Not enough Video Memory notification

[LukeFF]

2 hours ago, Cadum said:

Find it kind of unusual that the developers are not commenting on their plans to address this widespread VRAM issue as well as the annoying warning message.

The team is working on a major update, but until it's ready, there isn't much to say. 🙂 

[Cadum]

Well, your response is appreciated.

[JG14_Jagr]

When I was playing the pre release I was using an 8Gig RTXC3070 and was getting 80fps in 1920X1080.  Ran very smooth but after a while I would get the VRAM warning.  I shut off 4K textures and had no more issues.  I upgraded to a 9070XT and turned on the 4K and a lot of other bells and whistles and had no problems.  Until tonight.  I was playing on combat box and there were only 5 online and we were attacking the Docks and after several short missions from the island to the docks I exited and as I did I got the VRAM warning in the top right corner.  

[Crockett]

On 8/27/2026 at 12:06 PM, 310_Cibule said:

I used Nvidia GPU with 12B VRAM and kept getting this message after couple of minutes every time. Switching to XFX RX with 20BG VRAM has solved the problem instantly. No such a message any longer.  

I built a new PC specifically for this sim!  It's an AMD Ryzen 7 7800X3D CPU and an MSI Gaming RTX 5070 Ventus eX OC with 12GB of GDDR7 VRAM and 65GB of DDR5 ram!  I only do TrackIR and not VR. I just checked the price of a XFX RX with 20BG VRAM and am seeing $1460.00. I put my machine together using some of my old parts (hard drives, keyboard, mouse etc) for about $1500.00 specifically for this sim and am getting great frame rates at better than 200 fps at altitude and in the 190's when close to the ground! Although it would apparently work -- I'm not about to spend another $1500.00 for a better video card just to get rid of this annoying message when the game runs butter smooth already! I've posted this issue to the Facebook page called "IL2 Great Battles and the Korean Theatre of War". The consensus is to lower textures with no 4k -- which is disappointing and I would rather not have to do that!

I admit I haven't done that yet, so don't know if it would work -- but I'm hoping the developers can help with this issue even though it doesn't seem to negatively affect anything! However, I'll say this: It's an amazing sim that I love and a great game -- even with this annoying issue!

On 8/27/2026 at 12:06 PM, 310_Cibule said:

 

 

 

Edited September 24 by Crockett
Saved twice

[Cadum]

After trying Hotfix 1.004, sad to say nothing has changed regarding the Memory Warning in Red, or the use of VRAM or lack of ability to reclaim VRAM after a mission.  Would appreciate comment from the developers about when this will be dealt with.

[Voidhunger]

I have just build my new pc, 7800X3D, 32GB RAM and 9070xt, 2560x1440p 60hz. I have never saw more than 12 gb vram used so far. (on max details) 

Anyway even if its new engine the game still suffers the same problem like in old IL2 with stutters and slow downs in heavy scenes with high FPS.

(with gpu and cpu working at 50% max).

Its very disappointing and I though I will be finally able to play this game smoothly.

Im not sure if they can improve this and there are guys with even better rigs and they suffer with the same problem.

Edited September 29 by Voidhunger

[Justicier10-7]

Unfortunately can confirm on my end that the error persists after the 1.004 patch. I can still only fly 1 to 2 sorties before the render framerate plummets to ~30fps.

Rather frustrating as the sim runs smoothly at my locked 60fps even when flying low in a very urbanized area... until it doesn't when that VRAM "overflows"

[Justicier10-7]

After a bit more flying in the 1.004 version, it appears that the ~30fps drop, especially in menus after the action, occured for me after 3 total sorties tonight. I was using the Steam telemetry overlay to monitor processor and GPU usage, and the instant that the VRAM usage went from 9.8gb to 9.9gb (Out of a total usable of 7.8gb on my RTX3070) when entering the after action report screen, the framerate dropped to 30fps and menu navigation was choppy. So, at least on my system, the trigger seems to be when the VRAM usage exceeds by 2gb the VRAM that is available on the GPU. Only fix when that happens is to exit the game and restart.

[MajorMagee]

If you press Win+Ctrl+Shfit+B to restart the video driver after a mission does it clear the VRAM and let you keep playing?

[Cadum]

That never did a thing for me.

[LukeFF]

This message was specifically designed to alert players when they've pushed their settings too far and run out of memory. Without it, players and content creators wouldn't realize they'd run out of memory; instead, they'd show the public a blurry, ugly-looking mess and claim that's just how the game looks.

[Husar]

1 hour ago, LukeFF said:

This message was specifically designed to alert players when they've pushed their settings too far and run out of memory. Without it, players and content creators wouldn't realize they'd run out of memory; instead, they'd show the public a blurry, ugly-looking mess and claim that's just how the game looks.

This message sometimes pop up after a sortie or two which means that VRAM was ok before but  not cleared after sortie.

[Cadum]

The response from LukeFF misses the boat completely.  MSFS 2024 has a similar message, however that program release VRAM when a flight is closed.  IL-2 Korea is not releasing the used VRAM.  This forces users to quit the program to regain lost VRAM.  Not a happy thing for anybody or for potential customers who might not want to experience this frustration.  Keep the message, but release the used VRAM when the mission is over.

[Headless]

22 minutes ago, Cadum said:

 IL-2 Korea is not releasing the used VRAM. 

Exactly. This is the problem.

I think there are two related issues here:

1) The "Not enough video memory" message itself

2) The game reserves graphics memory but fails to release it when no longer needed

The problem with the message arises because of the second issue. Now, even if the system has enough VRAM to run the game on the selected settings, memory usage keeps growing until it hits the limit and never goes down as long as the game is running. To free up memory and to get rid of the message, the game must be restarted.

As far as I see it, the best way to solve this problem would be to fix the memory leak issue. 

Edited September 30 by Headless

[goosenz]

7 hours ago, LukeFF said:

This message was specifically designed to alert players when they've pushed their settings too far and run out of memory. Without it, players and content creators wouldn't realize they'd run out of memory; instead, they'd show the public a blurry, ugly-looking mess and claim that's just how the game looks.

But the whole point I'm making is that I get this message even when the game runs fine and looks fine. Surely an option can be added to the settings to choose whether or not that message is displayed, that's literally all a lot of us are asking for. 

[MajorMagee]

11 hours ago, Cadum said:

That never did a thing for me.

That's strange because when you see the screen go black for a second all of the VRAM has been cleared. The game would then naturally reload what's currently being displayed. If the game is somehow also going back in time and reloading old VRAM information that it had previously generated during the previous missions I'm at a loss as to where the information was being stored to get it back from. Perhaps the game is keeping a duplicate of all the VRAM data in RAM or on a hard drive for some arcane purpose.

[Leifr]

17 hours ago, LukeFF said:

This message was specifically designed to alert players when they've pushed their settings too far and run out of memory. Without it, players and content creators wouldn't realize they'd run out of memory; instead, they'd show the public a blurry, ugly-looking mess and claim that's just how the game looks.

Instead, they get to show the public a game that has exhausted the user's memory and isn't releasing it, and the player is forced in to hard-restarting the title. It's not really a particularly good look for 1C, better that it's just fixed outright. 

[Headless]

54 minutes ago, Leifr said:

Instead, they get to show the public a game that has exhausted the user's memory and isn't releasing it, and the player is forced in to hard-restarting the title. It's not really a particularly good look for 1C, better that it's just fixed outright. 

Indeed. This was the impression I got when watching certain videos released by content creators during the early access period. Given that those creators often have top-end systems, the "Not enough video memory" notification on the corner of their screens made the game look extremely poorly optimised. 

[JG14_Jagr]

I had this issue with an 8Gig 3070 card then upgraded to a 9070XT with 16Gigs.  I have not seen it in flight since.  However, after a long session when I go to the Museum screen I see the message and the FPS that runs a solid 144fps in game (native freq of my monitor) the fps is museum drops to 60-70 and the VRAM message pops up.  How much VRAM is being used by the main page of the museum?

[Justicier10-7]

2 hours ago, JG14_Jagr said:

I had this issue with an 8Gig 3070 card then upgraded to a 9070XT with 16Gigs.  I have not seen it in flight since.  However, after a long session when I go to the Museum screen I see the message and the FPS that runs a solid 144fps in game (native freq of my monitor) the fps is museum drops to 60-70 and the VRAM message pops up.  How much VRAM is being used by the main page of the museum?

On my system, when I first boot up the game in museum, without having flown at all yet, it's using 5.4gig VRAM.

[DedVdV]

У меня 8 гб видео (RTX 5060Ti) если летаешь на МИГе, то предупреждение не выскакивает. На американских самолетах появляется после выполнения задачи, а иногда уже после приземления. Летаю на средних настройках графики. Не хочется тратится на новую видюху с 16 гб только ради этой игры 😒

[Cadum]

While struggle to address the VRAM issue I have tried various combinations of graphics settings.  So far on my Nvidia RTX 3060ti 8GB VRAM setup I have found that the least VRAM is consumed when I have mainly medium graphics settings in specific lod, cloud, etc, terrain...and if I don't run DLSS or any upscale process and I don't run any anti-aliasing.....while also running at my standard display settings of 1440P.  Running this on complex missions like "Black Thursday" maxes out my VRAM at around 6500 GB...and so far everything is smooth, fps is 80, and no memory VRAM message.  Of course I still get stuck with unreclaimed VRAM for the next mission etc.  So...my process so far helps me not have to deal with the issue...but it is not the best solution for folks with modest VRAM.  The best solution is stop carrying over the highest VRAM usage to the next mission.  It should rise as needed from its minimum requirement and when you end a mission it should go back down to the minimum required by whatever screen your using, e.g., Museum, Tasks, New Single Mission selection etc.  DCS world doesn't have this problem, MSFS 2024 manages VRAM efficiently

[FuriousMeow]

1 hour ago, Cadum said:

 DCS world doesn't have this problem, MSFS 2024 manages VRAM efficiently

And neither do RoF or the GB series but that's neither here nor there, or STALKER 2 or DOOM or etc - doesn't matter and does nothing to isolate the cause.

I've seen this one time, but otherwise fly multiple task editor missions back to back. 16GB VRAM.

Edited Monday at 06:25 PM by FuriousMeow