GTX 980 - abnormally high VRAM usage/poor performance

[Deflodocus]

Hi friends

I'm experiencing some issues getting decent performance out of my GTX980 when playing GTA V (didn't see that coming, did you?).

In a nutshell, the main issue is constant and substantial FPS drops (from the desired 60 as low as 32-40). I have attempted playing the game using the same settings as a friend (the only difference between our systems being he has a GTX 680) and while he gets a smooth 60 fps, my rig can barely handle it.

I noticed something last night with the VRAM usage on the card. I changed my graphics settings so that GTA V is only using 2200mb of the available 4000mb VRAM (according to the game's menu). I did some tests and monitored my card with GPU-Z. It said the card was using 3200-3300mb of the VRAM which (I think) it shouldn't be doing.

(My CPU usage does not go above 70%. GPU usage occasionally goes as high as 97% but that occurs even on lower graphics settings and does not correlate with the comparatively low memory loads.)

Would anyone know if that strange VRAM usage reading indicates a problem with the card?

Alternatively, I would appreciate it if anyone could suggest any troubleshooting steps I might undertake in order to correctly identify the source of these performance issues.

My system
- Windows 7 64-bit
- Gigabyte GA-Z77X-UD5H
- i7 3770K (3.5ghz @ 3.9ghz (built in turbo)
- 16gb DDR3 RAM
- GTX 980 4GB
- Game installed on Samsung EV 850* SSD

(*I think that's the model.)

NB. I have the latest Nvidia drivers (350.12) (for which I have performed a clean re-installation) and am using the 'optimised' (ha!) settings suggested by Geforce Experience.

Also, I need to confirm this when I get home (yay for being at work) but is it possible that using an SSD connected to a SATA 3.0 gb/s (as opposed to a 6 gb/s port) would have any impact on performance?

Thanks for reading.

Kind regards,

Adam

(Edit: I apologise if this post should have been included in the GTX-900 series megathread; I didn't notice it before I posted.)

 

[Darkbreeze]

Actually, it's not a megathread issue, so you posted in the correct place. I'll make this fairly brief. EVERYBODY is experiencing issues with GTA V. In fact, I'm almost certain, judging by the number of threads I alone have responded to , that there isn't ANYBODY who isn't having issues. It's pretty clear that there are some SERIOUS buggy code issues going on that are going to require patching. Until this is addressed by Rockstar or NVidia decides it's due to poor driver support and drops another new GTA V targeted driver version on us, I really don't see there's much that can be done right now.

As far as the drive performance being a factor, pretty doubtful, since drive performance whether good or bad, generally doesn't present a tremendous effect on gaming performance. Now if you were running the installation off a power saving drive like one of WD's Red or Green drives, there might be some issues, but any decent desktop HDD or SSD should not be a factor regardless of whether it's connected to SATA II, III, PCIe or SATAe.

 

[Deflodocus]

Thank you kindly. Better go do something more constructive with my time until then!

 

[Darkbreeze]

I haven't yet, but you might want to go check Rockstar's website to see if any patches HAVE been released yet. It's doubtful since it's so new, but it's always possible with so many issues going on.