Texture Memory Overload : IV

» Wed Jun 29, 2011 1:27 am

Basically, my game is using too much vram on my puny 1 gb card. I'm trying to determine if this is just the result of my being somewhat uncompromising with hi-res textures, or if there's some other explanation.

I use QTP3 Redimized, all of the improved trees and flora stuff, as well as 4096x4096 distant lod textures (though smaller normals). I have MMM and WAC (just the basic esp) active plus Armamentarium and other LL item mods, as well as the various road traveler mods (though Crowded Roads Revisited is set at the lowest spawn rates). NPC New Clothes and Cyrodiil NPC Remodeling Project are giving NPCs diverse outfits. I also have all of the UL mods active. And to definitively limit my framerate I'm using OBGE, though I don't know how that could contribute to vram usage. I understand this is a lot of stuff, though.

It started to get annoying as I noticed vram usage consistently hitting 1000-1300 mb while out in the wilderness in the past month or two, but last night it just floored me. I had installed part of QTP3 Reduced to see if it would help, and I noticed no difference, so my next step was disabling the UL mods, thinking maybe their extra textures were contributing to the problem. So I did that and did a run from the IC to Chorrol and watched the vram usage. As I approached Chorrol, it just about hit 1500 mb. And as this was happening my game became a slideshow, delivering a frame to me like once every five seconds. I guess the UL mods don't make any difference!

I've heard that QTP3, even Redimized, can be a huge drain. But this huge? I wouldn't be so skeptical if I didn't remember a while back when I first switched to Redimized--regular QTP3 was too much so I switched and did some other cleaning, getting rid of improved sky textures and hi-res tree billboards. I got it down to 700 mb at the time, at least, in a particular spot. Today if I go to that spot it'll be at nearly a gig of texture memory being used. If I load my current save in Chorrol it'll be at 900-1000 mb there. The only major thing I can think of that I installed since that wonderful 700 mb day is MMM, as well as a bunch of leveled list item mods.

I just wanted to share this and see if maybe there could be some mysterious explanation. I can accept that with QTP3 and other hi-res textures I might just be pushing things too far, but should it really be this bad? There are some locations where it might get down to 800-900 mb, but nearly everywhere outdoors it seems to get up to 1000-1300 mb, and as last night showed, apparently the sky's the limit

. Keep in mind I have all of the cell buffer stuff in the ini at default values. I have large values for lights and specularity etc. distance but I don't think that would be contributing to vram usage.

Load order:

Spoiler

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» Wed Jun 29, 2011 10:04 am

First thing I'd cut is the 4096 textures, that's pretty huge. See if that makes a difference first of all. I'd also recommend QTP3 Redimised if you're not using it already, it's a lot gentler on your GPU without sacrificing any quality.

Oh, and update your Immersive Interiors

» Wed Jun 29, 2011 1:52 am

palidoo: Reading your graphics adventures has been an inspiration to me to up my game's graphics to the max. So, the answer is, go buy a better card, a GTX 580 or some such monstrosity...

Yeah, cutting down on the 4096x4096 splurges should reduce some of this issue. ~~I think QTP3Redimized is also recommended, not sure if you are using that.~~

Also get a pcb mod, and OSR etc.

» Wed Jun 29, 2011 1:52 pm

Yep, time to cut those 4096 LOD textures down to 2048 or something. That alone should save you a huge amount. A pcb mod certainly wouldn't hurt either.

Oh, and IWR. Seriously? You're STILL using that?

» Wed Jun 29, 2011 1:11 pm

Yeah I'm figuring the ultimate solution if I want to continue being an uncompromising fatty is a new video card with more memory. I do use OSR, though. I had a pcb mod at one point, but I found it caused more of a hassle than it really helped anything, like having to load an interior or city cell I was just in over again. Purging it myself via the console, I've realized it doesn't really help, the game seems to be doing a good enough job of it on its own. Like if it's at 1200 mb and I pcb it might go down to 1100 mb. I've never really found a situation where it went down significantly.

But thanks, my next step is indeed to cut out the 4096 textures, though I really don't want to. :teehee:

» Wed Jun 29, 2011 1:12 am

Yeah I'm figuring the ultimate solution if I want to continue being an uncompromising fatty is a new video card with more memory. I do use OSR, though. I had a pcb mod at one point, but I found it caused more of a hassle than it really helped anything, like having to load an interior or city cell I was just in over again. Purging it myself via the console, I've realized it doesn't really help, the game seems to be doing a good enough job of it on its own. Like if it's at 1200 mb and I pcb it might go down to 1100 mb. I've never really found a situation where it went down significantly.

But thanks, my next step is indeed to cut out the 4096 textures, though I really don't want to. :teehee:

Remember you can get pretty similar results by mixing textures, filters and normal maps.

Like for example this: http://cl.ly/3u2Z3Y0L0k1s1G3H2O1L/view.jpg
Is just a grain filter replacement. They're vanilla textures, and still look pretty good.

» Wed Jun 29, 2011 4:24 am

Remember you can get pretty similar results by mixing textures, filters and normal maps.

Like for example this: http://cl.ly/3u2Z3Y0L0k1s1G3H2O1L/view.jpg
Is just a grain filter replacement. They're vanilla textures, and still look pretty good.

SomeWelshGuy-

You did that? How playable is that? It looks great. What's in it?

Palidoo-

Your adventures do not inspire me - they remind me of the days when I tried the same and was beat down relentlessly in failure. I think you could maybe run QTPIII and 4096 textures if that was all you were running - and then you'd still need the latest graphics card.

» Wed Jun 29, 2011 3:37 pm

Oh, and IWR. Seriously? You're STILL using that?

I can't live without my light sources!!! :teehee:

Remember you can get pretty similar results by mixing textures, filters and normal maps.

Like for example this: http://cl.ly/3u2Z3Y0L0k1s1G3H2O1L/view.jpg
Is just a grain filter replacement. They're vanilla textures, and still look pretty good.

That does look pretty good. I suppose I haven't done enough playing around with it, I always figured the distant landscape was so bad that anything less than the largest textures wouldn't look good, but I obviously need to reconsider!

Your adventures do not inspire me - they remind me of the days when I tried the same and was beat down relentlessly in failure. I think you could maybe run QTPIII and 4096 textures if that was all you were running - and then you'd still need the latest graphics card.

I think it's the fact that I've never read anyone hitting this level of vram usage that makes me skeptical and wonder there might be some mysterious issue. I mean, I'm using Redimized, and hitting 1500 mb. Maybe I just haven't read enough of others' trials but it just seems beyond normal to me.

EDIT: And also the ~300 mb difference between when I switched to Redimized and now. The only major things I've installed since then are MMM and a bunch of leveled list item mods, so I'm puzzled about why it's gone up.

Otherwise I'd just cut all the big stuff out and see where it gets me, but I wanted to post in case there's some secret texture memory leak or some rare thing only two people know about

» Wed Jun 29, 2011 3:33 am

Well, I switched to some smaller distant landscape textures, and it's helped a little bit. I do have some lingering issues:

I did the run to Chorrol, and as I approached it got up to 1200+ mb and the stuttering became unbearable once again. Except I'm wondering if the stuttering is caused by vram usage, or if MMM somehow hates my CPU. It seems that maybe the inter-factional fights going on destroy my performance exponentially as the NPCs or creatures increase. I really can't determine if it's the texture memory or this causing the stuttering. I disabled Enhanced Daedric Invasion a few days ago to lessen the load, but I'm not sure that's helped. I've got MMM at the lowest spawn rates, maybe it's just coincidental I notice these battles when vram usage is going through the roof, I don't know.

After running to Chorrol I fast traveled to Aleswell. After a quite stuttery few seconds looking out over the IC, my game crashed. I opened task manager to check memory usage, and Oblivion was using 2.4 gb. Is that right? I had been playing for 10-15 minutes. Started out in Chorrol, fast traveled to Weye, ran nearly all the way back to Chorrol, then fast traveled to Aleswell. I thought Oblivion only started using up that much memory after playing for a significant amount of time.

Something just doesn't seem right.

» Wed Jun 29, 2011 2:29 am

2.4 Gb does not seem that large for RAM usage. I noticed your Bashed Patch is F9, how close are you to the 400 Bsa,esp,esm file limit?

» Wed Jun 29, 2011 10:35 am

I already ran into that issue, heh, so I've got auto-ghosting on. CTDs seem unavoidable in my game at this point with my 250 mod load order.

I just thought it took longer to get to above 2 gb regular memory usage. In the past checking it it actually didn't seem to go much higher than 1.8 or so, I guess I haven't paid much attention since I installed the 4gb patch. But between that and still reaching 1200 mb vram usage with smaller distant landscape textures I feel like my game is leaking memory wherever it can heh

but everything's pointing to all of this being normal so I dunno

» Wed Jun 29, 2011 2:12 am

Palidoo-

Your adventures do not inspire me - they remind me of the days when I tried the same and was beat down relentlessly in failure. I think you could maybe run QTPIII and 4096 textures if that was all you were running - and then you'd still need the latest graphics card.

His (mis)adventures remind me of me as well when I insisted on running every last thing under the sun and then began cursing everything but my own mod greed for the game crashing. Yes, I tried to use FULL QTP3, 4096 LOD, and numerous ultra-high quality textures. My 1GB video card surrendered the fight, so I know the struggle well.

I think it's the fact that I've never read anyone hitting this level of vram usage that makes me skeptical and wonder there might be some mysterious issue. I mean, I'm using Redimized, and hitting 1500 mb. Maybe I just haven't read enough of others' trials but it just seems beyond normal to me.

This was me, not all that long ago. Only I was being double stupid back then and trying to run even MORE on a 768MB card, then later on a 1GB card. I finally bit the bullet and went with the 2GB card. I can still raise the memory use to 1100-1200 or so easily but the difference is now it doesn't bother anything. I also use OSR with a large heap size, so system memory doesn't bother me anymore either. None of which would have been a realistic possibility on a 32 bit setup with a 1GB card.

You have two choices:

1. Spend some cash and get a 2GB card. Be careful to make SURE you're not being duped by 2x cards that say 2GB on the box but really only have 1GB of actual rendering memory.

2. Cut down on the mods. You have nearly 100 more than I did when I ran into my problems. No doubt the LAA patch has allowed you to get away with this for some time, but there's only so much OSR can do before it too gives up the fight.