{"id":1536193,"date":"2026-03-26T06:03:40","date_gmt":"2026-03-26T06:03:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/xnWUGvjKhuDLjmUe7LZEjX"},"modified":"2026-03-26T06:03:40","modified_gmt":"2026-03-26T06:03:40","slug":"arc-raiders-is-a-shining-beacon-of-hope-in-the-darkest-times-of-the-rampocalypse-proving-8-gb-budget-graphics-cards-dont-have-to-miss-out-on-glorious-graphics","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/arcader.org\/news\/arc-raiders-is-a-shining-beacon-of-hope-in-the-darkest-times-of-the-rampocalypse-proving-8-gb-budget-graphics-cards-dont-have-to-miss-out-on-glorious-graphics\/","title":{"rendered":"Arc Raiders is a shining beacon of hope in the darkest times of the RAMpocalypse, proving 8 GB budget graphics cards don’t have to miss out on glorious graphics"},"content":{"rendered":"
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I’ve recently performed some in-depth testing of VRAM usage in several modern games, to see if 8 GB budget graphics cards are still good enough for gaming<\/a> in 2026. And it turns out they are\u2014with some caveats. <\/p>\n

While the 8 GB variants of the RTX 5060 Ti and RX 9060 XT performed fairly well overall, it was surprising to see just how big the frame rate gap was compared to their 16 GB equivalents. Traditionally, 8 GB and 16 GB budget GPUs have often performed roughly the same, but in this generation of games, that’s not so much the case.<\/p>\n

In this VRAM-constrained, memory crisis-stricken world<\/a>, that might be bad news for budget gamers. Should this supply shambles cause graphics card manufacturers to cut all our “low-priced” cards down to 8 GB, though, there is one major beacon of hope\u2014and it comes in the form of Arc Raiders<\/a>.<\/p>\n

I was genuinely astonished to see how well this particular game ran on all of our tested GPUs. It’s a great counterpoint to the popular idea that all Unreal Engine 5 games perform like trash<\/a>, and a testament to the ability of the developers to keep VRAM usage low and frame rates high, even on affordable graphics hardware at maximum settings.<\/p>\n

Take a look at the chart below to see what I mean. While the 16 GB cards are still faster overall, even the RX 9060 XT 8 GB (which struggled a little in some of my tests) manages to post a 127 fps average with the sliders cranked at 1440p, albeit with a small dose of Quality upscaling.<\/p>\n

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