Nvidia has started rolling out support for Resizable BAR, a feature of PCI Express that can increase the frame rate in certain games by up to 10 percent. The new RTX 3060 graphics card is the first to include Resizable BAR, which allows certain CPUs to access the full graphics frame buffer, instead of just reading 256 MB of blocks. Support for other 30-series GPUs will be available by the end of March.
You need the right CPU, motherboard and graphics card to use this new feature, and Nvidia is working with AMD and Intel to support chipset support. AMD’s Zen 3 processors are supported, along with Intel’s tenth generation processors and the company’s upcoming 11th Gen S chips.
Like AMD’s Smart Access Memory, the resizable BAR on Nvidia GPUs can increase frame rates in certain games by up to 10 percent. The boost really depends on the game, and the resolution can also affect how much performance will increase. “In our testing, we found that some titles benefit from a few percent, up to 10 percent,” says Nvidia. “However, there are also titles that are seeing a decline in performance.”
Nvidia tests titles in advance and uses special game profiles to enable only Resizable BAR where performance increases. The following games are currently supported:
- Assassin’s Creed Valhalla
- Battlefield V
- Borderlands 3
- Forza Horizon 4
- Rat 5
- Metro exit
- Red Dead Redemption 2
- Watch Dogs: Legion
Additional games will be supported at the end of March, when Nvidia launches VIOS updates for the rest of its 30-series GPUs. Nvidia provides VBIOS updates for all 30 Series Maps of the Founders Edition, and board members will also announce their own updates. You also need a motherboard update that includes the necessary CPU support, and Nvidia says Asus, Asrock, Colorful, Evga, Gigabyte, and MSI have started supporting Resizable BAR on certain motherboards.
Variable BAR support on the AMD side has been widely tested, and TechSpot found that some games using Smart Access Memory could see almost a 20 percent boost at 1440p and 4K.