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What are the limitations of 16 gb vram?

maravthemakermaravthemaker Posts: 11
in Technical Help (nuts n bolts)

Hi,

I know topics like that are probably dime a dozen so my apologies but I don't think they gave me a proper understanding of the limitations.

Recently, I swapped from my old AMD card to 5080 with 16gb vram since I finally wanted to get into 3D properly. I got good price for it and the only thing is that it has 16 gb vram. I see many Daz3D users on reddit and other places always complain how 16 gb is limiting with Gen 8 and 9 figures and that they cannot add detail to the scenes, etc. Obviously, there is news now about the new Nvidia GPUs having 18 and 24 gb vram but I really don't want to resell my GPU or return and wait for them since I like it and it would be a huge hassle. They would be probably even more expensive too.

Now, those users make it seem like 16 gb vram can render a scene with 3 characters and if you add too many props or clothes then it switches to CPU or if you make a scene with a crowd in the background which is not detailed everything renders on CPU. So here is my question. Could you help me visualize with some examples or descriptions how much can one get out of 16 gb vram card? The whole thing is I cannot visualize what I can achieve with 16 gb vram and what is the breaking point. Apologies for reheating a week old cut of meat :)

Comments

  • Richard HaseltineRichard Haseltine Posts: 108,466

    I think the people who are talking of 16GB being lmiting mean system memory rather than GPU memory. Not that you cannot exhaust the GPU memory, but as long as you have enough system RAM to handle preparation (ideally 48GB+) you should be able to do a lot with the 16GB and a great deal if you do a bit of optimisation (removng unneeded maps, resizing maps on more distant objects, reducing SubD lkevels for distant objects).

  • DustRiderDustRider Posts: 2,893

    I did the image linked below with a 16Gb RTX 4090 (mobile). I had to use Scene Optimizer primarily because one figure had 8K textures and I rendered it at 5000x3500. It has three G9 figures, four geoshells (with textures for the body/face paints), plus all of the clothing, hair, props, and environment. This might give you an idea as to what can be done with 16Gb of GPU memory (I could easily fit another character or two without the geoshells).

    Image Link : Hidden Trail (Note this is a link to the image in my DA gallery. The image in my gallery here can not be enlarged to full image resolution anymore. The full scale image should give you a good idea regarding the level of detail/complexity you can get with 16Gb of GPU memory.

  • WendyLuvsCatzWendyLuvsCatz Posts: 40,237

    I thought my 11GB 2080Ti was pretty good surprise

    just not as fast as the newer ones

  • DustRiderDustRider Posts: 2,893
    edited May 2025

    Well 11GB is really good!! I was using 8GB for a long time. Thankfully, my laptop doubles as a work machine so I had some help purchasing it (also the reason for 16GB). Of course the laptop 4090 is really a desktop 4080, but still really good for a laptop.

    Now the new 5090's with 32GB that's ..... surprise

    Post edited by DustRider on
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