VR: sudden FPS drops, how to free up VRAM

This article is part of Virtual Reality.

Increasing amount of available VRAM

Running out of VRAM can lead to a sudden huge loss of framerate. For example, a sudden drop from 90fps down to 5fps.

You can monitor VRAM use in Windows Task Manager > Performance > GPU (memory indicators).

To increase the available amount of VRAM in your GPU you can try:

• Switch the Options > Display > Virtual Reality > Window View selector to Empty (fastest).
• Choose an OpenXR runtime that uses less VRAM ( more information here).
• Close all background programs you don’t need (browser, music player, taskbar processes…)
• Set Options > Display > VR > Window View to ‘Empty’.
• Reduce graphics detail settings (Lighting and Shadows on the lowest setting will have a big impact), reduce graphics resolution, reduce physics detail (e.g. use fewer vehicles, avoid traffic vehicles, or at most use simplified traffic vehicles, etc).
• Reduce graphics resolution in your headset’s software (typically located in Oculus/Meta/SteamVR/WMR/etc software settings page). Sometimes this is exposed as a 0-2x scale, or as a % percentage, with labels such as “supersampling”, or “pixels per display pixel”, etc. If your headset manufacturer doesn’t offer that option, open BeamNG > Options > Display > VR > VR resolution.
• Use less demanding maps and less detailed vehicles.
• At your own risk, and taking responsibility for understanding the consequences, you could try to disable 3D environments of your VR software if possible, as those can use up to several GBs of VRAM on their own. For example, disable SteamVR home, disable OculusVR home, OculusKiller, etc.