I don’t know if it’s a recent update that fkd it up again or it was like this from before and it just happened that i did not had UE5 installed before(i uninstalled it few week ago to free up space and make backup of the SSD), but yesterday i installed the new 5.6 to check it out and now my launcher ALWAYS consumes the VRAM on startup, even when not going to the “Unreal Engine” tab at all.
Uninstalling all Unreal Engine versions fixes the problem and it returns to how it worked before, only using the VRAM after accessing the “Unreal Engine” tab after launch.
Workaround to keep UE5 and avoiding the VRAM hoarding BUG:
- Install UE5
- Close the launcher
- Rename UE5 folder(or move it)
- Launch EGL
- Go to “Unreal Engine” tab and remove the engine by clicking the “x”
- Move to another tab like “Library” or “Store”(EGL remembers your last tab sometimes, this is to prevent entering the UE one by default)
- Close launcher and reopen it
- Problem should be gone
To open UE5 without the EGL, just create a new shortcut(or redirect the existing one) to “*\Engine\Binaries\Win64\UnrealEditor.exe” from the new directory and use that to execute it.