AMD Vega 56 HBCC Gaming Benchmarks - On vs. Off

**HPCC and Vega Performance: A Tale of Two Tests**

In a recent update to their website, our friends at HPCC revealed the results of a test they conducted comparing the performance of their system with and without the toggle for controller memory (HPCC). As we discussed in a previous article, this toggle allows users to control whether or not the system uses more memory from the video card. The team at HPCC decided to test this feature in conjunction with the Radeon RX Vega graphics card, which was released recently.

**Similar Results between On and Off Tests**

The results of the on-off tests were quite similar, with both tests showing performance gains when the controller memory toggle is enabled. According to their work, the most part of the differences were within a range of 1 FPS. The team at HPCC also tested Maniander, which we did not test in this instance, and found that it showed no meaningful changes when the Vega card was used with either 4 or 8 gigabytes of memory.

**Theoretical Possibility of Improved Performance**

However, there is one theoretical possibility where performance might be improved with the toggle enabled. If games were to start storing large amounts of data in VRAM, and then somehow implemented or utilized this expanded memory effectively, it could potentially lead to gains in performance. The team at HPCC did demonstrate a statistically significant increase of 4% in their Superposition test when the controller memory toggle was enabled.

**Production Applications: A Potential Area for Gains**

However, there is still one area where potential gains might be seen: production applications. Companies like Andy's SSG Solutions have been working on optimizing their systems to handle demanding workloads, such as live 8K scrubbing and Premiere Pro with the Radeon card. If these optimizations were to include more effective use of the expanded memory, it could potentially lead to performance gains in these areas.

**Gaming Performance: Limited Benefits**

Unfortunately, for gaming applications, we did not see any significant benefits from enabling the controller memory toggle. As one of our viewers pointed out, if you could play a game at high frame rates with the toggle enabled, but then have to lower your settings to avoid instability issues, it would essentially be a trade-off that is not worth making.

**Exceptional Scenarios**

However, there are some exceptional scenarios where enabling the controller memory toggle might lead to benefits. For example, if you were using user-created assets, such as mods for Fallout or Skyrim, with large amounts of data stored in VRAM, it could potentially allow the system to use more memory effectively. However, these scenarios would require significant changes in game development and optimization.

**Conclusion**

In conclusion, while there are some potential benefits to enabling the controller memory toggle on certain workloads, such as Superposition tests or production applications, its impact is limited for gaming applications. Users may see a 0.5 to 4% performance uplift in rare cases, but it's not a silver bullet for anything.

**Further Testing and Development**

As we move forward with driver updates and new games and applications become available, we will revisit this topic to see if any changes occur. For now, users can experiment with the toggle on their own systems to see if they notice any benefits or drawbacks.

**Support the Show**

If you want to support our show directly, you can go to patreon.com/scishow and pledge your support today. You can also visit our sponsor, Gamers Nexus, who provide us with some of the gear we use in our tests.