How to Fix Cyberpunk 2077 VRAM Leak and Stuttering After 1 Hour (2026 Guide)

Cyberpunk 2077 is one of those rare games that keeps pulling me back. Even years after release, I still find myself cruising through Night City just to admire the atmosphere. With ray tracing enabled and DLSS doing its job, the game can feel absolutely incredible. Smooth gameplay, gorgeous lighting, and a world that still looks ahead of its time.

But there’s one issue that has frustrated me more than any bug or quest glitch.

The game runs perfectly for the first hour, sometimes even longer. Then, without any warning, performance slowly starts falling apart. FPS drops. Camera movement feels uneven. Opening the map suddenly becomes sluggish. Driving through busy districts introduces random hitching that wasn’t there before.

If you’ve experienced the same thing, you’re definitely not alone.

Over the past year I’ve tested dozens of community suggestions, compared different driver settings, and read through countless discussions from experienced PC gamers. While there isn’t one magical switch that completely eliminates the problem for every system, there are several tweaks that noticeably reduce the stuttering and make long play sessions much smoother.

This guide combines the solutions that consistently produced the best results on modern gaming PCs.

Why Does Cyberpunk 2077 Slow Down After Long Sessions?

The symptoms usually look something like this:

• The game launches with excellent performance.
• GPU utilization remains high.
• VRAM usage keeps increasing over time.
• Frame pacing becomes inconsistent.
• Inventory and world map suddenly feel much slower.
• Average FPS may stay relatively high while 1% lows collapse.

In my experience, this doesn’t behave like a traditional memory leak that endlessly consumes resources forever. Instead, it feels more like the game becomes increasingly inefficient at managing video memory after loading huge numbers of assets across different districts.

The more you explore Night City, fast travel, enter interiors, or repeatedly open menus, the more noticeable the issue becomes.

My First Fix: Prevent Excessive System Memory Fallback

One tweak surprised me more than anything else.

Modern Nvidia drivers allow games to fall back to system RAM whenever VRAM becomes exhausted. On paper this sounds useful because it prevents crashes.

In practice?

The game often becomes almost unplayable before it would ever crash.

Changing the CUDA – SysMem Fallback Policy to Prefer No SysMem Fallback reduced the massive frame time spikes on my system.

The process is straightforward:

1. Close Cyberpunk 2077.
2. Open Nvidia Control Panel.
3. Go to Manage 3D Settings.
4. Select either Global Settings or the Cyberpunk profile.
5. Locate CUDA – SysMem Fallback Policy.
6. Change it to Prefer No SysMem Fallback.
7. Apply the changes.

Don’t expect lower VRAM usage.

Instead, what many players notice is far more consistent frame delivery once memory usage gets high.

The World Map Can Be More Demanding Than You Think

One thing I never expected was how much the in-game map can affect performance.

After opening and closing the map repeatedly, VRAM usage often climbs noticeably. On some hardware configurations, those resources don’t appear to be released immediately.

Many experienced users found that disabling Resizable BAR (rBAR) specifically for Cyberpunk 2077 improves long-session stability.

This doesn’t require disabling the feature globally.

Instead, utilities like Nvidia Profile Inspector allow game-specific profiles where rBAR can be turned off only for Cyberpunk.

It’s a small adjustment, but if you constantly check the map while completing gigs and side missions, the improvement can be surprisingly noticeable.

Let Your GPU Handle Texture Filtering

Another tweak I wasn’t convinced about until trying it myself involves anisotropic filtering.

Rather than allowing Cyberpunk to manage texture filtering internally, many players prefer:

• Set in-game Anisotropic Filtering to 1x.
• Force 16x Anisotropic Filtering inside the GPU driver.
• Use High Performance texture filtering mode.

Visually, I honestly couldn’t tell any meaningful difference.

Performance during extended sessions, however, felt more consistent.

Whether that’s because the driver handles the workload more efficiently or simply avoids some engine overhead, it’s one of those tweaks that’s worth testing.

Graphics Settings That Eat VRAM the Fastest

Not every graphics option impacts memory equally.

Some settings barely move the needle, while others can consume gigabytes of VRAM almost instantly.

Here’s what I consider the biggest offenders.

Textures deserve special attention.

High textures look fantastic, but on GPUs with 8–12 GB of VRAM they’re often the first setting I’d reduce.

The visual difference isn’t dramatic during normal gameplay, yet the memory savings are substantial.

Frame Generation Isn’t Always Free

Frame Generation has changed PC gaming.

Seeing Cyberpunk jump from 70 FPS to well over 120 FPS feels amazing.

However, it’s important to remember that Frame Generation also reserves additional VRAM.

If your graphics card already operates near its memory limit, enabling Frame Generation while using the Quality preset for DLSS or FSR may actually accelerate the stuttering problem.

A combination that worked much better for me was:

• DLSS Balanced.
• DLSS Performance (for 4K).
• Frame Generation enabled only when enough VRAM remained available.

Reducing the rendering resolution slightly often provides more consistent gameplay than pushing maximum image quality.

Background Software Can Make Things Worse

This isn’t discussed nearly enough.

Several overlay applications constantly hook into DirectX.

Examples include:

• GPU monitoring overlays.
• Performance statistics widgets.
• Recording utilities.
• RGB monitoring suites.
• Some motherboard companion software.

Individually they may consume almost no resources.

Together, however, they can introduce tiny interruptions that become much more visible after long gaming sessions.

Whenever I’m troubleshooting Cyberpunk, I always start with the cleanest environment possible.

The fewer overlays running, the better.

Don’t Ignore the Shader Cache

Sometimes performance problems have nothing to do with hardware.

Old shader cache files can occasionally become bloated or corrupted.

Clearing the DirectX Shader Cache through Windows Disk Cleanup is a simple maintenance task that costs only a few minutes.

The next launch will rebuild shaders, which may increase loading times initially, but afterwards the game often feels smoother.

If you’re using mods, it’s also worth removing outdated cache files generated by:

• REDmod.
• Cyber Engine Tweaks.
• Vortex deployments.

Especially after large game updates.

Verify the Game Files

I know this sounds like generic advice, but I’ve learned not to skip it.

Every major Cyberpunk update changes thousands of files.

If you frequently install mods or switch between different graphics tweaks, verifying game files through Steam or GOG can quietly replace damaged or outdated assets that contribute to unusual behavior.

It isn’t exciting.

It simply removes one more variable from the equation.

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What Helped Me the Most

After experimenting for weeks, these are the tweaks I’d personally apply first on any Nvidia gaming PC:

No single adjustment completely “fixes” Cyberpunk’s memory behavior.

Instead, each one removes a little pressure from the rendering pipeline.

When combined, the difference is much larger than applying only one tweak.

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Final Thoughts

Cyberpunk 2077 remains one of the best-looking open-world RPGs available on PC, but it’s also one of the most demanding. Even powerful modern hardware isn’t immune to long-session performance drops when VRAM usage starts creeping toward the limit.

The biggest lesson I’ve learned is that chasing maximum graphics settings isn’t always worth it. I’d much rather enjoy three or four hours of perfectly smooth gameplay than spend the first hour admiring ultra-quality textures only to fight stuttering for the rest of the evening.

If I had to recommend just three changes, I’d start with lowering texture quality, switching the Nvidia CUDA SysMem policy to Prefer No SysMem Fallback, and reducing crowd density to Medium. Those adjustments gave me the most consistent experience while preserving almost all of the visual quality that makes Night City so unforgettable.

Sometimes the smoothest experience isn’t achieved by buying a faster GPU—it’s simply about helping the game manage the hardware you already have more efficiently.

Fix RAM & VRAM Leaks: Boost Your PC’s FPS & Stop Game Crashes