No matter how minimal I make the usage of graphics data(empty map with 1 solid) I still get a red message saying I have not enough vram. These are my specs:
You’ve only got 2GB actual on the GPU, so you will get this message all the time… 
So, I found another thread about this error. People were saying to disable Lumen and Nanite. I tried this, but it was the same as before, with some improvements to the overhead ammounts of memory being used.
Then, someone said “Disable Directx12, it fixes it”. I did this and it fixed it. The reply to this guy’s post was “Ofc it fixes it, because disabling it disables Lumen and Nanite”. I feel like there is a bit of faulty discussion in that thread, could’ve never tried this, but it worked out in the end with DirectX11 and with so much performance improvement.
But why? It doesn’t sound normal, Direct3d12 only has a few improvements for the cpu-side workflow, it has some “cached” management for things they call bundles and some shader caching. Why didn’t disabling Lumen and Nanite on the DirectX12 side work? Does it use huge pools of vram for raycasting in an empty level? Even with 2gb, an empty level shouldn’t use that much of your memory. I shouldn’t have to go to ue4, it’s not even in the minimum requirements of ue5 to require more than 2gb vram, it’s probably a matter of confusion among the community and maybe disabling Nanite and Lumen doesn’t go through properly with the DirectX12 setting.
Edit: no, my bad, before UE5.1 there was no setting to disable Lumen, it’s new, I thought I had disabled it with a separate option “global illumination”. It’s all good. I love UE5 and for anyone worried, you can still make a game with 2gb vram, just not with raytracing.
I think with dx12 you get SM6 maybe? That’s puts quite a huge overhead on the materials, which is gonna affect VRAM. Just a guess…
I have 6GB VRAM and can easily push it over the edge.
