Blender is out of memory... I think. Any solution?

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1

So I’m creating a model with high-rest textures am I’m making on Substance Painter.

But my GPU only has 4 gbs of VRAM and as I’m approacing the 4 GBs, Blender has been crashing. It’s pretty much impossible to work now.

I have a better computer at home, but right now I’m at my parents house and using my laptop. I live 3 hours from here, so laptop is my option.

Is there any way to continue working on the project on my laptop?

Thanks.

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bbvbvbvvbvbbvvbbvvbbvbv1533×1020 183 KB

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2

Go to preference→viewport→textures→set limit size to something other than Off.

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3

I decided to just use lower res textures (for now).

Thanks.

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4

Just looked at Bender’s recommended requirement and it is now 8gb Vram

Min is 2Gb. so you are on the edge of viability especially with good textures.

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5

I was able to add 8k texture to the main body and and 4k to the cockpit (the other parts are small and don’t need 4k, the 1080 textures are sharp enough - more than enough even).

Now the weird thing is: everything is 100% fine now. Cycles is pretty fast even, each frame is being enredered in less than 1 minute (I am doing camera pans over the model).

However, EEVEE doesn’t seem to like it.

As soon as I change to EEVEE, Blender crashes. :woozy_face:

I wonder why… I always thought EEVEE was lighter.

Tomorrow I’ll be back home, and so I’ll use a desktop with 12GBs of vram (I’m gonna try to animated it, add a flame effect and stuff).

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6

If a single UV map drives all of your textures, you often need a very large map (like 8K), and once you add normal, bump, AO and other maps, memory usage grows fast and can become a problem. Using multiple UV maps and textures tuned to how close the camera gets lets you control pixel density where it actually matters.

Single large UV map

  • One UV map for everything usually means one big texture atlas (e.g. 8K) to keep details sharp across the whole model..
  • Duplicating that resolution for each extra map type (color, normal, roughness, AO, etc.) multiplies VRAM and disk usage quickly.

Multiple UV maps and resolution

  • You can split the asset into several UV maps and textures that match the viewing distance and zoom level for different parts.
  • The important factor is relative scale: a tiny detail like a dashboard button needs a higher texel density than a huge hull section if you want them to look equally sharp on screen

Texel density and usage

  • Think in terms of “how many pixels land on this surface area” rather than just total texture size; that is the texel density.
  • How many pixels you need on a given face depends on how large it appears in the final render or game and how crisp it must look.[youtube]​[reddit]​

Why a single atlas is popular

  • A single material/texture set is very efficient for real‑time use: fewer materials often mean fewer draw calls and better runtime performance.
  • It can also be easier to manage, but for still renders the performance gain is negligible, so splitting textures for quality or flexibility is usually fine.
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