Pre-Launch 'Jedi: Survivor' Eats 21GB of VRAM, Struggles on RTX 4090

Jedi: Survivor
(Image credit: YouTube - EA Star Wars)

Star Wars Jedi: Survivor releases later today, but early footage has revealed serious optimization issues with the game on PC. Issues include micro stuttering problems, low frame rates, and sky-high VRAM usage. The issue is so extreme that you can't even reach 60 frames per second on the best GPUs including the RTX 3080 Ti and RTX 4090. The VRAM usage is extreme, with the game using well over 15GB, and at times exceeding 21GB .

These reports come from EckhartsLadder and GameStar on YouTube, who both have shared their concerns with the game's performance in videos published yesterday. EckhartsLadder, in particular, noted that 50 fps was the maximum frame rate he was able to achieve consistently on his RTX 3080 Ti no matter what, and changing the game's graphical settings did nothing to improve performance. He also noted several other game-breaking issues including broken cut scenes and broken audio.

GameStar shared a full 11-minute demonstration of the performance issues in Jedi: Survivor, with his high-end gaming rig, featuring an RTX 4090, Ryzen 9 5900X, and 32GB of memory. In his 1440p playtest, the game was averaging just 35-45 fps at best for most of the game, with highs of 60 fps in only certain closed-off areas. GPU utilization was also very bad, with the game only utilizing around 50% of the GPU's power.

Thankfully, EA and Respawn are on top of these issues. EA tweeted yesterday that the game will be receiving a launch day patch to fix bugs and improve performance. Additionally, EckhartsLadder confirmed that Respawn has been pushing new patches regularly to the pre-released version of Jedi: Survivor to fix these same performance problems.

For GeForce owners, Nvidia also pushed out a new Game Ready Driver recently that adds optimizations for Jedi: Survivor that should further boost performance on Nvidia GPUs.

As a result, we should see most of these problems fixed when the game is released later today. Thankfully, the detrimental performance issues only impact the PC version, so console players shouldn't need to worry about severe frame rate drops. EA lists the recommended system requirements at an RTX 2070 or RX 6700 XT, with DX12 and 8GB of VRAM as recommended features.

Star Wars Jedi: Survivor will be available to play on PC, PlayStation 5, and the Xbox Series consoles. If you pre-ordered the game or rented it through EA PlayPro, you can pre-load the game right now (which is great considering the game's daunting 130GB file size, and 155GB storage requirements).

Aaron Klotz
Contributing Writer

Aaron Klotz is a contributing writer for Tom’s Hardware, covering news related to computer hardware such as CPUs, and graphics cards.

  • Roland Of Gilead
    I find these things particularly annoying. The amount of game releases that aren't fully optimized is getting to be a bit of a joke. Not only a joke but a running theme.

    Game Devs release this tripe, charge mega bucks ( I remember a time not so long ago where PC games were always cheaper than the console variants) and then use us as guineapigs.

    They then spend months trying to fix all the issues that have a risen from poorly executed release.

    On the other hand, even with optimizations hardware requirements are steep in this.
    Reply
  • Giroro
    Star Wars Jedi: Survivor is a pretty clunky title. Is this game based on some old sci fi novel, or something?
    Reply
  • DRagor
    Game developers playing survivor game with you: can your PC survive his game?
    Reply
  • Baked_Potatoe
    Giroro said:
    Star Wars Jedi: Survivor is a pretty clunky title. Is this game based on some old sci fi novel, or something?
    It's based on a popular sci-fi movie from 1977.
    Reply
  • Why_Me
    Yet gamers will purchase this crap game and cry afterwards that their PC is struggling.
    Reply
  • BX4096
    It's less of an optimization problem and more of Nvidia being an utter cheapscake with their contemptible VRAM rationing. No new card should have less than 16gb VRAM these days, let alone a 700-plus dollar one.
    Reply
  • atomicWAR
    Giroro said:
    Star Wars Jedi: Survivor is a pretty clunky title. Is this game based on some old sci fi novel, or something?
    Dear god please tell me that was sarcasm. Otherwise a small piece of my soul may have just died...
    Reply
  • _dawn_chorus_
    BX4096 said:
    It's less of an optimization problem and more of Nvidia being an utter cheapscake with their contemptible VRAM rationing. No new card should have less than 16gb VRAM these days, let alone a 700-plus dollar one.
    That's another problem, but this is 100% an optimization issue.

    "EckhartsLadder, in particular, noted that 50 fps was the maximum frame rate he was able to achieve consistently on his RTX 3080 Ti no matter what, and changing the game's graphical settings did nothing to improve performance."

    If changing settings does nothing to lower vram or raise fps then it is indeed a mess.
    Reply
  • Ahumado
    This is funny.
    Reply
  • PEnns
    Ah yes, and they said not a long time ago, 640 KB of RAM was more than anybody would ever need!!
    Lo and behold, everybody who agreed was proven wrong....big time.

    AMD was right stating, merely 4 weeks ago, that the lack of VRAM will bite Nvidia and (its shills') in its shortsighted but very greedy butt!!

    I have an idea: Get used to it!!!
    Reply