Graphics memory leaks.

In the course of developing the application under Windows I often stop debugging while the application is running and one or more OpenGl windows is active. I assume this does not release the video memory because after a while I get crashes coming from the videodriver with no apparent reason. The only way to stop the crashing is to restart the application. The application is quite complex with many visible and hidden OpenGL windows.

  1. What happens if the application stops without releasing graphics context ? I would assume the driver could determine somehow that the process is not running anymore and release the resources automatically. Apparently this is not the case.

  2. Is there a tool to check the videomemory leaks under Windows ?

  1. this is certainly dependent on the driver. which one are you using ?
  2. such tools are hardware-dependant, for example this one from Nvidia for Nvidia hardware may help :
    http://nvidia.custhelp.com/cgi-bin/nvidia.cfg/php/enduser/std_adp.php?p_faqid=2756