Is 8 gigs of GPU memory enough on a mid range GPU?

[johnwhelan]

Vidia is currently making a lot of money for AI cards, they sell at ten times the cost of manufacture. their cards such as the RTX 3060 come with 8 gigs of memory.

Intel and AMD midrange cards come with 12 or 16 gigs of memory.

Currently running older content I'm seeing 5 gigs of memory being used. With the newer PBR textures is the usage higher? Task manager GPU memory

Yes nVidia has tufx but do I care to be held to ransom?

Thoughts?

Thanks John

 

[PortLineParker]

I'd say 8GB would be the lowest I'd go, even for mid range - more and more cards are coming with 10GB as an average and, as you pointed out, 12 and 16GB are becoming the norm. While 8GB suffices for now, I personally buy components that will be future proofed to some degree - so even if I could get away with 8GB, I'd generally go for 10GB as a minimum. But, as always, it often depends on budget. It's the same with conventional RAM; few users will ever need more than 8GB in the day to day but others like to futureproof and others simply like having more. I have 32GB installed - do I use it all? No, nowhere near but it gives me breathing space and I know I won't need to upgrade it for a while.

Cheers,

PLP

 

[johnwhelan]

Wouldn't it be nice to be able to add more memory to a GPU?

John

 

[epa]

I'm currently using a GPU with 8 GB of VRAM, an aging GTX 1070, and it's decent for TRS22 at mid-high settings (ultra makes it chug).

In my opinion, 8 GB is the bare minimum. With new, highly-detailed content with high res textures, and PBR textures becoming more common, I would recommend at least 12 GB for longevity. If I were building a new Trainz PC, I'd go for 16.

Matt

 

[pware]

Yes nVidia has tufx but do I care to be held to ransom?

N3V are in the process of "divorcing" TurfFX from Nvidia and moving it into the Clutter Effect Layers where it will run on any GPU.

 

[dundun92]

I have a 4070 Laptop GPU, and I'm disappointed to see it only has 8 GB of VRAM, considering that's a medium-high-end GPU. It runs TRS22 maxed out on ultra smoothly with no problems though.

 

[hiawathamr]

My laptop has a 3060 6GB of vram and it can run Trainz with majority of the settings maxed out (depending on how the route was made).

Cheers

 

[dangavel]

There are various viewpoints, I've read some 16gb cards aren't better then 8gb, depends on the overall specs and what the app you are using requires. .
as for my own experience, my 6gb 1660ti on a nitro 5 laptop rarely has any issue coping with highly detailed layouts at high or ultra settings.

 

[dangavel]

N3V are in the process of "divorcing" TurfFX from Nvidia and moving it into the Clutter Effect Layers where it will run on any GPU.

Bear in mind, turf fx wont work for Mac users , routes that use it look denuded on Mac OS. Although I no longer use a mac to make my routes , I don't use turf fx because I know I am restricting my work to those who have PCS, or at least , making something that isn't at its best when viewed on a Mac..

 

[pware]

Bear in mind, turf fx wont work for Mac users

I believe that that is at least part of what they are doing, making TurfFX (which will become part of Clutter 2.0) work on both platforms. Personally, now that I have started using TurfFX, and Clutter, I would not create a route without it but I include in my route description the notice "uses SpeedTrees, procedural track, Effect Layers, PBR textures and high detail" so users can make up their own minds about downloading and installing my routes.

 

[dangavel]

I believe that that is at least part of what they are doing, making TurfFX (which will become part of Clutter 2.0) work on both platforms. Personally, now that I have started using TurfFX, and Clutter, I would not create a route without it but I include in my route description the notice "uses SpeedTrees, procedural track, Effect Layers, PBR textures and high detail" so users can make up their own minds about downloading and installing my routes.

Well that would be a feat in itself as Apple has more or less ensured that any NVIDEA products wont work with its computers since 2015, lets hope there will be some sort of work around but I will be very surprised if they pull it off as Apple and Nvidea have had an ongoing record of non cooperation for many years. Usually enthusiasts manage to get devices to work that apple has messed up, but I've not heard of anyone getting Nvidea software or hardware to work with any recent mac OS..