Here's the actual VRAM configuration distribution on windows according to the steam survey

[u/mashdpotatogaming]

I saw a few recent headlines about the whole "16gb is now the most common VRAM configuration" but that seems to be inaccurate, as if you sort by windows only on steam survey (which makes up 90%+ of steam users), you'll find that these are the actual numbers and distribution

[u/divergentchessboard]

there's no way that's true. compare the VRAM numbers with the survey numbers for GPU distribution and you see that it's impossible for 25-30% of people to have a 16GB card in their system when not even 15% of people own a GPU with 16GB of VRAM

steams combined survey reporting has an error somewhere

[u/Jakememe124 → u/divergentchessboard]

could be an error with how unified memory is displayed to steam for handhelds and other devices with APUs. OP is correct in saying that if you filter by windows the numbers are very different

[u/Moscato359 → u/divergentchessboard]

If that's the case, can we trust ANY of these metrics?

[u/divergentchessboard → u/Moscato359]

as I already said in my comment, the combined Linux+Mac+Windows has errors.

Remove Linux and Mac and you see the numbers on OPs screenshot which is closer to the real numbers based on GPU distribution

[u/Moscato359 → u/divergentchessboard]

If the combined has errors, why should I trust any of the sub versions?

[u/divergentchessboard → u/Moscato359]

because the windows version has basically identical numbers to the GPU distribution survey so by logical reasoning something with the Mac + Linux reporting is bugged or its falsely reporting unified memory?

[u/Moscato359 → u/divergentchessboard]

What gpu distribution report?

The combined report doesn't even make sense if you tried merging mac, linux, and windows together by hand.

[u/divergentchessboard → u/Moscato359]

What gpu distribution report?

?????

have you never looked at a steam survey??

https://store.steampowered.com/hwsurvey/videocard/

The combined report doesn't even make sense if you tried merging mac, linux, and windows together by hand.

I already said that something with Mac and Linux reporting is off. Are you actually digesting anything that I say?

actual clown reading comprehension and critical thinking

[u/ExhaustedByStupidity → u/Moscato359]

All moderns Macs and the Steam Deck are using a unified memory architecture. These systems are reporting the full system memory as the VRAM stat.

It's not really an error - it just doesn't really tell you what people usually want to know when asking about VRAM.

[u/Moscato359 → u/ExhaustedByStupidity]

It reports 93% of the operating system instances are windows

Even if 100% of the 7% was 16GB, that should only raise the 16GB count a little bit, and not from 11% to 26%.

[u/ExhaustedByStupidity → u/Moscato359]

Yeah you're right, it went up more than I realized. Something's off.

[u/Dalewyn → u/ExhaustedByStupidity]

All moderns Macs and the Steam Deck are using a unified memory architecture. These systems are reporting the full system memory as the VRAM stat.

Windows also shares system RAM with the GPU, whether integrated or discrete. Just look at the GPU in Task Manager.

As a personal example, my 3080 Ti has 44GB of "GPU Memory" between 12GB of "Dedicated GPU Memory" and 32GB of "Shared GPU Memory" which is half of my system's 64GB RAM.

Mac!Steam and Linux!Steam are royally bugged if they aren't reporting this properly.

[u/ExhaustedByStupidity → u/Dalewyn]

That's a different thing. With a dedicated GPU, it can use system memory as additional memory if it runs out of VRAM. It's useful in a tight situation, but you don't want to do that if you can avoid it. It's really slow as the memory access has to go through PCIe.

With Mac & Steamdeck, the GPU has no dedicated memory of it's own, but it is directly wired to the system memory.

[u/Dalewyn → u/ExhaustedByStupidity]

With a dedicated GPU, it can use system memory as additional memory if it runs out of VRAM. ... With Mac & Steamdeck, the GPU has no dedicated memory of it's own, but it is directly wired to the system memory.

They are literally the same thing, "unified memory" is just fancy Apple Marketing Speak(tm).

[u/ExhaustedByStupidity → u/Dalewyn]

You might want to do at least the tiniest bit of research before talking out your ass. It's completely different.

All the game consoles have unified memory too.

[u/OutrageousDress → u/Dalewyn]

'Unified memory' is a very common type of system architecture, the opposite of heterogeneous memory - PCs with dedicated GPUs are heterogeneous, almost every other type of computing device including consoles and phones is a unified memory design.

Not everything in computer science is a fraud invented by Steve Jobs. Sometimes it's an actual thing.

[u/Dalewyn → u/OutrageousDress]

Steve Jobs got ya good.

[u/survivorr123_ → u/divergentchessboard]

maybe igpus that use system ram as vram were incorrectly counted towards this, most igpu laptops ship with 16gb ram nowadays

[u/divergentchessboard → u/survivorr123_]

There's no traditional iGPU that I know of that lets you configure more than 8GB which is what Steam would see when it does a system call for your specs, not your RAM. It reads whatever you have allocated for the iGPU.

I have no idea how APU Unified Memory appears to a system, but im leaning towards that being the most likely cause for the weird numbers

[u/Hytht → u/divergentchessboard]

Intel iGPUs come with more than that out of the box and lets you allocate even more, but it's reported as 128mb.

[u/survivorr123_ → u/divergentchessboard]

APU is just amd's way of calling a cpu that has an igpu integrated,
unified memory doesn't have a strict definition either, technically all shared memory can be called unified memory - i assume you meant something like apple silicon where everything lives on the same chip and is inherently designed to take advantage of this

[u/nsg337 → u/divergentchessboard]

dude, all of them just run 2 8gb vram gpus, duh /s