Resizable BAR Support Coming to NVIDIA GeForce RTX 30 Series GPUs in Late February/March

The FPS Review may receive a commission if you purchase something after clicking a link in this article.

Image: NVIDIA

NVIDIA GeForce RTX 30 Series graphics cards are set to get a performance bump beginning in late February/March thanks to the added support of Resizable BAR, a PCI Express interface technology that allows processors to access all of a GPU’s memory at once. It doesn’t appear that the company has shared any metrics yet, but if the improvements granted by AMD’s Smart Access Memory is anything to go by, GeForce users might be able to enjoy as much as a 12 percent performance gain in select titles.

“Resizable BAR is an optional PCI Express interface technology,” NVIDIA explained. “As you move through a world in a game, GPU memory (VRAM) constantly transfers textures, shaders and geometry via many small CPU to GPU transfers.”

“With the ever-growing size of modern game assets, this results in a lot of transfers. Using Resizable BAR, assets can instead be requested as-needed and sent in full, so the CPU can efficiently access the entire frame buffer. And if multiple requests are made, transfers can occur concurrently, rather than queuing.”

Resizable BAR support will be introduced as part of a new Game Ready Driver that’s scheduled for release in late February. The GeForce RTX 3060 will be the first Ampere card to get access to the feature, but support for other GeForce RTX 30 Series GPUs is expected to follow shortly in March as partners release the relevant VBIOS updates.

“Intel has been working with NVIDIA to enable Resizable BAR, an advanced PCI-Express technology, across the PC ecosystem,” said Fredrik Hamberger, GM of Premium & Enthusiast Laptop Segments at Intel. “This feature can give gamers an extra boost in gameplay FPS on Intel’s new 11th generation H/S and select 10th generation systems when paired with supported graphics cards, including NVIDIA GeForce RTX 30 Series GPUs.”

Tsing Mui
News poster at The FPS Review.

Recent News