So my 10GB 3080 is choking at many third party airports at 1440p
What graphics settings have the biggest impact on VRAM usage?
If you have texture resolution on ultra set it to high.That will have the biggest impact on VRAM usage besides render scale or screen resolution.
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I also got the 3080 10GB 1440p pair.
There are a few things you can try beyond the graphics settings:
Use 4k liveries instead of 8k (Fenix)
Use 2k textures for airports if provided (like most of the iniBuilds airports)
At the end you still have the choice to convert 4k textures to 2k using the texture resizer in the MSFS Painter toolkit. Or convert it yourself. This step saves vram (on average 500 to 600 MB), drive space and improve fps but without too much trade-offs in the clarity of the textures.
I would say the difference is only noticeable at close distance where you literally stared at the textures for seconds, sometimes it would also affect the overall feelings to the textures, but I would rather trade for vram heradroom. Try it youself see if you can notice the visual impact of 2k textures.
On testing the vram impact of an specific location, I would load up the Fenix and do a 360-no-scope in the cockpit, observe the peak vram uasge in the developer mode.
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If you’re using DX12, try switching to DX11 as it is more VRAM friendly.
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It would be useful to know in general which of the other graphics settings have the most impact on GPU Usage vs. VRAM Usage.
I get that resolution (= DLSS Quality setting) has the biggest effect on both, but for example if I want to make the GPU Processor USAGE higher WITHOUT increasing the VRAM usage, what are the main things?
Do shadows at a higher value still affect the VRAM a lot? What about things like Light Shafts and Raymarched Reflections? Supersampling? Trees etc etc (basically all the options on that page).
Conversely which are the things that mainly increase VRAM without putting more load on the GPU processor?
And I guess, is this the same theory for DX11 and DX12 or do they differ?
I’m trying to make my GPU work harder but without using more VRAM. What should I focus on? Is it possible or do they both really go up together regardless of the settings in the Graphics Options page?
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Nvidia really f’ed up with the VRAM offerings on the 3000 and even 4000 series. Waste of raw power
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I don’t know what settings chew the most VRAM but TBH upgrading to a 4090, with its 24GB of glorious VRAM, gave me the benefit of not having to worry about such things anymore. FWIW, when I had a 4080 for a few months, the only thing that maxed out VRAM at times was DX12, Ultra and VR, but only if all at the same time, so using DX11 kept me and my VRAM happy, and still does.
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The RTX 4070ti super actually looks attractive right now with 16GB of VRAM
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If I was in the market for a mid-priced nVidia GPU I’d grab one now before the rest of the gaming world catches on and they become unobtanium.
Performance comparable to my 3090 Ti, at least in the 4K game tests I’ve seen.
The 4070 Ti Super has 16GB - which is plenty, vs. my 24GB - which I’ll never use all of, at almost half what I paid two years ago.
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