[FIX] SteamVR memory leak (will crash game or lead to poor performance) [SOLUTION] Post #3!

[WhIteDragem]

G'day... (aussie, 'apologies')

just got caught out with the longtime known and seems to be a recurring issue for VR games.

apparently, some posters describe this as "steam VR is hostile to ' non steam/'non brand X' headsets.

For me today this one came up...
I thought it may have been issues with Alien Rogue Incursion.. but I could replicate it with other titles.. (I suppose Alien Rogue Incursion using a large amount of memory means it might be obvious in A:RI and NOT in other VR software).

I could see it easily as I used a locked min/max pagefile.
most leave Windows to manage the pagefile.. which would likely just lead to ATROCIOUS performance.. (filling RAM/bogging buses etc)

SteamVR has a memory leak..
slowly counts up until, on my machine.. it hits its' upper limit of 52GB, and then the game crashes.

I do get a nice error message..
..
something like:
"out of video memory trying to allocate a rendering resource. Make sure your video card has the minimum required memory, try lowering the resolution and/or closing other applications that are running. Exiting..."

If I didn't use a locked size pagefile.. I can imagine this would just lead to really poor performance.

SteamVR doesn't 'always' start counting up the memory leak..
but when i start a VR title, it does.

again.. many users with a standard Window 'variable sized pagefile' would just get 'piss poor performance' is my take.

Solutions range from reverting to an earlier build of SteamVR,.. or using a beta branch, but,.. after a while - the 'revert' version will BE the bugged version.

so, I am not sure on a definitive FIX, yet.. just noticed this one, and thought it was 'interesting'.

most likely because I use 'non standard' VR headset.
(or at least- not Valves')
- as a tech I do get frustrated when these things 'feel' like anticonsumer reasons to 'encourage' users to buy certain hardware ("it just works");
given how long this has been a recouring issue.. probably a 'little intended'.
but I am rather cynical to such things.


easy to see if you have the bug.
just load to the Alien title screen.
open your task manager, select 'Performance' tab (top of window), click on 'Memory' tab (right of window), and look at the memory in use.

on the title screen this number should remain static.
if it counts up in .1 increments, every second.. you have a memory leak.
(caused by SteamVR applet/frontend)

[KAObserver]

This is why I try to buy it on Meta. Games like Into the Radius run with out issue.

[WhIteDragem]

[FIXED]:
Memory leak is a result of SteamVR front end 'motion smoothing'; leads to a 100 megabytes per second memory leak when 'on'.

For Alien Rogue Incursion; this will bog a machine down and lead to lowest quality render..

basically a lot of users have NOT been seeing this game as it is intended.
(whole reason I have been turning up here; as the Playstation VR version is 'crazy great'.!!)

Emailed Survios, and they are 'on it' ;of this I have zero doubt, as they have responded as appropriate to all relevant emails.. (when a service department are working around the clock to sort out a game bug, they follow up where appropriate, and 'get back slower' to the non urgent emails...)

eg all emails I have sent suggesting 'cool ideas' take ten days plus..
emails regarding performance: "we are all in the loop/ and 'on their radars' "
Truly a studio that cares.

Thankyou to everyone at Survios putting up with my constant emails with regards to performance optimisations...
This is the first step to sorting the wheat from the chaff/ with regards to performance optimisations.

If anyone has watched Daniel Owens video on 'optimisation' to get a gist of what is involved for a studio.. this is sorta 'low hanging fruit' / 'bugs' that affect a SPECIFIC platform..

again:
the issue is SteamVR and "motion smoothing"

100 megabytes per second of memory leak, on a PC rig with a standard 'dynamic pagefile' will:
A) bog down the input output of data flow on the primary drive -
for most users.. this drive is also their system disk , AND also their game drive...

Can anyone guess how much that will affect streaming?
Systems with tonnes of RAM will not feel like they have ANY RAM..
( I was eating up 94Gigabytes before the game 'dropped')
To say the game will be in the lower part of the 'resolution scaling' is an understatement

and

B) ensure that frame jank happens when other games, that are not 'to the metal' still have overhead to burn...
The harder the game is on the total system.. the more this bug will lead to issues that might be observed..

eg on 'basic quest ports' (99% of the market) - this wouldn't even drop a frame or equal poor performance necessarily...

On a game that leans heavy on RAM and DRIVE (eg on the fly streaming systems) this will cause huge issues.
multiply that with 'budget SSDs burning CPU cycles to move data; and we have a veritable "perfect storm".

(PCs with locked pagefiles likely just see a game shutdown after 6 to 16 minutes)

again: Survios should be on this.. based on their due diligence and 'round the clock' work ethic.. I imagine their next patch should really get a few people out of trouble.

The great news is.. once this 'low hanging fruit' is dealt with; the systems that still have performance issues can actually have them properly redressed. (they now stand out from the crowd)

remember this is caused by SteamVR frontend options,.. but due to Alien:RI having motion smoothing ON at a game level, is 'non defeatable' ;meaning we have likely all been suffering, potentially, a 100 MEGABYTES per SECOND memory leak.
In the IT world a ten megabyte per day memory leak would be 'important to deal with', but 100 megabytes per second is enough to SERIOUSLY affect performance.. especially on a cutting edge game that needs full CPU/GPU and RAM available.. (this was the way the game WAS optimised to deliver a 'cut above' graphics, after all...)

Please have patience.. I believe the fix is inbound. (can take two days to pass testing, and be approved etc)

[WhIteDragem]

[FIX] / [Solution]

anyone who likes to take matters into their own hands
bSmoothFrameRate=False (might be the UnrealEngine console command); untested, as I use the below option.

otherwise the easiest method is.. once you start the game,. using the SteamVR frontend' (I press the playstation button on my controller) -will bring up the games' "ingame settings"
(this might be selectable via Steams' 'per game settings';)
Motion Smoothing set to OFF

in plain steps

vr dashboard,
select the game,
;goto "video settings",
select the first option "Motion Smoothing" and set this to OFF



this of course will only help performance for gamers with the memory leak..
For me this was tested many times,.. with 100% repeatability.

basically SteamVR gives a 100 megabyte PER SECOND memory leak when motion smoothing is ON, and that will lead to either game drops or huge performance issues.
Doing the above steps to turn motion smoothing OFF should avoid performance drops over time.

[WhIteDragem]

For anyone wondering why I have been having a trouble free experience, and hence 'only seeing the good' in this game....

somehow I was fortunate to turn this setting OFF before I began any playtesting, and so I had managed to avoid performance drops; hence me singing so much praise and having not had the issues that many others may have been experiencing.

I turned motion smoothing off so I could see if my GPU ran out of headroom- the irony being, my system would have run out of headroom if I hadn't turned it off

the test rigs at Survios no doubt were set like my machine as it TYPICALLY helps finds issues. (I have been a professional game tester)

Good luck 'all - I hope this helps restore the performance as you would expect.
'otherwise, the good news is.. with this sorted.. actual performance can now be seen.
(also Survios are in a better position to understand what gamers are seeing, hence future patches will redress the remaining issues. A win for everyone!)

[kordelas]

Originally posted by WhIteDragem:

Are there two reprojection processes available in the game, i.e., one conducted by steamvr and the other one by UE5?

[WhIteDragem]

I have no idea/..
I thought the game version WAS an engine variant, and 'not the same as the front end one' (might be that the SteamVR front end setting simply tunes the game engines methods'; not my area of expertise, honestly!)
So, I actually thought this process would need be turned OFF by Survios,

So I thought I 'd take matters into my own hand (did the research on UE5 variables, being a fan of the tilde key myself...)
And then I found the Steam 'per game' graphics settings,.. which was another place the motion smoothing could be turned on(/'off')... Something I had done two days ago when I wanted to start to tweak the game..
-------------------------------------and by 'tweak' the game; attempt to break the game and see what others were seeing___________________ ie someone said that the fingers were 'blocky' and I hadn't really seen a polygon anywhere..
Even trying to force crazy high framerates and reprojection free.. the graphics were 'top tier'. (typical UE5 level 'pipes scattered on floors were 'fully round' and not suspension of disbelief breaking graphics if the player looked at them from 'certain angles' like most games are made up of...)

My initial setup was designed to just push it really hard to see what it could do..
I never thought that the maxed out memory was a byproduct of a frontend (steamVR) memory leak.

A poster in the tech section had had an AI suggest a fix for OpenXR frontend.. (in hindsight, seems like the same thing sort of..),.. and a forum post on SteamVR discussions dated 2018 seemed to indicate that the Motion Smoothing was another potential solution.

I literally spent two days trying every variant of SteamVR and configs.
And a LOT of reboots and safe mode with Display Driver Uninstaller - ie one solution to the memory leak was a very specific set of display drivers.. but that would have been frustrating as it would have excluded 'fixes' for Nvidia users.
Did seem that even if the active card was nvidia, some 'dual GPU laptop users' (eg AMD gfx inbuilt with the CPU) meant that an onboard AMD card might bog down the discreet Nvidia solution..(this had been reported by users on other games); so I leaned on that solution as well.. (many many emails to Survios with potential 'things to check')

I truly feel sorry for the teams at Survios looking into some of my suggestions.
A lot of banter on the internet regarding the memory leak.. but once I had nailed it to the SteamVR front end... I was on the home stretch.

Finally around lunchtime I had a break through..
I had got the SteamVR front end stuck on 1.2.7 variant, but listing it and the 2.9.5 together; both versions listed as running 'simultaneously' -that took a lot of toying to 'break them to 'that state', trust me...); the benefit of this was a software crash which had the SteamVR front end overburden and die, .whilst letting the games run in the background.. (fortunately I was filming stuff in case something revealed an opening.. (I wanted ANYTHING to be reliably repeatable) -I could see that there was no more memory leaks on ALL VR titles tested once the SteamVR front end had died.
(prior to that I had had some games leak, and then not leak, depending on version of SteamVR, and altering the order I fired games up etc)

Again, Survios were watching my videos (private shares), showing issues and contributing causes.. (they really are Pro community and have been super easy to talk with)
Once I had sent them that video proving it wasn't their game.. (:focus elsewhere!) I simply ate some lunch and punched on, now determined to 'beat them to the finish line'! -smiling all the way-

Of course from an Optimisation point of view.. getting inconsistent game breaking issues out of the way, allows the dev team to now double down on THEIR OWN SOFTWARE.

intermittent issues are the worst to troubleshoot, so this will allow them to really get to grips on tight engine optimisation (Ie the stuff that they have control over)

has been fun working with Survios on this.. ( I reached out once I saw serious issues being reported on the PC side of the coin,. and knowing how well the game is optimised at a base level, it just didn't make sense.. I bet them I could get it working on crap hardware, and they took my offer on!; the idea being I find out where the issues lay and report back)

Sadly, this front end jank means I literally haven't toyed with an ingame setting yet.
My rig defaults to Highs, with the exception of Shadows, View distance and Visual Effects (mediums).
The coolest thing is 'Shadows on Medium is 'better than the Playstation 5' Shadows; so I expect once users can actually see this game running smoothly, as it should.. it should prove something special.

Of note is how much less my CPU is being hit, and how much free RAM the game now has.. ( I had to overclock the CPU to 4700mhz and it was nearly maxed,. now I am running at lower speeds, and the cores are nearly half empty it seems.. not checking the same sections yet.. but,.. things are looking very positive)

This should prove a big game changer for those who have been having the constant 100 megabytes per second memory leak, which I am guessing is A LOT of people, given that Motion Smoothing is ON by default.. (and most wouldn't turn it OFF is my guess)

"game on"

[CarstenDutch]

Interesting!

What about disabled pagefile?

[WhIteDragem]

game will just crash super quickly.. (probably less thn four minutes after start) - if on a system that is 'leaking memory'

[CarstenDutch]

Originally posted by WhIteDragem:

game will just crash super quickly.. (probably less thn four minutes after start) - if on a system that is 'leaking memory'

Just played for a shy hour or so without crashing, did set my pagefile to min/max 1024mb instead of disabled.

Could be the reason games freez,crash, especially Steam-client not always SteamVR and it's 'Out of video memory trying to allocate a rendering resource... notifications.

*edit - had Motion-Smoothing disabled

[WhIteDragem]

actually; those notifications ARE my identifier - pretty much suggest 'mem leak' issue- not the game,but rather 'SteamVR' and THAT memory leak.
thankyou for furthr testing
glad to hear, too

[WhIteDragem]

I just had the game run overnight, without it dropping to desktop, being nice and stable running some crazy overclocks on the GPU... (stability testing for some long play sessions with the graphics cranked to 11)

That being said.. game is using 60watts less than Hogwarts Legacy under full load (a poorly optimised title, generally acknowledged).. but my core (GPU) clocks are lower than I push for in Hogwarts..
Alien:RI seems to enjoy an extra 188mhz more speed on my VRAM...

so ten hours of running 'ramped up' (with a hotspot of 96 degrees celcius) not sure the equivalent in farenheit,.. but our 40degrees plus 'weather' week, is equal to north of 105degrees farenheit,,. so people might be able to understand how warm my den presently is, with my PC as a 'heater' on all night, during an Australian summer and specifically a heat wave as we are presently experiencing.

Stability testing passed.
Yay
Looking forward to some long sessions of Alien Rogue Incursion over the next few days as I start to compare and test graphics settings.

As mentioned.. PC Medium seems to be above the Playstation, and so playing repro free at higher than the console game is, to me, the whole point of having a computer that is several times the cost. (if I can't do THAT, then 'why bother', I feel.. )

that being said.. even with a 20+ teraflop GPU and doubled system spec in some regards.. I wouldn't expect to equal a Playstation 5 Pro in 'optimised titles'.. but for now.. super happy to be able to play Alien Rogue Incursion with the eye pie turned UP.

smiles with~
Welcome to post runtimes of PCs if anyone finds them improved with the above tweak; go ahead please...

[WhIteDragem]

I was asked in the SteamVR discussion thread how to see the setting to change... - ;-)
______________________________________repost:
(Q. "I don't see this setting")

correct; and hence why it is an issue for many.

once the game loads, using the steam front end, you can open up the video settings for the game (on a per title basis)..
top option: Motion Smoothing. [set to OFF]


I will give super short video showing "how to"

Here: https://youtu.be/6Jr_DrPke48

(also shows how to identify the memory leak; with a linked video at the end that explains the hows and whys of what such a 'system bomb' can lead to at a performance level)

-success to you! hope this helps

[WhIteDragem]

Alright.. testing using AMD drivers 24.7.1 allows having Motion Smoothing ON and 'no memory leak'

can be found here:
https://www.amd.com/en/resources/support-articles/release-notes/RN-RAD-WIN-24-7-1.html

users with AMD CPU/APU in their laptop may have had windows update move to a different driver that causes memory leak when running SteamVR.
(even if their dual GPU laptop has an Nvidia GPU that they game with)

hope that helps.. (please confirm anyone who has tested and has 'working')
I am using Motion Smoothing ON and 'no memory leak' right now. .(24.7.1 drivers)

[kordelas]

Originally posted by WhIteDragem:

This is from Survios' guideline:

"Recommended Settings
SteamVR Recommended Settings
For the best experience possible, developers recommend the following SteamVR settings. (to get to these settings, Open Steam VR > Right-click to open SteamVR Settings)

Video Settings

Motion Smoothing: Off
Refresh Rate (Hz): 90
Alien: Rogue Incursion Recommended Settings
Please match your target frame rate between SteamVR and Alien: Rogue Incursion. If using the above settings, please set your game to the following by going to the Menu > Options > Graphics

Dynamic Resolution: On
Minimum: 70%
Target Framerate: 90"

Source:
https://survios.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/36575503961619-PC-STEAM-VR

[WhIteDragem]

thankyou 'K'; cheers for highlighting that..

(I must admit,.. like a child, I am just trying to make it work simply because the computer will not let me use MSmoothOn setting; my preference to use/play is 'as above'; the settings as recommended by Survios - interesting that BOTH the SteamVR frontend AND ingame settings should be 'manually matched')



_____________
testing the older branch drivers = 10% slower performance and 'less stable'.

AMD identify the Mid december (beta) drivers as being optimised for 'ten future titles'..
seems like the way to go, and as identified: Survios recommend to turn Motion Smoothing OFF anyway...

:USE NEWER DRIVERS please