How much RAM was consumed by computer games, or Pending the era of “16+ GB”
Hi, Giktayms! The year 2017, which gave us a lot of computer games, is coming to an end. We will not talk about the direction in which the industry is moving, but at the same time we will try to find out what PC gamers should prepare for in the coming year.
There is a perception that before and the games were better, and the system requirements for them were not the most stringent. And now everything is supposedly done in such a way that the gamer only had time to run to the store for a new iron. Especially these conversations are relevant in the period of the release of the new iron, and 2017 in this regard was just such a year. In the allotted 365 days, AMD finally presented competitive Ryzen processors, to which Intel responded with the release of six-core Core i5 and Core i7 generation Coffee Lake. In the same year, the "red" presented a series of video cards Radeon RX Vega, and NVIDIA released the most powerful single-chip - TITAN Xp.
But what about the memory? While M.2-slots of motherboards are more and more actively filled with NVMe drives, the de facto standard in a gaming computer is 8 GB. At least, this is what the official Steam statistics for November-month tells us. It is noteworthy that in this third degree lies completely different: back in March of this year, 12+ GB of RAM was installed in 22.6% of users of the service of the Most Holy Gabe. In November, there were much more such people - 31.56%, that is, we can safely say that next year there will be a majority of gamers with such PCs and laptops. The turning point, we think.
')
Summing up the peculiar result of 2017, we decided to see how the system requirements of PC games changed over time and how much RAM was required by the average computer in the past.
We suggest not to rummage in the "Mesozoic era" and consider the games that came out exactly 10 years ago. So, in 2007, the following iconic franchises appeared: Crysis, Mass Effect, The Witcher and Assassin's Creed. Each of these AAA projects to date has several parts. The same Mass Effect Andromeda and Assassin's Creed: Origins were introduced in 2017. In general, the picture will be quite visual. Perhaps, for greater clarity, add to this list the epic (12/10) Call of Duty conveyor. In 2007, the fourth part just came out - not yet bored with Modern Warfare.
In 2007, for about $ 1,500 (at that rate - ~ 38,000 rubles), you could purchase a system with a dual-core Intel Core 2 Duo E6420 processor (2.13 GHz, 4 MB cache), 2 GB DDR2-800, the iconic ASUS card P5B Deluxe, a 500-gigabyte hard drive and a GeForce 8800 GTS 320 MB video card. Now for 38,000 rubles you will assemble a PC with a dual-core Pentium G4600, 8 GB of RAM DDR4-2400, GeForce GTX 1050 Ti 4 GB and HDD 1 TB, and for $ 1500 - a computer with six-core Core i5-8400, 16 GB of RAM, GeForce GTX 1070 8 GB, HDD 1 TB and SSD 120-128 GB. Contrast is obtained.
The table below shows the recommended system requirements for the games covered in this note.
The growth of system requirements is most clearly demonstrated by the Call of Duty franchise. Step by step, the game slowly began to demand more and more resources. Especially nightmarish is the situation with the need to free up the installation of Call of Duty: WWII as much as 90 GB of free space. It turns out that an SSD of 120-128 GB is simply not enough to install this game.
Starting with Call of Duty: Black Ops III, the series began to demand a lot of RAM too. Yes, the recommended system requirements are 8 GB, but in fact the game at maximum graphics quality settings requires more than 13 GB of RAM.
Black Ops III is not the only example in the series, when 8 GB of RAM is not enough for comfortable gaming. The last part of the "koldy" - WWII - also "eats" more than 8 GB of RAM. Full HD resolution with maximum graphics quality settings in a system with GeForce GTX 1080 requires 10 GB of RAM for a normal and comfortable game.
In our opinion, the release of Crysis in 2007 marked the emergence of games with next-generation graphics. In 2007, even a PC with a GeForce 8800 Ultra video card barely coped with the “crisis” at high graphics quality settings in HD resolution. When activating maximum graphics quality settings, this game required 2.5 GB of RAM. Some users only a few years later were able to see Crysis in all its glory, when it came time to upgrade their PC. So, in order to get a stable 60 FPS in Full HD resolution, you need GeForce GTX 970 or Radeon R9 290X video cards, and these are very smart game adapters even by the standards of 2017. The third and, it seems, the final part of the franchise in the resolution of Full HD with the maximum graphics quality settings in the system with GeForce GTX 1080 is really enough 4 GB of RAM for a normal and comfortable game.
The developers of Mass Effect Andromeda recommend using a 16 GB computer for your project. Testing shows that for maximum settings when using the GeForce GTX 1080, 8 GB of RAM in Full HD resolution is enough. Ultra HD resolution already requires more than 12 GB of RAM.
The Assassin's Creed series of games has many projects and branches, but we selected only six for comparing the recommended system requirements. Parts like Unity and Syndicate were remembered to gamers as very resource-intensive titles. At the same time, the Assassin's Creed Origins developers have noticeably optimized the Anvi Next Engine engine. As a result, if the first part of Assassin's Creed required only 2 GB of RAM, then the last part - already 8 GB.
Around 2011-2012, the gaming PC took 4 GB of RAM. Prior to that, the recommended system requirements were 2 GB of RAM. Already in 2015, igrodels began to recommend 8 GB of RAM for their products.
In 2011, for $ 1,500 (at that rate - ~ 48,000 rubles) you could purchase a system with an Intel Core i5-2500K, 8 GB DDR3-1866, GeForce GTX 570, SSD with 60-64 GB capacity and a 2 TB hard disk. Now for about 50,000 rubles you can get a PC with a quad-core Core i3-8100 and a Z370 motherboard, 16 GB of DDR4-2400 RAM, 1 TB HDD and a GeForce GTX 1060 3 GB.
As a result, over the past 10 years, the requirements for RAM have increased exactly 8 times. At the same time, in 2017, 8 GB of RAM is quite enough for a comfortable pastime, although there are games that, with the maximum graphics quality settings, require much more RAM. The choice suggests itself: a modern gaming computer needs 16 GB of RAM. However, in this we will once again make sure.
In April 2017, we already had one small experiment, in which we determined how much RAM is needed in a modern gaming computer.
Since that test has passed decently time. A lot of new games went on sale, so we decided to repeat our experiment. A system with a Core i7-7700K processor, GeForce GTX 1060 3 GB video cards and a GeForce GTX 1080 8 GB and a Kingston HyperX Predator HX430C15PB3K4 / 64 memory kit was used for the meeting. Measurement of consumption of RAM was carried out for 15 minutes by means of the MSI Afterburner program. The games were launched at maximum graphics quality settings in Full HD and the gaining popularity of Ultra HD. A pure Windows 10 x64 Pro operating system was used without launching additional programs. Obviously, the launch of some Google Chrome followed by the opening of several dozen tabs will increase the consumption of RAM by 7-10 GB. On the other hand, that is why the RAM for your PC must be taken with a margin.
In the test bench, various video cards are used for a reason. Many modern games consume more than 4 GB of video memory, so if the volume of VRAM is not enough for a project, all the data that does not fit will be stored in RAM. Therefore, the following relationship is true: the smaller the video memory of a video card, the more RAM you need to have in your computer.
We think this mini-test clearly showed that in 2017 there was not a single game that would consume more than 16 GB of RAM. This statement is relevant not only for Full HD resolution, but also for Ultra HD.
It should be noted that many AAA projects have been released, which really need 16 GB of RAM. At the same time, games such as Rise of the Tomb Raider, Watch Dogs 2, Call of Duty, STAR WARS Battlefront II and Mass Effect Andromeda hint: a large amount of RAM (over 16 GB) in a PC does not look like something unusual and superfluous.
Over the past 10 years, computer games have become noticeably more voracious in terms of system requirements. In 2007, the average PC gaming PC was enough for 2 GB of RAM, and in 2011 - 4 GB. Now, no one is surprised that this or that game takes up 50+ GB of storage and requires more than 8 GB of RAM.
It turns out that the reasonable choice for a gaming computer at the moment is the presence of 16 GB of RAM. However, next year there will be a large number of interesting and long-awaited projects: Metro: Exodus, Far Cry 5, Darksiders 3, Kingdom Come: Deliverance, The Crew 2, Beyond Good & Evil 2 - this is just a small list of already announced projects. We do not exclude that it is in 2018 that games will appear that will mark the beginning of the 16+ GB era. Therefore, assembling a computer "for the future" can already be viewed in the direction of sets of RAM with a total capacity of 32 GB.
Subscribe and stay with us - it will be interesting!
But for those who plan to assemble a PC on their own or buy a ready-made assembly, MSI gives a great New Year gift worth 10,000 rubles, which you can add to your build - a 16 GB HyperX Fury DDR4 memory kit. The number of memory modules is limited. Learn more about the action here .
For more information about Kingston and HyperX products, visit the company's official website .
There is a perception that before and the games were better, and the system requirements for them were not the most stringent. And now everything is supposedly done in such a way that the gamer only had time to run to the store for a new iron. Especially these conversations are relevant in the period of the release of the new iron, and 2017 in this regard was just such a year. In the allotted 365 days, AMD finally presented competitive Ryzen processors, to which Intel responded with the release of six-core Core i5 and Core i7 generation Coffee Lake. In the same year, the "red" presented a series of video cards Radeon RX Vega, and NVIDIA released the most powerful single-chip - TITAN Xp.
But what about the memory? While M.2-slots of motherboards are more and more actively filled with NVMe drives, the de facto standard in a gaming computer is 8 GB. At least, this is what the official Steam statistics for November-month tells us. It is noteworthy that in this third degree lies completely different: back in March of this year, 12+ GB of RAM was installed in 22.6% of users of the service of the Most Holy Gabe. In November, there were much more such people - 31.56%, that is, we can safely say that next year there will be a majority of gamers with such PCs and laptops. The turning point, we think.
')
Summing up the peculiar result of 2017, we decided to see how the system requirements of PC games changed over time and how much RAM was required by the average computer in the past.
When we were young
We suggest not to rummage in the "Mesozoic era" and consider the games that came out exactly 10 years ago. So, in 2007, the following iconic franchises appeared: Crysis, Mass Effect, The Witcher and Assassin's Creed. Each of these AAA projects to date has several parts. The same Mass Effect Andromeda and Assassin's Creed: Origins were introduced in 2017. In general, the picture will be quite visual. Perhaps, for greater clarity, add to this list the epic (12/10) Call of Duty conveyor. In 2007, the fourth part just came out - not yet bored with Modern Warfare.
In 2007, for about $ 1,500 (at that rate - ~ 38,000 rubles), you could purchase a system with a dual-core Intel Core 2 Duo E6420 processor (2.13 GHz, 4 MB cache), 2 GB DDR2-800, the iconic ASUS card P5B Deluxe, a 500-gigabyte hard drive and a GeForce 8800 GTS 320 MB video card. Now for 38,000 rubles you will assemble a PC with a dual-core Pentium G4600, 8 GB of RAM DDR4-2400, GeForce GTX 1050 Ti 4 GB and HDD 1 TB, and for $ 1500 - a computer with six-core Core i5-8400, 16 GB of RAM, GeForce GTX 1070 8 GB, HDD 1 TB and SSD 120-128 GB. Contrast is obtained.
The table below shows the recommended system requirements for the games covered in this note.
The growth of system requirements is most clearly demonstrated by the Call of Duty franchise. Step by step, the game slowly began to demand more and more resources. Especially nightmarish is the situation with the need to free up the installation of Call of Duty: WWII as much as 90 GB of free space. It turns out that an SSD of 120-128 GB is simply not enough to install this game.
Starting with Call of Duty: Black Ops III, the series began to demand a lot of RAM too. Yes, the recommended system requirements are 8 GB, but in fact the game at maximum graphics quality settings requires more than 13 GB of RAM.
Black Ops III is not the only example in the series, when 8 GB of RAM is not enough for comfortable gaming. The last part of the "koldy" - WWII - also "eats" more than 8 GB of RAM. Full HD resolution with maximum graphics quality settings in a system with GeForce GTX 1080 requires 10 GB of RAM for a normal and comfortable game.
In our opinion, the release of Crysis in 2007 marked the emergence of games with next-generation graphics. In 2007, even a PC with a GeForce 8800 Ultra video card barely coped with the “crisis” at high graphics quality settings in HD resolution. When activating maximum graphics quality settings, this game required 2.5 GB of RAM. Some users only a few years later were able to see Crysis in all its glory, when it came time to upgrade their PC. So, in order to get a stable 60 FPS in Full HD resolution, you need GeForce GTX 970 or Radeon R9 290X video cards, and these are very smart game adapters even by the standards of 2017. The third and, it seems, the final part of the franchise in the resolution of Full HD with the maximum graphics quality settings in the system with GeForce GTX 1080 is really enough 4 GB of RAM for a normal and comfortable game.
The developers of Mass Effect Andromeda recommend using a 16 GB computer for your project. Testing shows that for maximum settings when using the GeForce GTX 1080, 8 GB of RAM in Full HD resolution is enough. Ultra HD resolution already requires more than 12 GB of RAM.
The Assassin's Creed series of games has many projects and branches, but we selected only six for comparing the recommended system requirements. Parts like Unity and Syndicate were remembered to gamers as very resource-intensive titles. At the same time, the Assassin's Creed Origins developers have noticeably optimized the Anvi Next Engine engine. As a result, if the first part of Assassin's Creed required only 2 GB of RAM, then the last part - already 8 GB.
Around 2011-2012, the gaming PC took 4 GB of RAM. Prior to that, the recommended system requirements were 2 GB of RAM. Already in 2015, igrodels began to recommend 8 GB of RAM for their products.
In 2011, for $ 1,500 (at that rate - ~ 48,000 rubles) you could purchase a system with an Intel Core i5-2500K, 8 GB DDR3-1866, GeForce GTX 570, SSD with 60-64 GB capacity and a 2 TB hard disk. Now for about 50,000 rubles you can get a PC with a quad-core Core i3-8100 and a Z370 motherboard, 16 GB of DDR4-2400 RAM, 1 TB HDD and a GeForce GTX 1060 3 GB.
As a result, over the past 10 years, the requirements for RAM have increased exactly 8 times. At the same time, in 2017, 8 GB of RAM is quite enough for a comfortable pastime, although there are games that, with the maximum graphics quality settings, require much more RAM. The choice suggests itself: a modern gaming computer needs 16 GB of RAM. However, in this we will once again make sure.
AAA games of 2017
In April 2017, we already had one small experiment, in which we determined how much RAM is needed in a modern gaming computer.
Since that test has passed decently time. A lot of new games went on sale, so we decided to repeat our experiment. A system with a Core i7-7700K processor, GeForce GTX 1060 3 GB video cards and a GeForce GTX 1080 8 GB and a Kingston HyperX Predator HX430C15PB3K4 / 64 memory kit was used for the meeting. Measurement of consumption of RAM was carried out for 15 minutes by means of the MSI Afterburner program. The games were launched at maximum graphics quality settings in Full HD and the gaining popularity of Ultra HD. A pure Windows 10 x64 Pro operating system was used without launching additional programs. Obviously, the launch of some Google Chrome followed by the opening of several dozen tabs will increase the consumption of RAM by 7-10 GB. On the other hand, that is why the RAM for your PC must be taken with a margin.
In the test bench, various video cards are used for a reason. Many modern games consume more than 4 GB of video memory, so if the volume of VRAM is not enough for a project, all the data that does not fit will be stored in RAM. Therefore, the following relationship is true: the smaller the video memory of a video card, the more RAM you need to have in your computer.
We think this mini-test clearly showed that in 2017 there was not a single game that would consume more than 16 GB of RAM. This statement is relevant not only for Full HD resolution, but also for Ultra HD.
It should be noted that many AAA projects have been released, which really need 16 GB of RAM. At the same time, games such as Rise of the Tomb Raider, Watch Dogs 2, Call of Duty, STAR WARS Battlefront II and Mass Effect Andromeda hint: a large amount of RAM (over 16 GB) in a PC does not look like something unusual and superfluous.
findings
Over the past 10 years, computer games have become noticeably more voracious in terms of system requirements. In 2007, the average PC gaming PC was enough for 2 GB of RAM, and in 2011 - 4 GB. Now, no one is surprised that this or that game takes up 50+ GB of storage and requires more than 8 GB of RAM.
It turns out that the reasonable choice for a gaming computer at the moment is the presence of 16 GB of RAM. However, next year there will be a large number of interesting and long-awaited projects: Metro: Exodus, Far Cry 5, Darksiders 3, Kingdom Come: Deliverance, The Crew 2, Beyond Good & Evil 2 - this is just a small list of already announced projects. We do not exclude that it is in 2018 that games will appear that will mark the beginning of the 16+ GB era. Therefore, assembling a computer "for the future" can already be viewed in the direction of sets of RAM with a total capacity of 32 GB.
Subscribe and stay with us - it will be interesting!
But for those who plan to assemble a PC on their own or buy a ready-made assembly, MSI gives a great New Year gift worth 10,000 rubles, which you can add to your build - a 16 GB HyperX Fury DDR4 memory kit. The number of memory modules is limited. Learn more about the action here .
For more information about Kingston and HyperX products, visit the company's official website .
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/371073/
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