VRAM is full immediately

Hello guys,
need really serious help.

I have RTX3080 12GB VRAM and almost immediately after open a project the VRAM is 40% full.
When start editting just some color correction VRAM is 100% full and Davinci becomes unusable. Everything is super choppy... for render cache I wait 20x longer.. it's really unusable. So I have to restart Davinci and start with little adjustment and restart... and again and again...

it's a super waste of my time, but nothing works... I have no idea what to do.
Footage is 6K BRAW 12:1 and Canon CRAW LT 4K.

Could it be that the much weaker GPU is used for DR too?
If at all, it should do de- or encoding only.

DR performs almost all processing using the video card. In my experiments, simply playing 6K clips required about 7 GB of video memory. Any processing increases the need for video memory. With serious processing, even 1080P50, the need for video memory reached 11-12 GB. In your case, it is the video card that is the limiter. The best solution would be to use a proxy.

DR performs almost all processing using the video card. In my experiments, simply playing 6K clips required about 7 GB of video memory. Any processing increases the need for video memory. With serious processing, even 1080P50, the need for video memory reached 11-12 GB. In your case, it is the video card that is the limiter. The best solution would be to use a proxy.

The best video card (RTX4090) has only 24GB VRAM. It is not that much upgrade...
So spend 1800€ for RTX4090 and the problem will shows up again just not in a second but in the minute?
What GPU guys do you use? 6x RTX4090? Also I know that Multi-GPU works great but GPU VRAM does not add up so 6x RTX4090 is still 24GB of VRAM...

Maybe the upgrade could be M2 ULTRA with 192GB shared RAM?

no issues with "out of ram errors" useing 2x 3080Ti
sources are typicaly ArriRAW, Sony Venice OCN, some RED
exporting a 98min 4kDci film tonight, from OCN -> EXR / OCN-> DPX / OCN -> Voukoder -> Prores
running at 35+Fps
many OFX. in play throughout
12g ram is working trouble free for my use case

no issues with "out of ram errors" useing 2x 3080Ti
sources are typicaly ArriRAW, Sony Venice OCN, some RED
exporting a 98min 4kDci film tonight, from OCN -> EXR / OCN-> DPX / OCN -> Voukoder -> Prores
running at 35+Fps
many OFX. in play throughout
12g ram is working trouble free for my use case

In this case we are talking about 6K. This format is more demanding on video memory. I'm afraid that no computer with a reasonable price will allow you to comfortably perform all types of work. Using 4090 will certainly improve the situation significantly, but the best solution, in my opinion, would be to use a proxy, for example, with a 1080p resolution.

In this case we are talking about 6K.

basics = prime deliveable matches timeline, and timeline matches monitor
GPU works on timeline raster not cam orig raster
what deilverable is 6k?
if you are contracted to deliver 6k, then one should be writeing invoices to cover far more than a 4090
if you are not being paid to deliver 6k, then why on earth are you running a 6k timeline?
ps, machine currently says 33.5Fps exporting a letterboxed UHD Prores
already finished the EXR @ 2065 pass, and DPX @ 709 pass....
GPU's are bounceing around 70%, GPU ram is about 9g

Timeline is 4K

Workstation cards have more memory but prices go up even more.

no issues with "out of ram errors" useing 2x 3080Ti
sources are typicaly ArriRAW, Sony Venice OCN, some RED
exporting a 98min 4kDci film tonight, from OCN -> EXR / OCN-> DPX / OCN -> Voukoder -> Prores
running at 35+Fps
many OFX. in play throughout
12g ram is working trouble free for my use case

You still have only 12GB...
How is it possible that you do not have a problem and my machine is almost unusable with the same amount of VRAM?

I have a feeling DR uses all the RAM regardless. Any chance it's like windows, where RAM is being used but not necessarily freed when not needed anymore? DR was using 100% of my 4GB, then my 6GB and now my 8GB. But never had errors.

I feel the choppiness is something else and no amount of VRAM can fix that.

no issues with "out of ram errors" useing 2x 3080Ti
sources are typicaly ArriRAW, Sony Venice OCN, some RED
exporting a 98min 4kDci film tonight, from OCN -> EXR / OCN-> DPX / OCN -> Voukoder -> Prores
running at 35+Fps
many OFX. in play throughout
12g ram is working trouble free for my use case

You still have only 12GB...
How is it possible that you do not have a problem and my machine is almost unusable with the same amount of VRAM?

Because your footage asks for more VRAM.
And a 4090 is not "only" 24GB since it is double the amount.

I have a feeling DR uses all the RAM regardless. Any chance it's like windows, where RAM is being used but not necessarily freed when not needed anymore? DR was using 100% of my 4GB, then my 6GB and now my 8GB. But never had errors.

I feel the choppiness is something else and no amount of VRAM can fix that.

until VRAM is full, the playback is pretty smooth when we realize, I have applied noise reduction, heavy color grading, speed warp on RAW formats...
But in second when DR use all 12GB of VRAM it starts to be unusable how I describe. There is no processor issues like low power... I really have VRAM management issues

Hey

Your problem is speed warp AND noise reduction (AND probably some VFX) on 6k material.
On my 6-year-old machine, I can easily do 6 K BRAW / 5K RED on a 4 k timeline with noise reduction and some basic colour nodes (8-10). More would be beseeching the Gods (of post-pro)

Work in batches, or buy the ultra high-end cards.

Or

Work in batches, or buy the ultra high-end cards.

Or, unpopular opinion around here, get an AMD card or a Mac and not worry about this stuff no more.

Or

Work in batches, or buy the ultra high-end cards.

Or, unpopular opinion around here, get an AMD card or a Mac and not worry about this stuff no more.

Correct. Either change your workflow or pay for new hardware. There is no magic solution for the NVidia VRAM issue. Either give Resolve more VRAM, change to AMD GPU, or change your workflow.

Or

Work in batches, or buy the ultra high-end cards.

Or, unpopular opinion around here, get an AMD card or a Mac and not worry about this stuff no more.

Correct. Either change your workflow or pay for new hardware. There is no magic solution for the NVidia VRAM issue. Either give Resolve more VRAM, change to AMD GPU, or change your workflow.

AMD GPUs has also only 24GB VRAM.... wtf?

Correct. Either change your workflow or pay for new hardware. There is no magic solution for the NVidia VRAM issue. Either give Resolve more VRAM, change to AMD GPU, or change your workflow.

AMD GPUs has also only 24GB VRAM.... wtf?

The issue of VRAM full is unique to NVidia + Resolve. AMD does not or extremely rarely suffers the same issue.

Correct. Either change your workflow or pay for new hardware. There is no magic solution for the NVidia VRAM issue. Either give Resolve more VRAM, change to AMD GPU, or change your workflow.

AMD GPUs has also only 24GB VRAM.... wtf?

The issue of VRAM full is unique to NVidia + Resolve. AMD does not or extremely rarely suffers the same issue.

oh... I did not know that

Hello guys,
need really serious help.

I have RTX3080 12GB VRAM and almost immediately after open a project the VRAM is 40% full.
When start editting just some color correction VRAM is 100% full and Davinci becomes unusable. Everything is super choppy... for render cache I wait 20x longer.. it's really unusable. So I have to restart Davinci and start with little adjustment and restart... and again and again...

it's a super waste of my time, but nothing works... I have no idea what to do.
Footage is 6K BRAW 12:1 and Canon CRAW LT 4K.

I am no expert, but I did some test running timelines with FullHD, 4K, and 8K. GPU RAM never took more than 4.5GB in in FUllHD and not more than 8GB in 8K. And it is less when using proxies.

My guess is that the problem is related to your 6K footage. Maybe if you can share a test project with footages for me to test it on my system and see if I can replicate your problem.

I have a feeling DR uses all the RAM regardless. Any chance it's like windows, where RAM is being used but not necessarily freed when not needed anymore? DR was using 100% of my 4GB, then my 6GB and now my 8GB. But never had errors.

I feel the choppiness is something else and no amount of VRAM can fix that.

True ..sometimes I get choppiness with specific video clips even though my VRAM is 90% free. However, after playing that clip for the second, or sometimes 3rd times, it playas back smoothly.

Correct. Either change your workflow or pay for new hardware. There is no magic solution for the NVidia VRAM issue. Either give Resolve more VRAM, change to AMD GPU, or change your workflow.

AMD GPUs has also only 24GB VRAM.... wtf?

The issue of VRAM full is unique to NVidia + Resolve. AMD does not or extremely rarely suffers the same issue.

I never had this memory problem with my 5 years old system and I am always using nVIDIA so I don't believe your comment is valid.

Or

Work in batches, or buy the ultra high-end cards.

Or, unpopular opinion around here, get an AMD card or a Mac and not worry about this stuff no more.

Also, I compared Resolve performance between my 5 years old mini PC and a 2023 15‑inch Macbook Air (M2 chip) with the exact same project and my old mini PC outperformed the Mac in every test, from playback smoothness, to speed of Magic Mask tracking speed to rendering which really surprised me!


The Apple M2 chips are very powerful indeed, but don't believe all the hype about it. You can definitely find much faster Intel or AMD system. However when it comes to efficiency and battery life in laptops, M chip are still the king.

You still have only 12GB...
How is it possible that you do not have a problem and my machine is almost unusable with the same amount of VRAM?

- i rarely use speed warp, prefering to send to more capabile software, and get a DPX or EXR sequence in return
- stock footage comes to me as DPX with any speed changes burnt in
- i rarely use noise reduction, when i do usualy it's either Clairirty or Neat, neither is RT, so that is cached
- i rarely go beyond a 4kDCi flat or Scope timeline, that's what i invoice for upon delivery

- there's been talk about 6k timelines, what is your timeline raster? do you have a use case and approaprate payment for deivering 6k?
- if useing native NR, how many frames anylsis do you select? the native again is not really up to the task of heavy lifting for the delivery partners i send films to, settings higher than 2fr is very likely to fail QC for warping and related artifacts
- if useing speedwarp or other ML tasks, do you render in place?

AMD GPUs has also only 24GB VRAM.... wtf?

The issue of VRAM full is unique to NVidia + Resolve. AMD does not or extremely rarely suffers the same issue.

I never had this memory problem with my 5 years old system and I am always using nVIDIA so I don't believe your comment is valid.

It is well documented. While you may never had it, countless people have. It is usually triggered by high media and/or timeline resolution and certain FX (mainly NR). It can also be triggered by the wrong Nvidia drivers.

We have dozens of DR systems. 100% of our VRAM full errors are on Windows NVidia systems. Never on a Mac (various models from Intel (6,1/7,1 MP, iMac) to M1/M2 (MacStudio). Never on Windows AMD systems. You can search this forum if you like.

Hello guys,
need really serious help.

I have RTX3080 12GB VRAM and almost immediately after open a project the VRAM is 40% full.
When start editting just some color correction VRAM is 100% full and Davinci becomes unusable. Everything is super choppy... for render cache I wait 20x longer.. it's really unusable. So I have to restart Davinci and start with little adjustment and restart... and again and again...

it's a super waste of my time, but nothing works... I have no idea what to do.
Footage is 6K BRAW 12:1 and Canon CRAW LT 4K.

I am no expert, but I did some test running timelines with FullHD, 4K, and 8K. GPU RAM never took more than 4.5GB in in FUllHD and not more than 8GB in 8K. And it is less when using proxies.

My guess is that the problem is related to your 6K footage. Maybe if you can share a test project with footages for me to test it on my system and see if I can replicate your problem.

Even BM recommends at least 12GB of VRAM for 4K. More VRAM for 6K and up.
I think you are falling for the anecdotal trap here. While you may never experience it, that is not the universal truth.

Correct. Either change your workflow or pay for new hardware. There is no magic solution for the NVidia VRAM issue. Either give Resolve more VRAM, change to AMD GPU, or change your workflow.

AMD GPUs has also only 24GB VRAM.... wtf?

The issue of VRAM full is unique to NVidia + Resolve. AMD does not or extremely rarely suffers the same issue.

On pugetbench nVidia win over AMD at all tests so far...
Are you sure that AMD has better VRAM management?

Are you sure that AMD has better VRAM management?

VRAM management is not the same thing as performance. The amount of memory does not really affect performance unless you run out of it.

What is faster ? Slow render or not rendering at all? LOL
Again you can also just go with 24GB or 48GB NVidia card. You dont have to go AMD. But that is one of the options.

Are you sure that AMD has better VRAM management?

Yes.

Also, as I've said in other threads.

Just because the 4090 exists doesn't mean that all the cards from Nvidia are faster than all the AMD cards...

So...no, Nvidia doesn't "win all tests on Pugetbench".

As always, its always workflow specific.

It is well documented. While you may never had it, countless people have. It is usually triggered by high media and/or timeline resolution and certain FX (mainly NR). It can also be triggered by the wrong Nvidia drivers.

We have dozens of DR systems. 100% of our VRAM full errors are on Windows NVidia systems. Never on a Mac (various models from Intel (6,1/7,1 MP, iMac) to M1/M2 (MacStudio). Never on Windows AMD systems. You can search this forum if you like.

Well, in this case you mean some nVidia owners have this problem, not all of them. I have 5 PCs with nVidia GPUs and non have this problem.

Hello guys,
need really serious help.

I have RTX3080 12GB VRAM and almost immediately after open a project the VRAM is 40% full.
When start editting just some color correction VRAM is 100% full and Davinci becomes unusable. Everything is super choppy... for render cache I wait 20x longer.. it's really unusable. So I have to restart Davinci and start with little adjustment and restart... and again and again...

it's a super waste of my time, but nothing works... I have no idea what to do.
Footage is 6K BRAW 12:1 and Canon CRAW LT 4K.

I am no expert, but I did some test running timelines with FullHD, 4K, and 8K. GPU RAM never took more than 4.5GB in in FUllHD and not more than 8GB in 8K. And it is less when using proxies.

My guess is that the problem is related to your 6K footage. Maybe if you can share a test project with footages for me to test it on my system and see if I can replicate your problem.

Even BM recommends at least 12GB of VRAM for 4K. More VRAM for 6K and up.
I think you are falling for the anecdotal trap here. While you may never experience it, that is not the universal truth.

That is the recommended for smooth performance, however the minimum requirement is 2GB. Again, my 6 years old laptop has nVidia GPU with 4GB VRAM and I can edit 4K with no problem, though not as smooth as I like unless I create proxies.

That is the recommended for smooth performance, however the minimum requirement is 2GB. Again, my 6 years old laptop has nVidia GPU with 4GB VRAM and I can edit 4K with no problem, though not as smooth as I like unless I create proxies.

No. VRAM has nothing to do with performance. Again, you keep using your experience and assuming that is the truth. I am telling you what BM support and engineers have said in this forum and what many users have expressed in this forum.

Software is complex and a bug that may occur with one user may not occur with another user. There so many factors from hardware configuration, software, drivers, settings, workflow that can affect how and when a bug is triggered.

That is the recommended for smooth performance, however the minimum requirement is 2GB. Again, my 6 years old laptop has nVidia GPU with 4GB VRAM and I can edit 4K with no problem, though not as smooth as I like unless I create proxies.

No. VRAM has nothing to do with performance. Again, you keep using your experience and assuming that is the truth. I am telling you what BM support and engineers have said in this forum and what many users have expressed in this forum.

.

Are you sure you're not talking about a popup error 'out of memory' or similar. He's not experiencing that so it's not relevant. If an AMD card runs out of VRAM it will swap between system ram just as an Nvidia card will and the performance will be terrible, like the poster is talking about.

Using an Nvidia card the card will have access to memory from Vram plus half of system memory, you may be saying AMD GPU's do not have the restriction of only having access to half system ram, but once your GPU is using system ram to a high degree performance will be terrible.

Can you clarify what you mean by AMD not having out of memory problems, people keep parroting it here and I"m not sure they really understand what they're saying. You have both cards, what are you actually saying?

Thats what he's referring to. GPU memory full error. Most likely. With that said, whats the difference between unusable as OP said and GPU memory full. Since thats whats likely next when he does anything that will exceed 12GB ram.

My 7900XTX and my former 6800XT didn't crawl to a halt when VRAM was full. The only slowdowns are when effects like quad NR exceed the card's compute capabilities. Never VRAM related. And never GPU memory full error either.

Something makes Nvidia cards choke on some operations, be it drivers, CUDA memory management or Resolve itself. We can only speculate why but it happens.

It also happens in some games when you activate Raytracing and exceed VRAM. Games crawl to unusable framerates or crash. Then they patch them in drivers but they fail loading textures (Hogwarts Legacy as a recent example).

My 7900XTX and my former 6800XT didn't crawl to a halt when VRAM was full. The only slowdowns are when effects like quad NR exceed the card's compute capabilities. Never VRAM related. And never GPU memory full error either.

Something makes Nvidia cards choke on some operations, be it drivers, CUDA memory management or Resolve itself. We can only speculate why but it happens.

I did a quick google, so not certain of these figures, but surely you do see a performance decrease when your card runs out of Vram, Your card looks to have an internal Vram bandwidth of 960GB/s and if you're using DDR5 your system memory may be 75GB/s. You surely have to experience a performance difference when your GPU is having to wait for memory being swapped out to such slow memory (relatively speaking)

The reason Apple M2's perform so well when the low latency memory is full is because their unified system memory is 400GB/s on M2 Max or 800GB/s on Ultra. Still interesting what you have said about its more than just physics that makes Nvidia cards perform badly when using system memory. I"ll look more into this

No. VRAM has nothing to do with performance. Again, you keep using your experience and assuming that is the truth. I am telling you what BM support and engineers have said in this forum and what many users have expressed in this forum.

VRAM affects performance. The more VRAM, the better overall performance, the less VRAM the less overall performance.

go the proxy route or check your drivers.

I did a quick google, so not certain of these figures, but surely you do see a performance decrease when your card runs out of Vram

Not really. As long as the storage keeps up speed wise with the codec, it streams pretty smoothly. On a 4K timeline with 4K, 4.6K, 6K etc assets it works very well.

Which doesn't seem to happen with Nvidia cards in some specific scenarios. And if I were to speculate, it would be a massive perpetual memory leak on their part.

https://www.reddit.com/r/RedshiftRender ... t/jgsdt58/

No. VRAM has nothing to do with performance. Again, you keep using your experience and assuming that is the truth. I am telling you what BM support and engineers have said in this forum and what many users have expressed in this forum.

VRAM affects performance. The more VRAM, the better overall performance, the less VRAM the less overall performance.

Please, show me a benchmark. And can you explain to me the mechanics behind it.

Please, show me a benchmark. And can you explain to me the mechanics behind it.

Its magic! VRAM amount is relevant only when there isn't enough of it. Performance isn't positively affected by unused memory.

Exactly. There are other characteristics of memory that CAN affect performance, such as memory type (GDDR6, HBM2, etc.), bus speed, latency and etc. But the amount of memory will not affect performance unless you run out of it. If a process requires only 4GB of VRAM and you have 8GB GPU, a 12GB GPU will not be faster assuming everything else is the same.

Hey guys. And how work "Shared GPU memory" ????
Because I have 63,8GB of shared GPU memory (half of my overall amount of RAM). But Davinci DO NOT use them... Now I rendering the project and my VRAM is 100% full and rendering is super super slow, DR use my Shared GPU memory but only 3,8GB out of 63,8GB... WHY???
Why Davinci don't use all available memory? I just don't understand it.

VRAM 12GB used out of 12
Shared GPU memory 3,8GB used out of 63,8GB
Overall GPU memory 15,8GB used out of 75,8GB

Is somebody able to explain me this Davinci/nVidia/Microsoft ****?

[Dwaine Maggart]

Resolve on Windows/Linux with NVIDIA GPU's and CUDA processing can only use the dedicated GPU memory. Shared GPU memory is not available for Resolve to use.

Shared GPU memory is not available for Resolve to use.

So then whose fault is that? Davinci's or Nvidia's? Where do we put the squeeze to have this problem fixed?

[Dwaine Maggart]

It's a CUDA thing.

VRAM affects performance. The more VRAM, the better overall performance, the less VRAM the less overall performance.

Please, show me a benchmark. And can you explain to me the mechanics behind it.

Please note that I said "overall performance" not speed .. so what is your definition of performance?

AMD GPUs has also only 24GB VRAM.... wtf?

The newer Radeon Pro GPU's go up to 48GB.

Be advised that most artists avoid a consumer AMD card. One advantage of GeForce with nVidia's Studio drivers is you get support for windowed 10-bit color. AMD can be set to 10-bit for DX gaming but restricts desktop apps to workstation cards, like nVidia used to prior to 2019.

Resolve on Windows/Linux with NVIDIA GPU's and CUDA processing can only use the dedicated GPU memory. Shared GPU memory is not available for Resolve to use.

I was able to get the Resolve out of memory error, but only after it used all my shared GPU memory, doesn't that mean Resolve does use shared GPU memory with Nvidia?

close this window).png (440.18 KiB) Viewed 2528 times

[Dwaine Maggart]

CUDA is not using that shared memory. I'd be curious to know what IS using it.

I'm also curious what you are doing that's using 24 GB of VRAM? Something like an 8K or greater timeline resolution?

Hey guys. And how work "Shared GPU memory" ????
Because I have 63,8GB of shared GPU memory (half of my overall amount of RAM). But Davinci DO NOT use them... Now I rendering the project and my VRAM is 100% full and rendering is super super slow, DR use my Shared GPU memory but only 3,8GB out of 63,8GB... WHY???
Why Davinci don't use all available memory? I just don't understand it.

VRAM 12GB used out of 12
Shared GPU memory 3,8GB used out of 63,8GB
Overall GPU memory 15,8GB used out of 75,8GB

Is somebody able to explain me this Davinci/nVidia/Microsoft ****?

When that occurs take screenshots of all your task manager processes.