How to enable ReBAR for RTX 3000 GPUs on Windows?

As we know, this feature will allow NVIDIA GPUs and their VRAM to have full access from system CPU or RAM through PCIe, because until now the maximum size was divided into blocks of 256MB. NVIDIA gave a concrete figure of the expected improvement with this and indeed it is quite high: up to a + 12%.

The list of games supporting Resizable BAR is growing and growing bigger

Although the total figure is high and it was not specified how it was achieved, the truth is that the average is much lower, around the 5%. It is true that this improvement is free and will always be welcome, but it will be necessary to check how far the improvement goes in different resolutions, since what was tested was only in 2K and in 5 matches.

Likewise, the list of games, although it has grown, is still extremely limited for this feature. There are currently 17 titles supported by ReBAR and NVIDIA admits that it will add more titles as new drivers are released, so this is another point to keep in mind.

Likewise, the full list at this point is as follows:

1. Assassin’s Creed Valhalla
2. Battlefield v
3. Borderlands 3
4. Control
5. Cyberpunk 2077
6. Death Stranding
7. DIRT 5
8. F1 2020
9. Forza Horizon 4
10. Gears 5
11. Godfall
12. Hitman 2
13. Hitman 3
14. Horizon Zero Dawn
15. Metro Exodus
16. Red Dead Redemption 2
17. Watch Dogs Legion

How to activate ReBAR on the RTX 3000 in a few simple steps

As we already warned at the time, with the exception of the RTX 3060 (and GPUs after this one that are going on the market), all existing RTXs will need to update their BIOS in order to get support. because their firmware needs to be updated. It is possible that in a few months all cards will come with this firmware as standard when they are sold, but for now this is the solution that NVIDIA and the manufacturers are offering.

Updates will be offered by each manufacturer from the website for the model we have in question, while NVIDIA Founders Edition will do so from the company’s website. Once we have installed the firmware by following the steps given by each manufacturer, these are the following that we will need to follow to activate ReBAR on Windows:

1. Confirm that we have a compatible motherboard and processor (Ryzen 3000, Ryzen 5000, Intel Gen 11, 10 and 9)
2. Update your motherboard BIOS, if necessary, by installing a manufacturer update. Then enable ReBAR support in your motherboard BIOS interface, it varies depending on BIOS, motherboard model and manufacturer.
3. Update to the latest GeForce Game Ready driver (version 465.89 WHQL high).
4. If you’ve got a GeForce RTX 3060 or a GPU that’s released afterwards, you’re good to go. If you have a GeForce RTX 3060 Ti, 3070, 3080 or 3090, we may need a vBIOS update. It is necessary to see if the GPU was purchased before April 2021 or after, as later units should already include vBIOS as standard.
5. If you have an NVIDIA Founders Edition graphics card, get its VBIOS update tool directly from the NVIDIA website. If you have a graphics card from a manufacturer, we will need to get the update tool from their website based on the specific model.
6. Once the BIOS is flashed with its firmware, we will need to verify that the variable size bar (ReBAR) is enabled in the NVIDIA control panel or in GPU-Z.

These are simple steps that shouldn’t take us more than 10 minutes to get everything ready. The important thing is really to choose the specific model of the graphics card because, if we incorrectly choose and flash the firmware / BIOS, we can have a nice clipboard on the PC.