Need More Info Help me understand Estimated GPU Usage

[Vashonn]

I ran a few tests this evening pertaining to the Estimated GPU memory usage bar in the performance tab of settings, specifically to see if fiddling with the settings in a particular way would make it so that I could have the most visually appealing experience with as little performance drop as possible. However, reading what it tells me is confusing, and I'm willing to admit that I'm certainly no tech wizard, so the answer to this may have just flown over my head due to my technical ignorance.
I recorded the GPU usage for the low, medium, and a custom setting, which were as follows:

• Low: 1559MB
• Medium: 1884MB
• Custom: 1719MB

How I attained the Custom setting can be found here:

Spoiler: Custom

• Set the overall setting to Very High (2500+MB)
• Set texture streaming to Low
• Set anti-aliasing to Temporal SMAAx2
• Disabled DoF, Screen Space Reflection, Tesselation, Film Grain, and Motion Blur

My reasoning for this was that I found that adjusting the quality and detail settings had little or no effect on the estimated GPU usage, and that the only substantial tax to my GPU was with texture streaming and the various visual modifiers at the bottom of the settings.

My GPU has a cap of 1997MB.
Next, I ran three custom battles of 60v40 on each of these settings, recording the FPS that I received, while guestimating the average throughout the battle.
The first battle, on Low settings, was almost a perfect 60fps the entire time, only dropping a bit when I first engaged the enemy and began dealing/receiving damage.
The second battle, on Medium settings, averaged out at about 30-35fps throughout the actual conflict, dropping to about 20fps intermittently. Nothing ideal for me, but doable.
The third battle, on Custom settings, averaged 20fps the entire time, and I experienced a lot more choppiness throughout.

I'm wondering, then, why is my FPS dropping when the estimated GPU usage is lower in Custom than it is in Medium, but I'm getting worse performance? What settings should I be looking at to alleviate my problem?

 

[drallim33]

1. It's only an estimate, actual amount used can be very different.

2. It is only an estimate of VRAM usage, not of fps.

Basically it will make very little difference unless you exceed the amount of VRAM that your graphics card has, if you have a 2GB card you want to always stay under 2GB of VRAM usage or you might get stuttering or bad performance as data is swapped in and out from main system memory.

So it's like you either have enough, or you don't have enough. It's not a smooth gradient. Everything is ok until you go over the limit then you fall off a cliff.

As for which settings to lower to increase performance, all the settings will have a small effect, some more than others and depending on your system. You just have to experiment to find a balance you're happy with.

 

[Kimmaz]

My game estimates that I use 2544mb, yet peek VRAM usage according to afterburner is 5700mb. The estimate is only an estimate. This is my settings if that matters:

The red number "MAX 5790" above the 5th graph is Peak VRAM usage. it is not always that high but its usually higher than the estimate.

I don't mind, as long as it stays below 8gb usage I am fine!

 

[Zwijn]

it keeps my 3600 with a 5700 gpu ~50-75% occupied as well both in cpu/gpu load and in (v)ram use (ultra 60fps)

 

[bFaceIII]

Hello, thanks for reporting this problem. Unfortunately, we were unable to respond to this thread when it was first created. We believe the issue may have been resolved since the creation of this topic. If you are currently experiencing this issue with the latest live or beta versions of the game, please update this thread so we can forward this issue to the team for investigation.