Probably memory leak - Cyberpunk

[Alex_Rodriges]

Hey there I'm new here and I don't know if I'm writing this in the right session. So please let me know if I need to send this message in another place.

I'm playing Cyberpunk 2077 since the launch on PC. I have an RTX 2060 and actually never found bugs or performance issues during my gameplays, until patch 1.5 was launched.

After a few minutes of gameplay fps drops from 40 to 15~20fps with no reason. Besides, if I open the game map, doesn't matter if I just started the gameplay, fps instantly drops to 10-17fps and wont go back to 40 unless I restart the game. It is important to say that it only happens when I'm using Ray Tracing.

I jus want CDPR to be aware of this problem, in the hope they'll eventually fix it.

Here a photo before I open the game map, after 5 minutes gameplay:

And below a print after 15 minutes gameplay, right after I opened the game map:

 

[dampflokfreund]

This has been an issue since day 1 and it will likely never get fixed due to how the engine works.

If you want to use Raytracing on your 2060, you have to lower texture quality to medium or even low. Even medium will unfortunately have memory leaks in longer sessions especially in that little china market area.

With Patch 1.5 I feel like RT is more VRAM hungry now than ever before.

 

[andrewdilley]

This has been an issue since day 1 and it will likely never get fixed due to how the engine works.

If you want to use Raytracing on your 2060, you have to lower texture quality to medium or even low. Even medium will unfortunately have memory leaks in longer sessions especially in that little china market area.

With Patch 1.5 I feel like RT is more VRAM hungry now than ever before.

Well, in 1.5 (hotfix) I'm able to drive my RTX 2060 at 1440p with high textures, ray-tracing fully on including local shadows, lighting at ultra. So far been getting steady 30 fps, which trust me is GREAT compared to how it was. So OK, to get that I have DLSS at utra-performance ;-) but I like it. DLSS sharpness at 0.0 as it happens, I'm not sure I've noticed much impact from that.

Might be pushing it in that market though, always struggled there.

Using medium textures does seem to sort the fps drop when using map etc, but it really looks worse, so I'm living with a sluggish map for now.

EDIT: OK I can see a bit of benefit in the DLSS sharpness. Also realised I had LOD turned down to Medium, must have been from ages ago when it didn't work - now it does! I hadn't even noticed but it gives a couple more fps to play with.

 

[Oropher3]

I am affraid it is not a memory leak, but simply the memory it needs in order to provide you with raytracing.
It also happens on my 2080 Super after playing a while.
The memory typically overflows when visiting crowded area's, which seems rational as they are using a high variety of textures.
So, maybe general memory usage has gone up a bit with the latest patch, and yeah it's really sad that owners of 8 GB cards actually have to either disable RT or set texture to medium.
And textures on medium can look really shitty in some scenes.
Another solution might be like the user above, to set the DLSS renderer to Ultra-performance, which in my opinion isn't worth the sacrifice.

 

[Alex_Rodriges]

I'd like to share my workaround. I downgraded my OS from Windows 11 to Windows 10 and the problem looks be gone. Until now, no instabilities.

 

[Oropher3]

I'd like to share my workaround. I downgraded my OS from Windows 11 to Windows 10 and the problem looks be gone. Until now, no instabilities.

Could very well be that WIndows 10 has a smaller memory footprint.
However, even on my 2080 Super with 8 GB i encountered severe fps drops when RT was enabled, although i have to say most parts of the game were playable with RT on.
My fps has always plummeted whenever there were huge crowds and/or in marketplaces.
The amount of RT-effects in those area's rises alot and creates this memory bottleneck with 8 GB VRAM in conjunction with high textures BUT i do play at 1440p resolution.
Could be this is no longer an issue with DLSS at 1080p.

 

[northwold]

Could very well be that WIndows 10 has a smaller memory footprint.
However, even on my 2080 Super with 8 GB i encountered severe fps drops when RT was enabled, although i have to say most parts of the game were playable with RT on.
My fps has always plummeted whenever there were huge crowds and/or in marketplaces.
The amount of RT-effects in those area's rises alot and creates this memory bottleneck with 8 GB VRAM in conjunction with high textures BUT i do play at 1440p resolution.
Could be this is no longer an issue with DLSS at 1080p.

I don't think (well, I know he isn't) the OP is referring to frame rates dropping based on location, but to frame rates *permanently* dropping in certain instances. There is some sort of problem where certain changes of scene will trip up the frame rate and it then never restores, regardless of where you go next or what you do.

In my case, the frame rate can on occasion drop from 45FPS (capped) to 18FPS when I leave an indoor area to go outside, and simply stay there forever more. It is resolved either by going into settings and toggling raytraced shadows off and on (which doesn't always work) or reloading from the main menu, at which point everything is fine until it next happens.

This isn't simply a hardware not strong enough problem.

I've put in a ticket to CDPR but I don't expect this to be a priority problem as it doesn't brick the game.

 

[andrewdilley]

I am affraid it is not a memory leak, but simply the memory it needs in order to provide you with raytracing.
It also happens on my 2080 Super after playing a while.
The memory typically overflows when visiting crowded area's, which seems rational as they are using a high variety of textures.
So, maybe general memory usage has gone up a bit with the latest patch, and yeah it's really sad that owners of 8 GB cards actually have to either disable RT or set texture to medium.
And textures on medium can look really shitty in some scenes.
Another solution might be like the user above, to set the DLSS renderer to Ultra-performance, which in my opinion isn't worth the sacrifice.

It's interesting that it doesn't seem to matter how much Vram there is, the issue seems to arise in the same way. I'm on 6Gb, youre on 8Gb, but both seem to be hitting the same wall at some point. My gameplay doesn't get progressively worse as far as I can tell. As if the game is using as much Vram as it can, whether it's 6 or 8 Gb, but maybe pushing too hard in all cases.

 

[dampflokfreund]

There's a pretty reliable way to reproduce this:

Create a savestate in the Afterlife.

From the Afterlife walk to that market behind Tom's Diner and run a couple of rounds. Then reload the Afterlife savestate and do that procedure again. Repeat that a couple of times and watch your performance.

How often you need to repeat this to see a performance degradation depends on your VRAM, texture settings and if you have RT enabled or not.

For a 2060 laptop with all RT effects turned on and medium settings, I have found out the sweetspot to maintain a 30 FPS in that market is DLSS Performance at 1080p. Going over that, you will run into memory leaks. Which is a shame, before the patch I could use DLSS Performance at 1440p with medium textures and all RT effects while avoiding memory leaks and get a stable 30 FPS. The new patch definately increased VRAM usage and thus, this issue happens sooner even on cards with more VRAM. I believe with a 8 GB card, you could use high texture settings and RT, but after a while, performance degradation will definately happen too in VRAM intensive areas like that market, so medium textures would be recommended there as well.

The only solution for CDPR to fix this is to overhaul the texture streaming completely. They could utilize DX12 Ultimate's Sampler Feedback to drastically reduce VRAM consumption, that way high texture detail on 6 GB-8 GB cards would be possible with RT enabled without any memory leaks. But yeah that will take a huge amount of work for a free patch, so it's probably not happening.

 

[Georgie-Best]

This has been an issue since day 1 and it will likely never get fixed due to how the engine works.

If you want to use Raytracing on your 2060, you have to lower texture quality to medium or even low. Even medium will unfortunately have memory leaks in longer sessions especially in that little china market area.

With Patch 1.5 I feel like RT is more VRAM hungry now than ever before.

Isn't the RTX 2060 literally the card listed as the hardware required for the RT-medium preset at 1080p?

He also said that he hasn't had this issue UNTIL patch 1.5, so I'm not sure why you're talking about this being an issue since day one. Clearly something changed in patch 1.5 as there are lots of people having performance issues since then.

 

[dampflokfreund]

Isn't the RTX 2060 literally the card listed as the hardware required for the RT-medium preset at 1080p?

He also said that he hasn't had this issue UNTIL patch 1.5, so I'm not sure why you're talking about this being an issue since day one. Clearly something changed in patch 1.5 as there are lots of people having performance issues since then.

This indeed has been a issue since day 1, however as I said it's heavily dependend where you are in the game, your settings, your VRAM and how long you play. With this new patch, VRAM usage increased, so naturally that means people who were not noticing this issue before are now noticing it because it happens much earlier and more frequently than before.

If you have a 6 GB card and your VRAM allocation at the beginning was at say 4,6 GB before the patch, it of course reaches the 6 GB threshold much slower compared to patch 1.5 where your VRAM allocation at the beginning is already at 5.2 GB.

 

[Georgie-Best]

This indeed has been a issue since day 1, however as I said it's heavily dependend where you are in the game, your settings, your VRAM and how long you play. With this new patch, VRAM usage increased, so naturally that means people who were not noticing this issue before are now noticing it because it happens much earlier and more frequently than before.

If you have a 6 GB card and your VRAM allocation at the beginning was at say 4,6 GB before the patch, it of course reaches the 6 GB threshold much slower compared to patch 1.5 where your VRAM allocation at the beginning is already at 5.2 GB.

If VRAM usage flucates by several GB depending on where you are then that is poor optimisation.

The OP didn't say anything about the issue happening in certain VRAM intense areas either. VRAM usage increasing when you're in the same place is memory leak.

You also didn't address my point about him having the actual recommended specs direct from CDprojektRed. If that hardware isn't good enough they need to update their specs.

 

[super7382]

I am using a 3070 with 5600x and seeing the same issue. What I have noticed is that the game is using Shared GPU memory after using around 7.8 GB of the dedicated video memory. And since RAM is much slower than VRAM, it is causing the sudden massive fps drops to 20 fps. Not sure how to disable the shared memory.

 

[northwold]

I am using a 3070 with 5600x and seeing the same issue. What I have noticed is that the game is using Shared GPU memory after using around 7.8 GB of the dedicated video memory. And since RAM is much slower than VRAM, it is causing the sudden massive fps drops to 20 fps. Not sure how to disable the shared memory.

Do you know whether you have resizable bar set to on or off? I switched it on when it became available (RTX 3070 with an AMD 3800X) but I remember seeing what I thought were strange in game results at the time. It was so difficult to test given that you had to keep changing bios settings that I just left it on in the end and assumed I was dreaming.

 

[andrewdilley]

I am using a 3070 with 5600x and seeing the same issue. What I have noticed is that the game is using Shared GPU memory after using around 7.8 GB of the dedicated video memory. And since RAM is much slower than VRAM, it is causing the sudden massive fps drops to 20 fps. Not sure how to disable the shared memory.

I don't think I've heard of this shared memory option before. Is it motherboard-specific?

Post automatically merged: Feb 20, 2022

This indeed has been a issue since day 1, however as I said it's heavily dependend where you are in the game, your settings, your VRAM and how long you play. With this new patch, VRAM usage increased, so naturally that means people who were not noticing this issue before are now noticing it because it happens much earlier and more frequently than before.

If you have a 6 GB card and your VRAM allocation at the beginning was at say 4,6 GB before the patch, it of course reaches the 6 GB threshold much slower compared to patch 1.5 where your VRAM allocation at the beginning is already at 5.2 GB.

Not sure I go with the idea of there being a persistent memory leak being exposed by higher demands of 1.5, but the VRAM usage is cetainly high right from the get-go.

I've played for hours today (replaying The Heist, man it's so good now!) Visiting The Afterlife killed my fps lol, but on leaving with Jackie it went back to normal (30 fps for me). After that I went back to 1080p from 1440p, and with high textures, all ray-tracing options on including lighting at Ultra, and DLSS balanced. had solid 30 fps right through The Heist until waking up in my apartment. No issues using inventory (didn't need map).

Anyway, no sign of VRAM gradually filling up during this time, which is why I wonder about a leak - it rose and fell as normal I guess. But it started high and stayed high.

Post automatically merged: Feb 20, 2022

You also didn't address my point about him having the actual recommended specs direct from CDprojektRed. If that hardware isn't good enough they need to update their specs.

The 2060 is good enough.

 

[Georgie-Best]

The 2060 is good enough.

Fair enough. I have a 2060 super and play with the RT medium preset @ 1080p. I get acceptable performance for the most part but I'm not sure how much better the super is than the base 2060, and I have heard certain hardware struggles more since the 1.5 patch.

 

[Oropher3]

If VRAM usage flucates by several GB depending on where you are then that is poor optimisation.

The OP didn't say anything about the issue happening in certain VRAM intense areas either. VRAM usage increasing when you're in the same place is memory leak.

You also didn't address my point about him having the actual recommended specs direct from CDprojektRed. If that hardware isn't good enough they need to update their specs.

I did some further testing on my end and can simply conclude that the VRAM gradually goes up while you are in an area with alot of NPC's such as markets.
Just run around a couple of times and you get 25 fps.
However when i leave that area, VRAM usage goes back down and fps goes back up, so it definitely is not a leak, but just how the engine works, like someone else pointed out.
Now you call it bad optimisation that VRAM usage isn't constantly the same.
I can however confirm that almost no game out there has a constant amount of VRAM in use, it always fluctuates depending on the scene onscreen.
You could agree with the system requirements being wrong, or at least also the default settings being wrong, as the game enables all RT effects for me with textures to high.
With textures set to high i have area's with the said 25 fps.
With textures to medium i don't have this issue.
Furthermore, there are some games that just claim your videomemory as the budget to use, but what's actual in that amount of VRAM doesn't need to be the amount of VRAM claimed by the application.
In Cyberpunk's case, the amount of claimed VRAM seems to be similar to what's actually used, hence the variation in shown numbers.

 

[super7382]

Do you know whether you have resizable bar set to on or off? I switched it on when it became available (RTX 3070 with an AMD 3800X) but I remember seeing what I thought were strange in game results at the time. It was so difficult to test given that you had to keep changing bios settings that I just left it on in the end and assumed I was dreaming.

Yes I have it on. I have tested with Rebar off but nothing changed so kept it on.

Post automatically merged: Feb 20, 2022

I don't think I've heard of this shared memory option before. Is it motherboard-specific?

Post automatically merged: Feb 20, 2022

Not sure I go with the idea of there being a persistent memory leak being exposed by higher demands of 1.5, but the VRAM usage is cetainly high right from the get-go.

I've played for hours today (replaying The Heist, man it's so good now!) Visiting The Afterlife killed my fps lol, but on leaving with Jackie it went back to normal (30 fps for me). After that I went back to 1080p from 1440p, and with high textures, all ray-tracing options on including lighting at Ultra, and DLSS balanced. had solid 30 fps right through The Heist until waking up in my apartment. No issues using inventory (didn't need map).

Anyway, no sign of VRAM gradually filling up during this time, which is why I wonder about a leak - it rose and fell as normal I guess. But it started high and stayed high.

Post automatically merged: Feb 20, 2022

The 2060 is good enough.

No it is something that Windows does. It keeps half of total RAM as shareable by the gpu in case it runs out of VRAM. I also see that the VRAM hovers around 7.5 GB mark for my card but slowly that shared video memory also gets allocated and once the gpu starts using it then the massive frame drops occur.

 

[iCake]

Am affected by this issue now. The game runs ~60-80 at 1440p plus RT (DLSS) on 3070 Ti and then, boom, all of a sudden, it goes into 30-40s. Leaving that "bugged" area usually restores the framerate back to normal but sometimes it stays in that bugged state wherever I choose to go. This is where only a game restart helps.

Tested this on medium textures and was able to play for a few hours without the issue occurring. Nvidia... You should have put more RAM there. We told you 8 Gb was not going to be enough

Jokes aside, there was nothing like this on the previous game versions. Hopefully, this can be fixed by the devs down the line, or maybe by Nvidia with a driver update or something. Right now I'll be rocking those juicy medium textures then.

 

[andrewdilley]

Post automatically merged: Feb 20, 2022

No it is something that Windows does. It keeps half of total RAM as shareable by the gpu in case it runs out of VRAM. I also see that the VRAM hovers around 7.5 GB mark for my card but slowly that shared video memory also gets allocated and once the gpu starts using it then the massive frame drops occur.

Thanks for info. So it looks ike ReBar is only available on Nvidia 30 series? Certainly sounds like a mechanism which could cause the issues you've got though.