Out of GPU Memory crashes on getting into aircraft in MP

[Toumal]

Since the last patch I have extremely high VRAM usage. I'm running a 4090 with 24GB VRAM in VR with a Varjo Aero using the MT binary. I never had any situation where I ran out of GPU memory. But now, I end up crashing to desktop with a dialog box that says that I am "out of video memory trying to allocate a texture".

I tried lowering the textures and visible range, but that did not help.

Anyone else experience this?

[Toumal]

Specs: RTX4090 with 24GB VRAM, texture settings high. These settings worked fine for many months without any crashes. Now, VRAM usage climbs to the limit when getting into an aircraft and then the game dies. Tried repair (removed any changed files too) and also updated GPU drivers to latest.

No zip file and no dmp file was generated. However I do have the crash and log files.

Sometimes when this happens, I get a dialog box like the one included, but it does not always happen.

Something changed with the way VRAM is allocated. It now always grows and is never freed. Even on lower settings you eventually crash if you hop into different types of aircraft.

dcs.log dcs.20230924-145213.crash

Edited September 24, 2023 by Toumal

[Toumal]

Update, I managed to get a full crash dump!

dcs.log-20230924-150318.zip

[Flappie]

Your system drive is full:

      Drive: C:
 Free Space: 0.2 GB
Total Space: 237.9 GB
File System: NTFS
      Model: Samsung SSD 850 EVO 250GB

      Drive: D:
 Free Space: 44.7 GB
Total Space: 1907.7 GB
File System: NTFS
      Model: Samsung 980 PRO with Heatsink 2TB

      Drive: E:
 Free Space: 31.3 GB
Total Space: 953.9 GB
File System: NTFS
      Model: Samsung SSD 970 EVO 1TB

which means your pagefile cannot expand. Free up some space on your system drive (not only for the sake of DCS) and you should be good to go.

(actually your two other drives are also almost full)

[Toumal]

Doh! Yeah that would do it. I can't free up much atm due to work stuff that unfortunately has to live on C (thanks MS...) but I doubled up the RAM and disabled the pagefile on C, and so far, no more crashes! Thanks!

[Flappie]

You're welcome.

You should not disable your pagefile entirely though. You can move it to another (fast) drive and limit it to 4 GB (4096).

[Mud]

55 minutes ago, Flappie said:

You're welcome.

You should not disable your pagefile entirely though. You can move it to another (fast) drive and limit it to 4 GB (4096).

Would a 4GB limit not cause issues with the Syria map (or others)?  I had to increase my page file size to 32GB to prevent out of memory issues.
And that is also with 32GB of RAM.

[Flappie]

I think Toumal said that he doubled up his RAM. He had 32 GB of RAM. I guess he now has 64 GB of RAM.

The maths are simple with DCS:

• If you have 64 GB of RAM or more, DCS is out of memory trouble: just keep default 4GB pagefile (but do not remove it entirely).
• If you have less RAM than that, you need a bigger pagefile so DCS gets his 64 GB of memory (physical + virtual). Example: 32 GB of RAM + 32 GB of pagefile gives 64 GB. DCS is out of memory trouble as long as the drive the pagefile is on is fast, is internal (that's important too) and has enough free space.

So if you "only" have 32 GB of RAM, keep your 32 GB pagefile.

[Toumal]

Yeah I am running with 5GB pagefile which is not on C, and I upgraded to 64GB of RAM. Unfortunately I had to install build tools for microsoft hololens and that's sucked up a lot of space on C, which is why this problem appeared only recently. I thought 32GB would've been enough since I didn't see DCS using all that much, but my mistake with that assumption was that I looked at task manager, which isn't the best tool to judge memory situations unfortunately.

So yeah, while DCS eventually uses up all available VRAM, it does seem to evict unused textures etc. as needed. My crash went away once I freed up a bit of space on C and moved the pagefile. I added RAM because I don't want my OS to have to rely on a pagefile in the first place.

Edited September 24, 2023 by Toumal

[Flappie]

2 hours ago, Toumal said:

So yeah, while DCS eventually uses up all available VRAM, it does seem to evict unused textures etc. as needed. My crash went away once I freed up a bit of space on C and moved the pagefile. I added RAM because I don't want my OS to have to rely on a pagefile in the first place.

That is a sane reaction, and I'm thinking about doing the same, since I have been having the long texture loading time issue for a while, and I'd like to know whether it is caused by an important use of the pagefile or not.

Many thanks for your feedback.