Check which programs consume VRAM by monitoring system resources or using developer tools.
Check which programs consume VRAM by monitoring system resources or using developer tools.
You're experiencing high VRAM usage at 4GB, but your available is only 8GB. You're looking for a detailed breakdown of which programs are consuming the most VRAM, rather than just a general overview. The tools you've used so far provide total usage graphs, but they don't list individual programs. Consider trying GPU-Z or HWMonitor for more granular details, or a dedicated memory profiler like MemTest86 if you suspect specific applications are hogging resources.
What graphics card are you using? For Nvidia models, you can open nvidia-smi in a command prompt to see which applications are utilizing the GPU. It works on both Windows and Linux systems. For AMD cards, let me know and I can suggest an alternative command or method.
It seems you're curious about VRAM usage on your system. You mentioned programs like WallpaperEngine and animated backgrounds, which can consume memory. Also, you asked about in-game clients with effects—those might use VRAM too. Let me know if you'd like more details on any of these.
I own an RTX 2080. I used -smi and it functioned properly. However, each program listed only showed N/A for GPU memory usage. When I opened a game (Satisfactory), the task manager reported VRAM over 7GB, yet everything still returned N/A (even for Satisfactory). I updated my GPU drivers but saw no improvement. That’s fair. At idle, Discord, Steam, Battle.net, Outlook, and many Edge tabs were running in the background (listed in the system tray), along with Signal RGB, ActivityWatch, Snagit, and several Microsoft services. None of these applications seemed to consume much VRAM. I’m aware VRAM was around 3-3.5GB at the time, but it was higher when I first posted. I usually run Wallpaper Engine, but I disabled it to test and VRAM usage stayed similar. Also, with two 4K monitors, I expected more than 4GB, but it still didn’t spike significantly. Perhaps my expectations were off. I’ll investigate further. Thanks!
Disable animations or turn them off completely? Many of these apps immediately display their contents upon opening, bypassing the need to load the page. For instance, Steam does this by instantly loading the last page and then starting the front page.
Oh! That's exactly what I was looking for! Thanks! I don't know how I missed that. The biggest user of VRAM is the Windows desktop window manager which is using almost 2GB... That seems really high to me. Or does dwm normally use a lot? I'm on the latest insider build of Windows 11, but I've been having this VRAM issue for months. No clue what else would cause DWM to be high usage. I just quit it entirely, but I checked it when running, and Wallpaper Engine uses less than a GB. DWM is somehow using 1.5ish GB even with wallpaper engine completely turned off. Next largest user is Edge with 150MB
DWM features the start menu and additional parts. You can manage it to some extent today. Current browsers consume a lot of resources, especially the GPU. You can disable hardware rendering to assist. Previously known as hardware acceleration, it is now labeled "Use graphics acceleration when available" in Chrome or System and Performance settings on Edge.