Windows 10 Games not using full VRAM installed. Help please.

RUDY03 said:

Hello guys!
I'm writing this in a state of utter despair. I just got my Watch_Dogs 2 and my desktop has 4 GB VRAM installed, that's Nvidia GT 610 (pretty old). I just checked on "DXDIAG" and it also says that total graphics are 4019 MB, close to 4 Gigs, no problem, but both GTA 5 and Watch_Dogs 2 say that there's only 1999 mb of VRAM available in the settings screen of the games. Please help me out. This causes me to run the games on ultra low graphics, and thus very bad performance is received. Something causes the games to only use 1999 MB of VRAM. I wonder why they don't use the rest 2020 MB of VRAM.
Please help me out here.

Sincerely,
RUDY03

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Hi Rudy,
the way RAM is displayed can be a little confusing and I took a look at your cards specifications and the default spec' for the GT 610 is 1024MB:
Link Removed

It sounds like your card has been 'beefed up' with the extra gig and i imagine this card is made third party like ASUS or similar?

Anyhoo so your card is reporting 2GB of Vram and i imagine your system has 2 or 4GB of DDR3/4.

So in the dxdiag it's reporting an 'approximation' on how much RAM there is, not how much 'Vram' there is.

You could increase the size of your pagefile and see if that helps. Windows will use your HDD or part of it as RAM. (I used to do this a few years ago when agame called Crysis first came out. I'd get a few extra fps as well which is always welcome.)

Have you considered overclocking the card? If your unsure about this then leave well alone for another time.

Ultimately you need a card with 4GB as 2GB is going to struggle with today's games (some not all)

I hate to differ, but no, I have a stock HP Compaq Elite 8300 Small Form Factor CPU cabinet with everything in it absolutely stock. The only thing I changed was the OS, from Windows 8 Professional to Windows 10 Professional. So, no, my graphics card is not "beefed up" in any manner, because its never been tampered or fiddled with, its just there form the beginning. Maybe the attached image will be able to help you in understanding my problem, because the attached screenshot is of the "advanced display properties" window.

Thank you, sincerely,
Rudy'03

Edit: Also, I noticed the "shared memory" option is using up the Graphical power I require. Maybe I could decrease the "shared memory" somehow? So I can allot it all to my games?

RUDY03 said:

So, no, my graphics card is not "beefed up" in any manner, because its never been tampered or fiddled with, its just there form the beginning.

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I simply meant that another GB of RAM had been added somewhere along in it's design history as the default shows it being a 1GB card. (see link above) I didn't mean that anyone other than the manufacturer had been 'messing with it'.

So what your information panel is saying is that the card carries 2GB of dedicated Vram but also uses 2.20GB of shared memory. This 'shared memory' is taken from your RAM and is usually configurable via the bios.

Another thing you could try is removing the video driver using the DDU as this will clear out any corruption and then reinstall the driver again (this often works).

I looked up the PC requirements to play that new game, Watch Dogs 2. The requirements are:

OS: (64-bit versions only) Windows 7 SP1, Windows 8.1, Windows 10.
Processor: Intel Core i5-2400S @ 2.5 GHz / AMD FX 6120 @ 3.5 GHz.
RAM: 6 GB.
Video Card: Nvidia GeForce GTX 660 (2 GB) / AMD Radeon HD 7870 (2 GB) or better.
Hard Disk Space: 50 GB.

Your GeForce 610 video card will not work with this game. I have the GeForce 750Ti which takes 60 watts of power due to the 280 watt power supply that came with my Lenovo computer. It may not be possible to use a newer video card due to limited wattage of the small power supply and the fact that your computer is a small form factor model.

But, my question is, why do games show that the available VRAM is 1999 MB?? Even in GTA 5, that I've already finished off and uninstalled last year after playing through 3 times, showed in the graphics settings screen: |VRAM usage: xxxx/1999MB|
The "xxxx" would depend on how much my settings are set to, but I try to keep it down to around 1500 in WD2, and I admit that my PC is maybe not built for hardcore gaming, and neither do I use it for such purposes, but just for this particular game, and certain reasons too. My question just is that why does it show the wrong info? They only show 1999 MB available total VRAM, although it should be at least above 3000 (3GB) because I know that I have 4 GB of VRAM installed. Still, it shows only about 2 GB. Why is that? Where is the other 2 GB lost? And, I have surely confirmed that the 4GB VRAM is properly functioning, because my NVidia control panel also detects and shows the same results. The problem is just with the games. Maybe some settings I have to tweak in order to allow games to use my full VRAM capacity?

You only have 2GBs of VRAM as shown in the picture Video RAM is 2GB

Regarding your system shared memory, it means that 2020MB of your system RAM is allocated for your video card. Should your system require that memory, the system shared memory will be relinquished automatically as needed.

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So..Y'all mean I only have 2GB graphics installed in my rig? Then what does "Total Available Graphics Memory: 4068MB" mean? Does it mean my VRAM+DRAM is 4068MB? Does this picture also say the same?

Exactly what Kemical said