UPDATE/SOLUTION on bottom of post!
My post was unceremoniously removed without reason on the NVIDIA subreddit so I'm going to take a chance here instead. Mods, please let me know if this belongs in an existing thread instead!
I have been getting a lot of in-game messages about VRAM on my 3080 running out or not having enough video memory, usually when I set textures to the highest available setting. Examples of games that give me these warnings are Forza Horizon 5 and Deathloop. I am playing at 4k resolution. The warnings are accompanied by stuttery gameplay during what I assume are textures being swapped in and out of memory.
Sometimes when I lower that texture quality setting to High, the total available VRAM pool becomes larger for some reason, and I'm able to increase it to Ultra without issues.
The 3080 has 10GB of VRAM, but most games show just above 8GB in availability. Is this normal behavior? Why is there fluctuation in available VRAM even within the same game session?
I was reading how VRAM amount wasn't important before buying the 3080, but lately I'm getting all these messages in games, and seeing sudden huge drop off in FPS mid-game if I have Ultra textures.
Halo Infinite Multiplayer, for example, halves the framerate after a few rounds when using highest quality textures, even though I'm not using 100% of the VRAM pool (in-game graphic shows 7 gigs used out of 9 available).
Doom Eternal also exhibits this behavior, but only for the texture pool size setting. It seems like Ultra or Extreme sets the pool to beyond 10GB, but the game still lets me use the highest texture quality setting if I set the pool to a lower setting.
Why can't other games differentiate? For example, Warzone needs a manual .INI adjustment to set the VRAM pool to a "0.55" setting, making the game think I'm going way beyond available limits. But once I do this, it runs smooth as butter at highest texture quality. I'm even using DLSS to render at a lower internal resolution.
Anyone have any insight or workarounds aside from lowering resolution? Is 4k gaming just not viable at "extreme" texture resolutions for a video card with only 10GB VRAM?
Edit: in case anyone is also experiencing what I did, check your GPU VRAM usage in task manager. Chances are you have background apps eating a ton of it, taking away its availability for VRAM hungry games. My main culprits are Logitech G Hub (which I've since stopped using and just use onboard memory for color profiles), and DWM.exe i.e. Desktop Window Manager, a program needed by the Windows OS. It creeps up in VRAM usage slowly over time, so make sure you restart your PC often. I have no yet found a way to keep it down without restarting.
My post was unceremoniously removed without reason on the NVIDIA subreddit so I'm going to take a chance here instead. Mods, please let me know if this belongs in an existing thread instead!
I have been getting a lot of in-game messages about VRAM on my 3080 running out or not having enough video memory, usually when I set textures to the highest available setting. Examples of games that give me these warnings are Forza Horizon 5 and Deathloop. I am playing at 4k resolution. The warnings are accompanied by stuttery gameplay during what I assume are textures being swapped in and out of memory.
Sometimes when I lower that texture quality setting to High, the total available VRAM pool becomes larger for some reason, and I'm able to increase it to Ultra without issues.
The 3080 has 10GB of VRAM, but most games show just above 8GB in availability. Is this normal behavior? Why is there fluctuation in available VRAM even within the same game session?
I was reading how VRAM amount wasn't important before buying the 3080, but lately I'm getting all these messages in games, and seeing sudden huge drop off in FPS mid-game if I have Ultra textures.
Halo Infinite Multiplayer, for example, halves the framerate after a few rounds when using highest quality textures, even though I'm not using 100% of the VRAM pool (in-game graphic shows 7 gigs used out of 9 available).
Doom Eternal also exhibits this behavior, but only for the texture pool size setting. It seems like Ultra or Extreme sets the pool to beyond 10GB, but the game still lets me use the highest texture quality setting if I set the pool to a lower setting.
Why can't other games differentiate? For example, Warzone needs a manual .INI adjustment to set the VRAM pool to a "0.55" setting, making the game think I'm going way beyond available limits. But once I do this, it runs smooth as butter at highest texture quality. I'm even using DLSS to render at a lower internal resolution.
Anyone have any insight or workarounds aside from lowering resolution? Is 4k gaming just not viable at "extreme" texture resolutions for a video card with only 10GB VRAM?
Edit: in case anyone is also experiencing what I did, check your GPU VRAM usage in task manager. Chances are you have background apps eating a ton of it, taking away its availability for VRAM hungry games. My main culprits are Logitech G Hub (which I've since stopped using and just use onboard memory for color profiles), and DWM.exe i.e. Desktop Window Manager, a program needed by the Windows OS. It creeps up in VRAM usage slowly over time, so make sure you restart your PC often. I have no yet found a way to keep it down without restarting.
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