Video ram issue

[AtmaDarkwolf]

The gadget shows ram at 134 mb/77mb (And no other sensor display showing any ram amount) but the sensor itself reads teh proper ram amount and video card. I can't figure out how to set it to display correctly on the gadget.

I have a radion HD7970 3gb

(If it is related, i had to modify the gadget to read computer ram correctly a while back, since I had 32 gigs and it was only displaying 200-ish mb total)

All values are correct in the HWiNFO's sensor display page, just not the gadgets.

 

[stangowner]

The gadget shows ram at 134 mb/77mb (And no other sensor display showing any ram amount) but the sensor itself reads teh proper ram amount and video card. I can't figure out how to set it to display correctly on the gadget.

I have a radion HD7970 3gb

(If it is related, i had to modify the gadget to read computer ram correctly a while back, since I had 32 gigs and it was only displaying 200-ish mb total)

All values are correct in the HWiNFO's sensor display page, just not the gadgets.

Hi,

Can you please zip and email me the these three things? Send it to the email address listed in the gadget.
1 - All files in the "C:\Users\<username>\AppData\Local\HWiNFOMonitor" folder
2 - the "C:\Users\<username>\AppData\Local\temp\HWiNFOMonitor.log" file
3 - a screen snapshot showing the issue

- Nick

 

[AtmaDarkwolf]

The gadget shows ram at 134 mb/77mb (And no other sensor display showing any ram amount) but the sensor itself reads teh proper ram amount and video card. I can't figure out how to set it to display correctly on the gadget.

I have a radion HD7970 3gb

(If it is related, i had to modify the gadget to read computer ram correctly a while back, since I had 32 gigs and it was only displaying 200-ish mb total)

All values are correct in the HWiNFO's sensor display page, just not the gadgets.

Hi,

Can you please zip and email me the these three things? Send it to the email address listed in the gadget.
1 - All files in the "C:\Users\<username>\AppData\Local\HWiNFOMonitor" folder
2 - the "C:\Users\<username>\AppData\Local\temp\HWiNFOMonitor.log" file
3 - a screen snapshot showing the issue

- Nick

the email listed in the gadget? I have the email for the HWiNFO author, but im not sure what you mean by the email in the gadget(I can't find any emails in the gadget itself or the install, not quite sure what you mean or where to look, and don't want to send it to the wron gplace because its not a problem with the sensors but just the gadget/display monitor.)

edit: ah my bad i found it.

 

[stangowner]

I got your files, thanks.

Perhaps I don't understand the question properly. I thought you were mentioning an issue with the GPU RAM values being displayed in the gadget, but they were showing in HWiNFO.

I see that both HWiNFO and the gadget show the same values for:
1 - GPU D3D Memory Dedicated = 60 MB
2 - GPU D3D Memory Dynamic = 34 MB

Are you referring to there being no entry that shows 3GB? This gadget shows values from the HWiNFO sensors. And this value is not displayed there, presumably because it is a static value. You could ask Martin to add it to sensors if you need.

Please let me know exactly what the issue. I think I just don't understand the question yet.

Thanks,
Nick

 

[AtmaDarkwolf]

hmm i guess that is the problem, it doesn't show used video ram, and im not 100% sure exactly what D3D memory really is(being only 100ish mb accounted for seems odd. I would like to see when I have certain games up, a rough idea of how much the card is working. When I had dual 6770's HWiNFO would show how much each card was working, so I could see right away if it was using a single card, both cards, etc.

Since I installed the 7970 I have no way to tell how much the card is working. I'm curious as to why the change?

 

[Martin]

D3D Memory determines the amount of GPU memory used by Direct3D.
I don't understand what difference you see between 6770 and 7970 GPUs you have run. Could you please provide more exact details?

 

[AtmaDarkwolf]

... the 6770's would show how much of each card's memory was being used at the time.. example, 200 mb out of 1024 mb used.

The 7970 does not show anything beyond D3D, which is tiny compared to its total amount of ram.

The 6770's even had bar graphs to show the speed the memory was at the time(how much voltage was being used) next to the used ram,

I don't understand how much more clear I can be. the 7970 does NOT SHOW ram usage beyond the D3D values, which is much MUCH less than what is actually being used. (Example running skyrim, crysis, farcry3, etc on max settings does not show ANY change)

My question is why does the 7970 NOT show usage yet the 6770's do?

(And really am stumped as to why you, the designer of the app to display the monitors, can't get what I'm trying to say)

 

[Martin]

There can be several reasons and there are many different configurations, various GPUs report parameters differently depending on their features.
You first posted this problem in the HWiNFOMonitor section which is the gadget that only displays information retrieved from HWiNFO and your first information indicated a different problem. We both immediately replied and tried to understand and solve your problem, so there's no reason be impolite !
I believe both the 6770 and 7970 should report memory usage under the same entry - "GPU D3D Memory". Is your 7970 a single card only, or dual in CrossFire ?
You also say, that you can't see the GPU memory clock and voltage of the 7970, is this not even visible in HWiNFO Sensors ?
I'll still need more details, since I need to analyze this deeper - best would be a screenshot and the HWiNFO Debug File. Check this about how to create the debug file: http://www.hwinfo.com/forum/Thread-IMPORTANT-Read-this-before-submitting-a-report

 

[AtmaDarkwolf]

oh, no I can see the voltage in both, what im not sure about is the VERY low use of ram. This is why I am asking about it(It shows only 100-150 total mb used at any time, even when running games on max settings, when I had dual 6770's in xfire running, it very often used 80+% of the total vid ram and showed usage)

If its only using a tiny bit of the memory, then its not a hwinfo issue at all, and am trying to find another way, outside of the hwinfo sensors themselves, how to track ram used(when using AMD overdrive to watch values, it shows 0% ram use, or 0% activity, even with FC3 running with max settings)

I have dual monitor setup, and have the sensors on the 2nd monitor so can see activity even while in fullscreen games.

And no its just a single 7970 right now, so not x-fired(I previously had dual 6770's in xfire, recently replaced both cards with a single 7970 and reformatted-reinstalled windows, so the os install at this time is 3 months or less)

Lastly, I apologize for being rude, I was not trying to be, am just frustrated with being unable to accurately explain what exactly my 'issue' is here, was hoping that talking to those more knowledgeable about this area would know what it was I was describing with the info provided.

Thank you again for tolerating my this long, it is appreciated regardless of how my previous posts sounded.]



Edit: I just ran AMD overdrive, watching the values in that window while also watching the sensor gadget window, and for the first time, the ram values were showing something other than the tiny amounts of before. Values were still off, but more within reasonable amounts(AMD overdrive was showing 25% use, but the HWiNFO gadget was showing 1800 or so used)

There are still 2 values showing on the gadget (GPU d3d memory, the first value is now showing change, while the 2nd value is still at 116 and not moving)

 

[Martin]

OK, I think I'm getting a clearer picture of the problem now..
Let me explain the situation a bit. As far as I know, there's no way how to exactly determine the amount of GPU memory used on ATI/AMD cards. For nVidia it's easy - they offer an interface which reports this, but AMD doesn't. I have contacted AMD with this problem already, but haven't got a solution from them yet
So the only way to determine the amount of GPU memory used we found is an undocumented function in Direct3D. Though this is surely not the ideal way, since it reflects memory used by Direct3D only and not by other applications (like OpenCL computing, etc), it's the only one known yet. I believe any other tool which can report the amount of GPU memory used (like GPU-Z for example) is using this same method and should be reporting the same "GPU D3D Memory" value.
Even for your previous GPUs (6770), this should be the same. Since you say it doesn't provide reliable data now, maybe the problem lies somewhere else. I'd suggest to try to upgrade the Catalyst drivers and also try to upgrade the DirectX runtime. Maybe that might help... Also make sure that you have monitoring of this values enabled in HWiNFO sensors.
Also, which operating system are you running ?

 

[AtmaDarkwolf]

thanks for that advice will try it, am running win7 pro, 64bit.

AFAIK everything is up-todate (At very least was most recent since I rebuilt the system, since I got all AMD drivers, direct x, etc, though net and not install CD's provided, when I installed windows) but I will update everything tomorrow.

One last note, which I doubt will matter, related to the 6770's - I had been using an older version of the drivers due to constant crashes while playing skyrim, something about bad x-fire drivers causing BSOD's when, and only when playing skyrim, with the 6770s - something to do with them being re-branded 5770's. Its just something i thought of right now, and I cant' be sure WHICH driver it was, but I have them on an old thumbdrive somewhere, and can get them if it helps. Only mention it since when I was using the dual 6770's I was getting 'proper' readouts (As in, the amount of ram used was 'logical' and not as i see now with weird values) - maybe something to do with a (Very) old catalyst version?

 

[Martin]

Indeed, the difference might be in the Catalyst drivers, since this readout depends on them.
It happens quite common that newer drivers and not always better - I had several problems with nVidia and AMD as well, sometimes I need to revert back to older driver versions to avoid problems...