Graphics memory (VRAM) usage and conclusion

Graphics memory (VRAM) usage

How much graphics memory does the game utilize versus your monitor resolution with different graphics cards and respective VRAM sizes? Well, we already addressed this bit of course. But let's have a look at the chart below. The listed MBs used in the chart are the maximum measured utilized graphics memory during the test run. 

Final Fantasy will eat up and fill your VRAM as best as it can. Above four random cards, two 4GB two 8GB. With the graphics memory filled at 4GB you are not going to notice anything weird. For 8GB cards in Ultra HD we see a spike running towards ~7700MB. This game has Ultra HD textures, and where it can it'll fill that space up whenever it can (which is something good). So with a 4GB graphics card, you'll notice your VRAM is nearly or 100% filled flat out full at any resolution. This prevents it from swapping and loading textures/shaders from your IO (HDD/SSD). Up-to Full HD (1920x1080) in fact any ~4 GB graphics card of decent caliber should do the job well. 4 GB or more would be sufficient for 2560x1440. If you want to play Ultra quality with Ultra HD as preferred monitor resolution, 6GB or better is advised but in this game, not needed. 

Update March 6th, 2018 

At the game launch day, AMD released a new driver, 18.3.1. The new driver should add support for Final Fantasy XV. We have tested the 18.2.3 versus the 18.3.1 drivers on a Radeon RX 480 and Vega 64, we have not been able to spot any significant performance enhancement aside from a random fluctuations of 1 FPS here and there.. 

 Concluding

Final Fantasy XV we have tested in the first level of the demo, seven days before launch you can bet that the rendering engine was finalized and as such these are proper results for the final game. Aside from a dreadfully slow start of the first level (pushing the card for minutes, really?) the game really does look very nice, especially when you bump into Cindy the sun starts to shine ;) Aside from an occasion stutter and some FPS drops in huge combat fights overall the title will be very playable and enjoyable to watch. Admittedly Ultra HD does look spectacular!, but only a Geforce GTX 1080 Ti or better can achieve proper framerates at the highest quality settings, and with Nvidia game works settings enabled, that framerate actually becomes marginal (but do-able). 

Things really start to look better at the highest quality mode, and sure either 2560x1440 resolution wise or something above that up-to Ultra HD, serves this game the best. Up-to 2560x1440 the game is very playable, it's struggling at Ultra HD rather quickly with most cards though. At 1920x1080 the vast majority of the game plays with proper framerates though combined with any modern age graphics card. Overall the game feels smooth in game-play, nothing negative to mention there aside from that occasion stutter (likely texture loading). FCAT/Frametime plots look pretty decent for both brands as well. As always, we do hope you like this little test as it will be an indicator of overall performance. All modern graphics cards will run the game at Full HD without any issue. There is just no need to drop down in images quality modes too massively and heck, that's where we as PC gamers need to be. Please do make sure you have installed the latest compatible graphics card driver, the new 18.2.3 or higher driver from AMD, as well as at least GeForce 391.01 or the newer drivers. We know for sure the NV driver contain optimizations, we expect AMD to release a new set on launch day as well. If that happens, we'll update the results in these charts (if applicable).

Once the final release is out in a couple of days, we'll cross-check the results once more, and update accordingly. As always, you can download the latest AMD Catalyst drivers and Nvidia GeForce drivers here directly from our fast and easy to use download section.

- H.

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