Maxed out GPU memory usage issue

[tiaanjvr]

Hi. I seem to have an issue with my GPU. I currently have a GeForce GTX 960 4gb OC card, about 3 years old. I started running MSI afterburner some months ago during gameplay just for interests sake and I could see my GPU using about 2000 to 3000 memory during gameplay. At the time of the game playthroughs where I would notice the 2000 to 3000 GPU memory usage the games I played had garphical settings of medium to high, so some settings I didn't care about would be set to medium and things like textures to high. No real Ultra game settings as it would overwork the card.

Recently with newer released game titles (and bare in mind they state minimum system requirements to be around 2gb for GPU) and even older games that are continuously updated by devs seems to have my GPU working at max capacities which causes crashes due to low memory. I can observe the GPU memory usage on afterburner and its maxed at about 4040ish memory. This is even when I set everything to low. I now have to play games I used to be able to play at max settings at low settings because my GPU cant handle the it?

I have all drivers updated, no background applications apart from Steam running during gameplay. GPU temp is stable at 50 degrees Celsius even when its using ALL its memory.

My questions is might the GPU be faulty? Is it just time for an upgrade? It just baffles me that companies would state that the minimum requirements for gamplay is 2gb for GPU's but in my case I change all settings on its lowest and my GPU uses all its memory and causes crashes. I look forward to some insight on this issue.

Regards Tiaan

 

[Lutfij]

You may want to uninstall and reinstall your Nvidia PU drivers and give it a second go with the games. Speaking of games, what are the titles you're taxing the card with? Please don't include n etc. in that answer. For the sake of relevance, can you include your full system's specs like so:
Chassis:
Motherboard:
Ram:
SSD/HDD:
GPU:
PSU:
Chassis:
OS:

Are you on the latest BIOS update for your motherboard? By crash do you mean, exiting to desktop or simply a system reboot?

 

[RobCrezz]

Can you see what is using up all the vram? Is it affecting your performance in the game?

Ideally you want the game to use all of your vram just so it doesnt have to keep loading data from storage or system ram.

 

[kerberos_20]

im playing with 1060 3GB so far no issues
high texture resolution/texture quality have high impact on gpu ram usage alongside with antialiasing/anisotrpic filtering
if your gpu doesnt have enough ram, it will use system ram (around 15.5GB transfer rate due to pcie)

those "2gb" minimum is for lowest setting possible at around 30fps

with which game titles u have issues?

 

[tiaanjvr]

Answering first two responses in one.

@Lutfij

Titles I have played with no issues at high settings previously include Assassins Creed Origins, Battlefield 1, Rust, Player Unknown Battlegrounds, Far Cry 5, Middle Earth Shadow of War.

Recent Titles giving me problems at low settings are Rend, Scum, Rust, Assasins Creed Origins, Middle Earth Shadow of War.

My current Specs are the following
CPU - Intel i7 4790
RAM - Corsair Vengence 16gb DDR3 2666mghz
PSU - Huntkey Jumper 500w
Motherboard - Gigabyte Z97X Gaming 3
SSD - Kingston 256gb
HDD - 1tb Western Digital from which I have all but one title stored on. PUBG is the only game on my SSD
OS - Win 10 home 64bit

I am totally unaware of BIOS drivers update methods. I will probably find a post in forums on how to proceed with that?

Crashing meaning the games crash back to desktop with an error message stating too low video memory.

@RobCrezz

Unfortunately I have no way of seeing what uses my vram. I have all other applications closed unless there are certain background applications that use vram? I do see stuttering in game when vram is maxed out. Almost like massive drops in frames, followed by a short freeze and a crash back to desktop with the message of too little video memory.

 

[kerberos_20]

can your run dxdiag than click on display and either link picture from it here or click on save system info and link it ?

 

[tiaanjvr]

@kerberos_20

I ended up reinstalling Nvidia drivers as well as updating my BIOS. That seems to have fixed the issue. Thanks though

 

[RobCrezz]

If it comes back do a malware scan with Malwarebytes, often it can be a cryptocoin miner malware consuming your gpu resources.