Posts by Larry Ortiz5

Hmm, maybe it doesn't actually support Windows 7/8—if that's the case, there might not be any way to get it installed at all.

I’m honestly not sure how to break this to you—it looks like your graphics card finally kicked the bucket, and that's pretty much it...

I honestly have no clue if Accenture covers your area, but here in Washington, D.C., folks using them get 100mbps both ways—download and upload—plus phone and TV services for about $350-$133. Man, fiber optics really is a game changer, isn't it? If you can't get access to it, I guess you're stuck with AT&T 😁. I actually used them myself a few years back and was dealing with 4mbps speeds... seriously, what century were we living in?

Hmm, it sounds like you're looking at either a faulty graphics card or maybe just an issue with the monitor itself... Honestly, whatever feels easier for you to test works. You basically have two ways to go about this.

You could try popping a different graphics card into your rig—maybe borrow one from a friend or a neighbor just to rule it out? Or, if that’s too much hassle, you could just swap monitors to see if the same thing happens on a different screen. If the problem follows the card, then you know the GPU is finally giving up the ghost.

Honestly, it feels pretty awkward watching everyone on this forum jump down his throat to correct him or disagree with his answers—which, let’s be real, happens a huge amount of the time here. After I pointed out to him that he wasn't talking about a single monitor but several, and that it's perfectly normal to use more than 3.5GB of RAM, he just dropped that link for Battlefield 4. When you actually look at it, the resolution is 4096*2160 and it pulls 5.1 GB of VRAM. Then he has the nerve to tell me that Shadow of Mordor uses more than 3.5GB at FHD 1920 x1080... I mean, how is that even possible? If it's doing that at 1080p, how is it supposed to run at 4K? Is it just going to eat up 50 gigs of VRAM or something? You're just giving people the wrong information 😵

Look, that’s really just your search history—it isn't going to wipe out the actual program, just the stuff you typed into the search bar...

I ran Far Cry 4 without any issues at all. Honestly, if you're trying to run three or four monitors, two GTX 980s wouldn't even cut it—so a single GTX 970 doesn't stand a chance.

Here is what one buddy of mine had to say after someone asked him if he’d actually benchmarked his GTX 970, specifically which games and resolutions would actually force it to swallow that 3.5GB of VRAM.

I was actually messing around with some pretty ridiculous settings just to see—basically, you have to use DSR to crank the resolution up to 4K, and then you've got to pile on 8x MSAA, which is just totally overkill. Of course, your FPS ends up being garbage... we're talking single digits here. But trust me, even SLI or CrossFire couldn't push that to a playable level, so it really doesn't make much sense. We're talking about Far Cry 4, after all; it's actually quite playable with everything set to Ultra at 4K without AA. On my rig, it hits about 25-30 FPS and uses roughly 3.6-3.8GB of VRAM without any microstuttering. Personally, though, I find the HUD way too small when using 4K DSR, and I’d much rather play at a smooth 60 FPS than struggle at 30.
The bottom line is that a card will usually run out of raw processing power before it runs out of VRAM. Take Dragon Age: Inquisition, for example—everything on max, 2xMSAA at 1080p with Vsync ON, and it runs at a perfectly smooth 60 FPS while only using "a mere" 2.2-2.5GB of VRAM.
I actually suspect that Frostbite engine games might be better optimized for AMD.

So, which game is actually going to push 4 GB of VRAM at Full HD resolution?

It could just be a driver issue, or we might be looking at a GPU failure—maybe even a glitch with the monitor itself. But since everything runs perfectly fine in Safe Mode without any errors, I’d say we can rule out the monitor. That leaves us with two main possibilities to look into...

I mean, if there isn't a ton of stuff sitting on the drive, why not just wipe it clean and start fresh? It’s usually a sign that something in the software is just totally glitched out—and honestly, you can end up fighting with it forever. Why waste hours trying to fix a mess when a quick format solves everything?

Try booting up in Safe Mode first and just uninstall those graphics drivers. Once you've done that, give the computer a quick restart and see if it actually lets you back into Windows normally. If it does, head over to the manufacturer's website to grab the latest driver updates. Of course, if things still aren't working right after that, there's a pretty good chance the card has finally kicked the bucket...

Could you list out your full system specs? Just so we have a better idea of what we're dealing with...

Well, things didn't exactly go according to plan—I think I ended up having about three beers too many, so here we are. 😉

You probably have about a million YouTube videos out there covering Windows 8 and 8.1—you could easily find a dozen reviews to watch... If you realize you aren't feeling it, why not just toss the whole thing in the trash and move on? It's really not that deep.

That’s a whole different story, honestly—it feels like every time a new generation of graphics cards hits the market, everyone starts complaining about whether they actually got the amount of VRAM promised 😁 especially when it comes to the folks over at AMD.

Well, I guess that's just how I roll 😛

Nah, since you aren't looking for a processor with that "K" designation, this one should be more than enough for what you need...

Look, man, this is pretty much an "old news" topic at this point—anyone rocking those specific cards already knows the deal. I mean, when are you actually going to need more than 3.5 GB of VRAM anyway? Maybe if you're pushing 4K, but let's be real—even a GTX 980, which is definitely more powerful, isn't really built for that kind of resolution. Honestly, most of the hardware hitting the market right now just can't handle playing at those ultra-high resolutions while maintaining a decent FPS.

Just install whichever version of Windows works for you—I mean, why bother installing the ones everyone else tells you to use? 🙄

Look, man, just give me a shout whenever you're actually ready to pull the trigger on a purchase. Honestly, trying to spec out a build right now for something you won't be buying for a few months—it just doesn't make much sense, does it?

Honestly, it sounds like you're dealing with a software issue—it's probably just some digital clutter getting in the way. If I were you, I'd just wipe the drive and start fresh; things should run a lot smoother after a clean install 😉