70% VRAM Usage on Menu and 100% on missions with 2080Ti

[GCBraun]

Hello,

 

I have noticed that DCS is currently using more than 60% of my 11gb VRAM memory just by standing still on the menu after loading it. Whenever I am in a mission, regardless if multi or single player, I am consistently at 99% VRAM Usage.

 

Is this normal?

 

I am running the latest Open Beta in a relatively new install (I have formatted my PC about a week ago). Here are my settings (my Rig is on the signature):

 

 

Thanks

[Worrazen]

Can you post a screenshot of the actual VRAM usage?

 

Probably not normal if no mission or editor was started. But yes, quitting a mission will not clean the RAM/VRAM completely.

[GCBraun]

Ok. Here is a picture inside a mission.

 

I have actually reduced some settings like shadows to medium and MSAA to 2x.

 

 

The thing is: I am getting 60fps+, so I am not sure if using all my VRAM is really a problem.

[ags]

I would be very curious if more VRAM would make any difference to perceived performance. I'm easily reaching 100% VRAM in VR, and if adding a 2nd gpu to take care of HDMI audio and 2nd screen would improve, that's easy.

[Twwhitey]

It looks like you are using a Rift S yes? Have you looked into the (or actively using) the Oculus Homeless Option with the Oculus Tray Tool? If not I strongly suggest it. I found that the Oculus Home - specifically the VR scene rendered in the overly bloated Oculus app running in the background - utilizes 3GB of the 11GB on my 2080ti. Using the Oculus Homeless (replacement .exe with just a blank “Matrix” loading screen scene) freed up 1.5GB of that on my system.

[ags]

I'm on an HP Reverb, so it's going through Windows MR, and Windows MR Steam…

If there is a simpler setup, I would love to know :-)

[etherbattx]

70% VRAM Usage on Menu and 100% on missions with 2080Ti

 

I would be very curious if more VRAM would make any difference to perceived performance.

 

 

i wouldn’t think so, vram doesn’t typically make a huge difference, but if you try it please post your results.

 

i would be very interested to hear about your experience.

[StrayWolf]

Yes, ALL of the VRAM will be used by whatever map you are using for the mission. That is standard. This is also why graphics cards with more VRAM are preferable under DCS.

 

VRAM is hyper-critical for all textures and lighting effects under applications. Programmers use that RAM first since it is faster for GPU access. Once the VRAM is exhausted, it starts eating away at your SYSTEM RAM. A lot of people say, "Oh, get more SYS RAM"...and they have puny 4GB video cards. 8GB video cards are a MINIMUM for DCS. Wags has stated that all maps have a limit based on AVAILABLE and average hardware specs. Most users actually do not have "uber-rigs" so they have to limit the software. Persian Gulf map I think, was their first true map that took advantage of 8GB.

 

I have noticed that just sitting in the DCS splash screen - program start - the VRAM usage drastically increases. I believe that this was a VRAM memory leak that has made a comeback...

 

Bottomline - make sure you video cards have minimum 8GB and your system RAM starts at 16GB. This is definitely a baseline moving forward as DCS progresses.

[etherbattx]

70% VRAM Usage on Menu and 100% on missions with 2080Ti

 

keep in mind that a lot of stuff in vram never gets used for anything. it’s often used as a simple holding area, “just in case”.

 

that’s one of the reasons vram usage goes up, even before the software knows what random choice you are going to make.

[Thick8]

The in-game FPS counter shows I'm using 17 Gb of Vram on my 1080ti.

[sc_neo]

@Thick8 What a useful remark mate! I have been asking myself whether DCS uses system memory as VRAM substitute on low VRAM cards, i didn't know that the ingame counter displayed that info. So i am still on a 2gb vram card and Persian Gulf can really kill my performance and bring it to a standstill. I just loaded up one of the worst missions, the ingame fps counter displayed 8.4gb VRAM usage. I didn't know things were so bad, but its a good indication that i might not buy a new videocard AND another 16gb memory, but go for a proper card first, and see how things go.

 

 

 

So, 8.4gb VRAM usage minus 2gb physical VRAM on my amd 7870, this does mean indeed that well over 6gb of my system memory are used for video rendering only? No wonder i pretty much always read like 15gb system memory usage on Persian Gulf!

 

 

 

And one other interesting observation i made in windows own resource monitor in regards to the pagefile the other day was; the write speed in bytes/second never exceeded 1mb. I know memoory and pagefile readings are very tricky to interpret, but only one 1mbs, 60mb per minute is such a low number, especially when the pagefile is on a ssd, that i really believe DCS is not limited by a regular pagefile size in anyway.

 

 

 

Even if DCS wrote constantly to your pagefile never deleting or overwriting anything in there, after one hour of playing that would amount to something like 3.6 - 4gb, so you needed to play a full 4 hours before you would run into any trouble pagefile wise on a 16gb system. And usually if managed by windows, a 16gb system has a 24gb pagefile or something, like 1.5 times the memory size.

[etherbattx]

i really believe DCS is not limited by a regular pagefile size in anyway.

 

this is correct.

 

pagefile is just “temporary” storage. let windows manage it.

 

most of the “pagefile” posts/youtube tweaks are referencing behavior from 2008 or earlier.

they are no longer needed.

[VitS]

Why so many people are obsessed with memory usage. Allocating and freeing memory is actually time consuming operation, that's is why these days memory managers prefer to allocate memory in larger blocks and only free memory when it is really needed.