Grand Theft Auto 5 VRAM issue (i think).

[Majestic]

So I (finally) picked up GTA 5 on the latest steamdeals, and I've been noticing something odd whilst playing. The VRAM usage slowly creeps up to around 3520 MB and then it starts to cause some stuttering.

Thing is, i'm not using a GTX 970 where this is to be a known issue given it's split memory interface. Rather, i'm using a GTX 980 which should have about 512MB more to spare.

 

But it's not using it, and this results in high CPU usage, memory swapping and dropped frames. What gives? Does Rockstar assume all GTX 900 series suffer from this?

 

[xAcid9]

Does is stutter only when moving or even when standing still?

[Majestic]

32 minutes ago, xAcid9 said:

Does is stutter only when moving or even when standing still?

When moving and it's fetching new data (probably).

[Maxxtraxx]

Possibly not GPU related? What is your CPU, system storage type for the drive the game is on, memory amount and speed? Could it be that one of the above is holding back the smooth flow of data to the GPU? Poor input data pacing to the GPU will cause the same feeling as the GPU bound stuttering.

[Repost]

To fix stuttering in GTA5 as well as any other game-

Open Nvidia Control Panel

Go to Manage 3D settings

Go to Program Settings

Click Add if gta5 isn't in the list and add it

In "Specify the settings for this program", change shader cache to off

Click apply

 

In doing so, the load times will be substantially longer, but as long as your cpu is fast enough, the game will be smoother and there will be less stuttering and juddering from trying to load the cache from your disk drive. 

[ivan134]

GTA 5 sutters on the 4GB 480 too, so I'm pretty sure that's what's affecting you too.

[ivan134]

I think the only reason the 290 and 290x aren't affected is because of their 512 bit bus. Maybe memory compression algorithms don't help with GTA 5 that much.

[Majestic]

2 hours ago, Maxxtraxx said:

Possibly not GPU related? What is your CPU, system storage type for the drive the game is on, memory amount and speed? Could it be that one of the above is holding back the smooth flow of data to the GPU? Poor input data pacing to the GPU will cause the same feeling as the GPU bound stuttering.

4.3ghz 4670K, 2400mhz 16GB CL11. Check the profile  It does scale pretty heavily when I set the memory speed to something lower. Just like in the digitalfoundry video.

2 hours ago, ivan134 said:

GTA 5 sutters on the 4GB 480 too, so I'm pretty sure that's what's affecting you too.

No offense, but if it's not even saturating the 4GB buffer, how can it be the 4GB memory buffer. I can clearly see it's not overflowing, or swapping.

It's something to do with the allocation itself.

[ivan134]

3 minutes ago, Majestic said:

4.3ghz 4670K, 2400mhz 16GB CL11. Check the profile  It does scale pretty heavily when I set the memory speed to something lower. Just like in the digitalfoundry video.

No offense, but if it's not even saturating the 4GB buffer, how can it be the 4GB memory buffer. I can clearly see it's not overflowing, or swapping.

It's something to do with the allocation itself.

I'm not gonna pretend i know why it's happening. I was just letting you know the 980 isn't the only full 4 GB card with this issue.

[Majestic]

2 minutes ago, ivan134 said:

I'm not gonna pretend i know why it's happening. I was just letting you know the 980 isn't the only full 4 GB card with this issue.

Well, it's pretty risky comparing AMD to Nvidia in regards to this. As they're a bit different in terms of efficiency.

 

I turned off distance scaling, that seems to have fixed it. But I still don't understand why. CPU wasn't hitting 100% in all scenario's where it started stuttering, and none of the memory pools were even anywhere near overflowing. The only thing I can think of is that somehow the SSD was bottlenecking? It's only an MX100.

[App4that]

It's likely the i5, had a 4690k and at anything over 70% I had stuttering. Fixed it by switching to the 4790k. 

[Majestic]

2 minutes ago, App4that said:

It's likely the i5, had a 4690k and at anything over 70% I had stuttering. Fixed it by switching to the 4790k. 

Hmm, mine is constantly at 90-95% now. Seems to be fine with distance scaling turned off. But yeah, I realize the 4670K is tippy-toeing.

But that seems weird, since the game doesn't scale past 4 cores...

 

[ivan134]

2 minutes ago, Majestic said:

Well, it's pretty risky comparing AMD to Nvidia in regards to this. As they're a bit different in terms of efficiency.

 

I turned off distance scaling, that seems to have fixed it. But I still don't understand why. CPU wasn't hitting 100% in all scenario's where it started stuttering, and none of the memory pools were even anywhere near overflowing. The only thing I can think of is that somehow the SSD was bottlenecking? It's only an MX100.

I'm not familiar with that setting since I don't own the game. What does it do?

[Majestic]

1 minute ago, ivan134 said:

I'm not familiar with that setting since I don't own the game. What does it do?

loads in detail from further away, basically increases the range at which you're drawing in details in 360 degrees. So driving around increases the drawing in of detail.

[App4that]

Remember fps does not equal stability. Why I hate graphs like that. Frame times and minimum fps are way more important than the average fps. 

[ivan134]

2 minutes ago, Majestic said:

loads in detail from further away

Oh. It's basically draw distance?

[Majestic]

Just now, App4that said:

Remember fps does not equal stability. Why I hate graphs like that. Frame times and minimum fps are way more important than the average fps. 

True, but it doesn't seem to add any additional overhead regardless. It's not like, say, watch dogs 2.

 

[Majestic]

Just now, ivan134 said:

Oh. It's basically draw distance?

Yeah, weird enough there is like three seperate settings for this. The one in "advanced" settings seems to be of the biggest impact.

[App4that]

GTA V is a CPU hog, people see benefits with Broadwell-E in that game. 

[Repost]

18 hours ago, App4that said:

GTA V is a CPU hog, people see benefits with Broadwell-E in that game. 

Yep, ridiculously difficult to run. No matter what graphics settings you run it at, you will always be cpu bottlenecked. 

[Majestic]

1 minute ago, Repost said:

Yep, ridiculously difficult to run. No matter what graphics settings you run it at, you will always be cpu bottlenecked. 

That said though, if you drive around in the city with max population sliders there is a ton of shit going on

[App4that]

51 minutes ago, Majestic said:

That said though, if you drive around in the city with max population sliders there is a ton of shit going on

Hell yeah, like The Witcher 3 the game's worth it being demanding.