I have an RTX 4080 with 16 GB of memory, but in games it uses a maximum of 10-11 GB even on max settings. The monitor shows that the rest of the memory is just sitting idle. Is this normal or is something wrong with my drivers?
Actually, "not being used" is the wrong way to put it, because VRAM works as a buffer, not storage that needs to be 100% full. Your card simply allocates exactly as much memory as the current scene requires, and that's completely normal - extra VRAM doesn't give you anything.
If you want to verify everything's legit, use FCAT or switch between games with different demands: you'll notice that in more demanding titles the memory usage goes up. Drivers have nothing to do with it - the graphics card itself manages memory allocation depending on the load.
That's completely normal - your graphics card uses exactly as much memory as it needs for the current scene and settings, and there's no reason to store anything else there. VRAM doesn't accumulate the way RAM does on a PC; it fills up as needed and gets freed when the data is no longer required. If your game is running smoothly without artifacts, that's a sign everything's working fine - the free memory is just a buffer in case you need more resources, like when you move to a new location with more demanding graphics.
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