Video RAM - how much do you really need?
World in ConflictWorld in Conflict is a bold and brash RTS, a genre which doesn't traditionally require lots of graphics horsepower and RAM. However, this game was designed to scale across as many setups as possible, and the developers wanted to give those people with top-end machines a real visual feast. We measured the RAM usage using the in-game benchmark tool, and then cross-checked it with some real gameplay: the difference was minimal.
The same issue with AA and memory recorded in STALKER seems to be present here but note that for any resolution, at maximum settings, 256MB of RAM isn't enough to not experience constant data swapping. Obviously one can scale the detail down to fit into that amount of local memory, but it's nowhere near as pretty like that! Call of Duty 4: Modern WarfareThe latest creation in this spectacular series goes all modern with its plot setting, as well as its use of modern rendering techniques. We used the recent demo to analyse the memory usage, and although it's only one level out of the whole game, it contains the same level of detail.
Permission to say "ouch", Sargent? Lowest resolution, no AA, on max details = not even for 256MB or 320MB VRAM, thank you very much. Call of Duty 4 is not only about modern warfare but modern graphics cards too. CrysisAh, Crysis... if you haven't heard of this game yet, then you've been living as a hermit for the past year. With visual hyped as being a true vision of what DX9 and DX10 can really offer, one would expect the RAM figures to be absolutely gargantuan.
And yet, the demo suggests otherwise. On the High DX9 detail setting, the usage is still more than 256MB but overall, it's actually less than we've seen in Call of Duty 4 above (although it gets its own back a bit when using AA). One must be careful about jumping to conclusions here: more RAM doesn't mean better graphics or worse coding; they're simply different. But here we have three games, all of which just point and laugh at 256MB when set to their best visuals. It wasn't that long ago when the first 512MB graphics card came out... Now although we've only seen a tiny fraction of the games one can play on a modern PC today (tiny being just a slight understatement...), there's sufficient evidence for us to offer a reliable answer to this article's question: how much video RAM do you really need.
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