Call of Duty: Black Ops III PC graphics performance benchmark review - Video memory usage - Final Words & Conclusion

Graphics memory (VRAM) usage

How much graphics memory does the game utilize versus your monitor resolution. Well, COD Black Ops 3  is a "FILL whatever you can" type of title when it comes to graphics memory. Have a look at the chart below. 

We noticed that with a variety of cards the behaviour, in terms of graphics memory utilization, per card is rather different. We have seen some scenes use a little more and others a little less, so please take a 20% deviation into account. Once you go to WHQD at 2560x1440 we'll pass 2GB EASILY and since graphics cards in that resolution often have 3 to 4 GB graphics memory, you should be fairly safe. In Ultra HD you'll need a lot more memory as we jump towards close to 4 GB of VRAM usage. COD simply caches as much as it can towards graphics memory & yes .. system memory now as well. But the 2GB cards up-to 1080P performed pretty OK. We recommend 4GB or better for 2560x1440 though. 

Wrapping things up

That's it for this first iteration on graphics card performance. This game is a bitch to test ...  seriously framerates are never consistent and can bounce 100% up and down in a jiffy. So the numbers that you see can vary big-time per level, heck even per scene. As stated in the intro, there are many things odd and off. As such we recommend you to look at the performance benchmarks you've just read with a grain of salt as I have been at the verge and threshold of asking myself the question whether or not to post these results. One test run will result on 50 FPS, the second 46 FPS and another 56 FPS. This means that the results shown today are indicative, not a precise measurement. Another problem was that some levels average out at say 40 FPS, yet there are a handful of scenes where the framerate will crumble down to say 25 FPS or where running a luxurious 60 FPS all of the sudden. But hey, 80% of the game plays with OK framerates if you use our image quality settings.
 

Memory then, up-to Full HD at 1920x1080/1200 2GB to 3GB graphics card will be sufficient. Once you pass that resolution 4 GB is recommended truth be told 6GB seems to be a sweet spot as that's roughly where the game stops with its endless caching. Talking about memory: System memory, RAM is utilized as cache for the game as well. Your (likely) 8GB RAM will be used and filled, at 16GB we noticed less swapping. Some reported stutters with 8GB though we did not notice it that much. The game will likely get a couple of patches before it'll run perfectly. It is a nice game-play title with OK graphics at best. Considering the kind of PC you need to be able to enable every little detail settings is silly. Anyway, it is still a fun game, if you can pick it up cheap enough go check it out.

Right, beer time !

Update: a series of patches have been released making the game more stable. if you run into weird stuttering issues, try disabling Hyper-Threading for your processor in the BIOS. It seems that a lot of the issues are related to it.

Hilbert out, peace. 

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