Crysis Not Using Video Memory...?

Hi Guys

Ive been playing Crysis recently after upgrading my system with a HD 5850.

Upon first starting the game everything is nice and smooth, but after playing for a certain amount of time everything starts getting VERY stuttery, it stutters so badly infact that the fps drop to about 0.1fps, and as such becomes unplayable.

Sometimes i will just get stutter when sweeping around - which is accompanied by the HDD going crazy for a few seconds, it also sometimes judders when just moving - the fps are consistent but there is this constant juddering as things are going past.

I have read of people having similar issues before when playing Crysis, but none as bad as what im getting...

I thought it was strange given that my hardware isnt exactly lacking, then i came across a tweaking guide for Crysis online, and noticed the budget monitoring command - so i enabled budget monitoing and found something rather disturbing...

According to the 'budget monitor', Crysis isnt using ANY of my 1GB available video memory, nothing not even 1MB. It appears to use the RAM instead/ in-place of the VRAM, i also discovered the reason for the stutering after playing for so long... Crysis uses up ALL of my RAM (i have 4GB installed and windows uses about 1GB on average, so Crysis must be using about 3GB of RAM).

I monitored the RAM while gaimng and the game only starts stuttering when all available RAM have been used up (All 4GB), so this is when the HDD kicks in and goes crazy...

I think the game shouldnt be doing this, thats a LOT of RAM to be using after only about 30mins or so, and the fact that the game doesnt appear to be using the VRAM is probably why so much RAM is being used.

Could anyone tell me why the game isnt using the graphics cards VRAM, or knows how to make it use the VRAM?

Sys Spec:

AMD Phenom II X4 965 BE @ stock
4GB G.Skill F3-12800CL7D-4GBRM @ 1600Mhz, 7-8-7-24-33-1T
Gigabyte GA-890GPA-UD3H (Bios version: FD)
HIS HD 5850 iCooler V @ stock
ThermalTake ToughPower XT 850W Modular
Samsung 1TB F3
Samsung DL-DVDRW
Antec 300 w/ 5 case fans (3intake - 2 outtake)

 

Cleanup and defrag the drive, make sure your game folder is defragged before you start playing - data I/O is the slowest part of any game.

W7's (and Vista's) memory management is generally pretty efficient for most 'normal' PC users but for gamers, it's often not good enough. GameBooster and Smart RAM (part of IOBit's Toolbox) might help, GB will allow you to kill Windows Services and applications that don't need to be running while you play, Smart RAM will (using the Deep Clean feature) increases the amount of RAM available to the game (IF it works for you, not all 'memory managers' work well or work for every configuration).

Try setting the Windows Desktop and Crysis to use 16-bit colour, you might not notice much of a reduction in visuals but it could make a few FPS difference.



I use W7 and it boots up using about 400MB of RAM and 24 processes plus about 24 Services. It took 12+ months (and many years of experience with earlier NT versions) to get there. Tweaking Windows is a very complex subject, Crysis is a very demanding game, to get the best performance out of each requires a huge amount of both time and money.

Running Perfmon whilst you play should allow you to pickout the bottleneck(s), how far you can go to improve them depends on how much money you can throw at things like SSD's and SLI. If you can't throw money at it, lower your expectations (and visuals in-game) and study Windows memory management, tweaking Windows Services, etc., etc..

 

Hi satrow

I have defraged my HD, and also close any 'non essential' programs before playing.

Its not that my fps is low... its that Crysis gradually eats ALL of my available RAM and doesnt seem to touch the video cards memory at all. Its because of this that my fps go down and i get severe stutter, if i knew why Crysis was refusing to utilise the VRAM and could fix it then i dont believe i would be having this issue.

I dont believe that i should have to spend even more just to get the game to run smooth as others can on less powerful systems, the 1GB of video memory isnt being touched and is going to waste.

What i want to know is why Crysis is not using my video memory and only system ram...

 

A link to the Crysis tweaking guide and some screenshots of Taskman before and during play would help me understand what you're trying to explain.

 

Hi

You dont really have to read the guide that i read, just the command line - 'sys_enable_budgetmonitoring 1' this brings up several bars at the left hand side of the screen and displays info about how much resorces the game is using at any particular time... but if you want to read the guide go here - http://www.incrysis.com/forums/viewtopic.php?id=11614

Take a look at the screenshot i attached, and note the bars in the top left hand corner - this is the games budget monitoring, the first bar is how much RAM has been used, the second bar is how much of the video memory is being used - and on mine it says '0'.
This was taken about after about 10seconds in game and im already using 1GB of RAM, if i keep playing the RAM usage just keeps going up but still no video memory is being used... and eventualy becomes unplayable.

 

Is this one of your threads there? Maybe the command doesn't work under all possible hardware/software scenarios.

I doubt if Crysis would load if it couldn't use 256MB+ VRAM.

I'd still like to see screenshots of Taskman pre- and during gameplay, some grabs from Perfmon might help too.

 

(from your tweaking guide) My emphasis - if the max memory setting is infinity, you're not going to see much on your scale

Note also the (Works with XP ONLY).

 

As asked for some taskman screenshots... not sure if they're the ones you meant...

 

Thanks, given me some data. Way too much RAM used by Windows, also too many processes (for any kind of serious gaming machine).

Get the RAM usage down to around 600MB after boot and processes sub 40 or you're not even trying If you want a serious target, see my earlier post.

When gaming, you're actually using 8.5GB of memory (physical RAM + pagefile), you gotta get that down, it's close to critical (8880/9613 Commit (MB)). Game with as little pagefile usage as you can, if Crysis has to make I/O's to the pagefile, it'll lag and stutter.

I suggest you go back and read that tweaking guide thoroughly so you understand what you need to do and how to do it.

 

Hi satrow

Thanks for the tip, i will try to get memory usage down, as i too noticed the page file + ram and as you say it is WAY too much.

But still think its odd that the in game monitor reports no usage of the VRAM what so ever...

 

You're gonna have to learn to read too ^.^

I'm thinking that some of the issues you're reporting may be caused by you incompletely implementing some of these 'tweaks'. You must read and fully understand them before you try any of them out.

Small steps ...

 

Side-note: You've picked a very bad game to work with. Or good, depending on how you look at it.

Crysis was one of the most poorly optimized PC games ever. CryTek can spin it however they want, when it takes a couple of years past release before the majority of hardcore PC games can max out your product graphics, something is wrong with your code.

 

Hi satrow

Haha... yeah i should have gone to Specsavers

But yes i read the part the say XP Only, but have also seen other people with vista/ 7 and theres reports usage of the VRAM, although im now just wandering if its a just a Manufacturer issue - Crysis is optimised to run on NVidia H/W, so not sure if the fact that my gphx H/W being ATI is the issue.

Also i have tried to disable as many services/programs from running at startup as i can/feel comfortable with - so i'll see if that makes a difference or not.

I managed to complete Crysis (just about), so decided to install Warhead. Now as i understand it WarHead is supposed to be more optimised than the first game and run better - but upon starting the game im having the exact same issue, LOTS of stuttering, not gotten quite as bad as the first game, but i havnt played for more than about 20 mins yet so we'll see.

 

Hi Mimsy

I am completely aware of how poorly optimised Crysis was/is. But even so i dont believe the stuttering should be THIS bad, everytime i sweep the mouse around everything is like a VERY slow slideshow, with fps dropping to under 1. I know the 5850 isnt the BEST graphics H/W out there - but i know it is capable of running Crysis with 'decent' performance...

As i understood it - when you look at a particluar scene in the game, that scene/s objects are then stored in memory so when you look back at it it doesnt need to load it again - but with me it does, it doesnt matter how long i have looked at a scene if i turn away and then look back the HDD goes nutts and the game goes like a slow slideshow again, and this happens every single time.

 

Will 2nd what Mimsy said, Crysis is a terrible game for bugs. Have played it through many times and have often had to reinstall it for many different reasons, all link back to the game itself.
Screen tears, extreme low FPS, random crashes... the list goes on and on, so while trying all of the above is great, also try reinstalling it.
Last time I played I got to the last level and it would just drop to 1 FPS, yet the time before that it played through fine, before that it would stutter and crash early on.

So just to let you know, don't be "Tuning" your pc too much just to run this game because you might end up making other games perform badly.

 

Hi nedlamar

I have already reinstalled the game many times, and its the same everytime, i have also had more crashes in crysis than i can count where the game starts stuttering and then crashes with looping audio, and i have to Ctrl-Alt-Delete to close it in taskman...

But thanks for the advice, i have disabled as many processes and services as i feel comfortable doing (mainly networking services that i dont use) and now start up with about 30 of each, which uses about 900MB RAM - before satrows suggestion i was starting up with over 50 processes and about 1.5 GB RAM usage.

But yes your right i dont want to make other games worse.

I also just ran into a rather odd issue with Warhead - i try to start the game and i get a message saying something about the Licence limit has been reached, now i cant start the game. Think it has something to do with DRM... but thats another topic for another thread.

 

recently i got crysis warhead (unpatched i could play it even though after saving a game and returning to it later i would have to reset my game settings) but after installing the patch for warhead i couldn't load warhead for some reason so i gave up on it, but my specs are
intel core 2 quad q8300 2.5 gig
3 gigs of ram
rosewill green series 630 watt psu
intel dp43tf mobo
radeon hd4670 1 gig
windows vista home premuim 32 bit

 

Hi Hugh750

Yeah something very similar happenend to me, i installed Warhead and was able to play no problem the first time (that is no issues apart from the stuttering), after playing for about an hour i decided to have a break...

Upon trying to start the game again i was given a message saying something like 'the game will not start', 'licence limit has been reached'.

But i guess that isnt the issue your having...

You say that you cant launch the game after installing the patch? Is it that you click the icon - you see something is happening and then nothing? If you have taskmanager open before clicking the game icon you should see the app appear there as you click it, if you are getting what i used to get then the app will just disappear again from taskman... with no errors.

I know that if i click the crysis icon on my Desktop i get the same thing, the game wont start - but if i click the icon in the start menu then it works.

Also, not sure if you know but - the patch for Warhead also contains a 64bit executable that the unpatched version didnt, so it may be that you are trying to launch the 64bit exe... so try starting the 32bit executable in the 'Bin32' folder in the warhead directory.

I know i had some issues when trying to play the 64bit version of Crysis, the game looks like its gonna load - but then just shuts down without ever starting up.

 

Hi

Just an update...

I still am getting bad stuttering, however i thought i would do an experiment...

I noticed that crysis only started to stutter when it was loading data from the hard drive using the pagefile. Not sure why but Crysis uses up all my ram and a further 4gb of page file after only a few minutes worth of play. So i thought i would disable the pagefile completely, restarted and tried crysis again - and amazing the stutter went away, completely smooth. Only problem was that crysis would just shut down for no apparent reason and i would be taken back to the desktop.

Personaly i'd have thought that 4GB of RAM would be enough along with a further 1GB of video memory (assuming that is it using video memory, although the game still reports no VRAM usage), but apparently crysis wants all that + a further 4GB worth of pagefile, and it stutters when the pagefile limit has been reached - meaning that the game wants even more memory...

I never imagined that a game even as demanding as Crysis would need more than 9GB (VRAM included?) of memory, its just rediculous - i wouldnt care but the actual size of the ENTIRE game isnt even that much (around 6GB i think), so why does crysis use over 8GB of memory just for 1 level after a few mins of play...?

 

Try fixing the swapfile to 1GB and test again.

 

Hi Satrow

Tried setting the swap/pagefile to 1gb, but the game just crashes with no error, just completely locks up - sound as well, and i checked with taskman and it uses up the page file and RAM in no time...

Other times the game just quits to the desktop with no errors, still stutters like crazy unless i turn off the swap/pagefile, but then the game is even more unstable, but is smooth - even if it is for a few mins.

I was reading that Crysis on some systems has severe memory leaks, although i also read that they should have been fixed with the 1.2 patch, but im still having memory issues. Must just be the game, cant be the system - i can run ANY other game with no issues.

 

Umm, that's more than a 'severe' memory leak.

 

Do you have any user patches/mods installed, and if so, which are they?

As I said before, Crysis is a very poorly optimized and coded game, but it shouldn't be this bad.

 

Hi Mimsy

I dont have any mods installed, i prefer to alter the cfg's to myself, and over the past few days ive been playing around with the HDR & SSAO settings trying to get the game to look as realistic as possible but without going overboard with the HDR as some mods have.

I have some custom maps but thats about it as far as mods are concerned, not sure if its anything that i may have altered but ive attached my 'system.cfg' file (needs renaming to system.cfg to work)...

I now have another issue even with the swap/pagefile on, the game keeps freezing for no apparent reason, seems to happen when i fire, swap weapons ect and i have to ctrl alt delete to quit in taskman...

 

Checked out the file briefly, went through the thread twice... Satrow is thorough and I know he knows what he's doing, and from the looks of it, you have by now tried just about everything. Only thing I can think of is to tweak the game's own graphics settings at this point, but if the problem is with how the game uses your hardware, that's not going to have much of an impact.

What resolution are you on? Regardless of answer, drop it at least one notch. Turn off moving shadow, AA, and other demanding settings, apply V-sync... but be prepared it might not help.

I've seen far too many threads on Crysis and difficulties running it to be optimistic at this point.

 

Hi Mimsy

I WAS running @ 1920x1200 with 8xAA and everything on MAX.

tried your suggestion of lowering the res (tried as low as 1280 x 800) and turning off AA with vsync on, but still no luck, still lots of memory usage and stutter, FPS is a LOT higher running 60 fps but still stutters (although not AS bad) and gets worth as time goes on.

I think im just gonna have to try and live with it - which is gonna be difficult, but i guess it is only ONE game, the others i have are fine.

Unless you have any other suggestions, i think i will just leave it as it is. I have other games i can be playing on.

So a big thank you to all who tried to help me... but this time it looks like i have been beaten... by a game


Thanks Again.

 

I wish... but Satrow has already suggested most of what I can think of.

I'm sorry, I wish I could be more help, but though I own Crysis I don't have it installed on any of my systems at the moment, and never really got into it. It kept crashing on me... :-D

I'm on nVidia cards though.

 

Hi Mimsy

No worries, i just appreciate you (and everyone else) trying...:clap

I guess even the most techy of us can be beaten at some point, even by a game

I guess we will just have to look forward to Crysis 2 and hope that Cry Engine 3 has been significantly improved, although from the vids i have seen it looks MUCH better... but then you cant judge a book by its cover (or in this case - a game)

 

Well, now you guys have got me curious if this game will even run on my machine. I got it for alpha testing SW Tor but never installed it in my machine. I also have an ATI card(4850hd 1gig) and have noticed that most of my friends who have "newer bigger better" cards have many many more problems and lower framerates than i usually report.

Over the weekend ill install the game on my own machine and see if i get any problems and see if i can add anything next week.

 

Hi Blatherbeard

Should be interesting, let us know how you get on, technically speaking i should get better results than you having the superior card (although the 4850 isnt a bad card), and if i am having this much trouble with my 5850 and crysis - it would seem that things aren't looking good for you. But maybe you will have better luck than me, which is why it should be interesting.

Look forward to your report.

 

So far ive encountered no problems with the game. Been playing it for a few hours. (not very far in as ive been tweaking controls and such)

So far its very smooth, and everything set on high with no AA, 1440X900 resolution(max my monitor can handle)

Ive tried to enable that memory monitoring tool but it doesnt seem to want to enable for some reason. Ive typed it in all different configurations and directly copied the command into the command line from your posts and sever other guides online with no luck. My task manager tells me though that i use approximately 2.5 gig of my physical memory and CPU usage is about 69 percent.

At this time the game is installed and patched, without warhead installed. Im going to restart the game and see if i get the same results and then try installing warhead. (im also going to play the game as is for a few hours to see if i get the memory usage you got, but so far no) I also havent checked FPS yet but it seems as though so far it should be pretty decent. No stuttering, tearing, or really any kind of graphical bs yet. (only have had about 3 to 5 enemies on screen at a time so far though.


Ati 4850 HD 1 gig
4 gig ram
550W psu
Windows Vista 32bit
Dell case

 

Just an update-- i get a steady 30 fps on all high settings no AA for the most part. Sometimes it hits 40+ sometimes its dips to 28ish, but for the most part its a steady(ish) 30, 35.

 

Hi blatherbeard

...and thanks for the update.

Good to hear that someone is able to run this game with no issues, and 30 fps average is pretty good for your card @ all high settings

The monitoring tool is an in-game feature, you have to open the command line window thingy by hitting the tilde key (the one under escape) when in the game (guess you probably knew that), then for most of the commands to work - you have to type in 'Con_Restricted 0' (without the '') and then sys_enable_budgetmonitoring should work.

I find it interesting that the game on your system uses a LOT less memory than on mine, i know i am running it @ 1920x1200 MAX with 8xAA - but it still shouldnt be using anywhere near 8GB of memory.

After you get the budget monitoring to work, could you please let me know if the 'vram bar' reports any usage your cards memory.

Just out of curiosity - what settings are you tweaking?

I've attached my a few of my config files, so give them a try and see if you get any performance increase, they should make crysis look a bit better too- of course make sure you backup your originals just incase mine arn't to you liking

Let me know if you get any extra performance...

Also, not sure what your using to get your FPS displayed but if you open the command console (tilde key) and type 'r_displayinfo 1' that will give you some stats along with the fps, just thought id mention that incase you were using fraps.

 

That fps command was exactly the one i used. It also displayed an amount of ram underneath it(being used? video? not sure) but i did notice that that ram number over the course of 5.5 hours did steadily, slowly increase. It started out at 1099 abd ended at 1664(under the fps it said Mem=(insert numbers))

I can report that it eventually did crash at the 5.5 hour mark and that i only had minor slowdowns after 1. death respawns(and a bit of odd sounds) 2. when craploads of guys and a helicopter was in the area.

It crashed when i was extracted from the drop point, after being chased by legions of army guys and the helicopter.

So i figured id take this oportunity to install warhead and see how badly it screws everything up, if at all.

I guess i didnt really "tweak" any settings performance wise, just meant i was getting the keys setup, and i thought about toning down some video settings but it ran so much more smoothly than i thought it would, i just ended up leaving them alone.

If i get the game to boot again, ill see about getting that budget monitoring running and let you know.

 

Hi blatherbeard

I get crashes all the time with the game, doesnt seem to matter whether or not there is anything going on, i can be taking a (very stuttery ) stroll through the woods and it will either freeze or the game just stops and im taken back to the desktop. TBH ive had more crashes in this game than i care to mention, but must be in excess of 100. Sometimes it crashes when i try to fire my gun, move or do anything 'suddenly', as if the game wasnt expecting it.

Will be interesting to see your budget monitoring report.

 

Well, id have to say that if i had paid for this game, id be storming Bioware/Ea's place of business and throwing the game back at them, demanding my money back lol

Now that i installed Warhead and 3 patches, it gets to the Newgame/loadgame screen and dies.

Not looking good.

 

]apparently the game is only budgeting 512 and im using 940mb. (warning me im overbudget) and i also show NO video ram being used.

additionally, i cannot save or load any games(aside from when the game autosaves/autoloads)


http://i149.photobucket.com/albums/s80/blatherbeard/memorybudget.jpg


i dont know why the pic always saves as a double pic, one of my desktop and one of the pic i want.

But here is what i get with fps monitoring enabled and the budget monitoring.

this is after "patching" and installing warhead, and after my crash yesterday. Not sure if the "patches" messed my games up or if the crash messed it up.

(also have no idea why i cant get this damn image to thumbnail.)

 

Yeah i feel like storming thier offices and throwing the game back at them and telling them to go back and do it again properly and make sure it actually woks before you put it on sale...

Cant say i've had the problem you mentioned - mine normally loads fine within about 20 - 30 secs, its in-game that i have the issues.

Although i occasionaly have to start the game twice because when i click the icon to launch the game the screen goes black for a couple of seconds and looks like its starting, but then i am just taken back to the desktop - so i have to try again.

When i installed Warhead it ran fine, even after patching (minus the stutter), but i then exited the game and tried to play again but it wouldnt let me saying that i had used all the licences or something like that - so now i cant play warhead.

 

I can get you a program for that from fileplanet actually. I saw a fix while getting the patches for Warhead and Crysis. Ill email it to you if you want, just pm me your email addy.

and for the record, i just uninstalled both games. I might try reloading just crysis and see if i can get back to that point where i crashed to see if it does it again. should be able to get there faster this time lol

 

Found something interesting on another forum.

http://www.incrysis.com/forums/viewtopic.php?id=14945

One poster says its not showing Video ram usage because of Vista but he doesnt really back it up with any info. It does seem like it could be the problem as i also use vista, as does the 2 other posters.

(you use vista or 7? i couldnt really find where you posted your os, not that i didnt just miss it lol)

 

Thats interesting - that you too have no reported vram usage - i know satrow said something about it working with XP only, but i have seen people with Vista and 7 and thier budget monitor shows vram usage, maybe its a ATI thing as the game is optimised for Nvidia cards.

Not sure why you cant save or load games, i know that if you want to save manually you have to a overight a saved game that isnt at the start of a level otherwise you will just get a message saying something like - Save Failed.

Maybe you save as a double pic becuase you have the game windowed or perhaps you have dual monitors/extended desktop? I just hit Print Screen when i want to take a screen shot, but i dont get the desktop in the same image. You can take a screenshot in-game by pressing F12, which saves to your Documents\Games\Crysis\Screenshots folder.

Dont worry about it saying that your over budget - the actual has no impact on performance - even if you set your RAM budget to 1MB.

I thought i'd try running the game at your setting (1440x900, all high, no AA) and i get around 80 FPS, although i havnt get to any intense bits yet...



I'll PM you my email for the link to fix (hopefully) warhead.

EDIT: I use 7

Was just reading that thread you posted - sounds very similar to my problem - but no fix...

 

Now i think i know, i do have an extended desktop to my television(essentially 2 monitors lol)



Just sent you that file as well, hope it fixes that warhead problem.

 

How dare you! :guns Bioware had nothing to do with Crysis, and EA only published it. Kindly place all blame for the game's buggy code where it belongs: On Crytek.

 

Oops :-o

Yes Mimsy your right...

How can we blame Bioware when as you rightly said - they had nothing to do with Crysis... the only thing Bioware is guilty for is giving us great games like KOTOR and the Mass Effect series and using up all our free time with hours of enjoyment.

And as you said EA just published it - so shame on you Crytek.

 

I only say that because i cant forgive them for joining the EA collective.

 

So my experimentation with Crysis is successful. Im getting a sound slowdown now coupled with vid stutter BUT its with helicopters, 5 or more tanks, my reinforcements, bad guys, explosions, and many other things goign on, id venture to guess if i just toned down my VC settings, it would probably go away right quick.

So no crashes as of yet, still playing Crysis in Vanilla mode. I think the key might also be that after a few hours of play i take a break and shut down the game.

depending on how long the story is i might restart it after i finish it to replay it with no stoppages to see if it will crash again.

Fun game when it runs though.

 

If that really is the key, you might be looking at heat as a cause of your problems... but I don't think that's imzo's problem though.

Also, imzo, what you said made me realize that if we do decide to blame everything on Bioware, maybe we can force them to atone by developing and releasing a sequel to Jade Empire. :drool

 

I think if heat were the issue, 17hours of Borderlands on high, 20 hours of Da Origins or 15 hours ME 2 would have triggered something as well

and the breaks were only about 5 hours apart, with no downtime. I stopped the game, re ran gamebooster(thinking it would release more ram but it still only released 125k), then booted up the game again. I think its a memory creep issue of some kind personally(for me)

I have NO clue what Imzo's dealing with, i wish i did.

I just figured it would give us some possible idea what would be going wrong, or somewhere to look if i had more issues. I really think it has something to do with Crysis' crappy updates.

 

Well because I'm lazy and It's late (for me anyway) I didn't read everything in every single reply post, but have you cleanly reinstalled the driver or taken a look in the BIOS for memory options? Do you play other games that are VID mem intensive FPS, or is this the only one? Is anything overclocked?

I tried that game on my computer a few months back and was hitting in the 20-25fps range with zero tweaking, 3 gigs of ram and an older single ATI card. My processor was a pile of junk as well.

 

Fair point. Those games would definitely have triggered heat issues.

Dammit. If it was heat we would know how to fix it! :crybaby

Speaking of crappy updates, here's a thought: Do you guys have the same problem with Crysis if you install and then reject the patches?

And trust me holiday, it's late here too. Good call on the BIOS options.