When two clients share graphics memory, there’s no room to load newly needed models and textures, and some of them don’t get drawn.
Why Two clients share VRAM and RAM. The OS may also shrink a background window’s graphics memory allowance first → Effect The engine can’t load new models and textures, or keeps evicting and reloading them → On screen NPCs appear late, look blurry, or are invisible, and the game stutters
While moving or changing zones, When crowds gather
Owner
Primary owner Game team (Client development) · Also External (External)
Game team action items
Adjust quality automatically to fit the memory budget, show a fallback model when loading fails.
External action items
Tell players who run two clients at once to lower graphics quality or use low-spec mode, publish recommended VRAM and RAM specs.
On the graph
Hits a ceiling · Dedicated GPU memory usage per process
Where to look
In Task Manager on the player’s PC, the dedicated GPU memory column added to the “Details” tab, with the two clients’ combined usage compared against the graphics card’s VRAM. On the game side, the budget (Budget) and current usage (CurrentUsage) reported by DXGI’s QueryVideoMemoryInfo, logged
Confirmed if
The two clients’ combined usage flattens near VRAM capacity, and model and texture loading failures cluster when current usage goes over budget. It goes away with lower quality or only one client running
Ruled out if
Invisible even with VRAM to spare: simultaneous access to cache or asset files, or a display settings difference
Check with
The player’s own environment
Sources
Residency (Direct3D 12)Microsoft The video memory budget can shrink a lot when you switch to another app, and going over budget causes stalls or failed allocations; outside the foreground, even reservations aren’t guaranteed
GPUs in the task managerMicrosoft Adding columns to Task Manager’s Details tab shows dedicated and shared GPU memory usage per process; dedicated GPU memory is the graphics card’s VRAM