New Library Interface eats VRAM

[Valkyrslayer]

The new Steam Library Interface eats up way too much VRAM. Just with steam running in Library view it hogs between 300-700 MB VRAM and keeps hogging it when i start a Game. I could understand RAM but why the VRAM usage this could cause problems when playing Games that already require most of my 6GB VRAM (GTX 1060).

Is anyone else experiencing this?

[Flappy Pannus]

How are you measuring this when running a game? This is concerning if so as with some games I'm right on the edge for my 1660 (like running Dishonored 2 at 4k/30fps with Very High textures).

I would think that it would free up the VRAM when it detects a full screen game (or Windows just handles it by moving into Virtual GPU memory), but if it's not that's a big problem.

[别开枪，自己人！]

我什么也没干为什么封我，你们好好调查一下好吗，为什么要给我永久封，我玩了两年的号，什么也没干过，并充了钱，不能这样子。

[Guardian Dave]

i would also like to know how to check vram use by different processes pls. msi afterburner does a lot of things but i dont remember an option to show which processes are using vram. i could really use any application can do that.

[Tharon]

Цитата допису Valkyrslayer:

The new Steam Library Interface eats up way too much VRAM. Just with steam running in Library view it hogs between 300-700 MB VRAM and keeps hogging it when i start a Game. I could understand RAM but why the VRAM usage this could cause problems when playing Games that already require most of my 6GB VRAM (GTX 1060).

Is anyone else experiencing this?

Yes, is a well know behaviour. You should disable GPU acceleration for web pages in the settings.

[Tharon]

Цитата допису Flappy Pannus:

How are you measuring this when running a game? This is concerning if so as with some games I'm right on the edge for my 1660 (like running Dishonored 2 at 4k/30fps with Very High textures).

I don't think you can. At least, i didn't find anything able to do it.

But you can still check your VRAM usage with GPU-Z when you are not in game, then launch the game and check again how much VRAM is in use, then do a simple subtraction.

[Valkyrslayer]

Цитата допису Tharon:

Цитата допису Flappy Pannus:

How are you measuring this when running a game? This is concerning if so as with some games I'm right on the edge for my 1660 (like running Dishonored 2 at 4k/30fps with Very High textures).

I don't think you can. At least, i didn't find anything able to do it.

But you can still check your VRAM usage with GPU-Z when you are not in game, then launch the game and check again how much VRAM is in use, then do a simple subtraction.

Thats pretty much how I did it. I first noticed somethign was up when playing Elder Scrolls Online which doesnt require much VRAM. Before the Library update it pretty much never used above 2GB VRAM now it quite often sits at 2400 MB and above. After tthat I checked VRAM usage with just Steam running in it was sitting around 300-500 MB sometimes even higher when you scrolled down to Community Content.

To further confirm this I tried with non Steam Games from GOG and launched with and without Steam. The VRAM usage difference was exact around that range.

I cant confirm how steam handles situations where the VRAM is full but disabling GPU acceleration for web pages in the settings seems to help and leads to about the same VRAM usage as no Steam.

[Tharon]

Yeah. Still Valve is suggesting tu enable GPU rendering in Steam to smooth the library, regardeless of how much it can impact on games. :(

[MonkehMaster]

with steam idle and gpu acceleration on, VRAM usage is at 315mb, drops to 250mb with steam idle and gpu acceleration off.

viewing my profile makes it jump to 400mb VRAM with gpu acceleration on.

viewing the store page got it almost to 500mb VRAM with gpu acceleration on.

with gpu acceleration off all that VRAM usage goes to RAM instead, either way it not an ideal situation.

i would have to restart my pc to see if more VRAM is released with steam not running, after restarting the pc and viewing usage before i launched steam, VRAM usage was at 215mb.

so it doesnt free ram or VRAM properly, also still seeing cpu constant cpu spikes with steam running, both cpu spikes and unreleased VRAM/RAM are cleared after a restart of your pc, you have to restart.

sad thing is with gpu acceleration off, you have quite a bit of rendering issues, like the whole page moving up or down after rendering and/or doubling like double vision.

[Flappy Pannus]

Цитата допису Valkyrslayer:

I cant confirm how steam handles situations where the VRAM is full

That's key, though. There's a reason Windows has 'virtual' GPU memory in Task Manager, it supposedly works like regular virtual memory - it's suppose to page out when 'necessary', but I don't really know how in any detail (eg: does it prioritize paging out to regular ram based on the app, if it's background/foreground, etc?)

Most desktop apps these days will use some amount of vram as they're using the GPU for smooth acceleration, as they should. Disabling GPU web page rendering in Steam is not really a viable option as it ups the CPU requirements and just makes the UX incredibly sluggish.

I don't care if Steam uses ~1GB of vram when I'm actually using it, I only care what happens to that allocation when a game requests it. That's the behavoir that matters, any client built on a modern framework with proper GPU acceleration will use vram, it only becomes a problem if it doesn't give it up when a game engine wants it.

[MonkehMaster]

Цитата допису Flappy Pannus:

Цитата допису Valkyrslayer:

I cant confirm how steam handles situations where the VRAM is full

That's key, though. There's a reason Windows has 'virtual' GPU memory in Task Manager, it supposedly works like regular virtual memory - it's suppose to page out when 'necessary', but I don't really know how in any detail (eg: does it prioritize paging out to regular ram based on the app, if it's background/foreground, etc?)

Most desktop apps these days will use some amount of vram as they're using the GPU for smooth acceleration, as they should. Disabling GPU web page rendering in Steam is not really a viable option as it ups the CPU requirements and just makes the UX incredibly sluggish.

I don't care if Steam uses ~1GB of vram when I'm actually using it, I only care what happens to that allocation when a game requests it. That's the behavoir that matters, any client built on a modern framework with proper GPU acceleration will use vram, it only becomes a problem if it doesn't give it up when a game engine wants it.

the point is that steam should not be using all these resources... also VRAM should mostly be used for games in general, thats VRAMs whole purpose, anything else should be light usage.

games now a days need all that VRAM to run games smoothly ect.. so we should not have half a GB or more being used just to run steam.

now.. as it stands, people with budget or lowend hardware (maybe even midrange) have to upgrade just to use steam without having game performance issues, thats just horrible.

its not as noticeable on highend, but most people can tell the difference and most dont like losing performance.

[Flappy Pannus]

Цитата допису MonkehMaster:

the point is that steam should not be using all these resources...

No, it absolutely *should* be using VRAM when it needs it to display a responsive interface. As I said, virtually *all* modern apps will use vram if they're using any form of GPU acceleration, which they need to do if they're using your GPU. It's not 1990 anymore. GUI's without using any GPU acceleration suck.

also VRAM should mostly be used for games in general, thats VRAMs whole purpose, anything else should be light usage.

Guess what? Your browser uses vram. Chrome was using 700mb of my vram when I just checked. Word uses vram. Explorer uses vram.

The only question that's relevant is: *Does it give up the VRAM to a game when the game needs it*. That's only when you should be concerned - you want your GPU-accelerated app to be using your vram! Again, Windows has the concept of GPU virtual memory, it should know when a game needs vram and page out a background applications vram when it's not in focus and the foreground app needs it.

And guess what? I just tested it. This is one game, maybe there are other examples where it doesn't - but *that's exactly how it operated in my testing*.

I have a dual 4K system (PC with 4k monitor, also hooked up to 4k TV). So I had Task Manager in detail view showing all the steam processes, with a column for dedicated VRAM usage. During normal operation of the Steam client moving between all the sections, it got up to almost 1GB of vram.

So I left TM opened on one monitor, then loaded up a vram pig of a game - Rise of the Tomb Raider with Very High Textures, running in 4k. This really stresses the 6GB of my 1660 at that res.

So loaded up the game, watched the dedicated VRAM counter of the Steam/Steam Web Helper processes, and as the level loaded and Afterburner was showing the VRAM being populat by ROTT - boom, down went Steams dedicated VRAM usage, until just before the level finally loaded it was sitting at...50MB.

From that example, and again, maybe there are times when it doesn't - it's working exactly as it should.

Edit: Just tried it with Dishonored 2 at 4K with Ultra textures, which really eats vram (and is generally too much at that res, will induce significant stuttering after a few mins of running around Karnaca). Basically same result - Steam's dedicated VRAM usage dropped to 30MB.

[Valkyrslayer]

Thank You. I didnt know you could view VRAM usage of different processes in the task Manager. That is really useful and judging from your Tomb Raider Test it seems we dont need to worry about steam not giving up the resources when needed.

[Flappy Pannus]

Цитата допису Valkyrslayer:

Thank You. I didnt know you could view VRAM usage of different processes in the task Manager. That is really useful and judging from your Tomb Raider Test it seems we dont need to worry about steam not giving up the resources when needed.

No prob, I was curious about this too!

[Tharon]

Let's be clear once and for all. Free ram is IMPORTANT ! (caps is for emphatize more the word : IMPORTANT).

Someone can think ram is installed to be used, so is good to have a lot of running process using the ram, but this is hardly the truth.
Software constantly load and unload informations in ram, and game do it more than others. But unloaded informations aren't erased from ram, but keeped in a "stand-by" state ready to be reused.
When the software (or windows itself) need to load those information again, it will retrieve them from stand-by cache instead to load them from the hard disk again, speeding up the process a lot.
This is why reload a level in a game is usually a lot more faster than load a new level.

In modern gaming, with huge hi-res texture, quality models and huge maps, having enough free memory to use as a cache if of extreme importance.

Of course, memory in use have priority over stand-by memory. Windows will not page used memory in the hard disk unless there is shortage of free memory. It will clear and use stand-by memory instead.

TLDR
Having ram (and vram) occupied without a reason will reduce the amount of stand-by memory available, leading to a reduced cache and thus more load times and sometime hiccups, if the game stream a lot of resources from the disk.