Free gputaskman tool shows which apps are eating your video memory

gputaskman, Scott Hanselman's free and open-source GPU task manager, went from a weekend idea to a cross-platform tool in about a week. The Microsoft vice president first posted it on November 3 to see where his own GPU memory was going. By November 10 it had reached version 0.3.5, with Linux, WSL, macOS, AMD and Intel support added largely by outside contributors.

It runs in a terminal and lists every process using your graphics card, how much video memory each holds and what it is doing. For anyone running local AI models next to games, it also tries to break down where a model's memory goes.

What's confirmed

What it shows. Per the GitHub project, gputaskman shows per-process VRAM, GPU engine activity and loaded runtimes. Selecting a process shows more detail, and the tool can break out a local language model's weights and KV cache.

Measured versus estimated. The README separates the two, as LockerGnome highlights: device and process counters are measurements, while model breakdowns read from GGUF file headers are estimates. It does not dump VRAM or list a game's textures. On Windows, "Spill" means GPU-accessible system RAM, not proof of overflow.

Release pace. The releases page shows v0.1.0 on November 3, then v0.2.0 with Linux and WSL and v0.3.0 with AMD support the same day. v0.3.1 on November 7 added Apple Silicon Macs, AMD on native Linux, a Nix flake and a diff command for comparing snapshots. v0.3.4 on November 9 added a slim monitoring view.

The latest build. v0.3.5, released November 10, adds Intel GPU support on Linux, a system RAM and CPU panel with per-process columns, and a record command that saves a JSON snapshot at each interval. It also includes fixes for identifying Windows display adapters and local model servers.

Platforms and install. Per LockerGnome's reading of the README: Windows 10 and 11 with NVIDIA or AMD GPUs; Linux and WSL with NVIDIA, plus AMD and Intel on native Linux; and macOS on Apple Silicon from source. It installs with Python 3.11 or newer via uv or pipx, and Windows users can grab an unsigned portable ZIP. It is MIT licensed and labelled early, experimental software.

Real-world test. Tom's Hardware tried a Windows build on an RTX 4060 laptop. Nothing was on the discrete GPU until it ran the Unigine Valley benchmark, after which live charts showed load, memory use and temperature.

Background

Windows Task Manager has shown GPU usage per process since 2017, but it tells you little about video memory. When a game stutters because VRAM is full, you usually guess. Is it the browser, Discord's overlay, a capture tool, or the AI image app you forgot was open? Tools like Nvidia's nvidia-smi or MSI Afterburner give totals or hardware readings, not a clear per-app memory picture.

That matters more in 2026 than it did a few years ago. Local AI apps sit in VRAM next to games, and with memory prices high, as Tom's Hardware and others keep reporting, plenty of players are stuck on 8 GB cards.

My take: what it means for players

This is the kind of tool I want after a game starts stuttering for no clear reason. Seeing that a browser tab or an idle AI app is holding two gigabytes of VRAM is far more useful than another overlay telling me memory use is 7.8 of 8 GB.

I also like how honest it is. Plenty of utilities show a confident number for everything. gputaskman tells you which numbers come from the driver and which are educated guesses. That saves you chasing the wrong process.

Keep your expectations in check, though. It is a terminal app, it is experimental, and the Windows ZIP is unsigned, so treat it like any early open-source build. It will not raise your framerate by itself. But on an 8 GB RTX 4060 or RX 7600, finding and closing the app that is eating your VRAM before a session is the cheapest upgrade going. If you are thinking about memory more generally, our report that 64 GB PCs are falling out of favour as RAM prices bite is worth a read.

What we don't know yet

• Signed or store releases. The Windows build is an unsigned ZIP; there is no word on signing or a Microsoft Store listing.
• Windows itself. Hanselman hinted in replies that broader GPU monitoring could come to Windows, but nothing official has been announced.
• Intel on Windows. Intel GPU support so far is Linux-only.
• Overhead. No one has published measurements of how much the tool itself costs while a game is running.

Quick facts

FAQ

What does gputaskman show?

It lists processes using your GPU with their video memory use, engine activity and runtime, and estimates how local AI models split memory between weights and KV cache.

Is gputaskman free?

Yes. It is open source under the MIT licence, with code and releases on GitHub.

Does gputaskman work with AMD and Intel GPUs?

AMD is supported on Windows and Linux. Intel GPU support arrived on Linux in v0.3.5; Windows Intel support is not listed yet.

Will gputaskman improve my game's performance?

Not directly. It shows which apps are using video memory, so you can close the ones you do not need before playing.

Sources: gputaskman on GitHub (repository and releases); Tom's Hardware; LockerGnome. Image: Tom's Hardware feed image.