In this COD: Warzone VRAM Usage guide for the latest update, we take a look at an issue plaguing gamers since the latest update to Infinity Ward’s premiere battle royale shooter. We’ll make sure to update our guide as more details about the issue are discovered.
Current Known Fixes for Excessive Warzone VRAM Usage
Following the Season 5 update, Warzone had its VRAM stats split into two bars. Now players can track usage in both Warzone and in multiplayer. Unfortunately, PC players’ VRAM usage seems to have spiked with the new update, and worse, gamers are reporting regular crashes and poor performance overall.
At the time of writing, there are two main fixes that have proven to be effective for players struggling with the current VRAM usage issues.
Editing the Advanced Options File
The easiest fix is to update the advanced options file. You’ll find the file here:
Documents\Call of Duty Modern Warfare\players\adv_options.ini
Once you open the file with any text editor locate the option named: VideoMemoryScale.
Its default value is 0.85. Try dropping it to 0.65, or even a little lower. Save the file and exit.
Customize the Paging File
If that doesn’t work, you can make tweaks to your paging file on Windows 10 by heading to System Properties. Make sure you have administrator access, and then head to Control Panel > System and Security > System. Then click on Advanced System Settings on the left side of the screen. You may also enjoy reading our article about undetected warzone cheats.
From the Advanced tab in System Properties, click the “Settings…” button in the Performance category.
From the Performance Options menu, head to the Advanced tab, and click the “Change…” button in the Virtual Memory section.
It’s here where you can manually control your paging file size. To do this, select the Custom Size radio button in the Virtual Memory menu.
Make sure to set the range to be 1.5 times your actual RAM on your system to 4 times the actual RAM. So, if you have 2 gigs (2048 megabytes) of RAM, you’d want your range to be 3072 – 8192 megabytes.
Manually setting the size of your paging file has been known to prevent crashes in the game. However, Warzone’s excessive VRAM usage will probably continue.
Repairing Game Files Using Blizzard Launcher
Another potential fix reported on Reddit and elsewhere (including in our comments section!) is to repair your Warzone game files using the Battle.net game launcher for Blizzard and Activision games.
To do this, click Options under Warzone’s logo in the launcher, then press Scan and Repair. This will check the integrity of your game files and repair any issues it detects. Some users have reported that this has fixed the Warzone VRAM usage issue, but you may need to try other methods, too.
Workarounds
If you’re new to PC games, or just unsure about sticking your hands into the muck of advanced option file editing and changing paging files, here are a couple of easier workarounds you can try until Activision or Infinity Ward have a more permanent solution to the issue.
- Lower your graphics settings to 1080p or less.
- Disable any hardware monitoring tools you have running.
- Play the game in full-screen mode instead of borderless or windowed mode.
- Ensure that your graphics drivers are fully updated.
- Cap your frame rate to be no more than 60fps.
- Turn off cosmetic features like post-process effects and advanced lighting effects.
- Outside of the game, be sure to disable background software to make sure you free up as much RAM as possible.
With our Warzone VRAM Usage guide, you should have all the tools you need to get Infinity War’s amazing game up and running again.
Looking for guides on your other favorite action games? Make sure to check out our guides on more amazing shooters!
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