[TF2] Extremely high RAM/SWAP usage

steamclosed MOVED: Team Fortress 2reviewed

ValveSoftware/steam-for-linux#3068 · opened 2013-12-29 by fabledpig · updated 2017-09-27 · 7 comments · github

Ffabledpig 2013-12-29 github

TF2 on Windows uses about 680Mb RAM. On Linux it uses about 2.8GB!!! It's a huge memory usage. That's why it's loading so much, it has to swap all the time!

Processor Information:
    Vendor:  GenuineIntel
    CPU Family:  0x6
    CPU Model:  0x17
    CPU Stepping:  0xa
    CPU Type:  0x0
    Speed:  2926 Mhz
    2 logical processors
    2 physical processors
    HyperThreading:  Unsupported
    FCMOV:  Supported
    SSE2:  Supported
    SSE3:  Supported
    SSSE3:  Supported
    SSE4a:  Unsupported
    SSE41:  Unsupported
    SSE42:  Unsupported

Network Information:
    Network Speed:  

Operating System Version:
    "Arch Linux" (32 bit)
    Kernel Name:  Linux
    Kernel Version:  3.12.6-1-ARCH
    X Server Vendor:  The X.Org Foundation
    X Server Release:  11405000
    X Window Manager:  bspwm
    Steam Runtime Version:  steam-runtime-release_2013-10-23

Video Card:
    Driver:  NVIDIA Corporation GeForce GTX 650 Ti BOOST/PCIe/SSE2

    Driver Version:  4.4.0 NVIDIA 331.20
    OpenGL Version: 4.4
    Desktop Color Depth: 24 bits per pixel
    Monitor Refresh Rate: 59 Hz
    VendorID:  0x10de
    DeviceID:  0x11c2
    Number of Monitors:  1
    Number of Logical Video Cards:  1
    Primary Display Resolution:  1440 x 900
    Desktop Resolution: 1440 x 900
    Primary Display Size: 19.21" x 12.01"  (22.64" diag)
                                            48.8cm x 30.5cm  (57.5cm diag)
    Primary Bus: PCI Express 16x
    Primary VRAM: 2048 MB
    Supported MSAA Modes:  2x 4x 8x 16x 

Sound card:
    Audio device: VIA VT1708S

Memory:
    RAM:  2019 Mb

Miscellaneous:
    UI Language:  English
    LANG:  en_US.UTF-8
    Microphone:  Not set
    Total Hard Disk Space Available:  79516 Mb
    Largest Free Hard Disk Block:  13122 Mb

Installed software:

Recent Failure Reports:
    Sun Dec 29 22:02:21 2013 GMT: file ''/tmp/dumps/crash_20131229230201_4.dmp'', upload yes: ''CrashID=bp-8c2830f8-e2af-4fe0-a61a-ca18b2131229''

Ssilverhammermba 2014-01-23 github

I am also getting this problem on Arch Linux. htop shows hl2_linux using over 3GB total memory! I have 4GB of RAM and no swap enabled. So TF2 runs fine on its own, but if I do any significant multitasking my computer slows to a crawl because I only have a few hundreds MB of free memory. TF2 also takes forever to load!

This is a ridiculous performance hit compared to how it runs on Windows. On Windows I can run TF2 in a window and multitask without any noticeable slow down. On Linux it is simply not possible.

Ssilverhammermba 2014-05-30 github

Still getting ridiculously high memory usage, though texture quality is definitely a factor.

Just running Steam, my Arch system uses about 400MB of memory. Running TF2 with textures on low, memory usage hovers around 1.7GB; medium 1.9GB; high 2.4GB; and very high 2.8GB.

Compared to Windows 7 on the same computer I get 1.5GB running Steam, TF2 on low 2.7GB, medium 2.8GB, high and very high 2.9GB.

I can only guess that this has something to do with a difference in memory management between Windows and Linux but it's still pretty shocking. Changing textures from low to very high is a 200MB increase in RAM usage on Windows, but over a 1GB increase on Linux!

RRamchandraApte 2014-09-14 github

This is one of the most irritating problems—it breaks multitasking and also slows down TF2 (it still takes a long time for maps to load, I don't think the 2 GB of memory is doing anything).

RRamchandraApte 2015-01-14 github

I just did a fresh install of (K)ubuntu 14.10 and all these problems have gone away. I can alt-tab easily and TF2 doesn't strain other applications at all. And memory usage has gone to 800 megabytes.
Did some change happen on the driver side or Source engine side? Given Valve's infamous laziness, I'm assuming the first one.

Ssilverhammermba 2015-01-17 github

Confirmed! Memory usage is way down on my Linux box: 1.2 GB memory usage on very high texture setting.

?ghost 2017-09-27 github

I have same problem exactly with RAM 4GB on Debian Buster 64bit, it's eating all RAM, and the game is laggy because RAM is not enough, swap is slow, I tried to disable swap, but still same problem, this happens with low and high settings, all are same.
Please fix it.
Thanks

Kkisak-valve maintainer 2017-09-27 github

Hello @muthaber, if you're using intel graphics, then you may be seeing the issue being tracked at https://github.com/ValveSoftware/Source-1-Games/issues/2212 or https://github.com/ValveSoftware/Source-1-Games/issues/2234 and is more or less the expected behavior, otherwise, please open a new issue report in the Source-1-Games issue tracker.

Closing as the original issue reported here appears to have been resolved some time ago.

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