protonscr

Control (RT) Nvidia GPU utilization

vkd3dclosed
HansKristian-Work/vkd3d-proton#2155 · opened 2024-10-09 by shelterx · updated 2025-10-16 · 5 comments · github
Sshelterx 2024-10-09 github

I thought I'd create a separate, more detalied issue about this, even tho' I mentioned it.
When ReBar is on and RT is enabled in Control, the game doesn't utilize the full GPU.
Disabling ReBar in vkd3d-proton does not fix it, see below.

This is with vkd3d-proton defaults:

> nvidia-smi dmon -s m
# gpu     fb   bar1   ccpm 
# Idx     MB     MB     MB 
    0   7475   1907      0 
    0   7473   1907      0 
    0   7472   1907      0 
    0   7472   1907      0 
    0   7472   1907      0

Enabling no_upload_hvv does not fix it, seems like it still using BAR memory anyway?

> nvidia-smi dmon -s m
# gpu     fb   bar1   ccpm 
# Idx     MB     MB     MB 
    0   7708   1908      0 
    0   7693   1908      0 
    0   7689   1908      0 
    0   7689   1908      0

What does fix it is VKD3D_CONFIG=force_host_cached.

> nvidia-smi dmon -s m
# gpu     fb   bar1   ccpm 
# Idx     MB     MB     MB 
    0   5900     37      0 
    0   5903     37      0 
    0   5901     37      0 
    0   5899     37      0 
    0   5930     37      0

With force_host_cached GPU usage is 100% and FPS increases in some areas of the game where it was low before but that seems like an odd workaround. What also serves as a workaround is to disable ReBar in BIOS but that's a bit of a hassle.

I know ReBar can cause issues sometimes but why does the game totally ignore no_upload_hvv? Isn't that a hard vkd3d-proton setting?

Ddoitsujin maintainer 2024-10-09 github

Is this a recent regression or does this happen with 2.13 too?

The only thing we always put in HVV regardless of the option is descriptor buffers, but those shouldn't be almost 2GB in size...

Sshelterx 2024-10-09 github

It goes back to vkd3d-proton 2.9 at least.
However I don't recall my RTX 3060Ti was doing this, at least not when it comes to GPU utilization, I have RTX 4070 now.

Update, attached memory budget log default vkd3d-proton settings, ReBar on.
Tell me if you want memory logs with other settings too.
memory.log

Sshelterx 2024-12-09 github

Hmm, I noticed Nvidia got an app profile for Control._DX12, maybe this explains the behavior?
{ "pattern": { "feature":"cmdline", "matches": "Control_DX12.exe" }, "profile": "PromoteUncachedSysmemToHostVisibleMemory" },

Sshelterx 2025-01-31 github

Yeah, it's the application profile for Control that causing it.
I removed the system wide app-profile lines for Control and GPU usage went up to normal without any special configuration variables. Also using no_upload_hvv now work as intended, the "game" didn't put anything in Bar1 memory.

@esullivan-nvidia Do you know why the application profile for Control was made? It seems like it's not needed and is only causing issues. With that being said I obviously can't test every Nvidia GPU out there.

Sshelterx 2025-10-16 github

The app profile might be there to prevent game crashes since the game have workarounds/fixes in the Windows driver too. The game has a history of crashing and having visual glitches.

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