Gtx 970 sli using 6gb vram

[Sorfex0]

Hello. Today i upgraded to windows 10 and noticed gaming using more than 4gb vram. Lords of the fallen 6gb vram, Gta V 4.5gb vram.

[Godlygamer23]

Windows 10 apparently dedicates some system RAM to your video card.

[onemanarmy720]

interesting, very interesting

[Zayzo]

Windows 10 apparently dedicates some system RAM to your video card.

wait really? 0_0

[D2ultima]

Windows 10 apparently dedicates some system RAM to your video card.

Shouldn't this be "shared memory" and have been around since at least Vista's days? 

[DrtyDiesel]

What are you using to see how much vram is being used? I know another thread on here where some utilities will double your vram. Basically the utility will show vram stacked, in the case of 970s in SLI, it would show 8gb available. Since every other frame is being rendered by each card it will show 4gb available to one card and 4 to the other, but the utility such as an overlay may show 8gb.

I only know this from reading how someone else was using 970s in SLI and gta v was using almost 5gb of vram and he was showing 8gb available. What I explained above is what someone else explained to him.

[DrtyDiesel]

Shouldn't this be "shared memory" and have been around since at least Vista's days?

This should only work if you're using integrated graphics. Right now I'm using integrated graphics with Windows 8.1 and it shows 7.3 gb available. Though if you have a dedicated card it shouldn't share any memory with your system ram.

[Sorfex0]

What are you using to see how much vram is being used? I know another thread on here where some utilities will double your vram. Basically the utility will show vram stacked, in the case of 970s in SLI, it would show 8gb available. Since every other frame is being rendered by each card it will show 4gb available to one card and 4 to the other, but the utility such as an overlay may show 8gb.

I only know this from reading how someone else was using 970s in SLI and gta v was using almost 5gb of vram and he was showing 8gb available. What I explained above is what someone else explained to him.

Msi afterburner.

[DrtyDiesel]

Msi afterburner.

Alright because like I said, it could show your memory as being stacked and using more vram. For instance if it says its using 4.5gb then It may be using 2.25gb per card

[Godlygamer23]

Once I get Windows 10, I'll do some of my own testing.

[ThE_MarD]

Heyyo,

I'm getting it too!! Before in the beta tests? As soon as I hit above 2GB VRAM? My performance was CRIPPLED. It started using 8GB of System memory and my framerates tanked... There is the rare chance that MSI Afterburner and GPU-Z are fucked... but I'm cranking my settings pretty ridiculously high and getting insanely good framerate and GPU useage.

Click them for link to full image.

Especially GTA V... got my settings cranked and I'm getting 3.8GB used per GPU... on my GTX 680 2GB VRAM SLI setup!? without performance drops!?

Look at my RAM and Pagefile usage hahaha

[D2ultima]

This should only work if you're using integrated graphics. Right now I'm using integrated graphics with Windows 8.1 and it shows 7.3 gb available. Though if you have a dedicated card it shouldn't share any memory with your system ram.

No, my old 1GB 280M on win Vista would show I think 2.6GB of vRAM whenever I did system checks. I don't believe I've seen it on my 780M SLI machine however; but that is 4GB and not 1GB

 

text

Weird... I wonder if it really is pagefile usage?

 

D2 ULTITEST TIME

 

I need:

1 - Someone to fully disable SLI and see if they can cross their vRAM limit

2 - People with SLI to attempt passing double their vRAM limits (making sure that SFR somehow isn't on by default)

3 - Someone who experiences pagefile usage increases to force their pagefile to a HDD alone (no SSDs) and see if the performance increase really is that good

4 - People to try turning off pagefile with and without SLI on and see if the benefits still apply

5 - Enabling SLI but forcing a game to one card and seeing if SLI on the second card gets usage

6 - Dig around and find that old cuda benchmarker from the 970 fiasco and see if the vRAM usage stays high at the limit of the vRAM size (you MUST NOT be attached to your iGPU for this test; windows must be using some of your vRAM). This test is not specifically for 970 owners.

 

I want data. DATA.

I also refuse to install Win 10 until I am 100% certain all issues are gone and I will be a happy camper, so I'm not doing my own tests yet. =D. Thanks for being my guinea pigs I mean crash test dummies (literally) no wait, lab rats wonderful good samaritans.

 

Edit:

Look at my "total available memory". It has to be something different. Mine looks almost exactly the same as MarD's

[ThE_MarD]

Heyyo,

Hmm, it might be reporting double VRAM afterall.

It says Win 8 but it's definitely Win 10

 

No, my old 1GB 280M on win Vista would show I think 2.6GB of vRAM whenever I did system checks. I don't believe I've seen it on my 780M SLI machine however; but that is 4GB and not 1GB

 

Weird... I wonder if it really is pagefile usage?

 

D2 ULTITEST TIME

 

I need:

1 - Someone to fully disable SLI and see if they can cross their vRAM limit

2 - People with SLI to attempt passing double their vRAM limits (making sure that SFR somehow isn't on by default)

3 - Someone who experiences pagefile usage increases to force their pagefile to a HDD alone (no SSDs) and see if the performance increase really is that good

4 - People to try turning off pagefile with and without SLI on and see if the benefits still apply

5 - Enabling SLI but forcing a game to one card and seeing if SLI on the second card gets usage

6 - Dig around and find that old cuda benchmarker from the 970 fiasco and see if the vRAM usage stays high at the limit of the vRAM size (you MUST NOT be attached to your iGPU for this test; windows must be using some of your vRAM). This test is not specifically for 970 owners.

 

I want data. DATA.

I also refuse to install Win 10 until I am 100% certain all issues are gone and I will be a happy camper, so I'm not doing my own tests yet. =D. Thanks for being my guinea pigs I mean crash test dummies (literally) no wait, lab rats wonderful good samaritans.

 

Edit:

Look at my "total available memory". It has to be something different. Mine looks almost exactly the same as MarD's

https://hostr.co/file/KECfBDzhMF2D/Screenshot1832.jpg

I'll start tinkering with stuff for fun too yeah.

[D2ultima]

Hmm, it might be reporting double VRAM afterall.

I was about to say... I know what I wrote in my guides

[DarkSmith2]

this is the WDDM 2.0 Magic, its allready known for month now, since people starting to test windows10. Reduced stuttering when exeeding VRAM to system RAM. There where videos about Shadows of Mordor which uses 7GB VRAM on 4k resolution with a Single GTX970 without stuttering (but low fps for sure). 

[Doughnutnator]

Will test GTA V for you with a GTX 970.

Sadly I have a SSD.

But if this is true, then no more issues with GTX 970.

I installed Win10 today, and gaming feels a lot better, it's smoother than Win8.1 really, no BS, same drivers and same programs installed

Microsoft is really giving a damn about gaming

[ThE_MarD]

Heyyo,

 

this is the WDDM 2.0 Magic, its allready known for month now, since people starting to test windows10. Reduced stuttering when exeeding VRAM to system RAM. There where videos about Shadows of Mordor which uses 7GB VRAM on 4k resolution with a Single GTX970 without stuttering (but low fps for sure).

I had the opposite... as soon as I got close to 2GB VRAM? My framerate would drop to 10fps until my VRAm usage went back down to around 1.8GB...

GTA V - SLI Off Pagefile On:

Pagefile doesn't seem to 100% disable though:

GTA V - SLI Off Pagefile Off:

After another reboot? Pagefile is definitely off... but MSI Afterburner in games still show it's on:

GTA V - SLI On Pagefile Off:

[EDIT1] Here's Nai's Benchmark, the Cuda L2 Cache memory checker (as seen in the GTX 970 vramgate stuff) :

So... yeah... I dunno, lol.

[EDIT1]

After work today? I wanna tinker with this more... I'm gonna try stuff like the GTA V built in benchmark to see if I indeed get framerate differences with the same settings... I'll also maybe try 3DMark Extreme, Ultra or something.

[D2ultima]

But why did it stop at 1.5GB? It should stop closer to 2GB. I wouldn't expect it to slow down at that point. Oh well... anyway, I'm not sure about that virtual memory thing. But that vRAM count being so high is weird. I wonder if there's a way to turn on/off shared memory separately from pagefile?

[ThE_MarD]

Heyyo,

But why did it stop at 1.5GB? It should stop closer to 2GB. I wouldn't expect it to slow down at that point. Oh well... anyway, I'm not sure about that virtual memory thing. But that vRAM count being so high is weird. I wonder if there's a way to turn on/off shared memory separately from pagefile?

Yeah it's an odd one... but so far? Sadly it seems it might end up being just VRAM usage detection afterall... I'm getting test results within margin of error.

3D Firestrike Extreme:

http://www.3dmark.com/compare/fs/5561003/fs/5560828

3D Firestrike Ultra:

http://www.3dmark.com/compare/fs/5561174/fs/5561094

Middle-Earth: Shadow of Mordor (Win10)

Middle-Earth: Shadow of Mordor (Win7)

... Dangit, lol. I guess it makes sense that DirectX 11 doesn't benefit from WDDM 2.0... but it would have been cool.

[D2ultima]

Yeah it's an odd one... but so far? Sadly it seems it might end up being just VRAM usage detection afterall... I'm getting test results within margin of error.

Yeah. That might be it. We won't know until programs properly update for Windows 10 anyway. This is likely something to be revisited in a few months. I'll make a note in my vRAM guide that vRAM usage in Windows 10 is not reported properly however. If you're not getting extra FPS and stuff out of it, then it's obviously not doing anything, which means it's a broken reading.

 

What programs have you used? You said GPU-Z and MSI-AB... have you tried Playclaw 5 by chance? Maybe EVGA Precision X with RTSS or HWiNFO64 with RTSS... what else do we have that monitors? I use Playclaw and GPU-Z and OC with NVI so I don't have a wide knowledge of monitoring software.