Viewers and GPU memory usage

[Rachel1206]

Using Firestorm and lately I experienced slow rezz of regions, slow FPS and not able to move as long textures are rezzing. Tried Black Dragon and noticed huge difference in usage of my GForce 1060 6 GB graphics. I used same settings and adjusted to same settings in both viewers and a low draw distance of 96 meters.

Firestorm 6.3.9 (58205) May 27 2020 01:20:51 (64bit): GPU VRAM usage 3.2 GB

Black Dragon 6.4.3.46541 (64bit): GPU VRAM usage 1.6 GB

That is a huge difference! Notice Black Dragon uses the CPU more but at same time the memory more efficient.

I am a little baffled by this huge difference - and for me, the general performance of FS has gone worse and worse with the latest updates.

 

Edited September 29, 2020 by Rachel1206

[NiranV Dean]

Note that the higher CPU and GPU usage is coming from shadows which you show are enabled in Black Dragon but not in FS, no idea though whats going on with the GPU memory. 3.2GB sounds kinda harsh for such a simple scene with no avatars around. That one building in the background also seems to be still loading in? Or might just be out of range for your object quality settings to appear fully, the first one would explain higher CPU usage (if stuff is still loading). How CPU and GPU are utilized also kind of depends on the other. If CPU usage spikes, GPU usage usually goes lower (due to the CPU being too busy and the GPU not needing to supply the same amount of data), same the other way around, if your GPU is spiking (due to high resolution shadows for instance) your CPU usage goes down due to the lower framerate theres less work time for the CPU to do things in which results in less (needing) to be done. You kinda have to find a good balance between them, generally you never want your GPU to hit 100% (at which your framerate starts dropping) but you also never want the 2 main cores used by SL to spike to 100% either, you want mix and match things that run on CPU and GPU in such a way that both of them are busy but have a little free room.

Edited October 1, 2020 by NiranV Dean

[Rachel1206]

5 minutes ago, NiranV Dean said:

Note that the higher CPU and GPU usage is coming from shadows which you show are enabled in Black Dragon but not in FS, no idea though whats going on with the GPU memory. 3.2GB sounds kinda harsh for such a simple scene with no avatars around. That one building in the background also seems to be still loading in? Or might just be out of range for your object quality settings to appear fully, the first one would explain higher CPU usage (if stuff is still loading).

Yes, I am a little baffled - maybe fault in latest NVidea driver, but then it should also happen in your viewer.

[NiranV Dean]

Just now, Rachel1206 said:

Yes, I am a little baffled - maybe fault in latest NVidea driver, but then it should also happen in your viewer.

kinda doubt it, unless you've made a profile for Firestorm in the system control panel

[Rachel1206]

2 minutes ago, NiranV Dean said:

kinda doubt it, unless you've made a profile for Firestorm in the system control panel

I have for Firestorm in the NVidea Control Panel,  use 1060, maximum performance and never had any problems or that VRAM usage before.

[NiranV Dean]

10 minutes ago, Rachel1206 said:

I have for Firestorm in the NVidea Control Panel,  use 1060, maximum performance and never had any problems or that VRAM usage before.

Mh. So just the usual stuff. Although max performance "shouldn't" be needed anymore since A: the viewer is supposed to force it and B: its only to prevent the GPU from idling in some cases where the idle detection went wonky but thats already years ago, i haven't had a profile set for years now without issues.

[Ormand Lionheart]

Howdy

Task manager gives you an average of CPU usage which includes the many threads that are ZERO. So in fact the rendering core might actually be close to being maxed out. So it won't give you an accurate comparison between the viewers. MSI Afterburner will be more useful. Check out the Alchemy Viewer since for some reason it uses more gpu % than other viewers and runs faster with shadows enabled versus when turned off. I have no explanation for that just a very interesting observation.

cheers

 

[Jackson Redstar]

It is kinda useless IMO to compare BD vs FS in terms of FPS, CPU or GPU usuage. It just all depends on the sim you're at, the textures, etc, amount of avies, etc. I been to some sims and FS was easily 40fps+ and BD was struggling to get over 3 FPS, then another sim and BD is blazing and FS is chugging along. I think it just depends on the sim and how well it was built and optimized. I seen some sims churning the GPU at 90%+ with good FPS, and others with the GPU never getting over 20%. I think Ive concluded it is the luck of the draw if the sim was built right or not, and of course, if the God of Linden and his partner, the Almighty AWS,  are in a good mood that day! 

[Ardy Lay]

Don't forget to include the order in which items arrive to be rendered.  Be sure to add that into the entropy pool when comparing viewers.