Anyone wondering what is filling up their GPU's VRAM can now try gputaskman, a free, open-source tool from Microsoft VP Scott Hanselman. It runs in a terminal window with an htop-style layout and lists every process using the GPU with its memory footprint, engine activity, and loaded runtime, such as CUDA or Vulkan. A panel up top tracks utilization, clocks, temperature, and power. Hanselman shared the project on X last week and asked for pull requests.
Task Manager has shown GPU usage since 2017, and it will happily tell you that 15 GB of video memory is in use. It just won't say what is using it. gputaskman goes after that gap with a heavy focus on local AI. Its model inspector can identify the LLM a process has loaded and report its quantization, weights, and estimated KV cache cost, while Ollama and LM Studio users also get context size and proper model names. Hanselman calls it early, experimental software, and the AI breakdowns are estimates for now.