Steam overlay randomly causes semi-permanent low FPS
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Zarniwoop
With no seemingly consistency, whenever you open the steam overlay you can get stuck stuttering with super low FPS until it magically goes away or you keep the steam overlay open. Only consistent way to get rid of it is to restart the client.
It's like treading on a minefield, you never know when it's going to happen.
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Tupper - VRChat Head of Community
closed
Closing due to age, please make a new post if it is still relevant.
Euan
NotAKidoS
Haven't experienced this bug since I dropped my in-game antialiasing down to 2x within the limited* graphics settings. I am still paranoid AF though about opening the overlay, which happens often when using virtual desktop as it is the same bind.
3060ti 8GB
Faxmashine
SteamVR has some really cool new overlay features which would be great for VRChat.
But we can't really use them if opening the dashboard gimps our framerate...
Jacе
This is still happening, and is still a huge pain... Sometimes switching back and forth between the overlay and the game never fixes the problem. You have to restart all of SteamVR because restarting the game is not enough. This only happens in VRChat.
LoliKami
It's doing it to me now.
owlboy
LoliKami: oh no! How much VRAM do you have? And what graphics card do you have?
LoliKami
owlboy: 1080ti so it's 11GB
MotoFckr9k
For me the issues has come up again. I am pretty sure that it is because I am running out of vram though.
SonicLux Hedgeman
MotoFckr9k: I'd say to try my trick I posted here, and check the results
MotoFckr9k
SonicLux Hedgeman: For me this only happens when I actually open the overlay, so making it crash on start wouldn't help. Also there is an option to disable to overlay, so there isn't really much point in crashing the overlay.
SonicLux Hedgeman
MotoFckr9k: is there an option to do that? How?
MotoFckr9k
SonicLux Hedgeman: I just checked and this actually just prevents you from opening the dashboard. The dashboard does still run in background.
So if the actual vrdashboard process causing a problem, then this doesn't help.
But for me it is only a problem when I open it ingame.
SonicLux Hedgeman
MotoFckr9k: I mean, it's still worth a try in my case. I'll give it a shot when I can and see what happens
LoliKami
MotoFckr9k: It's doing it to me and I have a 1080ti so I don't think my VRAM is maxed out
MotoFckr9k
LoliKami: VRChat can churn to the 1080ti's VRAM pretty fast as well. Personally I am using a 1080.
It could still very well be that you are running into a different issue though.
SonicLux Hedgeman
I have a WMR and a beefy PC, and I've noticed that whenever I play vrchat my PC goes haywire, slow frames most of the time, and most of the time ends up cutting off my internet/making it slow (I use a USB wifi adapter), and if I try reconnecting the USB adapter it just doesn't detect any USB connection. Also crashes my headset sometimes. From what I can see it can be from a memory leak. Anyways, my point is, yesterday I turned on Vrchat and I forgot to change some settings, so as soon as I booted vrchat I closed it. Reopened and changed settings. When I got back into the game I couldn't access the steam overlay, BUT I noticed a significant boost in frames, my internet was running just great and neither my headset nor the USB driver crash. I even managed to load a 281 mb world pretty dang quickly!
Basically, I think the steam overlay is what's causing this memory leak. I have to try this again when I can.
I hope this gets fixed, cuz I love vrchat, but having to restart my pc Everytime my internet/headset dies is just too much.
SonicLux Hedgeman
Yep, after further testing, the trick i use is to open and close vrchat right as steam vr boots up, then reebooting vrchat so that the steam vr overlay stops working. This brought a significant boost in FPS and had no memory leak whatsoever! My internet was fast and I could actually load everyone's avatar on The Great Pug, something almost impossible before.
ᴍᴀsᴏɴᴇxᴇ
Guys it's called a memory leak issue [find youtube tutorial on how to fix it] you can reinstall vrchat to see if it has any memory leak again.
S
Synon
-For those just wanting a temp fix (at least for me), set a custom resolution scale in steamvr settings for vrchat(In the applications section). If you get the low fps bug upon opening the steam overlay, set the resolution scale to under 100%, then back up to what you want. As long as you're sub 100%, it should be fine, anything over 130-140% seems to cause this bug.
Found some interesting insights. I've had this bug for over a year.
If you change your custom resolution in steamvr settings while having the issue in-game, it CAN make the fps go back and recover, or it can do the opposite and skyrocket gpu usage. From my tests, whenever I open the steam overlay at the wrong time (who knows what really causes this) and change the custom resolution a few times, it can go away and recover. Upon looking at task manager, it makes the gpu usage immediately max out. However, further changing of the resolution can bring the problem back. As long as the upscale percentage is over 100%, the issue can occur.
If you want to test this yourself, open vrchat, open steamvr settings and task manager (to track gpu usage), then set a static resolution erratically while opening and closing the steam overlay menu and see if you get the same results. Let me know if this isn't just me.
Nvidia GTX 1080, Intel i7 4790k, 16GB RAM, Win 10
ᴍᴀsᴏɴᴇxᴇ
Synon: finally i think i know the reason, when vrchat have memory leak or ur pc have memory leak it won't release the standby ram usage thats why when u guys open steam overlay it stutters or lags you.
ᴍᴀsᴏɴᴇxᴇ
or maybe because steamoverlay is rendering now instead of vrchat thats why it lowers the fps? too many answers for this not sure >.>
knah
ᴍᴀsᴏɴᴇxᴇ: I'm fairly certain that this has very little to do with memory leaks, at least as far as main RAM goes. It's kinda hard to leak enough to fill 64GB of RAM, which is what I have. It could be a VRAM leak, my GPU has just 8 gigs of that, and it's mostly full most of the time.
As far as steam overlay goes, it changes supersampling settings for the game while it's open - vrchat is rendered at a lower resolution when the overlay is open, and it is returned to original supersampling when I close the overlay.
It seems to be the case that changing supersampling settings at low framerates has the chance to lock you down to that permanent extremely low framerate. It could also be the case that changing supersampling settings at near-full VRAM would trigger this issue, and near-full VRAM does correlate with low framerates.
ᴍᴀsᴏɴᴇxᴇ
knah: oh wow this issue is really hard to tell which causes the problem
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