Massive Framedrop Fix Solution, turn off Cuda Sysmem Fallback Policy

[Nite69]

if on Nvidia card, go into Nvidia control panel and look for a setting called

CUDA - Sysmem Fallback Policy

change it from "driver default" to "Prefer No Sysmem Fallback"

after I did this I was able to play the longest I ever have in a busy area, maxed graphics, about 3 or 4 hours and not ONE massive framedrop to 4fps this fixed it for me, I didn't even know nvidia added this in the later drivers.... and somehow I missed it, game runs so much better now

Nobody wants thier VRAM to fall back to system ram while gaming so wtf why did nvidia add this?

[WooKie]

Publicado originalmente por Brainbleach:

Soooooo does this work or nah ?

Seems to, the FSR frame gen instead of DLS is a big thing here too, I saw it on a earlier post.

And yeah just having FSR and cap to 60 made it rather smooth outside of settlements. An with this setting I'm only dropping to 45 not 5 in Rostock of all places so it's worth trying.

[WooKie]

Publicado originalmente por Rhophius:

Publicado originalmente por Nite69:

if on Nvidia card, go into Nvidia control panel and look for a setting called

CUDA - Sysmem Fallback Policy

change it from "driver default" to "Prefer No Sysmem Fallback"

after I did this I was able to play the longest I ever have in a busy area, maxed graphics, about 3 or 4 hours and not ONE massive framedrop to 4fps this fixed it for me, I didn't even know nvidia added this in the later drivers.... and somehow I missed it, game runs so much better now

Nobody wants thier VRAM to fall back to system ram while gaming so wtf why did nvidia add this?

DLSS is the reason you have ram issues

well turning it off hasn't worked to stop massive drops... and this has. sooooo, I'll take a smooth 50-60 on high, with epic AA and post process using DLSS DLAA and FSR gen thanks bob

[Nite69]

Publicado originalmente por WooKie:

Off a quick test it only drops 10-15 running around rostock bar and shops where it would plummet and or mem leak. So you may be on to something.

Yea rostock is where I tested this too as it was one of the worse areas before this, nice and smooth now

[Bandy]

Publicado originalmente por Vivianite:

...telling CUDA to not fallback just means it has to stick within the confinement of your graphic cards VRAM, that's it.

You may be missing a point, perhaps 'fallback' is supposed to work a certain way, but maybe it isn't working as intended, and turning it off does make a difference. Only thorough testing will tell.

Right now you and OP only have an opinion.

[Nite69]

I just did several more hours no 4fps drop anywhere anymore, have fun guys ya welcome

[ET]

I have tried almost everything to get rid of this issue, and THIS is what seems to have solved it! HUGE THANKS
I would like to also mention that if you run the game in lower res than your display, consider setting the "Perform scaling on:" to "Display" and check "Override the scaling mode set by games"
This can lift the burden of scaling from the GPU to your display and help with the microstuttering.

[juskom95]

Publicado originalmente por Nite69:

if on Nvidia card, go into Nvidia control panel and look for a setting called

CUDA - Sysmem Fallback Policy

change it from "driver default" to "Prefer No Sysmem Fallback"

after I did this I was able to play the longest I ever have in a busy area, maxed graphics, about 3 or 4 hours and not ONE massive framedrop to 4fps this fixed it for me, I didn't even know nvidia added this in the later drivers.... and somehow I missed it, game runs so much better now

Nobody wants thier VRAM to fall back to system ram while gaming so wtf why did nvidia add this?

This does not fix the issue, it mitigates the issue which is caused by a badly coded/developed game.

[Nite69]

Publicado originalmente por juskom95:

Publicado originalmente por Nite69:

if on Nvidia card, go into Nvidia control panel and look for a setting called

CUDA - Sysmem Fallback Policy

change it from "driver default" to "Prefer No Sysmem Fallback"

after I did this I was able to play the longest I ever have in a busy area, maxed graphics, about 3 or 4 hours and not ONE massive framedrop to 4fps this fixed it for me, I didn't even know nvidia added this in the later drivers.... and somehow I missed it, game runs so much better now

Nobody wants thier VRAM to fall back to system ram while gaming so wtf why did nvidia add this?

This does not fix the issue, it mitigates the issue which is caused by a badly coded/developed game.

its a workable solution though for now until THEY fix it in a patch which could be a while.... I can play for hours now, I couldn't before

[CosmicDan]

I came here to say that changing it to the OTHER option, "Prefer Sysmem fallback" is what fixed it for me AND many others (see https://www.reddit.com/r/stalker/comments/1h5ifum/comment/m068973/ ). Not only has it completely removed the frame drops, but I also get better FPS and loading times. This is likely because I have an RTX 2060 with only 6GB VRAM.

It's weird that NO fallback helped you; "Nobody wants thier VRAM to fall back to system ram while gaming" doesn't really make sense to me because the alternative is to literally run out of VRAM, you DEFINITELY do not want that. Also remember that a lot of background apps and Windows itself uses some VRAM, you can check this in Win11 Task Manager Details view and enable the VRAM usage column - so perhaps this setting is allowing those background apps and/or other "less important" things in the game to use system memory. I'm pretty sure these CUDA settings will apply to any compute shader too, regardless of whether the game/app is actually using CUDA API or not.

[Bandy]

Publicado originalmente por CosmicDan:

..."Nobody wants thier VRAM to fall back to system ram while gaming" doesn't really make sense to me because the alternative is to literally run out of VRAM, you DEFINITELY do not want that. ...

Is it system RAM or system virtual memory? Thinking this may be a more complex issue...

Many out there think because they have installed waaaay more RAM than their system can EVER use (unless they do a lot more intensive work than just gaming...) they don't think they need to assign Virtual Memory (aka virtual RAM or windows swap file) anymore and this is simply not true.

[zpc]

Publicado originalmente por Carbon:

Remove the GPU, marinate it in leprechaun blood, chant around an open fire under a half moon. Solved all of my woes.

[juskom95]

Publicado originalmente por CosmicDan:

It's weird that NO fallback helped you; "Nobody wants thier VRAM to fall back to system ram while gaming" doesn't really make sense to me because the alternative is to literally run out of VRAM, you DEFINITELY do not want that. Also remember that a lot of background apps and Windows itself uses some VRAM, you can check this in Win11 Task Manager Details view and enable the VRAM usage column - so perhaps this setting is allowing those background apps and/or other "less important" things in the game to use system memory. I'm pretty sure these CUDA settings will apply to any compute shader too, regardless of whether the game/app is actually using CUDA API or not.

I think the 'no fallback,' is forcing a clear of VRAM, at least up to a point. Because, the issue still happens, it just makes the time between reoccurrences longer. When it DOES happen, you have to restart the game which 'usually,' fixes the issue.

[Hazoufl]

Publicado originalmente por Nite69:

if on Nvidia card, go into Nvidia control panel and look for a setting called

CUDA - Sysmem Fallback Policy

change it from "driver default" to "Prefer No Sysmem Fallback"

after I did this I was able to play the longest I ever have in a busy area, maxed graphics, about 3 or 4 hours and not ONE massive framedrop to 4fps this fixed it for me, I didn't even know nvidia added this in the later drivers.... and somehow I missed it, game runs so much better now

Nobody wants their VRAM to fall back to system ram while gaming so wtf why did nvidia add this?

I've tried both "prefer" & "prefer no" -> game had massive performance improvement with "Prefer sysmem fallback". I've actually managed to put in more than an hour and no massive FPS drop (other the a few brief instances).
Note that I've also increased RAM capacity from 16GB to 32GB (maybe this helped too) Although RAM didn't seem to be the issue -> I'm still getting the VRAM up to 98% of its capacity... so...

[juskom95]

Publicado originalmente por Donaldo Trumpado:

Publicado originalmente por Hazoufl:

I've tried both "prefer" & "prefer no" -> game had massive performance improvement with "Prefer sysmem fallback". I've actually managed to put in more than an hour and no massive FPS drop (other the a few brief instances).
Note that I've also increased RAM capacity from 16GB to 32GB (maybe this helped too) Although RAM didn't seem to be the issue -> I'm still getting the VRAM up to 98% of its capacity... so...

CUDA fallback is essentially like a page file for your GPU, and people telling you to turn it off are exactly as stupid as the people who tell you to meddle with your page file. By attempting to force everything to load in VRAM, they're correct that it will run faster, that is until they have to page, and then you'll start running into proglems.

I tested both ways and what I have found is that yes, you still hit the FPS drop with the CUDA fallback turned off, you get a much LONGER play time between drops.

With the CUDA fallback on, I'm lucky to get an hour of play time before the massive FPS dips.

With the CUDA fallback off, I can get two to three hours of play time before the dip.

So, while it DOES NOT solve the issue, it mitigates.
---------
You don't seem to understand pagefiles, or how modifying them mattered in the older days of PC gaming. Your comparison is partly right, but mostly you are just trolling . . . again.

[Silenius]

I have heavy aim like using ball mouse even with Reflex and responsiveness fix mod from nexusmods, it is worse than 18 fps! And low fps on top of that! Nothing helped i tried everything literally!