Hi there.
I just started to experience serious application memory leaks with using Simpler in VS 2.0.4(242). After loading in a clip, adjusting the “end time” eats into my app memory - to the point that it drops so many gigs (over 60 GB in my case) that I get a warning and my laptop becomes totally unresponsive. A hard shut-down is the only remedy. I have reproduced this many times. Also: The playback of the clip (4K, H.264) is jittery in Simpler, as opposed to playing it back as a clip in session view, where it is smooth.
I’m aware of the following topic:
…so I understand that loading a clip into Simpler employs RAM. However, this should not be more than the size of the clip requires, not?
Just to clarify; a memory leak means that memory consumption keeps increasing because data that is no longer required to be in RAM is not being released.
Judging from your description, it sounds like the files you are loading in Simpler are consuming more RAM than you’d like to expect, but the consumption doesn’t increase further once all intended frames are loaded. Let me know if this isn’t the case.
This is simply the result of decompressing long duration/high resolution H264 encoded videos. Please see this thread for more context, and let us know if you have any further questions!
Thnx, JP.
Unfortunately, it is not just using more RAM than I’lld like to expect… My .mov is close to 367 MB, just over 2 minutes at 4K, 24 fps, H264, so nothing outrageous. I am not able to set the length of the clip to “end time” without crashing my system, the decompression seems to know no limitls. But after having read your thread… well, I can see no other solution than to shorten the clip significantly if I still want to retain its current quality.
Just to add to this: Simpler loads the uncompressed frames into RAM. The video size on your hard drive is the compressed size, so it’s expected that loading the file in Simpler requires much more RAM than what you’d expect when looking at the original file.
You can do some napkin math to roughly figure out how much RAM you need for a given file. You can multiply the resolution by 32 bits (RGBA) to know the size of each frame: 3840 x 2160 x 32 = 265420800 bits = 33 MB per frame. 33 MB * 24 fps = 792 MB per second. 792MB * 120 seconds = 95 GB of RAM.
If you’re on macOS, you can consider converting the file to HAP which streams the video rather than preloading all frames in RAM. This is generally recommended if you try to load large/long video files in Simpler, since the RAM option is mostly intended for small and short video fragments.