How many MB is a 4k texture?

As an avid gamer and content creator, I often get asked – just how big are those super high-res 4K textures used in modern video games? What kind of GPU memory do you need to handle them? In this post, I‘ll provide a deeper dive into the world of 4K textures.

Defining 4K Textures

First – what exactly counts as a "4K texture"? By standard definition, 4K means a horizontal resolution of around 4000 pixels. In textures, this usually refers to the dimensions – so a 4K texture is typically 4096 x 4096 pixels.

This amount to over 16 million pixels total – four times greater than a 2K texture! All that additional detail comes at a cost though…

Breaking Down the Size in Pixels

At 4096 x 4096 pixels, a single 4K texture contains 16,777,216 pixels total.

Given today‘s standard texture formats that use 4 bytes per pixel (8 bits each for red, green, blue, and alpha transparency), each individual pixel in a 4K texture occupies 4 bytes of memory.

So a single uncompressed 4K texture requires:

Converting that to megabytes gives us 64 MB for a single 4K texture!

Table Breakdown

So in theory, an uncompressed 4K texture occupies about 64 MB of video memory.

Real-World Texture Compression

Thankfully, most modern game engines and 3D software take advantage of GPU texture compression. Advanced techniques like DXT, ETC2, and ASTC compression can shrink down texture sizes with minimal quality loss – sometimes up to 8x smaller than uncompressed sizes!

For example, the ASTC compression used in DirectX 12 and Vulkan can get an uncompressed 64 MB 4K texture down to just 8-16 MB. This helps games maximize available VRAM across many textures.

According to the Khronos Group, ASTC provides all the benefits of a 4K source texture in just 8 bits per pixel – 33% better than the old DXT compression. So game developers can choose the balance between quality and VRAM usage.

VRAM Requirements for 4K Gaming

But even with excellent texture compression, 4K gaming requires some massive VRAM to hold all that visual data!

Looking at the Cyberpunk 2077 system requirements as a benchmark:

And Cyberpunk 2077 is already 2 years old at this point! Newer games in 2024 and 2024 will push hardware even further.

Based on these trends, I expect future AAA games released over the next 2-3 years to call for 12-16 GB of VRAM as a baseline to handle 4K. Especially with new graphics features like ray tracing, virtual texturing, and mesh shaders coming down the pipeline.

The Cutting Edge – 8K Textures

Looking ahead even further, some engines like Unreal Engine 5 and CryEngine are starting to incorporate higher 8K textures.

As you might expect, 8K quadruples the pixels again to a staggering 32 million pixels per texture! Uncompressed, these textures would eat up 256 MB each.

Thankfully very aggressive texture compression can reduce that to something more reasonable – 32 MB per 8K texture is common. Still, games leveraging 8K likely need upwards of 16 GB of VRAM available.

But with new GPUs like the RTX 4080 packing 16+ GB of memory now available, these ultra high-res textures are finally becoming practical!

The Bottom Line – Plan Ahead for 4K

If you‘re a gamer looking to maximize fidelity and future-proof your system, here are my top tips:

Following those guidelines, you‘ll be set to enjoy the highest quality 4K gaming experiences for years to come!

Let me know if you have any other questions. As both an avid gamer and graphics programmer, I love delving into nitty gritty details about things like 4K textures and their role in modern real-time 3D rendering!