Hey so I recently downloaded vam and in some of the default scenes I'm getting decent frames but in the vamx add on pack, there's a scene that I get sub 20 fps. I have an i5 6600k and a 1070 and I want to upgrade my gpu (not just for vam but other vr titles.) I've read older posts saying that vam only utilizes a single core but these are old posts and I was wondering if thats still the case. If it is the case then would a newer i5 be fine or should I spring out for an i7 (or amd equivalent.) If it's not the case then would a 3060ti be good enough for solid fps or would the extra for a 3070 be worth it? (All of this comes with the caveat that I can get either of these cards near msrp)
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Gpu or Cpu upgrade?
- Thread starter Anakhai
- Start date
Check out the benchmark results from others posted in this thread. Try to find someone with similar hardware, compare with results from your own machine so you can guess how much you would benefit from the upgrade. Its not an exact science, but better than guessing. (Edit: Don't compare result from version 1 or 2 with results from version 3.)
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Benchmark Result Discussion
This thread is intended to share and discuss result from the MacGruber Benchmark plugin. As a side project, I was looking at PC components for upgrading my old machine. That made me browse through various forum threads on the Hub discussing FPS in VaM. Everyone is posting random FPS values, but...
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Yes, that is still true, because VaM hasn't changed since those old threads.
VaM in the current old version is very bad in utilizing your hardware. If you take a look at the Benchmark Thread, you will see people with the biggest available CPU/GPU still having issues with some scenes. You can burn thousands of dollars for hardware and maybe only gain some dissapointing fps in VaM. If it will be "worth" or not, is up to you.
Especially in VR you will need any performance you can get. 20fps for some demanding scenes in VR sounds realistic. To be sure not to have issues with your hardware, I would suggest to run the Benchmark test and compare your PC with similar ones.
There will be a future new version of VaM, which will utilize hardware much better, but at the same time will have some more performance hungry new features.
VaM in the current old version is very bad in utilizing your hardware. If you take a look at the Benchmark Thread, you will see people with the biggest available CPU/GPU still having issues with some scenes. You can burn thousands of dollars for hardware and maybe only gain some dissapointing fps in VaM. If it will be "worth" or not, is up to you.
Especially in VR you will need any performance you can get. 20fps for some demanding scenes in VR sounds realistic. To be sure not to have issues with your hardware, I would suggest to run the Benchmark test and compare your PC with similar ones.
There will be a future new version of VaM, which will utilize hardware much better, but at the same time will have some more performance hungry new features.
With the recent crypto crash I'd wait a bit.
Chances are good that crypto miners will dump a massive amount of cheap used graphic cards on the market when Ethereum 2.0 rolls out in 2022.
Mining Ethereum already has become a lot less profitable.
Next gen Ada Lovelace / RTX 40xx GPUs should show up end of 2022.
Meanwhile torture the GTX 1070:
I had a very cheap GTX 1070 a few years and had good success squeezing more boost performance out of it by undervolting it.
For that I used MSI Afterburner with it's Voltage Curve Editor.
[Control + F] to open it.
With stock settings the card used ~1.1Volt on the core. Temperatures reached 80+°C in a demanding game.
Inside the Voltage Curve Editor I used [Control + L] to lock the card at exactly:
It will only boost to 2000 Mhz if it does not run into the Power- or Voltagelimit - even with the lock.
Set them to the maximum.
Due to the lower voltage the core stays cooler. This dropped the core temperature -10°C!
All Pascal GTX 10xx cards slowly start to throttle with 60°C+
Save these settings to a profile and use it for gaming.
Avoid it for Idle-times. Keeping the GPU core boosted at 2 Ghz all the time will show on your power bill
I tested out the limits of my card and it became unstable at 0.95 Volt or 2075 Mhz.
At 0.975 Volt and 2050 Mhz it was almost stable resulting in a crash every 2-3 days.
Most 1070s should allow slightly better results. The cooler on my model was cheap and bad.
Overall this should result in close to 1070 Ti performance.
Chances are good that crypto miners will dump a massive amount of cheap used graphic cards on the market when Ethereum 2.0 rolls out in 2022.
Mining Ethereum already has become a lot less profitable.
Next gen Ada Lovelace / RTX 40xx GPUs should show up end of 2022.
Meanwhile torture the GTX 1070:
I had a very cheap GTX 1070 a few years and had good success squeezing more boost performance out of it by undervolting it.
For that I used MSI Afterburner with it's Voltage Curve Editor.
[Control + F] to open it.
With stock settings the card used ~1.1Volt on the core. Temperatures reached 80+°C in a demanding game.
Inside the Voltage Curve Editor I used [Control + L] to lock the card at exactly:
- 1.00 Volt
- 2000 Mhz
It will only boost to 2000 Mhz if it does not run into the Power- or Voltagelimit - even with the lock.
Set them to the maximum.
Due to the lower voltage the core stays cooler. This dropped the core temperature -10°C!
All Pascal GTX 10xx cards slowly start to throttle with 60°C+
Save these settings to a profile and use it for gaming.
Avoid it for Idle-times. Keeping the GPU core boosted at 2 Ghz all the time will show on your power bill
I tested out the limits of my card and it became unstable at 0.95 Volt or 2075 Mhz.
At 0.975 Volt and 2050 Mhz it was almost stable resulting in a crash every 2-3 days.
Most 1070s should allow slightly better results. The cooler on my model was cheap and bad.
Overall this should result in close to 1070 Ti performance.
Thanks for the reply guys. I've decided that unless I can get a gpu at msrp I'm not gonna get one for now as my 1070 has been okay in every other game so far, I think it'll be worth being patient. I guess as far as VAM is concerned then all I can do is wait which is fine. I'll just have to avoid scenes that don't run well which shouldn't be a problem. I don't think a new cpu is worth it for me yet as it does everything I want right now, but maybe sometime in the future I'll upgrade that as well. As for the overclocking I'll probably give it a go at some point when I feel like messing around with my hardware. I appreciate your responses for helping me come to a reasonable decision.
Just FYI I bought a whole new gaming rig a few months ago with a 3060 and I’ve been perfectly happy with it in VR. Yes it will lag if I try to put 3+ people in a busy scene, but most typical scenes run just fine (within reason for VAM). From everything I’ve read here going super expensive won’t yield much better results. YMMV.
