In today’s post, we will explore the symptoms, reproduce the problem, and then provide the possible mitigation of the problem where GPU process memory counters are reporting incorrect values in Windows 10.
GPU process memory counters report incorrect values
The graphics processing unit (GPU) processing memory counters appear to display memory leaks for applications running in Windows 10. This problem affects the following counters:
- Performance Monitor: GPU process memory
- Task Manager, Details pane: dedicated GPU memory
Some GPUs do not use dedicated GPU memory. In these cases, the Dedicated GPU memory counter is not available or has a value of “0”. The problem described in this message therefore does not occur.
If you want to reproduce the problem using the Office application as an example, follow these steps.
Launch Task Manager. In Task Manager, select Details.
On the Details pane, right-click a column header, and then click Select columns, then select Dedicated GPU memory.
Click on Okay.
Start any Office application, create a blank document, and then maximize the application window.
Start any other application, then maximize this application window in the same monitor as the Office application (so that the new application hides the Office application).
Wait approximately 30 seconds for the Office application to go into “low resource mode”. In this mode, the Office application empties its disposable caches, including GPU resources.
On the task manager Details flap, check the Dedicated GPU memory value for the Office app. You should note that the value has dropped by around 100MB.
Bring the Office application window to the foreground of the monitor.
- Expected behaviour: As the Office application recreates its resources, its Dedicated GPU memory The value should return to approximately the same value as it was when the application was last activated.
- Real behavior: On systems affected by this problem, the new Dedicated GPU memory is approximately 100 MB (or more) larger than the last time the application was active. Each time you hide the Office application, wait for it to empty its caches, then reactivate it, the value increases by 100 MB (or more). However, the Dedicated GPU memory value visible on Task Manager Performancepane continues to display the expected value. In addition, tools such as Windows Performance Recorder (WPR) and Windows Performance Analyzer (WPA) display the expected value.
According to Microsoft, this is a known issue in Windows 10.
To monitor dedicated GPU memory on affected systems, use the Performance pane of Task Manager, WPR or WPA.
I hope you find this post informative enough.