# Why the high memory usage?

**URL:** <https://forum.showsync.com/t/why-the-high-memory-usage/1105>\
**Category:** Videosync\
**Created:** [February 3, 2023, 9:20pm UTC](https://forum.showsync.com/t/why-the-high-memory-usage/1105 "2023-02-03T21:20:23Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 6\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Joel](https://forum.showsync.com/user_avatar/forum.showsync.com/joel/32/391_2.png) [@Joel](https://forum.showsync.com/u/Joel)\
**Post date:** [February 3, 2023, 9:20pm UTC](https://forum.showsync.com/t/why-the-high-memory-usage/1105/1 "2023-02-03T21:20:23Z")

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I am running a session with 66 simplers and a couple of isf loaders which shows to be 1.67 GB in finder. when i open the session my memory usage goes to 60 GB. why is this happening?

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**Author:** ![Jean-Paul](https://forum.showsync.com/user_avatar/forum.showsync.com/jean-paul/32/1898_2.png) [@Jean-Paul](https://forum.showsync.com/u/Jean-Paul)\
**Post date:** [February 3, 2023, 10:48pm UTC](https://forum.showsync.com/t/why-the-high-memory-usage/1105/2 "2023-02-03T22:48:50Z")

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That’s because the videos you load into Simpler - or at least all the frames in between the Start Frame and End Frame - are loaded into RAM. This is to ensure that the videos are ready to play instantly when triggering MIDI notes. Note that any compressed video will be decompressed before loaded into RAM. All of this applies to videos that are encoded with any encoder other than HAP.  
HAP encoded videos are larger in file size, but are not loaded into RAM. You can convert videos to HAP using a [batch converter](https://hap.video/using-hap.html).

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**Author:** ![PitchBlack](https://forum.showsync.com/user_avatar/forum.showsync.com/pitchblack/32/230_2.png) [@PitchBlack](https://forum.showsync.com/u/PitchBlack)\
**Post date:** [February 3, 2023, 10:59pm UTC](https://forum.showsync.com/t/why-the-high-memory-usage/1105/3 "2023-02-03T22:59:23Z")

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Hi Jean-Paul, Is there any downside to combining different codecs in a project, say HAP for movies in Simpler, and other codecs in session/arrange view?

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**Author:** ![Joel](https://forum.showsync.com/user_avatar/forum.showsync.com/joel/32/391_2.png) [@Joel](https://forum.showsync.com/u/Joel)\
**Post date:** [February 4, 2023, 3:12am UTC](https://forum.showsync.com/t/why-the-high-memory-usage/1105/4 "2023-02-04T03:12:40Z")

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Thank you Jean-Paul, i am new to video use and did not know they where decompressed. Will HAP still be suitable for instant play from simpler?

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**Author:** ![Jean-Paul](https://forum.showsync.com/user_avatar/forum.showsync.com/jean-paul/32/1898_2.png) [@Jean-Paul](https://forum.showsync.com/u/Jean-Paul)\
**Post date:** [February 11, 2023, 12:59am UTC](https://forum.showsync.com/t/why-the-high-memory-usage/1105/5 "2023-02-11T00:59:40Z")

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There shouldn’t be a too noticeable difference, but please do let us know if things seem less than optimal for you. Since reading from RAM is still faster than reading straight from the hard drive, it is likely a video that was loaded in RAM will respond slightly snappier.

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<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Jean-Paul](https://forum.showsync.com/user_avatar/forum.showsync.com/jean-paul/32/1898_2.png) [@Jean-Paul](https://forum.showsync.com/u/Jean-Paul)\
**Post date:** [February 11, 2023, 1:21am UTC](https://forum.showsync.com/t/why-the-high-memory-usage/1105/6 "2023-02-11T01:21:40Z")

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Not necessarily, but it’s good to be aware of the different pros, cons, and use cases for different codecs. There is [this page in our Handbook](https://support.showsync.com/handbook/#/performance-tips/encoding-video) that goes more into depth about different codecs and containers.