MSI Afterburner can now display per process VRAM!

Darktalon · Oct 21, 2020

Gears Tactics, max settings at 3440x1440, Benchmark
4767MB VRAM

Interesting note here, the benchmark tells us the VRAM usage on the left side, and we can see that even the per process metric is overshooting a little.
4.65GB was the reported high, and the current usage is listed as 4.76GB.

RTSS Per-Process overestimating is something I found to hold true almost every time that I compared RTSS's method to Special K's method, or internal stats such as FS2020 and Gears.

hqqttjiang · Oct 21, 2020

WOW that's nice

Darktalon · Oct 21, 2020

Control Ultimate Edition
Max Settings, Quality DLSS 3440x1440
4164MB VRAM

This was during OC testing, 450w of fun

Darktalon · Oct 21, 2020

Age of Empires III Definitive Edition
Max Settings, First 2 are 3440x1440, 3rd is 6880x2880.

You can see how misleading VRAM stats can be, I have total system allocation of 7811 MB in the 2nd picture, yet only 1680MB of it is from AoE 3. When I took this screenshot, I had massive amounts of chrome tabs open, and had not reset my computer in quite some time. And yet if someone did not use the per-process #, they would be misleading people how much VRAM AoE 3 was using.

This is also a good example of the effect resolution has. VRAM usage has almost doubled between screens 2 and 3, when using 4x the pixels.

Darktalon · Oct 21, 2020

Death Stranding
Max Settings, 3440x1440 DLSS Quality.

I've included the 1st screenshot to show you why you should not trust the in-game bars. It says my settings will use 4.1GB. RTSS reports 6684MB of system allocation, but the truth is only 1594 MB is being used by Death Stranding.

The 2nd screenshot looks weird because I was playing in HDR. You can see in game, that we are only using 3764MB of VRAM, despite using HDR, and max settings. DLSS reduces VRAM usage, much as DSR increases it. And yet all previous VRAM measurements would have reported 8665MB.... is anyone seeing the pattern here?

Darktalon · Oct 21, 2020

Hearthstone
Max Settings, 2560x1440

One of the most egregious examples of "Allocated VRAM" vs "Usage". It is nearly off by 10x!

Darktalon · Oct 21, 2020

Horizon Zero Dawn
Max Settings, 3440x1440 HDR

This is one of the highest VRAM using games I have found so far. Screenshot looks funny due to playing in HDR. Allocation is still off by 1.7GB!!!

Darktalon · Oct 22, 2020

Gears 5
Max Settings (Yes, even the insane settings, which are insane)
3440x1440
4.98GB VRAM

The benchmark tells us the VRAM usage on the left side. For whatever reason (Async Computer perhaps?), per-process vram was not displaying, so the metric shown is just the standard RTSS Allocation. Yes, a game that is borderline next-gen, is using only 5GB of VRAM.

gifyku · Oct 22, 2020

Kudos Darktalon for compiling these.

RCSI · Oct 22, 2020

The Witcher 3 with HD reworked texture mod/Tweaks mod and hairworks is off, DSR'ed 8k (8192x4320) as I'm too lazy to change the edid stuff. Using a 3080.

vram usage 7579 MB, vram allocated 9923 MB

I'm fairly sure I picked the right memory option to display and framerate was around ~25 when looking at the horizon.

Alexandros · Oct 22, 2020

Some of these differences are eye opening. So we can be sure that this reading is accurate?

mordecaii83 · Oct 22, 2020

I just want to pop in here and say that I'm so happy this thread exists. I know a ton of people will never see it and keep overestimating VRAM usage, but it's definitely been eye-opening.

Alexx · Oct 22, 2020

Darktalon said:
Horizon Zero Dawn
Max Settings, 3440x1440 HDR

This is one of the highest VRAM using games I have found so far. Screenshot looks funny due to playing in HDR. Allocation is still off by 1.7GB!!!

Could you re-run this with the game running in 4K? 7.5Gb at 3440x1440 seems pretty high and I wonder if 4K would match or exceed 10GB.

backpropaganda · Oct 22, 2020

Sorry, just poked my head in but got curious, couldn't you just have nvidia-smi polling on a second display before this (at least for nvidis cards)? It seems like people are only interested in the vram per process info anyway

Jonnax · Oct 22, 2020

I imagine gamers are gonna start harassing Devs now.

"How dare you allocate more ram than you're actually using!"

JoJo'sDentCo · Oct 22, 2020

Yeah I don't see a point in a 20GB version of the 3080.

strudelkuchen · Oct 22, 2020

can you check Monster Hunter World with the "Monster Hunter: World - High Resolution Texture Pack"?

Yerffej · Oct 22, 2020

Um yeah we should be good.

LavaBadger · Oct 22, 2020

Alexx said:
Could you re-run this with the game running in 4K? 7.5Gb at 3440x1440 seems pretty high and I wonder if 4K would match or exceed 10GB.

It would be nice to see results for 4k. I don't know that anyone was worried about 1440 (Even with ultra wide) being a bottleneck.

That said, given how far off from 10gb most of these numbers are, it shows there's a lot of room for usage to grow.

Puggles · Oct 22, 2020

Anyone try Resident Evil 2? At 4K Max it says it's using over 10GB of VRAM but that has to be a lie.

Jedi2016 · Oct 22, 2020

I must be using the wrong version of Afterburner, because I don't have those per-process options. It is the beta, but I guess it's the wrong beta? lol

I might just wait until the feature makes it into the full release.

On a side note, I was able to use HWInfo and a plugin to get a lot of this info (minus the per-process stuff) to show up on my Stream Deck, so I can see all the usage graphs without putting anything up on the screen (and the graphs are a bit easier to read at a quick glance). It's interesting to see games with odd usage statistics that push the card in different ways. Clock speed and overall usage percentage definitely don't scale linearly.

GhostofWar · Oct 22, 2020

Darktalon So the apologies for the shit people gave you in your other thread were sent privately yeh? lol.

firstseeker · Oct 22, 2020

The only reason I went with the RTX 3090 is for heavily modded games. I can't run my 1k+ modded skyrim @4k on a 3080 10GB

Skyfireblaze · Oct 22, 2020

firstseeker said:
The only reason I went with the RTX 3090 is for heavily modded games. I can't run my 1k+ modded skyrim @4k on a 3080 10GB

Are you certain this is related to VRAM and not the engine collapsing on itself? My super heavy modded version of Oblivion runs at 20fps on my GTX 1070 + 8600k, there aren't any hardware bottlenecks, it's literally just the engine getting crushed under the load of mods.

firstseeker · Oct 22, 2020

Skyfireblaze said:
Are you certain this is related to VRAM and not the engine collapsing on itself? My super heavy modded version of Oblivion runs at 20fps on my GTX 1070 + 8600k, there aren't any hardware bottlenecks, it's literally just the engine getting crushed under the load of mods.

When I run the same mod build with a gtx 1080, It dips to single digit FPS. On my 3090, I get 60 FPS most of the time, with VRAM usage fluctuating between 13-18GB

Skyfireblaze · Oct 22, 2020

firstseeker said:
When I run the same mod build with a gtx 1080, It dips to single digit FPS. On my 3090, I get 60 FPS most of the time, with VRAM usage fluctuating between 13-18GB

Holy wow okay yeah then VRAM definitely seems to be the culprit, are you using 4k textures across the board?

Jedi2016 · Oct 22, 2020

That's the problem with just dumping a bunch of high-res textures into a game, it eliminates whatever optimizations the developers did with the included files. I'm not sure that really counts when you're talking about BGS, but it should hold for most games. My Skyrim isn't modded all that much, and I could hit 60 on my old 1080 no problem.

firstseeker · Oct 22, 2020

Skyfireblaze said:
Holy wow okay yeah then VRAM definitely seems to be the culprit, are you using 4k textures across the board?

Yeah, most textures are 4k. I also play skyrim as if it was a party based game with tanks, dps and healers. I use Sands of Time, OBIS, Genesis to dramatically increase the enemy count and variety.

vitormg · Oct 22, 2020

firstseeker said:
Yeah, most textures are 4k. I also play skyrim as if it was a party based game with tanks, dps and healers. I use Sands of Time, OBIS, Genesis to dramatically increase the enemy count and variety.

That's seems a lot of fun! The 3090 seems the best fit for you indeed. Not for most people, though

Darktalon · Oct 22, 2020

Jedi2016 said:
I must be using the wrong version of Afterburner, because I don't have those per-process options. It is the beta, but I guess it's the wrong beta? lol

I cover it step by step in the first post, you just need to enable the gpu.dll plug in and then the new options will show up.

Jedi2016 · Oct 22, 2020

Darktalon said:
I cover it step by step in the first post, you just need to enable the gpu.dll plug in and then the new options will show up.

I'm not saying it doesn't work, I'm saying it doesn't work for me because I know I have the wrong version of the program for it to work. I'm just making a point, not asking for help.

Skyfireblaze · Oct 22, 2020

firstseeker said:
Yeah, most textures are 4k. I also play skyrim as if it was a party based game with tanks, dps and healers. I use Sands of Time, OBIS, Genesis to dramatically increase the enemy count and variety.

Okay yeah that explains it then, man this must be an experience I'm a bit envious of! :D

dgrdsv · Oct 22, 2020

Alexandros said:
Some of these differences are eye opening. So we can be sure that this reading is accurate?

Well, the big elephant in the room here is that despite the actual process using significantly less VRAM than what is allocated in total at the same time - this total is still allocated meaning that it may actually be used at some point, in some combination of software and user inputs / choices.
So while the process usage number give us some insight into how much VRAM games are actually using as opposed to just allocating it doesn't mean that your system in total would be fine running with just this amount of VRAM.

Alexandros · Oct 22, 2020

dgrdsv said:
Well, the big elephant in the room here is that despite the actual process using significantly less VRAM than what is allocated in total at the same time - this total is still allocated meaning that it may actually be used at some point, in some combination of software and user inputs / choices.
So while the process usage number give us some insight into how much VRAM games are actually using as opposed to just allocating it doesn't mean that your system in total would be fine running with just this amount of VRAM.

I see, thanks!

Kaldaien · Oct 23, 2020

dgrdsv said:
this total is still allocated meaning that it may actually be used at some point, in some combination of software and user inputs / choices.

Yes, this is true. It's why I remain firm when I say the lengths that this update go to are inadequate.

Code:

10/23/2020 03:23:42.694: --------------------
10/23/2020 03:23:42.695: Shutdown Statistics:
10/23/2020 03:23:42.696: --------------------

10/23/2020 03:23:42.697:  Memory Budget Changed 2 times

10/23/2020 03:23:42.698:  GPU0: Min Budget:        10281 MiB
10/23/2020 03:23:42.699:        Max Budget:        10281 MiB
10/23/2020 03:23:42.700:        Min Usage:         00000 MiB
10/23/2020 03:23:42.702:        Max Usage:         06088 MiB
10/23/2020 03:23:42.703: ------------------------------------
10/23/2020 03:23:42.704:  Minimum Over Budget:     00000 MiB
10/23/2020 03:23:42.705:  Maximum Over Budget:     00000 MiB
10/23/2020 03:23:42.706: ------------------------------------

Special K monitors things a bit differently, it is tracking budget high/low marks and records peak usage every time the driver informs the app that budgets change. At game shutdown, because I was doing more than tracking usage over time, I can generate these stats.

At minimum, MSI Afterburner needs to start reporting the budget capacity. Until it does, it's only a half solution.

Darktalon · Oct 23, 2020

Metro Exodus

3440x1440, Max Settings, Including RTX Ultra, DLSS OFF

5.1GB VRAM

Game FPS really takes a hit moving from RTX High to Ultra, but here we have it.

Darktalon · Oct 23, 2020

Monster Hunter World
3440x1440, Max Settings (Volumetric Low), No DLSS, Performance Booster Mod Installed
HD Texture Pack Installed
7.3GB VRAM

I finally feel like I can afford to have all the settings maxed out, I had to make many compromises on 2080 Ti.

strudelkuchen · Oct 23, 2020

Darktalon said:
Monster Hunter World
3440x1440, Max Settings (Volumetric Low), No DLSS, Performance Booster Mod Installed
HD Texture Pack Installed
7.3GB VRAM

I finally feel like I can afford to have all the settings maxed out, I had to make many compromises on 2080 Ti.

Thank you!

Kaldaien · Oct 23, 2020

Darktalon said:
I had to make many compromises on 2080 Ti.

Why? My 2080 Ti K|NGP|N ran it at 4K/60 Maxed. That is a _heavily_ overclocked card, but I don't think a normal 2080 Ti would struggle too much. My 1080 Ti would hold around 50-55 FPS at 4K max.

Darktalon · Oct 24, 2020

Kaldaien said:
Why? My 2080 Ti K|NGP|N ran it at 4K/60 Maxed. That is a _heavily_ overclocked card, but I don't think a normal 2080 Ti would struggle too much. My 1080 Ti would hold around 50-55 FPS at 4K max.

Because I try to play at 144 fps not 60. I know you love your oleds, but 60 fps is not an acceptable pc gaming experience for me.

Kaldaien · Oct 24, 2020

Darktalon said:
Because I try to play at 144 fps not 60. I know you love your oleds, but 60 fps is not an acceptable pc gaming experience for me.

Ahem... my OLEDs are 120 Hz :P

I just like Black Frame Insertion better than brute forcing motion w/ higher framerates. The inevitable frame instability that comes from rendering at high framerates is kind of the antithesis of what I want for motion in games. 60 FPS locked w/ BFI looks a million times better than 120 Hz mostly stable. I won't have to choose anymore whenever the hell NVIDIA decides to start selling GPUs again though :)

I was going to get a 3090 at launch, then run 120 Hz Black Frame Insertion for 240 Hz motion performance. But no NVIDIA unicorns have shown up at my front door yet, and that includes the LDAT I've been waiting on for > 1 month now..

Jedi2016 · Oct 24, 2020

High framerates + Gsync = Butter

On a whim, I brought up the display on Blade Runner. It was actually allocating about 1.5GB (!!), but actual usage? 35MB. And even that's way above the game's original PC specs, so I'm guessing most of that usage is coming from ScummVM.

Kaldaien · Oct 24, 2020

That would be insanely inefficient, for something that emulates a C64 / MS-DOS era adventure engine.

Measuring general graphics memory has never been particularly useful, however. With the way it grows and how much responsibility the driver has for managing this memory, there's not much reason for a developer to measure that statistic, much less an end-user. The technique used now has been around since Windows 10 first shipped, it's taken a while for devs to get the memo and now users are starting to understand how lop-sided these numbers have been for years :)

Darktalon · Oct 24, 2020

Kaldaien said:
Ahem... my OLEDs are 120 Hz :P

I just like Black Frame Insertion better than brute forcing motion w/ higher framerates. The inevitable frame instability that comes from rendering at high framerates is kind of the antithesis of what I want for motion in games. 60 FPS locked w/ BFI looks a million times better than 120 Hz mostly stable. I won't have to choose anymore whenever the hell NVIDIA decides to start selling GPUs again though :)

I was going to get a 3090 at launch, then run 120 Hz Black Frame Insertion for 240 Hz motion performance. But no NVIDIA unicorns have shown up at my front door yet, and that includes the LDAT I've been waiting on for > 1 month now..

Sure but Monster Hunter World wouldn't be playing at 4k 120hz on a 2080ti, without reducing settings :)

Kaldaien · Oct 24, 2020

Which brings me back to the 60 Hz Black Frame Insertion. I'm totally happy with that mode, it requires a rock solid framerate to do without motion artifacts, but rock solid framerates are something I'm pretty good at. 120 Hz's biggest benefit as far as I'm concerned is the imperceptible flicker if you use OLED motion. I can already get 120 Hz latency at lower screen refresh rates just by tuning my framerate limiter ;)

Darktalon · Oct 24, 2020

Kaldaien said:
Which brings me back to the 60 Hz Black Frame Insertion. I'm totally happy with that mode, it requires a rock solid framerate to do without motion artifacts, but rock solid framerates are something I'm pretty good at. 120 Hz's biggest benefit as far as I'm concerned is the imperceptible flicker if you use OLED motion. I can already get 120 Hz latency at lower screen refresh rates just by tuning my framerate limiter ;)

Next year I'll be getting the C11, or w/e they call it, to have 4k120 to go with my PS5, and hook the PC up to. My current monitor can do ULMB at both 120 and 144hz, but of course most recent games are not really capable of rock solid framerates at that resolution, even with a 3080.

Darktalon · Oct 27, 2020

Ghostrunner 3440x1440, RTX On, Max Settings

DLSS Quality, Performance, and Off, respectively.

Please, take notice of how VRAM scales with DLSS.

4.8GB - Performance
5.3GB - Quality
6.2GB - Native

Darktalon · Oct 27, 2020

RTX Off vs On, you can see here that RTX does cost VRAM. (600 MB in this example)

Kaldaien · Oct 28, 2020

Of course DLSS eats VRAM measurable in the budget ;)

The number one thing that shows up when you track VRAM by budgets are RenderTargets, the stuff that's been allocated but it isn't counting negatively against budget tends to be textures that can be transiently moved between VRAM and system memory. RenderTargets have to ALWAYS be in VRAM or the software doesn't work. That means this number is primarily a measure of your screen resolution, and the miniscule amount of texture memory required to draw the scene each frame.

Budgets are a measure of the required VRAM total to draw a single frame, basically. Any resource that can be moved out of VRAM during the process of drawing a frame won't be listed.

Spoit · Oct 30, 2020

Unfortunately, the Anti-cheat precluded getting the "Dedicated GPU memory / process" in the OP, but the "GPU Dedicated memory" was reporting ~9 gigs (presumably total?) in WDL @4k with very high settings, the HD texture DLC, no DLSS, and the lowest RT setting (forgot what it was labelled). Not sure if I'm not measuring it correctly, or it's just unusually VRAM hungy.

FWIW, that was reporting ~2 gigs in the menus, before loading into the game proper and the in-game estimates said ~7 gigs, so it's not entirely impossible that it really was using that much

MSI Afterburner can now display per process VRAM!

Unshakable Resolve

Prophet of Regret

Sometimes, it's not a fart

Developer of Special K

Developer of Special K

Developer of Special K

Developer of Special K

Developer of Special K

Developer of Special K