Drivers & Software

[carclis]

I've been monitoring usage in general since obtaining a Radeon VII and found that the software is reporting very high amounts of VRAM usage. Whilst it's not an issue to use a lot of it as the card has 16GB I'm also noticing that only some of it is being freed up when a game session is closed. For instance I have attached a screenshot that shows my usage at 29GB which is approaching 200% of the size of the framebuffer. It's also noteworthy that after closing the game it was still around 20GB and it only took launching the game and closing it 6 times to achieve this. Is this an issue with the software reporting the usage or the actual usage itself? The game I tested was Apex Legends as it is a VRAM hog but I have also observed the same behaviour with Assassin's Creed Odyssey.

My system
Ryzen Threadripper 2950X
MSI X399 Gaming Pro Carbon AC
32GB G.Skill Trident Z memory at 3200Mhz
Radeon VII

Gigabyte Aorus Xtreme Waterforce 1080ti (it's part of the custom loop but not in use)
Samsung 950 Pro 500GB (OS drive)
Samsung 970 Evo 500GB

Samsung 840 Evo 500GB

WD Black 2TB
HGST Deskstar 6TB
WD Red 10TB
Corsair AX1600i

I should also mention that I'm using Windows 10 64 version 1803 and I'm using the latest Radeon driver 19.2.2. I've wiped all of my drivers using DDU which also includes the old Nvidia drivers and I've also tried wiping the 19.2.2 drivers again to no avail.

Update: So apparently MSI Afterburner shows a different VRAM usage and seems to show the framebuffer emptying after a game session is closed. This suggests that either the Radeon Performance Monitor is broken or just not working properly for Radeon VII.

[goodplay]

Can't help with your issue, but maybe including 'VII' in your topic title might draw more attention for this new product.

[carclis]

Thanks for the reply. So after some testing and referring to another that has the same card we've discovered that MSI Afterburner reports the VRAM usage correctly but Radeon's own software doesn't. So the title is probably more relevant as it is =)

[Ray_AMD]

Will be glad to help out, but we need some more information. 

In order to better understand it, can you provide more information about your hardware configuration - some suggestions can be found here : Read This First 

[carclis]

Thanks for your response. I've updated the original post now but here are some additional details:

My system
Ryzen Threadripper 2950X
MSI X399 Gaming Pro Carbon AC
32GB G.Skill Trident Z memory at 3200Mhz
Radeon VII

Gigabyte Aorus Xtreme Waterforce 1080ti (it's part of the custom loop but not in use)
Samsung 950 Pro 500GB (OS drive)
Samsung 970 Evo 500GB

Samsung 840 Evo 500GB

WD Black 2TB
HGST Deskstar 6TB
WD Red 10TB
Corsair AX1600i

I should also mention that I'm using Windows 10 64 bit, version 1803 and I'm using the latest Radeon driver 19.2.2. I've wiped all of my drivers using DDU which also includes the old Nvidia drivers and I've also tried wiping the 19.2.2 drivers again to no avail.

[Ray_AMD]

All our drivers are qualified against the latest Windows build. Can you try updating to the 1809 build and see if that helps?

We are also looking into the issue at our end.

[carclis]

I was hoping to avoid pushing Windows to update manually as it opts you into Beta releases but I have done so anyways to do further testing. What I've found is no change though.

If you would like to try and replicate my issue my testing methodology is as follows:

Step 1>Take "initial" VRAM reading at the Windows desktop using Radeon Performance Monitor.

Step 2>Launch Origin.
Step 3>Launch Apex Legends.
Step 4>Wait at main menu until the player level badge appears and then launch training mode.
Step 5>Once loaded in sprint straight ahead and then slide until you reach the bottom of the hill.
Step 6>Take "load" VRAM reading once you reach the first stone pillar.
Step 7>Close Apex Legends.
Step 8>Take "idle" VRAM reading.
Step 9>Repeat steps 3-8.

This produced the following results for me:
Initial: 0.38GB

Load1: 8.2GB
Idle1: 3.3GB
Load2: 11GB
Idle2: 6.2GB
Load3: 14GB
Idle3: 9GB
Load4: 17GB
Idle4: 12GB
Load5: 20GB
Idle5: 15GB

Note that the VRAM usage also remained at 15GB after the Origin game launcher was closed and using MSI Afterburner would produce a reading of 483MB.

[renoxdeception]

It would be nice if performance stats showed actual VRAM usage rather than allocated VRAM (might be wrong on how this is reported, correct me if I'm wrong).