''An unreal engine process has crashed ''

Hello everyone, I’m having an issue with UE and I’m hoping that someone who has either experienced a similar problem or has an idea about it can help me!

I need to work with a 3ds Max file in Unreal Engine, I installed the 5th version, but it had poor performance and kept showing me an error that said ‘video memory has been exhausted’, even before I began working with it. Also, it kept crashing and giving me a message that said ‘’ an unreal process had crashed’'. I then decided to work with UE 4, hoping it would perform better, at first, the performance was acceptable, but when I attempted to import the 3ds Max file, it crashed again and displayed the same message again 'An Unreal process had crashed '.

P.S. my laptop has 16 GB of RAM

How much VRAM is on your graphics adapter? UE has some known issues with the VRAM exhaustion even with 8G or more of VRAM, but if you have less than that it may be a problem.

You didn’t indicate your GPU type, but in general you’ll want to have a discrete GPU rather than the planar (integrated into CPU/motherboard) type. If you have an NVIDIA GPU and your computer supports Optimus or similar switched graphics modes, consider setting your BIOS to disable graphics switching and always use the discrete GPU. It’s not ideal for battery life, but if you are working in tools like 3DS and UE, you probably need the performance more than you need battery life.

For both UE and newer versions of 3DS, you may find that upgrading from 16 GB to 32 GB of system RAM will help performance. I don’t think that would address the specific error you have here, but I have 64 GB on my machine and UE uses about 1/3 of it most of the time. YMMV depending on what kind of projects you do.

I’ve encountered the VRAM error you describe, but only when working in scenes with large landscapes or extremely complex layered materials. My recommendation would be to isolate the problem on your project by trying to do your mesh imports when the current open Level in UE is a very simple one – just the “Basic” level and not one of the “Open World” templates.

Beyond these very basic suggestions, you’ll need to post more information about the project and your system so readers have more to work with in offering guidance.

Another suggestion: In your project folder, look for a subfolder called “Saved” and then a “Logs” folder within that. That is where UE will put its logs, and if you want help with the crashes, you should look at the logs first. They may have detailed explanations of what caused the crash, and even if you are new to UE and aren’t sure how to interpret the logs, if you post the relevant snippets from the log here, you’ll be more likely to get help from an experienced person. Just saying the editor crashed is not specific enough for people to know how to help, which is probably why my response is the first one you’ve received.

Hope this gets you started on the road to solving the problem.

Same issue please can someone help me??

Crash log:

LoginId:cca7e10d4fd26f94e90151a31fb154c9
EpicAccountId:584e7e4370234b4a862b256b76c21b61

Unhandled Exception: EXCEPTION_ACCESS_VIOLATION reading address 0x0000000000000028

CastingFrankStone_Win64_Shipping
CastingFrankStone_Win64_Shipping
CastingFrankStone_Win64_Shipping
CastingFrankStone_Win64_Shipping
CastingFrankStone_Win64_Shipping
CastingFrankStone_Win64_Shipping
kernel32
ntdll

My specs:

  • Intel(R) Core™ i7-2600 CPU @ 3.40GHz 3.40 GHz (CPU)
  • 16,0 GB (RAM)
  • 64 bit System
  • Windows 10 Pro (22H2 version)
  • NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1050 Ti (Video Card)

In the engine defaults .ini files there is a setting for allocated vram, by default it’s set to 70% I believe, try bumping it up and check if that fixes this. If your planning on doing extensive work with unreal though, id recommend upgrading specs across the board

Is this happening on one specific project or when opening UE in general? I’ve ran into this error quite a bit in the past.

I believe you need to prepare your scene better in 3dsmax. Check your polycount, weld vertices and topology, inspect if you can somehow make the scene lighter. It looks like a really heavy model. Which software was your model originally developed?