High VRAM use on Skyrim with NO mods

[kayte]

Hi guys. I've just bought a new video card ( Sapphire Dual-X R9-270X 2GB) because my old card only had 1GB vram and I was constanly hitting the limit. I've ruined a few level 50-60 games and thought I'd follow the STEP formula. I made a pristine Skyrim game and followed all the pre-install stuff exactly. I installed about 80% of the files and was really careful to make sure I followed the install order. I was very careful with the conflicting graphics except I couldn't get the HRTP or whatever. I only get 8Gig download a month so I skipped that. I didn't download any scripted or other textures etc. After I finished installing everything I started the game and instantly there was serious lag, stuttering and freezing. I  Also saw wavy lines across the screen, which got worse when turning while running. I ran Sky Performance Monitor and found I was hitting the VRAM limit right off. Memory was good, way under. I updated my drivers with no luck, and I've ununstalled all my mods and gone back to Pristine Skyrim again. Now with NO mods or texture packs installed, I ran Performance monitor, and I'm hitting just over 1,100 VRAM right up. What the heck is up with that? Any ideas? I'm so disappointed :(

 

Gigabyte Z77MX-D3H

Intel i5 2500K 3.30GHZ

8G KingstonX Blue

Sapphire Dual-X R9.270X 2G

Win 7 Pro SP 1.

1T Seagate HD

[torminater]

Uhm. Have you used the correct texture sizes? 1k? Have you tested your gfx whether it actually works correctly under stress?

[kayte]

Thankyou for reply. I have No textures right now, no mods. I used 2k when I installed STEP. My 1G card ran them ok till I broke my game with adding a few too many mods. It was running really stable at one time with 174 mods and using uGrids=7. I no longer mess with uGrids but it was stable untill I got ridiculous and added a bunch more mods. I'm still learning the "ropes" with modding my game :D I was using some performance boosting programs as well tho.

How would I test the gfx? I ran around a bit on Witcher 2 to see how it went and was a bit stuttery but not as bad as Skyrim. I had flawless performance with my old card (Radeon HD 6870 1G).

[torminater]

I'ld get ready for sending your card in if I were you. There are several stress test utilities for gfx like unigine heaven or burn fur sth. If your gfx performs worse than your old one it might have a hardware issue

[phazer11]

By chance what resolution are you playing at?

[kayte]

I'ld get ready for sending your card in if I were you. There are several stress test utilities for gfx like unigine heaven or burn fur sth. If your gfx performs worse than your old one it might have a hardware issue

:(  I have been trying to sort the problem out since I got the card. Thanks I'll try to get one of the stress test programs.

 

I installed the latest skse with the memory patch and it is definitely less stuttery but still using over 1,000 VRAM with no mods. It starts at about 300 then gets to over 1,000 really quick just running along the road to Wndhelm. I'll try making a new game. I downloaded a save from Nexus.

[kayte]

By chance what resolution are you playing at?

Resolution 1910X1080

---

I downloaded "Heaven" but it really didn't enlighten me much. The stuttering wasn't too obvious, but the lines acoss the screen and flickering were there. I have no idea about what the score means.

 

Vsync Off

Quality Ultra

Tesselation Extreme

8XAA

Fullscreen

Min FPS 14.6

Max 42.8

Score 552

 

Vsync On

Quality Ultra

Tess Extreme

8 X AA

Fullscreen Min FPS 7.00

Max 60.8

Score 701

[phazer11]

Hmm... it might just be your card then. Try downloading furmark and resetting your clockspeeds to factory if you've OC'ed it. Run furmark when you do and see if it crashes or bluescreens after idk say five minutes or less.

[kayte]

Hmm... it might just be your card then. Try downloading furmark and resetting your clockspeeds to factory if you've OC'ed it. Run furmark when you do and see if it crashes or bluescreens after idk say five minutes or less.

Thanks for reply :) No It's not overclocked, I've never gone down that road. It's a little over my head :D I think I'll go back to using my old Radeon HD 6870, at least it worked properly :(

[Freyrgjurd]

Test it with other games. Old ones.

 

Mass Effect 3 or World of Warcraft. They tend to push VRAM to 1k MAX.

 

If you still have problems, do a clean OS install and the basic stuff.

If you keep having bloating VRAM problems, RMA the card.

 

Lately, I've seen comments about having 4Gb ram, and getting all used up quickly. It is to my knowledge that a chunck in % gets used based on the available memory.

 

But test it and RMA it. You should be worried if you have performance problems.

[phazer11]

I'd really try testing it with Furmark or MSI's version Kombustor. If the problem is the graphics card itself then that's probably your fastest route to determining it.

[kayte]

Test it with other games. Old ones.

 

Mass Effect 3 or World of Warcraft. They tend to push VRAM to 1k MAX.

 

If you still have problems, do a clean OS install and the basic stuff.

If you keep having bloating VRAM problems, RMA the card.

 

Lately, I've seen comments about having 4Gb ram, and getting all used up quickly. It is to my knowledge that a chunck in % gets used based on the available memory.

 

But test it and RMA it. You should be worried if you have performance problems.

 

 

The only other demanding game I have is Witcher 2. I tried running around in that and it was better as far as the flickering and stuff went but I don't know how much VRAM it used. I tried CPU-Z but couldn't work out how to get it to monitor in game. I'm thinking of taking the card back where I bought it. I'm over it. three weeks trying to troubleshoot.  I just want to put my mods back on and play. :( Thanks for your help.

 

 

[phazer11]

Well, the rub is that you've opened the card and taken it out of it's packaging. In most cases the best you could hope for is them letting you exchange it for an identical card. What will likely happen is they'll say sorry and you'll have to RMA it to get the company to fix it.

[kayte]

Well' date=' the rub is that you've opened the card and taken it out of it's packaging. In most cases the best you could hope for is them letting you exchange it for an identical card. What will likely happen is they'll say sorry and you'll have to RMA it to get the company to fix it.[/quote']

Thanks, I'll take it back.