Unreal Engine Out of Video Memory Error

How to fix it

Try these in order — the most common fix is first.

1. 1. Lower VRAM use

   Copy steps
   1. Reduce screen percentage and viewport resolution
   2. Lower Engine Scalability (Textures, Shadows, Effects)
   3. Cap the texture pool, for example r.Streaming.PoolSize or r.Streaming.LimitPoolSizeToVRAM=1
   Did this fix it? Yes No

2. 2. Update drivers and close other apps

   Copy steps
   1. Update the GPU driver
   2. Close browsers and other GPU-heavy apps
   Did this fix it? Yes No

3. 3. Clear cached shaders

   1. Delete the Saved and DerivedDataCache shader data for the project and let it recompile
   Did this fix it? Yes No

4. 4. Movie Render Queue crashes

   1. Disable hardware ray tracing for renders and reduce scalability and spatial samples
   Did this fix it? Yes No

5. 5. If VRAM is free

   1. Try the DX11 or Vulkan RHI, check for a hotfix or roll back to the previous engine version
   Did this fix it? Yes No

Symptoms

Fatal error: 'Out of video memory trying to allocate a rendering resource. Make sure your video card has the minimum required memory' in the editor, game or movie render.

Why it happens

• Real VRAM shortage (large textures, high resolution, Lumen/VSM)
• Outdated drivers
• Corrupted shader cache
• Other applications using VRAM
• Possible engine regression: threads report it on 5.8 with D3D12 while VRAM is free

This guide also covers

• unreal engine out of video memory
• ran out of video memory unreal
• out of video memory trying to allocate a rendering resource

The same problem in other apps

All not loading, error messages & connection guides →

• Unity Package Manager Errors (Unity)
• Blender CUDA / OptiX Error: Kernel Compilation Failed (Blender)

Other Unreal Engine errors

• Unreal Engine Fatal Error Crash
• Unreal Engine GPU Crashed or D3D Device Removed
• Unreal Engine Shaders Compiling Forever (Stuck at 45%)
• Unreal Engine Project Won't Open After Upgrade
• Epic Games Launcher Stuck Installing Unreal Engine
• Unreal Engine Packaging Failed (Unknown Cook Failure)
• Unreal Engine Visual Studio C++ Build Errors
• Unreal Engine 5 Lumen and Nanite Low FPS