[0.15.34] Strange video memory usage

Jon8RFC · Post by **Jon8RFC** » Sun Aug 27, 2017 7:44 am

Not sure if it's a bug, a fluke with GPU-Z, or a chance for optimization. The memory usage drops by half if I tinker with my monitor setup. I only noticed this because my game crashed for other reasons and I decided to look at memory usage:

Code: Select all

6079.152 d3d_create_textures: Unable to create video texture (no render-to-texture).

6079.153 d3d_create_textures: Unable to create video texture.

6079.161 Error Util.cpp:62: Unable to create sprite (1280X800) probably not enough of video memory.

Windows 7 Pro x64
HD5870 1gig
2 monitors

When using alt+enter, it seems like the video memory or cache gets flushed as some normal process. I see it dip briefly, then rise back up and the game reappears when the sprites are reloaded, according to the factorio log. Nothing acts unusual there.

However, it seems that unplugging or plugging in a second monitor forces a full refresh and purge of the video memory/cache. It doesn't matter if I plug in the second monitor, unplug it, or cycle back and forth multiple times, so long as Windows recognizes the event. It can be done in a loaded save, or at the menu screen before loading a save.
What appears in the log is simply:

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Device reset external.

See GPU-Z before and after. I don't see my system memory usage drop drastically, and couldn't notice my pagefile usage change, but GPU-Z still shows that the dynamic memory drops heavily from 3596megs total usage down to 1755megs total usage. So it appears to be using twice as much memory when it doesn't need to...is this accurate? I'm not nearly as technically-inclined as you all, but I'm curious if it has something to do with raw graphics assets not being flushed out after it parses everything and converts into specific graphics tiles (or whatever it's called). I tested on normal sprite resolution and it appears to have benefited from the monitor cycling as well. After testing on a few other games, the difference on those games was negligible (about 3%), so I'm inclined to think that it's not a fluke.

Before:

: Before; Screenshot_2017-08-27__02.09.51.PNG (1.63 MiB) Viewed 2431 times

After:

: After; Screenshot_2017-08-27__02.10.21.PNG (1.64 MiB) Viewed 2431 times

Config

Post by **kovarex** » Mon Aug 28, 2017 3:39 pm

In 0.15, the factorio on high res uses something around 2GB for its data, it can't be less really.
This behaviour might be related to either bad reporting, or the weird bug report you get about the graphics card.

I strongly suggest not running factorio on high resolution with this graphics card.

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[0.15.34] Strange video memory usage

[0.15.34] Strange video memory usage

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