Hogwarts Legacy, Cyberpunk 2077, and The Last of Us Part I are some of today’s most VRAM-heavy PC titles when played at 4K, according to new numbers that TechSpot shared for an article that asks the question: “Why are modern PC games using so much VRAM?” The Last of Us Part 1 is listed with peak VRAM usage of 12.4 GB, while Hogwarts Legacy and Cyberpunk 2077, can go even higher, with peak VRAM usage listed as 13.6 and 13.9, respectively, when ray tracing is enabled. Consoles are said to be a big factor as to why games these days are using more memory.
From a TechSpot report:
For all the titles we examined, every graphics quality and details variable was set to its maximum values (ray tracing was not enabled), and the frame resolution was set to 4K, with no upscaling activated. This was to ensure that we saw the highest memory loads possible, under conditions that anyone could repeat.
| Game | Average VRAM use (GB) | Peak VRAM use (GB) |
| Far Cry 6 | 5.7 | 6.2 |
| Dying Light 2 | 5.9 | 6.2 |
| Assassin’s Creed Valhalla | 7.4 | 7.5 |
| Marvel’s Spider-Man Remastered | 8.0 | 8.2 |
| Far Cry 6 (HD textures enabled) | 8.0 | 8.4 |
| Doom Eternal | 7.5 | 8.2 |
| Cyberpunk 2077 | 7.7 | 8.9 |
| Resident Evil 4 | 8.9 | 9.1 |
| Hogwarts Legacy | 9.7 | 10.1 |
| The Last of Us Part 1 | 11.8 | 12.4 |
Using 4K and the same graphics settings as before, but this time with every ray tracing option enabled or set to its maximum value, the VRAM loads change considerably.
| Game (RT enabled) | Average VRAM use (GB) | Peak VRAM use (GB) |
| Dying Light 2 | 7.4 | 8.2 |
| Doom Eternal | 8.3 | 9.5 |
| Marvel’s Spider-Man Remastered | 9.2 | 9.6 |
| Resident Evil 4 | 9.0 | 9.7 |
| Far Cry 6 (HD textures) | 9.9 | 10.7 |
| Cyberpunk 2077 (Overdrive) | 12.0 | 13.6 |
| Hogwarts Legacy | 12.1 | 13.9 |
[…] where PCs keep the meshes, materials, and buffers in VRAM, and the game engine (along with a copy of all the assets being used) in the system memory, consoles have to put everything into the same body of RAM. That means textures, intermediate buffers, render targets, and executing code all take their share of that limited space. In the last decade, when there was just 5 GB or so to play with, developers had to be extremely careful at optimizing data usage to get the best out of those machines.
This is also why it seems like games have just suddenly leaped forward in memory loads. For years, they were created with very tight RAM restrictions but as publishers have started to move away from releasing titles for the older machines, that limit is now two to three times higher.
Discussion (7 replies)
Join Discussion →It almost like 24gb seem excessive and 16gb good enough for the moment but, perhaps, not much longer.
Before I go more than 16 gig of vram I will be running 64gig or more standard ram.
Can you elaborate on that? Who says it, based on what exactly?
There has been a trend of current gen console exclusive games (PS5 especially) needing more VRAM
https://www.techspot.com/article/2670-vram-use-games/
There was also a video by tech yes city where they came to following conclusion:
4gb - insufficient for 1080p
6gb - minimum for 1080p low
8gb - minimum for 4k low
12gb - minimum for 1080p ultra with RT
??gb - minimum for 1440p ultra with RT
16gb - minimum for 4k max with RT
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If it's a console exclusive how does it require more ram on PC?
As for multi platform games I don't see why are the consoles to blame? That's like blaming the truck filling up next to you at the gas station for your own gas mileage.
I'm not questioning whether games require this amount of VRAM, I'm questioning the statement of it being somehow caused by consoles.
Hmm
The PS5 does have 16Gb of RAM but that’s shared between system and video.
So I don’t think the “consoles” reason checks out
IDK about the console thing either but I've been tracking VRAM usage in games I play for ~10 years now and noticed the increases for a long time now. When I used to bring it up some would just respond that if you give it more then it will use it more but these days we're seeing more games that will actually perform less with less VRAM. Most times it's only a few frames but some are more problematic about it. However, I still rarely see a balance where the GPU is capable of processing at above 60 FPS when the game tries to utilize as much or more than what the card has. I think 16 GB should be standard, for now, but it doesn't matter if the GPU can't keep up anyway.
For what it's worth the only games I've seen recently that can easily chew up 24 GB are the RE games at 4K if you crank up the IQ setting to 200% but at that point even an OCd 4090 is struggling to provide 50-60 FPS but it does look incredible. Otherwise, I commonly see a number of games using 10-16 GB at 4K when using mostly maxed settings w/ DLSS2, and the same said 4090 getting 60-110 FPS. As far as the 10-16 GB mark goes, I've been seeing that for about 4 years now when it comes to 4K but I started seeing 6-8 GB in 1080p with SOTTR with max settings.