Nvidia has started to roll out support for Resizable BAR, a feature of PCI Express that can boost frame rates 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 being limited to reading just 256MB blocks. Support for other 30-series GPUs will be available in late March.
You’ll need the right CPU, motherboard, and graphics card to utilize this new feature, and Nvidia is working with both AMD and Intel to provide chipset support. AMD’s Zen 3 CPUs are supported, alongside Intel’s 10th Gen processors and the company’s upcoming 11th Gen S chips.
Much like AMD’s Smart Access Memory, Resizable BAR on Nvidia GPUs can boost frame rates in certain games by up to 10 percent. The boost is really game dependent, and resolution can also impact how much performance will increase. “In our testing, we’ve found some titles benefit from a few percent, up to 10 percent,” says Nvidia. “However, there are also titles that see a decrease in performance.”
Nvidia is pre-testing titles and using special game profiles to enable Resizable BAR only where the performance increases. The following games are currently supported:
- Assassin’s Creed Valhalla
- Battlefield V
- Borderlands 3
- Forza Horizon 4
- Gears 5
- Metro Exodus
- Red Dead Redemption 2
- Watch Dogs: Legion
Additional games will be supported in late March, when Nvidia launches VIOS updates for the rest of its 30-series GPUs. Nvidia will supply VBIOS updates for all Founders Edition 30-series cards, and board partners will also release their own updates. You’ll also need a motherboard update that includes the necessary CPU support, and Nvidia says Asus, Asrock, Colorful, Evga, Gigabyte, and MSI have all started supporting Resizable BAR on select motherboards.
Resizable BAR support on the AMD side has been tested widely, and TechSpot found that some games making use of Smart Access Memory could see nearly a 20 percent boost at 1440p and 4K.
