Okay folks, just a warning that this is probably going to be a long post. Apologies in advance.
Alright, I currently have a 980 Kingpin in my system and am gaming on a resolution of 3440x1440. (this is my build if anyone is curious http://imgur.com/a/CdeTj ) This card is able to handle pretty much any game I throw at it maxed out or with just a few settings turned down a bit at that resolution. The only one game that I am truly not satisfied with is my modded Skyrim.
Before I upgraded to my new display, I was able to play this heavily modded (textures and enb) with absolutely no problem at 60fps. Switching to the new resolution...I am only getting 30-45fps which to be honest isn't terrible but the constant rise and drop really subtracts from the game for me. Now, if I turn either the textures...or the enb off...it's fine. I've even tried less-aggressive enbs with a bunch of stuff turned off....same result. I wanted to see what would happen if I SLI'ed two 980's and had a buddy bring his over. Now, I realize that enb and SLI don't really always get along...I just wanted to see how another card effected it. Well, I only saw about a 5% increase in frames. So that had me wondering if it wasn't just the size and speed of the RAM that was the real issue here.
Do you folks think that a 980 ti with more/faster memory would be the answer?
I'm not made of money and had to pinch pennies a long time to make this build. However...I could probably sell my 980 kingpin pretty easily to go towards a 980 ti. Honestly...this is going to sound pretty vain but the only reason why I got THAT specific card was because it matched my build.
Yea, that resolution change definitely is your issue. While the 980 ti will fix your issue, I have one question for you, do you plan to move to 4k?
If so, I'd wait until you could afford a Titan X, if not, the ti will definitely solve your problem.
No, I do not plan to move to 4k. I honestly only purchased the monitor that I did because I wanted ultra wide...not necessarily more pixels.
Then yea, I'd go with the ti.
Anyone know if there is a way that I can test this at all? Like some sort of diagnostic or something that will show me the memory cards video memory usage while running Skyrim?
higher bandwidth will definately solve the issue, the 980 ti has 384 bit... wait for AMD's fury the bandwidth is ludicrous at 1024 bit.
I think MSI Afterburner will tell you the amount of GPU Memory usage.
If you are experiencing "memory bottlenecking" or what have you, it wouldn't be a consistent drop of framerates (unless there was always a lot of things happening at once.) Usually what happens is that the frame-rate dips become exaggerated, so a quick turn of the mouse might cause some serious stuttering while textures have to be loaded. Input lag doesn't feel bad, but the pause, or slow-down your rig has while textures are being swapped can be annoying and detrimental.
(I suppose the quick way to say it is that it will wreck your average FPS over time, but it won't affect your maximum FPS.)
while 980ti can solve it for now, wait till we see what AMD's flagship, liquid cooled, HBM powered, monster can do. Especially if it is reasonably priced.
When I play skyrim on the lowest setting then mod it a bit to go lower I get about 22fps and 9-12 in battle.
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Ati Small Wonder ftw. But to answer the question it's 7.