Video memory running low [FIXED]

[sada]

I keep getting this "WARNING: Your game is running low on video memory. Turn off other applications or lower graphics settings"
Nothing changes if i change my settings and I'm not running any background applications either. Anyone knows how to work around this? I looked at ways to fix this and everyone just says "lower your graphics settings" which doesn't change anything.

[ArcTheWolf]

Originally posted by amunisi:

Thanks for clarifications So virtual memory cant help VRAM? OK. I believe high texture eat the VRAM right..

So your VRAM functions in the same way that normal RAM does, only it's dedicated to what the GPU is working on. So let's say you launch red dead right, the bulk of textures and what not will exist in the RAM while you're playing, while things like particle effects, dead bodies, anything that can interact with physics effects, fog, shadows, gun smoke, sparks, fire, ray tracing effects things like that are what take up the VRAM. Now the issue in RDR2 that has existed for a while now is that these things when they are no longer in rendering distance for you to observe them they are not being cycled out of the GPUs VRAM, thus resulting in a runaway leak until all your VRAM is used and then an overdraw attempts which causes the game to crash. So a good example is animals, when they die and get skinned and you leave the carcass behind, once you get a certain distance away they used to get despawned and the VRAM their body was occupying was freed up for other things. This is no longer the case, animal bodies will exist until you close the game, it also doesn't matter if you kill the animal or some other thing in the game kills the animal, once it's a corpse it's staying in your VRAM. For whatever reason this corpse issue does not impact your VRAM limit negatively in DX12 but it does in Vulkan even though the exact same situations are happening in both APIs. As for what eats VRAM the most, that's shadows, particle effects, and ray tracing are your biggest VRAM consumers. So you could run your general textures on ultra but then drop shadows down to medium or low and you'd be okay, so long as you're in DX12 because no matter how low you set your settings eventually your VRAM is going to run out on the Vulkan API, the only difference is how fast does it run out. So if you have an 8 gigs and up GPU then you can probably play a very long time even with everything maxed out before you start getting the warning, it comes down to how long of a session you do when you do play. Me I usually play for 4 hours, I have a 6 gig GPU and if I max everything out I'll start getting the warning about 45 minutes in when using Vulkan, but with DX12 my free VRAM never get's lower than 1.2 gigs even with nearly everything maxed out.

[Trespasser07]

Originally posted by ArcTheWolf:

There is a VRAM leak associated with the Vulkan API, it's been a problem for a while now. I'll instruct you on how to address it. So first you want to go into steam settings, shader pre-caching, enable both settings in there. Now launch your game and go to settings, graphics, you will see a setting called Nvidia Reflex Low Latency, set this Enabled+Boost. Now scroll down to Nvidia DLSS, set this to balanced. Next scroll down to advanced graphics, it will be locked and set to Vulkan API, unlock it and switch to DirectX 12 API, you will be prompted to restart your game, once you do go back and verify that the settings did stick, if they didn't do it again until they do. Once those settings stick you are free to change everything else to whatever you want so long as the 3 settings listed here remain at what I just recommended. I personally prefer Vulkan to DirectX 12 but sadly until the VRAM leak is fixed in it Vulkan is unusable.

No offense but U dont need to go all through that. All u need is switch from V to DX12. End of story.

[Trespasser07]

Originally posted by Trespasser07:

Originally posted by ArcTheWolf:

There is a VRAM leak associated with the Vulkan API, it's been a problem for a while now. I'll instruct you on how to address it. So first you want to go into steam settings, shader pre-caching, enable both settings in there. Now launch your game and go to settings, graphics, you will see a setting called Nvidia Reflex Low Latency, set this Enabled+Boost. Now scroll down to Nvidia DLSS, set this to balanced. Next scroll down to advanced graphics, it will be locked and set to Vulkan API, unlock it and switch to DirectX 12 API, you will be prompted to restart your game, once you do go back and verify that the settings did stick, if they didn't do it again until they do. Once those settings stick you are free to change everything else to whatever you want so long as the 3 settings listed here remain at what I just recommended. I personally prefer Vulkan to DirectX 12 but sadly until the VRAM leak is fixed in it Vulkan is unusable.

No offense but U dont need to go through all that. All u need is switch from V to DX12. End of story. Or copy and paste the "No VRAM" mod. Problem fixed permanently

[Trespasser07]

Originally posted by ArcTheWolf:

Originally posted by Sneky10:

I have that too, its not a problem it wont affect anything

If you're on a 6 gig card it will actually run out. Not to mention the warning popping up every 10 seconds is annoying and there's no way to disable that notification.

I disabled it with the "No VRAM" mod. I've been playing for 50 hours now message free.

[ArcTheWolf]

Originally posted by Trespasser07:

Originally posted by ArcTheWolf:

If you're on a 6 gig card it will actually run out. Not to mention the warning popping up every 10 seconds is annoying and there's no way to disable that notification.

I disabled it with the "No VRAM" mod. I've been playing for 50 hours now message free.

Just because you run a mod that turns off the notification doesn't make the leak suddenly not exist. The leak is still very much there and leaking you just aren't being warned about it in-game so if you play long enough you will eventually crash from the leak. The solution I presented solves the issue involving the leak. That's like saying if I close my eyes and can't see the truck barreling towards me then it won't hit me.

[Bob the Boomer]

The VRAM is dynamically loaded as required, Rhodes area especially you will get instances of low VRAM message. I believe this is due to not utilising occlusion in the game properly for certain buildings and or landscape geometry, and that area also changes as do others in the game as the story progresses which will make the allocation of VRAM different.

Enabling Vsynch and triple buffering has sorted this issue out a great deal for me, I am still running Vulkan API and kept the same gfx settings as I had before. Since doing so I have only encountered low VRAM twice in over 90 hrs of gameplay.

The game drops frame rates pretty low when the message arrives, I exit out of the game and reload the game, that fixes it for me also.

[ArcTheWolf]

Originally posted by Burp Mania:

The VRAM is dynamically loaded as required, Rhodes area especially you will get instances of low VRAM message. I believe this is due to not utilising occlusion in the game properly for certain buildings and or landscape geometry, and that area also changes as do others in the game as the story progresses which will make the allocation of VRAM different.

Enabling Vsynch and triple buffering has sorted this issue out a great deal for me, I am still running Vulkan API and kept the same gfx settings as I had before. Since doing so I have only encountered low VRAM twice in over 90 hrs of gameplay.

The game drops frame rates pretty low when the message arrives, I exit out of the game and reload the game, that fixes it for me also.

Unless it's 90 consecutive hours of gameplay then that 90 hours stat is irrelevant since every time you launch the game your VRAM is getting loaded fresh. How many gigs of VRAM does your GPU have, is it 6, 8, 12, maybe you're on a 24 gig 4090? Different cards will experience this warning message at different rates additionally this leak mostly is only affecting RTX 20 series cards and above, if you're on an AMD card the leak doesn't exist at all. The solution I presented still stands as the only solution that actually stops the memory leak.

[Bob the Boomer]

I am on a 1660ti 6GB VRAM, running at 1080p

Here is my settings as per system.xml

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>

<rage__fwuiSystemSettingsCollection>
<version value="37" />
<configSource>kSettingsConfig_Auto</configSource>
<graphics>
<tessellation>kSettingLevel_Ultra</tessellation>
<shadowQuality>kSettingLevel_High</shadowQuality>
<farShadowQuality>kSettingLevel_High</farShadowQuality>
<reflectionQuality>kSettingLevel_High</reflectionQuality>
<mirrorQuality>kSettingLevel_High</mirrorQuality>
<ssao>kSettingLevel_Medium</ssao>
<textureQuality>kSettingLevel_Ultra</textureQuality>
<particleQuality>kSettingLevel_Medium</particleQuality>
<waterQuality>kSettingLevel_Custom</waterQuality>
<volumetricsQuality>kSettingLevel_Medium</volumetricsQuality>
<lightingQuality>kSettingLevel_Medium</lightingQuality>
<ambientLightingQuality>kSettingLevel_High</ambientLightingQuality>
<anisotropicFiltering value="4" />
<dlssIndex value="0" />
<dlssQuality value="5" />
<dlssSharpen value="0.350000" />
<fsr2Index value="0" />
<fsr2Sharpen value="0.350000" />
<taa>kSettingLevel_High</taa>
<fxaaEnabled value="false" />
<msaa value="0" />
<graphicsQualityPreset value="0.500000" />
<hdr value="true" />
<hdrIntensity value="100" />
<hdrPeakBrightness value="1000" />
<hdrFilmicMode value="true" />
<gamma value="18" />
<hdrSettingsMigrated value="true" />
</graphics>
<advancedGraphics>
<API>kSettingAPI_Vulkan</API>
<locked value="false" />
<asyncComputeEnabled value="false" />
<transferQueuesEnabled value="true" />
<shadowSoftShadows>kSettingLevel_High</shadowSoftShadows>
<motionBlur value="false" />
<motionBlurLimit value="16.000000" />
<particleLightingQuality>kSettingLevel_Medium</particleLightingQuality>
<waterReflectionSSR value="true" />
<waterRefractionQuality>kSettingLevel_High</waterRefractionQuality>
<waterReflectionQuality>kSettingLevel_High</waterReflectionQuality>
<waterSimulationQuality value="0" />
<waterLightingQuality>kSettingLevel_Ultra</waterLightingQuality>
<furDisplayQuality>kSettingLevel_Medium</furDisplayQuality>
<maxTexUpgradesPerFrame value="5" />
<shadowGrassShadows>kSettingLevel_Medium</shadowGrassShadows>
<shadowParticleShadows value="true" />
<shadowLongShadows value="true" />
<directionalShadowsAlpha value="false" />
<worldHeightShadowQuality value="0.660000" />
<directionalScreenSpaceShadowQuality value="0.660000" />
<ambientMaskVolumesHighPrecision value="true" />
<scatteringVolumeQuality>kSettingLevel_Medium</scatteringVolumeQuality>
<volumetricsRaymarchQuality>kSettingLevel_Medium</volumetricsRaymarchQuality>
<volumetricsLightingQuality>kSettingLevel_Medium</volumetricsLightingQuality>
<volumetricsRaymarchResolutionUnclamped value="true" />
<terrainShadowQuality>kSettingLevel_High</terrainShadowQuality>
<damageModelsDisabled value="false" />
<decalQuality>kSettingLevel_High</decalQuality>
<ssaoFullScreenEnabled value="false" />
<ssaoType value="0" />
<ssdoSampleCount value="4" />
<ssdoUseDualRadii value="false" />
<ssdoResolution>kSettingLevel_Low</ssdoResolution>
<ssdoTAABlendEnabled value="true" />
<ssroSampleCount value="2" />
<snowGlints value="true" />
<POMQuality>kSettingLevel_Ultra</POMQuality>
<probeRelightEveryFrame value="false" />
<scalingMode>kSettingScale_Mode1o1</scalingMode>
<reflectionMSAA value="0" />
<lodScale value="1.000000" />
<grassLod value="1.500000" />
<pedLodBias value="0.000000" />
<vehicleLodBias value="0.000000" />
<sharpenIntensity value="2.700000" />
<treeQuality>kSettingLevel_High</treeQuality>
<deepsurfaceQuality>kSettingLevel_High</deepsurfaceQuality>
<treeTessellationEnabled value="false" />
</advancedGraphics>
<video>
<adapterIndex value="0" />
<outputIndex value="0" />
<resolutionIndex value="13" />
<screenWidth value="1920" />
<screenHeight value="1080" />
<resolutionIndexWindowed value="13" />
<screenWidthWindowed value="1920" />
<screenHeightWindowed value="1080" />
<refreshRateIndex value="2" />
<refreshRateNumerator value="60" />
<refreshRateDenominator value="1" />
<windowed value="0" />
<vSync value="1" />
<tripleBuffered value="true" />
<ReflexSettings>kSettingReflex_Off</ReflexSettings>
<pauseOnFocusLoss value="false" />
<constrainMousePointer value="false" />
</video>
<videoCardDescription>NVIDIA NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1660 Ti</videoCardDescription>
</rage__fwuiSystemSettingsCollection>

[ArcTheWolf]

Originally posted by Burp Mania:

I am on a 1660ti 6GB VRAM, running at 1080p

Here is my settings as per system.xml

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>

<rage__fwuiSystemSettingsCollection>
<version value="37" />
<configSource>kSettingsConfig_Auto</configSource>
<graphics>
<tessellation>kSettingLevel_Ultra</tessellation>
<shadowQuality>kSettingLevel_High</shadowQuality>
<farShadowQuality>kSettingLevel_High</farShadowQuality>
<reflectionQuality>kSettingLevel_High</reflectionQuality>
<mirrorQuality>kSettingLevel_High</mirrorQuality>
<ssao>kSettingLevel_Medium</ssao>
<textureQuality>kSettingLevel_Ultra</textureQuality>
<particleQuality>kSettingLevel_Medium</particleQuality>
<waterQuality>kSettingLevel_Custom</waterQuality>
<volumetricsQuality>kSettingLevel_Medium</volumetricsQuality>
<lightingQuality>kSettingLevel_Medium</lightingQuality>
<ambientLightingQuality>kSettingLevel_High</ambientLightingQuality>
<anisotropicFiltering value="4" />
<dlssIndex value="0" />
<dlssQuality value="5" />
<dlssSharpen value="0.350000" />
<fsr2Index value="0" />
<fsr2Sharpen value="0.350000" />
<taa>kSettingLevel_High</taa>
<fxaaEnabled value="false" />
<msaa value="0" />
<graphicsQualityPreset value="0.500000" />
<hdr value="true" />
<hdrIntensity value="100" />
<hdrPeakBrightness value="1000" />
<hdrFilmicMode value="true" />
<gamma value="18" />
<hdrSettingsMigrated value="true" />
</graphics>
<advancedGraphics>
<API>kSettingAPI_Vulkan</API>
<locked value="false" />
<asyncComputeEnabled value="false" />
<transferQueuesEnabled value="true" />
<shadowSoftShadows>kSettingLevel_High</shadowSoftShadows>
<motionBlur value="false" />
<motionBlurLimit value="16.000000" />
<particleLightingQuality>kSettingLevel_Medium</particleLightingQuality>
<waterReflectionSSR value="true" />
<waterRefractionQuality>kSettingLevel_High</waterRefractionQuality>
<waterReflectionQuality>kSettingLevel_High</waterReflectionQuality>
<waterSimulationQuality value="0" />
<waterLightingQuality>kSettingLevel_Ultra</waterLightingQuality>
<furDisplayQuality>kSettingLevel_Medium</furDisplayQuality>
<maxTexUpgradesPerFrame value="5" />
<shadowGrassShadows>kSettingLevel_Medium</shadowGrassShadows>
<shadowParticleShadows value="true" />
<shadowLongShadows value="true" />
<directionalShadowsAlpha value="false" />
<worldHeightShadowQuality value="0.660000" />
<directionalScreenSpaceShadowQuality value="0.660000" />
<ambientMaskVolumesHighPrecision value="true" />
<scatteringVolumeQuality>kSettingLevel_Medium</scatteringVolumeQuality>
<volumetricsRaymarchQuality>kSettingLevel_Medium</volumetricsRaymarchQuality>
<volumetricsLightingQuality>kSettingLevel_Medium</volumetricsLightingQuality>
<volumetricsRaymarchResolutionUnclamped value="true" />
<terrainShadowQuality>kSettingLevel_High</terrainShadowQuality>
<damageModelsDisabled value="false" />
<decalQuality>kSettingLevel_High</decalQuality>
<ssaoFullScreenEnabled value="false" />
<ssaoType value="0" />
<ssdoSampleCount value="4" />
<ssdoUseDualRadii value="false" />
<ssdoResolution>kSettingLevel_Low</ssdoResolution>
<ssdoTAABlendEnabled value="true" />
<ssroSampleCount value="2" />
<snowGlints value="true" />
<POMQuality>kSettingLevel_Ultra</POMQuality>
<probeRelightEveryFrame value="false" />
<scalingMode>kSettingScale_Mode1o1</scalingMode>
<reflectionMSAA value="0" />
<lodScale value="1.000000" />
<grassLod value="1.500000" />
<pedLodBias value="0.000000" />
<vehicleLodBias value="0.000000" />
<sharpenIntensity value="2.700000" />
<treeQuality>kSettingLevel_High</treeQuality>
<deepsurfaceQuality>kSettingLevel_High</deepsurfaceQuality>
<treeTessellationEnabled value="false" />
</advancedGraphics>
<video>
<adapterIndex value="0" />
<outputIndex value="0" />
<resolutionIndex value="13" />
<screenWidth value="1920" />
<screenHeight value="1080" />
<resolutionIndexWindowed value="13" />
<screenWidthWindowed value="1920" />
<screenHeightWindowed value="1080" />
<refreshRateIndex value="2" />
<refreshRateNumerator value="60" />
<refreshRateDenominator value="1" />
<windowed value="0" />
<vSync value="1" />
<tripleBuffered value="true" />
<ReflexSettings>kSettingReflex_Off</ReflexSettings>
<pauseOnFocusLoss value="false" />
<constrainMousePointer value="false" />
</video>
<videoCardDescription>NVIDIA NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1660 Ti</videoCardDescription>
</rage__fwuiSystemSettingsCollection>

There's why you don't have the leak occurring as severely as most people. This leak is only a problem for RTX20 series cards and up. Makes no sense why it's only affecting RTX cards but it's been a problem since the update they did in August 2022.

[Bob the Boomer]

Yeah I saw some ppl even with 4xxx series cards saying they have the issue, the times I did run into the VRAM issue it was usually at Rhodes near the police station. I usually have a game session of about 4 or 6 hrs

[Echorion]

Originally posted by ArcTheWolf:

Originally posted by amunisi:

Thanks for clarifications So virtual memory cant help VRAM? OK. I believe high texture eat the VRAM right..

So your VRAM functions in the same way that normal RAM does, only it's dedicated to what the GPU is working on. So let's say you launch red dead right, the bulk of textures and what not will exist in the RAM while you're playing, while things like particle effects, dead bodies, anything that can interact with physics effects, fog, shadows, gun smoke, sparks, fire, ray tracing effects things like that are what take up the VRAM. Now the issue in RDR2 that has existed for a while now is that these things when they are no longer in rendering distance for you to observe them they are not being cycled out of the GPUs VRAM, thus resulting in a runaway leak until all your VRAM is used and then an overdraw attempts which causes the game to crash. So a good example is animals, when they die and get skinned and you leave the carcass behind, once you get a certain distance away they used to get despawned and the VRAM their body was occupying was freed up for other things. This is no longer the case, animal bodies will exist until you close the game, it also doesn't matter if you kill the animal or some other thing in the game kills the animal, once it's a corpse it's staying in your VRAM. For whatever reason this corpse issue does not impact your VRAM limit negatively in DX12 but it does in Vulkan even though the exact same situations are happening in both APIs. As for what eats VRAM the most, that's shadows, particle effects, and ray tracing are your biggest VRAM consumers. So you could run your general textures on ultra but then drop shadows down to medium or low and you'd be okay, so long as you're in DX12 because no matter how low you set your settings eventually your VRAM is going to run out on the Vulkan API, the only difference is how fast does it run out. So if you have an 8 gigs and up GPU then you can probably play a very long time even with everything maxed out before you start getting the warning, it comes down to how long of a session you do when you do play. Me I usually play for 4 hours, I have a 6 gig GPU and if I max everything out I'll start getting the warning about 45 minutes in when using Vulkan, but with DX12 my free VRAM never get's lower than 1.2 gigs even with nearly everything maxed out.

Yeah but swapping from Vulkan to DX12 the game ♥♥♥♥♥ itself.
I've been trying but if I do the game will just crash as soon as I try and load a game.

Switch back to vulkan I can at least get in the game for about 3 hours before I run out of VRAM.

[rexferal]

I'm running a Ryzen 9 5900X 12 core, 32 G RAM with a GeForce RTX 3070 Ti and RDR2 just sucks up the memory and makes running anything in the background epileptic. Typing in my browser is stunted and with what I'm running I shouldn't have these problems. This is 2024 and this game is years old. Rockstar's to busy on GTA to care. We'll still be here when they get off their hands.