I think Ubisoft confirmed that some intricate indoor areas (ie stained glass) have performance issues for every platform.
Nvidia responds to GTX 970 memory issue
- Thread starter ashecitism
- Start date
Like I said, I had originally just assumed it was something funky with the engine. But I noticed in all the other screens I could find that the memory sits at 3.5GB. And it's not as if the framerate absolutely tanks in that church. For instance, if I climb up that window, I'll get 2-3 seconds of abysmal FPS...like <10, and then it will go back to 50+.
You can not relate any bad behaviour of the worst optimized games of the year to this 0.5GB affair.
Why would it happen unless you run in a non-fullscreen window.
TAJ
Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.
I thought that it worked for all games, but I've found one that doesn't work with DSR, Disney Infinity 2.0. None of the DSR-related resolutions even show up in the graphics menu.
If you cared at all about memory bandwidth you'd probably buy an AMD r9 290(x) right? 512bit bus vs 256bit bus.
Was a big selling point for me running three screens and soon to be 4K. Gotta throw those textures around FAST.
Having said that, I can understand why you'd be pissed off if you found out that only 3.5GB of a card advertised as having 4GB of RAM was effectively useable in game.
Was a big selling point for me running three screens and soon to be 4K. Gotta throw those textures around FAST.
Having said that, I can understand why you'd be pissed off if you found out that only 3.5GB of a card advertised as having 4GB of RAM was effectively useable in game.
Driver optimisations will stop once Pascal is released. Just look at how Kepler performance has dropped below par now Maxwell is out.
If I had purchased the card to keep for 2-3 years I would be very unhappy because one of things I would have looked at is the memory configuration and 4GB on a 256 bit bus seems pretty standard for the performance level of the card. The thing it is is not quite 4GB on a 256 bit bus, it is 3.5GB on a 224 bit bus + 0.5GB on a 32 bit bus which is not quite the same.
I still think it is a good card, still worth peoples money and it would not have been praised any less if NV had just stated this information when the card launched. That is what boggles my mind and makes me think it was a genuine error on NVs part. There is no sensible reason to hide this information because it would not change the benchmarks and at worse it may have made people question its longevity. Some of those people would have gone for the 980 instead and others would have held off but I doubt it would have been a large impact because it truly is a great card for the money.
Despite the smaller bus the colour compression tech in the Maxwell rage keeps effective memory bandwidth very high so it is not quite a like for like comparison. Just look at how well Tonga (285) performs in pixel fillrate tests, it is faster than the 290X despite having a smaller bus, slower memory and just 32 ROPs.
Naked Snake
Member
I thought about this the other day but then I remembered that you're supposed to run games in full screen mode in order to allow a game to use the full 4GB (if I understand correctly?), so if a game is demanding and causing you unsatisfactory performance due to vram swapping then you should be running it in single full screen (not windowed, borderless, or keeping desktop on a second monitor) to free up the vram normally taken by Windows. So the above suggested "fix" would be moot when push comes to shove if you're after getting the most of your card in-game.
Would still be a good thing for folks who'd rather always run in windowed/borderless or don't want to switch to single monitor when playing games, especially for games that don't use more than 3.5GB anyway.
CyanideFuse
Member
I have been playing Mordor in borderless mode as it fixes tearing. It uses between 3.3GB to 3.7GB VRAM.
I changed it to fullscreen and the reported VRAM usage didn't alter in any way (up or down).
Am I misunderstanding window / fullscreen / borderless usage? Is the VRAM usage only noticeable if you go over 4GB?
Gaz Pwnage
Member
Time to exercise my consumer rights. A nice big email fired off to my 970 retailer. Not sure what they are going to say, but UK Law states that it is their job to fix the problem as my contract is with them and if no satisfactory outcome is attained, I can take it to trading standards.
Let us know how it goes, I plan to do the same later this week.
Gaz Pwnage
Member
Will do
You can also issue a charge back via your bank or CC provider, or use the paypal buyer protection scheme if you went that route.
SOGA should cover you but it looks like many retailers are waiting for the official word from Nvidia, probably because of the sheer volume that they need to deal with but that does not excuse them from not following the law.
Best of luck and I hope you get the result you want.
Where'd you get yours from? Let us know how you get on. I got mine from Novatech, like I've said earlier I'm happy with my card but if there's any incentive/discount or anything for me to send this back and upgrade to a GTX 980, then I would haha.
ussjtrunks
Member
I run almost all my games in borderless for the triple buffering + fullscreen in some games runs worse for some reason.
I think nvidia will mitigate this to a reasonable degree with drivers however id be interested in knowing how they will do it
CyanideFuse
Member
Who did you buy the card from?
I'm going to see how this plays out after their new drivers hit. So far I've been happy with my GTX 970 SLI
Currently the only game I have that doesn't run really smoothly is Shadow of Mordor at 1440p with ultra textures. Same settings but high textures is butter smooth. With Ultra there are noticeable hitches when turning viewpoint. This with a machine running 8 GB RAM, game running from SSD.
One thing not touched at all in these tests is that the high VRAM using games are not by any means the best ports around. Deadlight seems to be a real hardware punisher for no apparent reason while Unity is known to be a mess and SoM isn't all that "next-gen" either. Makes me wonder if their texture loading/streaming etc is just not all that great on the PC when on consoles they can rely on loads of VRAM being available.
I don't think SoM looks THAT much better than for example MGS: Ground zeroes, which according to its LUA files aims for 1600 VRAM at extra high settings and runs really well on most hardware.
I would be interested if something like Crysis 3 could be made to eat all the VRAM and how it would perform on the 970.
Currently the only game I have that doesn't run really smoothly is Shadow of Mordor at 1440p with ultra textures. Same settings but high textures is butter smooth. With Ultra there are noticeable hitches when turning viewpoint. This with a machine running 8 GB RAM, game running from SSD.
One thing not touched at all in these tests is that the high VRAM using games are not by any means the best ports around. Deadlight seems to be a real hardware punisher for no apparent reason while Unity is known to be a mess and SoM isn't all that "next-gen" either. Makes me wonder if their texture loading/streaming etc is just not all that great on the PC when on consoles they can rely on loads of VRAM being available.
I don't think SoM looks THAT much better than for example MGS: Ground zeroes, which according to its LUA files aims for 1600 VRAM at extra high settings and runs really well on most hardware.
I would be interested if something like Crysis 3 could be made to eat all the VRAM and how it would perform on the 970.
Naked Snake
Member
Do you guys notice a difference in quality between Ultra and Very High textures in Shadow of Mordor at 1080p (or 1440p downsampled)?
CyanideFuse
Member
@1080p on 27" screen:
I just had a quick look and I couldn't see much difference. Some parts seem a touch sharper but I had to really look. Even then I cannot be sure. I took screen shots but they weren't in the exact same position as I believe the game has to be restarted when textures are altered.
Are all the textures supposed to have been upgraded in the HD pack or did they only cover some of them (hence why it is hard to see the differences in certain places)?
Yes, even if it is just a few weeks 970 prices might come down a bit making it a better deal.
Allnamestakenlol
Member
I could notice a difference in the areas I tested @1440p. Nothing huge, but it did make most things look a tad nicer.
Very minor and pretty much non-existent when playing normally (constantly moving fast) at native 1440p. Not worth the performance hit.
very minor difference betweeen ultra and the next highest texture settings. didn't try w/ a 1440p downsample though.
opticalmace
Member
Frame time analysis is up on PC Per.
The tl;dr is there is definitely frametime variance when you use more than 3.5GB on the 970, but it cannot be said if that is strictly due to the memory issue or perhaps the other differences between the 970 and 980. Also, some games appear to really try to prevent the 970 from using that last 0.5GB of memory.
I highly recommend giving it a good read to determine if it matters to you or not.
The tl;dr is there is definitely frametime variance when you use more than 3.5GB on the 970, but it cannot be said if that is strictly due to the memory issue or perhaps the other differences between the 970 and 980. Also, some games appear to really try to prevent the 970 from using that last 0.5GB of memory.
I highly recommend giving it a good read to determine if it matters to you or not.
DerpButter
Member
Definitely precedented with NV, as someone that has been PC gaming for a long while I remember tons of people being duped by GeForce 4 MX cards (believing they supported shaders when there were rebadged, shaderless GeForce 2s) and GeForce FXs (believing they were DirectX 9 ready when they were severely gimped). I'd kinda hoped we'd gotten away from deceptive, in-correctable hardware faults like this.
Do apologists in here really want to see tiered/segmented video memory start becoming par for the course next gen? GTX 1070 now with 12gb* dedicated!
*2gb Full Speed GDDR, 10GB NVIDIA eMMC 'G-Cache' @ 25mb/s
-----
Disclaimer:
I own two 780s, and I genuinely just buy whatever GPU/CPU brand is the best value each generation.
Flying Toaster
Member
Completely understandable... Diminishing returns is the name of the game in that high end price range...
Dictator93
Member
This has made me decide there need to be more SLI tests.
I thought this can't be changed via an update?
Wow, it actually made the news.
well the fact that the last .5gb can't be accessed on anything but atrocious bus speeds can't be changed but the actual way that the driver chooses to address the memory blocks probably can be. think blocking access to the last .5GB partition or putting OS mem space there or maybe changing the priority for it again.
edit: adding link to post for my 980 vs 970 Shadow of Mordor experience.
dgrdsv
Member
The hardware can't be changed but the heuristics handling the allocation can and will be improved. What they're actually saying is that they'll continue to improve their 970 driver just like they did it since they've got the first working sample.
I also think that this work may eventually play out for them because what we have on 970s can be a sign of things to come with Pascal and its stacked memory pool and virtual address space.
cyberheater
PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 Xbone PS4 PS4
So we're in here now as the other thread got shut.
Anyhoo.
From overclockers UK.
Seems that they have convinced all vendors to accept GTX 970's back.
Anyhoo.
From overclockers UK.
Seems that they have convinced all vendors to accept GTX 970's back.
SliChillax
Member
What are my options guys? If I return the card I cannot afford a 980 but I need the 4gb that's why I bought the 970. I don't want an Amd card for many reasons. What can I do? UK here
nibblemonkey
Neo Member
Nvidia said there won't be any specific driver stuff for the 970
Keep it or wait. But let me say the whole vram thing is greatly over exaggerated Unless of course you are going for 4k gaming and ultra settings for the next 4 years.
SliChillax
Member
It's exactly what I'm going for. I bought the 970 so I could add another one next year but without 4gb it's useless to me.
Pathfinder
Member
To be fair, we really don't know what's going on behind closed doors at Nvidia.
Perhaps they don't want to come out and specifically say they'll include driver optimization until they are sure they can actually do it.
cyberheater
PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 PS4 Xbone PS4 PS4
I don't know about 4K gaming but I'm pretty confident that there will PC games coming out in the next 4 years that will require 4GB or more even it you only game at 1080p.
This thing about the drivers for the GTX 970. I'm wondering if the customer care guys dreamt that up. Asked their manager and he said yes then the request got to engineering they said "GTF, we've got a unified driver schedule here and nothings stops this train".
SliChillax
Member
I want to know if I have the right to ask for a 980 in return? Or a discount maybe I don't know. I was really conflicted when buying the 970 because I thought 4gb wouldn't be enough. So o definitely need the Vram.
Lightning Count
Member
Looking at a 980 now.
That all really depends on texture resolution.
If devs start putting much higher textures in pc ports than the consoles then you may be right. But I don't see that being the norm anytime soon. Right now textures are already higher than consoles with the current releases and they are not hitting 4 gigs.