Is there particular media I can test to try to replicate this with? I'm on Intel/NVIDIA with 2 systems.

Sorry guys this is gonna be a WORDY ONE!

@RogerS

thanks for running that test! it’s interesting that your VRAM seems to plateau around 6–6.5 GB, but i think that might just be because your 4060 only has 8 GB total. vegas probably just runs out of headroom sooner before the system starts to struggle.

mine technically “plateaus” too, but only because it hits around 14.5–15 GB out of 16 and then my whole system starts falling apart - audio drivers crash, mouse lags, everything becomes unresponsive. so in both cases, it’s not vegas actually managing memory, it’s just the hardware hitting a wall.

that difference in total VRAM might explain why some people are seeing slowdowns or minor freezes while others get full system crashes, the behavior’s the same, just scaled by available memory.

Is there some media type or Fx or something else triggering this? I'm sure something is wrong with decoding... but what is it?

yeah, i’ve ruled that out too. same behavior whether there are fx on the timeline or not. even a totally clean project with no effects, transitions, or compositing still causes the vram to keep climbing. so it doesn’t seem tied to a specific plugin or media type, just the way vegas handles playback/decoding in general.

Do you want me to try with the 5070 as well?

if you get a chance to test playback longer or try it on the 5070, that might help confirm if this happens across generations. so far it’s looking like vegas just keeps allocating VRAM during playback and never releases it properly, regardless of the card.

Is there particular media I can test to try to replicate this with?

i’ve had the same results no matter the project or media type, but i’m happy to send over the media from my current project so we’re testing under the same conditions. would love to see what your results look like.

the project uses two facecam recordings and a desktop capture across three (technically four) tracks. the two facecams are child tracks, with a parent adjustment layer above them for global transforms (and eventually a drop shadow + subtle shake, though that part’s not added yet). the only fx on the facecams are static, unkeyframed bézier masks, and they’re positioned in the corners using pan/crop.

i’ve got the files in both mp4 and prores 422 proxy formats, so you can test either one. i’d rather not post the links publicly, if you’re open to dming, i can share them there. appreciate you taking the time to help test this, roger!

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@JulioAZ  

In the last test, I left dynamic allocation at 0%. Nothing changed.

that’s interesting! for me, disabling dynamic ram preview actually stops the vram climb almost entirely. as soon as it’s turned off, playback stabilizes and gpu memory stays within a safe range (8–9.5gb). so while dynamic ram might not be the only factor, it’s definitely acting like a trigger on my system.

When opening Vegas with a project, it uses a small amount of GPU RAM, but after a while of playback/editing, RAM consumption starts to increase.

yeah, that matches what i was seeing before turning off dynamic ram. playback alone - no fx or heavy media, was enough to push gpu memory higher and higher until the system started choking.

“With GPU Acceleration enabled and ‘Hardware Decoder To Use’ disabled... Vegas freezes constantly and playback occasionally has black glitches.”

i haven’t tested that combo yet, but it’s good to know you saw some change there. i’ve been running with gpu acceleration fully enabled (and decoder still on) while toggling dynamic ram, so that might be my next thing to check.

The way Vegas interacts with the GPU when it comes to video decoding is where the problem really lies. When playback is paused... the software should clear the cache/buffer.

yeah, 100%. that “not releasing memory after pause” behavior is exactly what i’ve been tracking too. vegas just keeps holding onto vram indefinitely until it’s restarted, which really does sound like a caching/flush issue in how it manages decoded frames.

Since @chell uses Intel/NVIDIA, and mine and @RedRob-CandlelightProdctns use AMD/RADEON, it’s not an isolated issue.

and that’s the big takeaway here. seeing the same leak across amd and nvidia, even with totally different setups, basically rules out drivers. it’s got to be happening somewhere deeper in vegas’s memory management layer.

Here when I have a RAM bottleneck problem, the total RAM/paging memory usage sometimes reaches 60GB before Vegas restarts.

holy hell yeah, that’s wild - and honestly not far off from what happens on my end if i don’t disable dynamic ram. my vram caps out at around 14–15gb of 16, then my audio drivers start dying and everything becomes unresponsive.

thanks again for running such deep tests. your results are seriously helping connect the dots here. between both our setups, it’s starting to look like the leak originates in playback/decode handling, and dynamic ram just accelerates it. hopefully this gets dev attention soon, because between amd and nvidia users seeing the same climb, because at this point it’s clearly not isolated

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@andyrpsmith

If I open both V22 and V23 with media playing, the VRAM seems to be shared 50% each and if I stop one then VRAM is released and taken up by the other.

yeah - that behavior’s been pretty consistent across so far. vegas does eventually free up gpu memory, but only when the app is completely closed (or in my case pressing apply after setting dyn ram back to 0 lmao). during playback or pause, it just keeps everything allocated and doesn’t flush any of it out.

I have a setting in the V23 internal menu set to True for releasing inactive image buffer CPU and GPU memory.

thanks for checking that, by the way. i was hoping that toggle might help vegas clear more of the cached data mid-session, but looks like it’s not actually touching decoded playback buffers at all - probably just affects static images or thumbnails.

V23 slows down and plays with reduced frame rates approx 15–12fps from 25fps... V22 seems unaffected.

interesting! in my case, both 22 and 23 behave the same way. the vram usage just keeps climbing steadily during playback until it hits around 14.5–15gb out of 16, then my entire system starts glitching out (audio, mouse, etc.). i’m thinking it’s less about version differences and more about vegas’s memory release logic during gpu decoding.

V23 30min project with some FX grabs 14GB VRAM and keeps it until it is closed.

that right there sums it up, vram never gets freed until shutdown. the only workaround i’ve found so far is keeping dynamic ram preview off; that stops the leak for me completely.

really appreciate you running those tests, andy. your data helps narrow it down to a vegas-level memory handling problem, not a gpu or driver issue. it’s wild how consistent the results are across everyone’s setups. it’s kinda crazy how similar everyone’s results have been. doesn’t matter what gpu or version. vegas just keeps stacking vram till it chokes. i’m really hoping the devs take a look soon, cuz this feels like one of those “hidden until you know where to look” bugs that tons of people are probably hitting without realizing dynamic ram or playback caching’s behind it.

thanks for running that test! it’s interesting that your VRAM seems to plateau around 6–6.5 GB, but i think that might just be because your 4060 only has 8 GB total. vegas probably just runs out of headroom sooner before the system starts to struggle.

That doesn't make sense, the system should start to struggle sooner with less VRAM. The tests with my desktop system (12GB) is the same pattern but gets to ~10GB. I haven't had a ram leak with it yet.

I would like to compare apples to apples so if you can DM me a link I'll gladly download the project file and media. I can test on both systems, laptop and desktop.

@RogerS

yeah that’s what’s so confusing, you’d think systems with less vram would start choking first, but in my case it’s not just vegas that crashes when it hits the upper limit, it’s the entire system. like audio drivers, mouse lag, ui stutter. everything locks up until i kill vegas or disable dynamic ram. feels like the gpu memory allocator keeps filling even when windows starts paging out.

the pattern sounds super similar though. yours climbing steadily until it hits ~10gb, then flattening, except (sadly) my 5080 doesn’t stop, it just keeps going until the os gives out 😭 so even though it looks like a “plateau” in task manager, it’s probably vegas hitting a ceiling per gpu config.

really appreciate you offering to test my project, that’ll help rule out any timeline-specific stuff. i’ll dm you the link so you can try it on both systems and see if the behavior’s the same.

VEGAS uses most of the available VRAM by design for caching- it's now even advertising that. What's strange is the climbing behavior, which I don't see. The 5080 does have dual decoders and other differences from the 5070.

Does this fix from VEGAS support for another 5080 help you at all?

https://www.vegascreativesoftware.info/us/forum/upgraded-gpu-from-nvidia-3070ti-to-nvidia-5080-now-vp22-slow-crashes--149151/?page=2#ca939717

I've personally not given VRAM much thought. I have seen it maxed out of dedicated VRAM with shared GPU memory according to Task Manager.

But I see that even now, with a blank Vegas open along with RAM sucking Firefox, dedicated GPU RAM is 1.7/12.0 and Shared GPU memory is 0.2/32.0.

I worked on a 35minute simple project with text, still images with pan/zoom, and music on a 1920x1080HD timeline. Maximum dedicated GPU memory on my 12GB video card was 11.5GB. Shared memory was 2GB. It did not stop me or slow me down in editing.

Closing the project, no, the GPU RAM was not really released, but I was able to load a new project and edit.

But I have to agree, GPU RAM increases with playing back the timeline until it is filled on the video card, with using shared memory too.

The Vegas team is looking into this right now. We are considering this a top priority. At the moment we are trying to reproduce the problem locally and have a few theories on what the problem is.

@VEGASDerek thank you so much. y'all are the best. please let me know if there's anything else i can do/test to help.

@chell

What VFX are you using in your project(s)?

@VEGASDerek primarily sapphire, continuum and mocha, though i run into problems during my first pass prior to adding any effects.

@VEGASDerek @RogerS

Ran some tests with and without effects, both individual and layered.

First, I ran the test on a timeline with no effects - Dynamic RAM turned off, three tracks - duplicated desktop videos with ordinary pan and crop, no keyframes. 20% utilization.

Dyn Ram OFF, no effects: Results were stable, no issues.

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Dyn Ram OFF, S_WarpChroma and BCC+ Transform and S_Shake: Results were stable and mostly the same as previous test. Slight slow down but 20% utilization.

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Next, I turned Dynamic RAM on. I began testing with effects individually and each time GPU utilization shot up to 100%. I then figured I'd close it, do the same set up on a clean timeline with no effects. These are the results, sadly.

Dyn Ram ON, no effects: Results were terrible. GPU utilization shot up to 100%, PC began crashing, FPS in preview dropped, mouse started lagging, had to stop the recording as it was showing an OBS encoding overload error (screenshot also attached)

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Just to be sure it wasn't OBS causing an issue, I released the cache manually by turning dyn ram off, then on again and tried again with OBS closed. Same thing again. Had to force close Vegas w/ alt-f4 because playback wouldn't stop and pc was screaming at me to stop.

I figured I'd try with effects again since I had made a new timeline, just to be sure.

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Dyn RAM ON, S_WarpChroma and BCC+ Transform: Results were absolutely identical to previous times, but OBS crashed this time around so I did not get a recording. 100% Utilization again.

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i really hope this helps in some way. If I can do anything else, please let me know. I didn't even notice the 100% utilization last time I was testing this, so this is interesting.