How To Resolve “Out of GPU Memory” Errors in Blender

Blender throwing the “System is out of GPU memory” error is a pain, especially when working with complex scenes full of textures, dense geometry, or fancy shader setups. Basically, your graphics card simply can’t handle the load anymore. This usually pops up during final renders or even when you’re previewing in real time—thanks to Cycles being more demanding than Eevee. So, if you’re working on high-res renders, animations, or scenes with a ton of volumetrics, overheating VRAM is a real concern.

It’s also worth noting that not all GPUs are created equal. Those with only 4-6GB VRAM are way more prone to hitting the wall than high-end workstation cards. Blender doesn’t really handle “out-of-core” rendering — meaning, it can’t smoothly swap parts of textures or geometry to system RAM. Once VRAM runs out, cue the crash or the error. Luckily, a bunch of quick fixes can help keep things smooth without sounding like a total overhaul.

How to Fix GPU Memory Errors in Blender

Use Wireframe or Solid Viewport While Editing

This is kind of like giving your GPU a break during scene setup. When working on a complex scene, the real-time viewport rendering can hog a lot of memory, especially with high-res textures or heavy modifiers. Switching to wireframe or solid view helps keep things responsive and easier on VRAM.

Head over to the top-right corner of the 3D Viewport and click the shading icons.
Select Wireframe or Solid Mode.

This won’t change the final render, but it’s great for editing without dragging the GPU down. On some setups, I’ve noticed it helps avoid crashes during heavy modeling or scene adjustments — kind of weird, but it’s worth a shot.

Switch GPU Rendering Backend to CUDA

This one’s a bit technical but helps that stability sometimes. Blender defaults to OptiX on newer NVIDIA cards, which is faster for ray tracing but can be flaky, especially with older drivers or complex scenes. Switching to CUDA might not boost speed, but it could cut down on memory crashes.

Open edit > Preferences.
Go to the Systems tab, then find Cycles Render Devices.
Select CUDA instead of OptiX from the dropdown options.
Hit Save Preferences and restart Blender if needed.

Then, try rendering again. On some machines, this makes all the difference — kinda feels like Blender gets a little steadier.

Disable Unused Particle Systems

Particles are fun but notorious memory hogs, especially if you’re simulating smoke, fire, or hair. If you’re not using particles for your final image, turn them off to save a chunk of VRAM.

Go to the Particles tab (it looks like a spark in the properties panel).
In the Emission section, set Number and Lifetime to 0.
Optional: disable the particle system modifier or hide the particle layer in the Outliner (click the camera icon).

This trick is especially helpful if your scene has a lot of particle effects you don’t need during rendering — it’s kind of a no-brainer that can save a lot of RAM.

Reduce Texture Resolution

High-res textures like 4K or 8K can choke your GPU, especially when many are active in the scene. If you get this error, try scaling down textures to 2K, 1K, or even 512 pixels depending on how close they need to be to the camera.

⚠️ Note: You need to resize the actual image files in an image editor (GIMP, Photoshop, whatever).The Limit Size setting in Blender only affects the viewport, not final renders.

Head to Edit > Preferences.
Switch to the Viewport tab.
Adjust Textures > Limit Size to a lower resolution like 1024 or 512.

For real optimization, open your textures externally, resize, and re-import them into Blender. It’s a bit of extra work, but that’s often the quickest way to cut down on memory needs during Cycles rendering.

Adjust Displacement Dicing Scale

If you’re using displacement maps with adaptive subdivision, Blender creates high-detail meshes on the fly for realistic effects but at a VRAM cost. Raising the Dicing Scale reduces detail, freeing memory, at the expense of some fidelity.

In Render Properties, switch to Experimental mode.
Add a Subdivision Surface Modifier to your scene objects.
Enable Adaptive Subdivision within the modifier settings.

Then, increase the Dicing Scale in the modifier — try values like 8, 16, or higher depending on your scene. This can be a little hit-or-miss, but if you keep it balanced, it helps manage GPU memory better.

And hey, if none of this works, reaching out to the Blender support community might be the next step. Sometimes the scene setup itself needs some tweaks that aren’t obvious at first.