do a testbetween two users (you with 970s) and a user with 980 SLI to see if the stuttering is actually occuring due to the 3.5GB partition.
Naked Snake
Member
GeDoSaTo only works for DirectX 9 games (so most new games don't work), and isn't the easiest to setup. DSR works for all games.
If I game works with GeDoSaTo I prefer to use it instead of DSR, as it provides better scaling algorithms and even higher resolutions to sample from than DSR. It also works with stereo 3D while DSR doesn't.
I got 5yrs out of my crossfire 5850s. Is it really too much to ask for a couple of good years with the 970?
opticalmace
Member
What do you mean? Improvements since when?
Pathfinder
Member
Is this something Nvidia can remedy using drivers?
No. Its a hardware problem.
They advertised 64 ROPs and 2048KB of L2 cache, but in reality it has 56 ROPs [4 almost inactive bacause of SMM] and 1792KB L2. Card physically can take advantage from all 4GB of ram.
Pathfinder
Member
Hmm, well that sucks.
I bought my MSI 970 Golden Edition before I heard of these issues. I suppose if I'm relegated to run with High/Very High textures instead of Ultra textures it wouldn't be the end of the world as I'm personally not that much of a graphics enthusiast.
I'm very impressed with the card otherwise.
Naked Snake
Member
I wouldn't call it "problem", since it came about by design. But I guess "issue" and "problem" are synonymous, so yeah whatever. I just mean it's not a "bug".
Technically it is not a problem but working as intended.
The issue is that it was not communicated in an open way before or on the launch. The initial wave of reviewers were given false information concerning the specs of the card and the official specs had no indication that it was an odd configuration.
It is all rather deceptive and I think that anybody who purchased the card and wants a refund should get one. That is not to say the card is bad because it is not, it was sold under false pretenses. Now that information is out there consumers can make an informed choice and for 1080p or 1440p the card is still very good but it does lose a bit for those who went SLi and 4k due to the memory limitations.
The other issue revolves around the reliance of drivers to ensure the fast 3.5GB is used before the slow 512MB. As we have seen with Kepler cards once a new architecture is released the driver improvements for the old architecture slow right down and performance relative to its peers goes down. With a card that requires even more finessing than usual it might end up being a lot worse off in the next year or so. People who wanted a bit of future proofing and thought they were getting a genuine 4GB card were totally mislead here.
dr_rus
Member
That's what I'd like you to find out before saying that this is because of 970's memory thing and not just a problem of running out of 4 GB of VRAM in general or NV's drivers being bad in general or game's code being crap.
Saying that some game stutters on 970 because of the 970's memory architecture needs some proof you know. The easiest way is to find out how the same game perform with the same settings on a 980.
what do you mean? if you pushed a card with 4GB VRAM to 4GB, you'd experiencing stuttering and other gfx issues right? it's been shown pretty handily on posts all over the internet now that the 970 behaves as it if has a 3.5GB VRAM cap and the performance seems to be the same as hitting a 4GB cap on a real 4GB card.
New frametimes testing in Watch Dogs from pcgameshardware.de (at the bottom of the page). 970 vs a downclocked 980 and a 290X.
http://www.pcgameshardware.de/Geforce-GTX-970-Grafikkarte-259503/Specials/zu-wenig-VRAM-1149056/
http://www.pcgameshardware.de/Geforce-GTX-970-Grafikkarte-259503/Specials/zu-wenig-VRAM-1149056/
Naked Snake
Member
This doesn't look good...
Rehosted/fixed your images.
well...that 970 frametimes over 3.5G is definitely something abnormal....
but...but how could 290X frametimes dramatically improved with increased VRAM using? Should 290X user always fill the VRAM to get better gaming experience?
Naked Snake
Member
Objectively Bad Opinion
Member
The game just runs really bad on AMD GPUs. I remember it was used as the posterchild for the "Gameworks is out to ruin games for AMD GPUs" crusade a little while ago.
well...that 970 frametimes over 3.5G is definitely something abnormal....
but...but how could 290X frametimes dramatically improved with increased VRAM using? Should 290X user always fill the VRAM to get better gaming experience?
it's because they zoom the graph out twice as far to accommodate for the frametime increase expected from a halving of framerate. the left image is still better than the right. although, you're right, the 290 shows an unsually high amt of spiking on the left.
well...that 970 frametimes over 3.5G is definitely something abnormal....
but...but how could 290X frametimes dramatically improved with increased VRAM using? Should 290X user always fill the VRAM to get better gaming experience?
WTF is up with the 290x in the first benchmark? Surely there was something going on there, given how much better it looks in the 2nd one?
Edit: So wait, the left one is 1080p Ultra but right is 4k with High textures (ultra other things), right? I remember reading how Ultra textures caused microstuttering in Watch_Dogs, I guess that's whats going on? Weird, since IIRC it seemed to affect nVidia GPU's too (I remember 780 owners complaining, though maybe the 3GB VRAM had something to do with that).
ussjtrunks
Member
Question my systeam uses 400mb of vram on its own, why with drivers would it not be possible to allocate this to the slower memory pool and keep the 3.5gb vram for gaming thereby still using 3.9gb vram?
excellent question. i've wondered about different software methods nvidia could use to mitigate the issue as well with this seeming like the most sensical one. however, you'd still potentially run into the issue of windows trying to access its partition during gametime resulting in the happenings although theoretically, it'd be a lot less pronounced that the current situation.
biggest news of that is it seems Nvidia will help you get a refund.
edit: nm, just reread it and it appears he may be addressing just that one dude who bought the 970 last month.
Dreams-Visions
Member
well. if they can work some magic, I'll be *very* happy to keep the card. I just want a little more peace of mind.
Pathfinder
Member
Well... that's something, isn't it? Sounds like a good thing to me.
Honestly sounds like PR bullshit to me. "Hey guys we had this great system in place we were hoping you would never notice. But don't worry, it's state-of-the-art and just as good as full 4GB!"
"Oh btw, since you guys figured it out, that old system was complete shit. But don't worry! We're implementing a new workaround which will be awesome!!!"
Yoda
Member
See how many people in this very thread are saying its a non-issue?
Dreams-Visions
Member
I would ordinarily agree, but their rep is on the line now.
They don't want to burn bridges or push people to the competition. That's what would happen if they fuck this up further.
I wonder if they can do it, it would probably be hard if not impossible to make sure that the amount of cram windows is using goes into the slower part of the ram. If they can somehow fix it would be great news!
I doubt they'll fuck it up further, but I think it's a bit disingenuous to say, "Hey, don't worry, we're going to continue to improve performance through software updates," when this is clearly a hardware issue, and not software.
With that being said, if they do manage to cook up some coding wizardry and do negate the hardware issue, then I'll be happy.
paperspace
Member
So this could be why my games stutters so much @ high VRAM usage?
If that's the case I'll confront my retailer about a refund for these cards. This is not acceptable.
If that's the case I'll confront my retailer about a refund for these cards. This is not acceptable.
Dreams-Visions
Member
This isn't something that can be fixed. It's broken by design. It's a question of whether they can miracle up a solution that makes it all but unnoticeable in real world gaming applications now and in the future.
depends on what game you're referring to. very few games are going to push above 3.5GB of ram right now.
biggest news of that is it seems Nvidia will help you get a refund.
edit: nm, just reread it and it appears he may be addressing just that one dude who bought the 970 last month.
I think I will find myself pushed towards a refund once the 1070 comes out.
I like how they say get a refund or exchange.. How can I do that if I bought them in september, is Nvidia going to give the refunds and exchanges?
My opinion is that today, it's not much of an issue for me. I don't even own a game that will max the VRAM of this card without performing some OTT and unrepresentative experiments. But I'm also someone who generally goes a few years between upgrades, and with some of the hefty titles on the horizon I'm a little nervous. Will I need to start gimping settings 12 months into the life of this thing? I don't need to run Ultra textures, but what happens when High demands 4GB?
Just looked back at some of my old AC:U screenshots that I was able to find links for, and I noticed that most of them show memory usage hovering around ~3.5GB. Then, there is this shot from inside one of the churches, and I specifically remember getting horrible frame drops/stuttering right here:
Note it is using 3.8 GB there. I had always assumed it was some weird engine bug, but I guess it makes sense now. Point is, I play at 1440p and am already experiencing situations that take it above 3.5GB, and I'm suffering for it.
I realize a single screenshot and an anecdote is hardly conclusive evidence...but I just figured I'd throw it out there.
Note it is using 3.8 GB there. I had always assumed it was some weird engine bug, but I guess it makes sense now. Point is, I play at 1440p and am already experiencing situations that take it above 3.5GB, and I'm suffering for it.
I realize a single screenshot and an anecdote is hardly conclusive evidence...but I just figured I'd throw it out there.
ShaiKhulud
Banned
Nvidia: it's meant to be locked!
PetriP-TNT
Member
That section runs (at least used to run) like shit on any computer
Hopefully PeterS@Nvidia will be around at time to help me get a refund >_>
I'm a pretty casual player, so as far as I'm concerned, I bought it with the expectation that it'll hold tight for a good five years, and I think it'll be true. Advancements are slowing down, optmizations will make things work. Hopefully.
Also, things look pretty good now. COmpanies just need to work on frame rates on consoles and pc. They'll optimize. I believe.