MEMORY ISSUE is for real !!!

[roZin1401]

3070 @ 1600p. High preset, fps is fine 70s right after starting the game and playing in the open areas until after entering a crowded village area, the fps drops significantly to 20s. Now i first thought this might be due to my card not being powerful to render all the assets and also due to 8gb being too low for 1600p even if DF stated it'll be fine for 1440p/1600p (i think he only tested non crowded open areas with less objects to render).

So i quit the game. started again after a while, the game loading the save with same crowded area. And now....... its at fluid 70s. The same crowded area at 70 fps instead of 20s previously. If the above said reason were true it should be 20fps no matter game was booted just prior or traversed to that area from open areas. So afaik, as my brain evaluates, this should be a case of a memory management issues happening. I don't see any other reason for why this happens. It seems like old assets that are not in frame are not being cleared from memory properly. And that with the directstorage streaming inefficiently might be the reasons. The last console port i experienced with a memory leak was back in 2013 for Prototype 2 PC port (actually it was a severe one). I hope Nixxes have already acknowledged this and working on it. Expecting a patch fix soon......

Currently Ratchet and clank, Spiderman ports shows memory issues, if not similar.

All others games i've played in my entire life gives a constant fps value for a particular resolution, graphics settings, in a particular location in-game. Regardless if just booted up my pc or after some hours of gameplay or if i'm in antarctica or in the arctics, wherever...... It may only change a tad bit 2-4 fps if the temps rise, and doesn't plummet to the 20s from the 70s like this game do.

EDIT:- Played longer after booting the game in the village settlement. fps is fine for then. Did some missions that requires to go to open areas far from the village, fps stays fine with the well known cutscenes fps drops, and i return back to village and the previous case happens again. Drops to slideshow 18s - 20s. So definitely a issue. Just double-checking.

Edit2:- As others reported here, if your cards with more than 8gb doesn't have any such issues, it might be because that amount of vram is fine for the memory issue to affect it (for a particular resolution). And doesn't mean that game doesn't have this issue. Nixxes probably should improve their memory management to fix this. I'm not telling the game infinitely fills the vram as the word "leak" usually mean filling vram/ram infinitely and ultimately CTDs, but that memory management is not good currently.

Looks like I've found why some users gets affected but not others even when both have the same 8GB gpu. Its HAGS!! Hardware accelerated scheduling was enabled in my PC and that's what causing degrading performance over time. Tested thoroughly with it turned off. Also why few people advice to turn it off for HFW and i thought they were placebo. If you have an 8gb card and no issues you probably have HAGs turned off. I think for now I'll enjoy this game with it turned off.

NOTE: Turning hags off can disable frame generation functionality for 40xx cards



WATCH THIS MY FELLOW NAY-SAYERS

https://youtu.be/Bsxf85FbftA?si=XPyoi6CNTPN7Ltm1&t=3168

start at 52:48

You still want to praise nixxess ports????

[WreckWren]

Originally posted by rogb1970:

This is definitely worth a watch if you think your GPU isn't performing like it should, these guys were thorough:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lBOtFWm9mXc

I was surprised what a 2080ti could do at native, which is my next GPU. I'd stay within the parameters set by Digital Foundry though.

Excellent video. Seems there is indeed a serious issue with upscaling in this title, and as the forum posts indicate, it does not impact all cards the same way.
They didn't include the 3070 in the upscaling issues section, but I can confirm my 3070 machine is suffering the same issue where performance is lower with upscaling on.

[Carnage]

Originally posted by Zephyr:

Never had an issue in any way so far, almost 30 hours into the game. Playing with RX 7900XT and Ryzen 5800 X3d at 4K native ultra, except shadows 70-75 FPS average.
The game uses between 9 and 12.5 GB (a little bit over 13 GB is max) memory on AMD GPUs at 4K. Memory usage rises and drops within these limits according to the situation. I did not notice anything that would resemble a memory leak.

But 8GB are not always going to cut it on hihest settings when you go over 1440P (maybe not even there).

There are many games that COULD use more than 8GB of VRAM at 4K, but very few of them behave in such way. The fact that you ran out of video memory doesn't mean fps should drop to 5 until your next restart of the game.

Obviously it's easy to just say that you should go and buy a card with more VRAM, but what does it say about the port? That it's good as long as you have a top end hardware? That's not a good port and their memory management is shoddy at best and been like that in several games they've ported.

Days Gone, Zero Dawn and God of War aren't ported by Nixxes and they are almost flawless. Yet, Spider-Man, another games from PS4, suddenly has VRAM issues. Why? Nixxes.

[WreckWren]

Originally posted by Carnage:

Originally posted by Zephyr:

Never had an issue in any way so far, almost 30 hours into the game. Playing with RX 7900XT and Ryzen 5800 X3d at 4K native ultra, except shadows 70-75 FPS average.
The game uses between 9 and 12.5 GB (a little bit over 13 GB is max) memory on AMD GPUs at 4K. Memory usage rises and drops within these limits according to the situation. I did not notice anything that would resemble a memory leak.

But 8GB are not always going to cut it on hihest settings when you go over 1440P (maybe not even there).

There are many games that COULD use more than 8GB of VRAM at 4K, but very few of them behave in such way. The fact that you ran out of video memory doesn't mean fps should drop to 5 until your next restart of the game.

Obviously it's easy to just say that you should go and buy a card with more VRAM, but what does it say about the port? That it's good as long as you have a top end hardware? That's not a good port and their memory management is shoddy at best and been like that in several games they've ported.

Days Gone, Zero Dawn and God of War aren't ported by Nixxes and they are almost flawless. Yet, Spider-Man, another games from PS4, suddenly has VRAM issues. Why? Nixxes.

Well said. This developer seems to be avoiding addressing this issue, based on their total radio silence despite the issue being well known on several titles over quite some time.

[Zephyr]

Originally posted by Carnage:

Originally posted by Zephyr:

Never had an issue in any way so far, almost 30 hours into the game. Playing with RX 7900XT and Ryzen 5800 X3d at 4K native ultra, except shadows 70-75 FPS average.
The game uses between 9 and 12.5 GB (a little bit over 13 GB is max) memory on AMD GPUs at 4K. Memory usage rises and drops within these limits according to the situation. I did not notice anything that would resemble a memory leak.

But 8GB are not always going to cut it on hihest settings when you go over 1440P (maybe not even there).

There are many games that COULD use more than 8GB of VRAM at 4K, but very few of them behave in such way. The fact that you ran out of video memory doesn't mean fps should drop to 5 until your next restart of the game.

Obviously it's easy to just say that you should go and buy a card with more VRAM, but what does it say about the port? That it's good as long as you have a top end hardware? That's not a good port and their memory management is shoddy at best and been like that in several games they've ported.

Days Gone, Zero Dawn and God of War aren't ported by Nixxes and they are almost flawless. Yet, Spider-Man, another games from PS4, suddenly has VRAM issues. Why? Nixxes.

As far as I remember there were severe issues with HZD at release :). Much more than with Forbidden West. Generally Horizon Forbidden West is considered as very good port with very few issues, if any.

Of course, there could be issues for some people that could be driver related (then it is not the game) or in fact be caused by the game somehow. But the "memory issue" seems to be very speciific for Nvidia GPUs or for pepole with 8-12 GB VRAm that try to play at resolutions 1440P and above. So... . Driver or not enough VRAM for now mostly+ perhaps something weird. But this is not really diminishing the overall quality of the port which is the best in recent memory. But granted, the bar is not very high there :).

Still, on websites like "hardware unboxed" there it was also indicated, that 8 GB VRAM GPUs are in fact perhaps not enough for Horizon forbidden west (for whatever reason).

Within the first 10 minutes here: Conclusion about 8 GB model at min 9

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bi_kqJYmEeI

It is just a podcast, but I guess they might show the comparison video later (compared RTX 4060TI 8 GB vs 16 GB model).

[Carnage]

Originally posted by Zephyr:

As far as I remember there were severe issues with HZD at release :). Much more than with Forbidden West. Generally Horizon Forbidden West is considered as very good port with very few issues, if any.

HZD was fixed a long time ago and I tested it on several different systems and it ran great on all of them. Ratchet & Clank and Spider-Man, on the other hand, remain broken to this day. And they will be, as long as Digital Foundry will lick them like a popsicle, claiming they are "perfect Nixxes ports" (as long as you have 20GB of VRAM, for a PS4 game, that is).

[WreckWren]

Originally posted by Zephyr:

Originally posted by Carnage:

There are many games that COULD use more than 8GB of VRAM at 4K, but very few of them behave in such way. The fact that you ran out of video memory doesn't mean fps should drop to 5 until your next restart of the game.

Obviously it's easy to just say that you should go and buy a card with more VRAM, but what does it say about the port? That it's good as long as you have a top end hardware? That's not a good port and their memory management is shoddy at best and been like that in several games they've ported.

Days Gone, Zero Dawn and God of War aren't ported by Nixxes and they are almost flawless. Yet, Spider-Man, another games from PS4, suddenly has VRAM issues. Why? Nixxes.

As far as I remember there were severe issues with HZD at release :). Much more than with Forbidden West. Generally Horizon Forbidden West is considered as very good port with very few issues, if any.

Of course, there could be issues for some people that could be driver related (then it is not the game) or in fact be caused by the game somehow. But the "memory issue" seems to be very speciific for Nvidia GPUs or for pepole with 8-12 GB VRAm that try to play at resolutions 1440P and above. So... . Driver or not enough VRAM for now mostly+ perhaps something weird. But this is not really diminishing the overall quality of the port which is the best in recent memory. But granted, the bar is not very high there :).

Still, on websites like "hardware unboxed" there it was also indicated, that 8 GB VRAM GPUs are in fact perhaps not enough for Horizon forbidden west (for whatever reason).

Within the first 10 minutes here: Conclusion about 8 GB model at min 9

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bi_kqJYmEeI

It is just a podcast, but I guess they might show the comparison video later (compared RTX 4060TI 8 GB vs 16 GB model).

"you need more than the recommended GPU to run at recommended settings" part 1000+
Troll post.

[Zephyr]

Originally posted by WreckWren:

Originally posted by Zephyr:

As far as I remember there were severe issues with HZD at release :). Much more than with Forbidden West. Generally Horizon Forbidden West is considered as very good port with very few issues, if any.

Of course, there could be issues for some people that could be driver related (then it is not the game) or in fact be caused by the game somehow. But the "memory issue" seems to be very speciific for Nvidia GPUs or for pepole with 8-12 GB VRAm that try to play at resolutions 1440P and above. So... . Driver or not enough VRAM for now mostly+ perhaps something weird. But this is not really diminishing the overall quality of the port which is the best in recent memory. But granted, the bar is not very high there :).

Still, on websites like "hardware unboxed" there it was also indicated, that 8 GB VRAM GPUs are in fact perhaps not enough for Horizon forbidden west (for whatever reason).

Within the first 10 minutes here: Conclusion about 8 GB model at min 9

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bi_kqJYmEeI

It is just a podcast, but I guess they might show the comparison video later (compared RTX 4060TI 8 GB vs 16 GB model).

"you need more than the recommended GPU to run at recommended settings" part 1000+
Troll post.

Indeed, the recommended Nvidia GPU for this game is a 12 GB VRAM GPU, not a 8GB one. I have no idea why they chose the AMD GPU they did, but whatever. I am suspecting they chose the 12 GB model for a reason there when people would start to aim for higher settings.

Fact is also, that "recommended settings" for most games are always on the optimistic side of things. This is not good certainly, but it is what it is.

Edit. Actually looked it up. The recommended specs on Steam aim for 1080P medium settings :). The high settings specs are still somewhat dubious. They aim for 1440P 60 FPS. The RTX 3070 should likely not be there. But perhaps it work... . Anything above 1440 P is not expected to work with 60 FPS and a 8 GB GPU on high settings.

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qrYLjcBxl28

The chart in there was also visible on Steam, but has since then been deleted it seems.

[EviNo]

Even with a 3080 10GB you have to use medium texture quality to avoid stutters and frame drops at 1440p.
This is ridiculous, medium textures look like poop and even high textures are blurry you lose a lot details...
The game is not even using ray tracing...

[Zephyr]

Originally posted by EviNo:

Even with a 3080 10GB you have to use medium texture quality to avoid stutters and frame drops at 1440p.
This is ridiculous, medium textures look like poop and even high textures are blurry you lose a lot details...
The game is not even using ray tracing...

RT is not necessary to make problems with VRAM. But it might be some driver problems still.

[yamaci]

yeah imagine if this game had ray tracing. we would have equal number of 12 gb folks in these threads then :)

[rogb1970]

Originally posted by WreckWren:

Excellent video. Seems there is indeed a serious issue with upscaling in this title, and as the forum posts indicate, it does not impact all cards the same way.
They didn't include the 3070 in the upscaling issues section, but I can confirm my 3070 machine is suffering the same issue where performance is lower with upscaling on.

There is intriguing news on the upscaling front, Intel are releasing a new version of XeSS. They claim it's as good as DLSS, but, it can be used on any GPU. You can get the .dll from their github page. I've seen one video where they tested it and it gave good FPS and is much better than FSR.

It's possible that HFW might get an update that includes the new version, but, if not, you can replace the existing one with the one from Intel's github.

[Zephyr]

Originally posted by yamaci:

yeah imagine if this game had ray tracing. we would have equal number of 12 gb folks in these threads then :)

Sure :). The problem is that Nvidia is gimping VRAM for many years now. Very likely to upsell high end next gen GPUs. The RTX 3000 series is relatively useless now except the RTX 3080 TI and RTX 3090. They do this on purpose, of course.

And then they do it successfully with the RTX 4000 series again. RTX 4070TI 12GB anyone? High end GPU prices with only 12 GB VRAM.... . Then once a little time passes they release the RTX 4070 TI Super 16 GB (lol, name) as if they did not know before that the 12 GB version was a pure joke. I will not understand why so many people keep buying such GPUs happily. Not that I expect that AMD would behave much differently if the roles were to be reversed, but AMD cannot afford it :). To be able to play at 4K for some years I will happily ignore the stupid RT hype (in my opinion, I do not need any of this and half my performance along the way) and have 20 GB VRAM for less than half the price of a RTX 4090 with the RX 7900 XT.
Switched from a RTX 3070 last year because of The Last of US and a new 4K monitor and never regretted it.

Anyway, RTX 3070 and especially RTX 3080 can still work in new games at 1440P but it is not guaranteed with the high or ultra settings and that again was surely planned by Nvidia this way. Horizon Forbidden West ist difficult, because VRAM use fluctuates and I would expect that only certain areas trigger whatever the problem here is. Many performance reviews likely also missed it because of that.

[yamaci]

the real problem is, developer is lying about what is required. they have the tools to determine what is required. they're the one who claimed 1440p high for 3070 is okay. and vram makes it not okay. so they shouldn't have recommended it

nvidia does not dictate what should developers put in their specs

[Helifax]

Imagine if only you could upgrade your VRAM like RAM... OR everyone would use Unified Memory Architecture (like consoles, steam deck, phones, etc).
Nope, on PC we are stuck on the same ancient architecture were I could have 128 GB of RAM (uselfess) and 6 GB of VRAM :|

[[XGS]DonkyBoY]

Originally posted by Helifax:

Imagine if only you could upgrade your VRAM like RAM... OR everyone would use Unified Memory Architecture (like consoles, steam deck, phones, etc).
Nope, on PC we are stuck on the same ancient architecture were I could have 128 GB of RAM (uselfess) and 6 GB of VRAM :|

Imagine if there was an option to save your money for a better more powerful video card that has more VRAM on it that make's it useful and a joy to game on.