Out of VRAM?

Roflcat · February 23, 2013

Hey all,

Let me first say that I'm a huge fan of STEP! Â :DÂ I got into it at the 2.2.0 release. Â I did a fresh install for the 2.2.1 version and everything went very smoothly. Â However usually after ~1hr of play some of the textures in my game turn blue/purple or black, and eventually it CTDs. Normally I would assume I have too many high-res textures loaded (I went all 2048x), but is that really the case? Â I don't get frequent stuttering. Â Why does the corruption only build up over time? Â Doesn't Skyrim unload resources it doesn't need anymore? Â Why didn't this happen on my 2.2.0 based installation? Â What can I do to troubleshoot the issue? Â

Here is my setup and other info:

PC specs:

-win 7 64-bit

-i5-3970k @4.2Ghz

-8GB Ram (can't remember the specs of this sorry)

-Gigabyte GTX 670 OC'ed to some degree

-p8z77-v pro mobo

-750W corsair power supply

-The game is running on a HDD but my OS is running on an SSD

Game Specs:

-1920x1080 @ ultra all draw distances max no FXAA no AA no AF

-filtering LOD bias set to clamp in NVcontrol panel, all other settings default (texture filtering is high quality globally)

-installed S.T.E.P. version 2.2.1 from a clean game + some other mods not included in STEP (see list below), used texture pack combiner + 90% of optional texture mods supported by the combiner, always choosing up to 2048x where possible

-INI is default + S.T.E.P. tweaks

-Running Phinix ENB which uses an SMAA hook and handles AF

Mod list:

Reveal hidden contents

Realistic Lighting, non-leveled items and the divine punishment mod are disabled everything else is enabled.

NiennaNenmacil · February 25, 2013

I use Wrye Bash. I used NMM for a long time before I found S.T.E.P., then when I reverted to a clean install I figured I should learn how to work Wrye Bash.

I decided to follow S.T.E.P. and start from scratch because of my instability issues in my previous game. Now that I think about it, I had this problem back then, too, although it was actually much more frequent.

torminater · February 25, 2013

Same goes for me. Just updated my signature, since I hang around a lot in the support forum xD

Braddertt · February 26, 2013

Very interesting. I did 2 rough tests with my new Wrye Bash install.

First off, I played normally for about 2 hours. Now this is somewhat close to the time range when I get a purple mesh/texture crash. About 30-45 minutes longer though. No purple or black textures/meshes.

Secondly, I ran from Markarth to Windhelm, loading as many exterior worldspaces as possible and occasionally entering an interior to check for purple and black textures. All was good and clean.

This is great and I'm pretty excited about being able to play the game in all of its 2048x glory. However I really would like to do a 3+ hour session to really check this out and absolutely make sure that no more problems exist. I'll try to fit it in some time this week.

NiennaNenmacil · February 26, 2013

I think I'm going to try downgrading some of my texture files today. I have a fair number of 4k textures, most notably in the trees, maybe capping at 2k will see an improvement?

Update: There was not really any discernable difference, either in performance or in stability after reducing my 4K textures.

Roflcat · February 27, 2013

I might play around with some of my settings, particularly mods that I suspect might cause the issue, such as DistantDetailHF.Â I may also try DDSOpt but that's a last resort I doubt it would fix anything.

DoYouEvenModBro · February 27, 2013

Post has been deleted

torminater · February 27, 2013

Quote
It's the largecellreference count INI edit. Try removing it and see if that still happens. I don't know why it happens but I'm fairly certain it is the problem.

That sounds interesting. Good idea!

Roflcat · March 3, 2013

Turns out my game is hitting 3.1 GB of memory usage. Does explain why CTDs tend to happen shortly after I start to see texture bugs. I'll consider this "solved" and follow the main thread regarding this issue.

NiennaNenmacil · March 3, 2013

I just wanted to update again, as I appear to have found the stability I was looking for.

1: I started using a program called CleanMem at the suggestion of this fix on the Nexus: https://skyrim.nexusmods.com/mods/32363

You tell the program which application to clear the memory cache from and how often you'd like it to run. It appears to be working as evidenced by the graphs produced from my Skyrim Performance Monitor. I still experienced crashes and missing textures however, so it appears that memory was not my problem. If you are certain that the RAM usage is the cause of your crashes though, this may help.

2: I decided to test my game after removing both the official high res DLC and it's respective unofficial patch and my texture pack combiner file. After that my crashes stopped and I did not experience any missing textures. I put the texture pack combiner file back in and still experienced no crashes. So it seems that having the high res DLC, either by itself or in combination with my other high res textures is what was causing my instability. With both of them together, my VRAM was pretty much consistently at it's max, and it has decreased significantly after disabling the DLC.

My crashes appeared to become more random, both in when and where they happened, and I couldn't find anything to tie them together, which is what led me to test my textures. I can't say for sure if the problem was with the DLC itself, or if it was having it with the TPC that caused my VRAM to max. I don't really care to test it however, since the TPC with the remainder of STEP replaces most textures anyway with a better resolution. I was able to play last night for over 3 hours with zero crashing and zero textures missing. My previous longest play session was 1h20min, so I'm quite satisfied at this point.

Neovalen · March 3, 2013

Thanks for sharing your experience.

Roflcat · March 4, 2013

Quote
I just wanted to update again, as I appear to have found the stability I was looking for.

1: I started using a program called CleanMem at the suggestion of this fix on the Nexus: https://skyrim.nexusmods.com/mods/32363

You tell the program which application to clear the memory cache from and how often you'd like it to run. It appears to be working as evidenced by the graphs produced from my Skyrim Performance Monitor. I still experienced crashes and missing textures however, so it appears that memory was not my problem. If you are certain that the RAM usage is the cause of your crashes though, this may help.

2: I decided to test my game after removing both the official high res DLC and it's respective unofficial patch and my texture pack combiner file. After that my crashes stopped and I did not experience any missing textures. I put the texture pack combiner file back in and still experienced no crashes. So it seems that having the high res DLC, either by itself or in combination with my other high res textures is what was causing my instability. With both of them together, my VRAM was pretty much consistently at it's max, and it has decreased significantly after disabling the DLC.

My crashes appeared to become more random, both in when and where they happened, and I couldn't find anything to tie them together, which is what led me to test my textures. I can't say for sure if the problem was with the DLC itself, or if it was having it with the TPC that caused my VRAM to max. I don't really care to test it however, since the TPC with the remainder of STEP replaces most textures anyway with a better resolution. I was able to play last night for over 3 hours with zero crashing and zero textures missing. My previous longest play session was 1h20min, so I'm quite satisfied at this point.

To be honest I'm not 100% sure missing textures had anything to do with hitting the RAM limit, but my crashes were always a result of hitting over 3GB of RAM usage.Â Since I last posted, I have downloaded optimized HRDLC as loose files, DISABLED the HRDLC esps, and put my old texture configuration over the top of the optimized HRDLC files.Â I also disabled more interactive items.Â Unfortunately I can't say if this actually helped at all, I'm loading into Riverwood at 2.1GB, some areas are more RAM intensive than others (Windhelm getting me up to 2.6GB) so if anyone knows the best spot to see if I'm still going to hit the RAM limit without having to play for hours, let me know.

Nshell · March 4, 2013

go to riften thru the forest from Ivarstead. this as been always the worst areas for me, regarding performance hit.

fox · March 11, 2013

I have also been having this problem recently.

- STEP 2.2.1, plus Texture Pack Combiner (with SRO) using 1k or 2k textures, and a few other non-graphical mods that my girlfriend wanted to install, like Convenient Horses and some **** where you get a pet fox or something

- ENB 0.155 and Phinix ENB

- Ultra in the launcher, but no AA/AF (PNENB handles the AA)

- 1920x1080

- Radeon 7950 3GB with 13.2 driver

- i5 760 @ 3.8 GHz

- 8GB RAM

- Skyrim installed on Crucial M4 SSD

- Hearthfire, Bethesda textures, no other DLC

- Unofficial patches

- NMM

- BOSS

Prior to crashing I often get purple/black textures, then a CTD not long afterwards. Frame rate is always fine, however, even prior to a CTD, and my video card fans/temps indicate that it's not struggling terribly. It nearly always crashes when I try and enter my Hearthfire house, and it also happened time after time trying to get into the Dawnstar sanctuary for the DB quest. Other than that it seems fairly random.

Skyrim Performance Monitor reports GPU usage between 80-100% normally, with VRAM at 2.8GB or below. It doesn't *seem* to be crashing due to hitting 3GB of VRAM, or at least that doesn't seem to be happening every time. But I can't be certain.

If I delete the Data folder from the TPC the crashes stop. I have not yet tried removing the Bethesda textures and retaining the TPC folder, but I'll give this a go.

What else should I try?

DoYouEvenModBro · March 12, 2013

Post has been deleted

Roflcat · March 13, 2013

Yeah, although it seems if you are using 3GB of VRAM you are also likely to be using over 3GB of system memory due to Skyrim storing textures in VRAM and system RAM at the same time. I downsized all my textures larger than 2048x and DXT compressed everything and disabled some mods a week ago and I haven't seen the game go over 2.6GB yet.

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