MASSIVE Video Memory Usage With 0 Texture Mods

[AsaHerring]

Will show the photo first, as it is what my post is based off of.

Recently went 2 way SLI with GTX780s, hoping it would get me better performance and smoother gameplay. I'm okay with 30fps, but stuttering down to 5fps is what frustrates me, but would like to fix it all together. Which is why I bought another 780.

I got SLI set up and running correctly and started playing in game. I was disappointed becuase there was no noticeable difference. There was actually a slight drop in performance. I get around 10% less fps average with SLI on.

I get 30-40fps outside, 20-30fps while in cities, and 60+ in interiors. In cities and outside, if I make any fast camera moves it drops to around 5fps.

As you can see both cards are maxing out the Vram usage, which is what I am attributing the performance loss to.

So I decided to turn my uGrids back to default, some other .ini settings as well, and remove ALL of my texture mods affecting rocks, landscapes, as well as any environmental mods like CoT and Flora Overhaul and any water mods, etc... Not any that affect misc items or SMIM.

Loaded up the game, and nothing changed at all. I get the same framerates and everything on a pretty much default Skyrim. I played around for a while, multiple characters, created new characters, and I still got around 35fps outside and around 25fps in towns, on default Skyrim textures. I mean default, not the Bethesda Hi-Res packs.

It also still maxes out my Vram usage on both 3Gb cards with 0 texture mods. SO FRUSTRATED!!!

I am confused why my game is running so terribly on default settings, and any advice is EXTREMELY appreciated.

 

Here is my other forum post discussing gaining nothing from SLI v a single card.

[AsaHerring]

Also tried to remove be any scripted mods and cleaned my saves with the save cleaner tool.

[notmyhome]

Are you possibly using Mod Organizer? Then you'd have to configure your ugridstoload via the .ini editor settings.

 

Alternative: Try a completely new game using no mods besides maybe the Unofficial Patches.

[AsaHerring]

Using NMM, not mod organizer.

[blitzen]

The game is generally going to max out whatever VRAM is available. That's normal. It will continue loading new textures as your character moves around. It's not going to unload textures that aren't in use until it fills up and needs to load in textures that aren't already in VRAM. It shouldn't be maxing out when you first load the game, since only a small set of textures is going to be viewable in one location. It would be inefficient to simply remove textures that aren't being rendered at that second, only to have to reload them when the character rotates the viewpoint and looks at those textures again. Keeping it full is the most efficient way to handle textures.

[AsaHerring]

Even on default textures and settings, as soon as I load the game, the VRAM maxes out immediately. And in areas where I was using 2k and 4k texture and got 35fps, I still get 35fps with default textures.

The game is generally going to max out whatever VRAM is available. That's normal. It will continue loading new textures as your character moves around. It's not going to unload textures that aren't in use until it fills up and needs to load in textures that aren't already in VRAM. It shouldn't be maxing out when you first load the game, since only a small set of textures is going to be viewable in one location. It would be inefficient to simply remove textures that aren't being rendered at that second, only to have to reload them when the character rotates the viewpoint and looks at those textures again. Keeping it full is the most efficient way to handle textures.

[MDeckman]

Correct me if i'm wrong, but two 780s will get you 6 GB of VRAM?

 

from both threads, it sounds like either a setting problem or memory leak. what mods are you running?

[camaro_69_327]

Correct me if i'm wrong, but two 780s will get you 6 GB of VRAM?

 

from both threads, it sounds like either a setting problem or memory leak. what mods are you running?

VRAM does not add...one card with 3 GB vram is exactly the same as 4 cards in SLI...still 3 GB.

[Akreontage]

The game is generally going to max out whatever VRAM is available. That's normal. It will continue loading new textures as your character moves around. It's not going to unload textures that aren't in use until it fills up and needs to load in textures that aren't already in VRAM. It shouldn't be maxing out when you first load the game, since only a small set of textures is going to be viewable in one location. It would be inefficient to simply remove textures that aren't being rendered at that second, only to have to reload them when the character rotates the viewpoint and looks at those textures again. Keeping it full is the most efficient way to handle textures.

I believe that is not true. At least for vanilla skyrim. Using USKP only here. I've never seen more vram usage than 1200~mb. 2gb gpu here...

 

It is strange that you have those problems. 3570k running @ 4.2Ghz should bottleneck your 780 (although the secong gpu must be useless). As far as I know Skyrim runs much better with sli turned off.

But... Anyway you shouldn't get such problems. I have single gtx 680 and I get 100 avg fps. Well. That is when disabling vsync and ipresentinterval, but you shouldn't do that except when benchmarking... I mean I never drop below 60fps.

Since you have capable hardware there must be something wrong with drivers/windows. Maybe you have some virus.

I am sorry for stupid suggestions but that's the only thing that comes to my mind. Also I'll repeat: skyrim never caps vram for me. 1.2k mb was the maximum I've ever saw.

Edited July 31, 2014 by Akreontage

[blitzen]

 

The game is generally going to max out whatever VRAM is available. That's normal. It will continue loading new textures as your character moves around. It's not going to unload textures that aren't in use until it fills up and needs to load in textures that aren't already in VRAM. It shouldn't be maxing out when you first load the game, since only a small set of textures is going to be viewable in one location. It would be inefficient to simply remove textures that aren't being rendered at that second, only to have to reload them when the character rotates the viewpoint and looks at those textures again. Keeping it full is the most efficient way to handle textures.

I believe that is not true. At least for vanilla skyrim. Using USKP only here. I've never seen more vram usage than 1200~mb. 2gb gpu here...

 

It is strange that you have those problems. 3570k running @ 4.2Ghz should bottleneck your 780 (although the secong gpu must be useless). As far as I know Skyrim runs much better with sli turned off.

But... Anyway you shouldn't get such problems. I have single gtx 680 and I get 100 avg fps. Well. That is when disabling vsync and ipresentinterval, but you shouldn't do that except when benchmarking... I mean I never drop below 60fps.

Since you have capable hardware there must be something wrong with drivers/windows. Maybe you have some virus.

I am sorry for stupid suggestions but that's the only thing that comes to my mind. Also I'll repeat: skyrim never caps vram for me. 1.2k mb was the maximum I've ever saw.

 

 

You can believe what you want. I've monitored VRAM usage multiple times, and that was exactly what it was doing. It was essentially a slow steady increase in VRAM usage until it hit the max. The game continued to run smoothly with the VRAM filled. And that behaviour also makes intuitive sense from a technical standpoint. There isn't really a better way to do it. The vanilla game may not present enough load to fill up VRAM though. I haven't run vanilla Skyrim at any point though.

Edited July 31, 2014 by blitzen