256MB vs 512MB 7600GS graphics card

[Fabula]

So no game benfits from a 500meg card to date?

Only good for video work, right?

Some games would. Doom3 has a 512meg mode.

But it needs to be backed up with a powerful GPU.


A lorry has a lot of capacity to move things around in. But if you put a 1.2L engine in, you won't be able to shift much stuff. A smaller van with a 4L engine will probably be quicker and more efficient at shifting stuff around.
Slightly dodgy analogy, but I hope you get the meaning.

[oralpain]

You can get almost anything to use more than 256MiB of video memory,if you really want to. The question is "is my card so fast that 256MiB of space for textures will be my bottleneck?". Unless you have an overclocked 7900GS/GT, a 256MB X1900XT, or something faster, the answer is almost always going to be "no".

As Fabula has said, it doesn't matter if you can hold that much data, if you don't have the power to do anything with it.

Games will use a certain ammount of video memory, up things like resolution, AA, or detail values, and you will increase the ammount of memory it uses.

I can run 3dmark 2001, or BF1942, or any of a dozen other apps/games and use more memory than my 7900GS...if I run them at 2048x1536 and/or with disgusting levels of AA/AF. However, at these settings, even if I had 512MB of memory, my card could not run them at a pace worth bothering with.

I have a 7900GS (20 pipelines) running at 702Mhz core and 891Mhz memory. It is just barely fast enough (about four times as fast as a 7600GS) to start showing the limits of 256MB of video memory. IE, it is capable of running some games at a worthwhiel speed at setting where 256MiB is not always enough to hold textures and such.

The only game that a 7600GS could run at a playable frame rate, while using settings that ever require more than 512MiB of texture memory, would be Doom 3 engine games on ultra high detail.

I see no reason why an extra 256MiB would have any effect on video work. Occasionally it might come in handy for 3d rendering, but who uses 7600s to do professional level rendering?