Nvidia has mostly been on the cutting edge of technology when it comes to computer graphics. It was the first to bring hardware-accelerated ray-tracing to the consumers, which has revolutionized the way video games do reflections. In addition to this, Nvidia has carried the torch forward in other aspects as well, with its Deep Learning Super Sampling Technology - abbreviated as DLSS allowing gamers to play the latest releases at high resolutions without overly taxing the GPU.
While Nvidia's every decision might not have ultimately benefitted its consumers in recent times, the company seems to have a steady stream of good gamer news coming, with the latest in line being Resizable Bar support for its RTX 30 series GPUs.
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Nvidia's Resizable Bar is a state-of-the-art PCI-e interface technology that allows for a more efficient link between a system's CPU and GPU. Video games use a combination of CPU power, for their physics and systems, and GPU, for rendering polygons, and effortless communication between the two is essential for better performance. Most transfers between the CPU and the GPU take place in pre-defined chunks of memory, which can inevitably cause some problems. Multiple transfers can be called at the same time which results in queuing. Since the memory constraints may result in assets splitting up, many transfers might need to be completed before they can be put to use.
Nvidia's Resizable Bar breaks the memory limits and allows the streaming of bigger assets for the CPU at a single time. Furthermore, multiple transfers don't result in queuing which can help quite a bit for ensuring frames get delivered consistently and quickly. This can help in achieving better framerates in supported games, and reports show increases of as much as 20% on select games.
However, fans will have to ensure a couple of hardware requirements before getting the option to enable the feature in their Nvidia control panels. Nvidia's Resizable Bar requires users to be equipped with a compatible motherboard, which are namely-AMD 400, 500 series and Intel Z490, H470, B460, H410 platforms. Additionally, users need to have either a Ryzen 5xxx chipset or Intel 10xxx/11xxx installed on the motherboard to ensure compatibility with Nvidia's Resizable Bar. Once everything checks out, users can find the option for enabling the feature within the Nvidia Control Panel.
Additionally, fans need to know that only a select few games would benefit from the feature. The initial release of supported drivers has listed out a few games that are sure to benefit from such a feature. Games other than the listed ones may suffer from technical problems, and thus many have recommended the feature to be turned off while playing them. The list of supported games is:
- Assassin’s Creed Valhalla
- Battlefield 5
- Borderlands 3
- Control
- Cyberpunk 2077
- Death Stranding
- DIRT 5
- F1 2020
- Forza Horizon 4
- Gears 5
- Godfall
- Hitman 2
- Hitman 3
- Horizon Zero Dawn
- Metro Exodus
- Red Dead Redemption 2
- Watch Dogs Legion
It's clear that a decent chunk of the selection of titles are open-world games, which is obvious considering the requirement of such games to quickly transfer huge amounts of data between the CPU and GPU. The feature is a promising one, and it's likely that Nvidia will push the tech forward with new hardware and software updates.