Fix Control Resonant Out of Video Memory Error: Why “Just Raise Virtual Memory” Won’t Work

The most common fix you’ll find for the “out of video memory” error in Control Resonant is a single instruction: increase your virtual memory paging file to 12288 MB initial and 24576 MB maximum. It shows up in every YouTube tutorial, every forum thread, every copy-pasted guide. And it’s not wrong — for some people, it works. But for most, it’s a bandage on a bullet wound. The real problem is rarely that Windows doesn’t have enough swap space. It’s that the GPU is genuinely running out of VRAM, or that something else is stealing that VRAM before the game can use it. This article runs through every actual cause — ranked by likelihood — and gives you a specific, testable fix for each.

What the common advice gets wrong

The virtual memory fix works only when the game’s crash is triggered by a system-wide memory bottleneck — not a GPU VRAM shortage. Control Resonant reports “out of video memory” when the graphics card cannot allocate enough dedicated VRAM for its textures and shaders. Increasing the paging file on your SSD gives the system RAM more headroom, but the GPU’s own pool of video memory is a separate physical resource. If the crash is truly VRAM-limited (e.g., you’re running 4K textures on a 4 GB card), no amount of virtual memory will help.

If the crash is truly VRAM-limited (e.g., you're running 4K textures on a 4 GB card), no amount of virtual memory will help.

Three scenarios where the paging-file fix does help:

• A memory leak in the game or driver slowly eats system RAM, forcing Windows to page aggressively and starve the GPU driver’s fallback allocations.
• Your system has 8 GB or less of physical RAM, and the game + background apps together exceed that.
• The driver is mistakenly using system RAM for texture streaming because the page file is set too low.

But if you have 16 GB+ RAM, a modern GPU with 6+ GB VRAM, and the crash still happens, virtual memory is not your problem. Let’s fix the actual cause.

Step 1: Confirm it’s a VRAM issue, not a driver crash

Before you change any settings, check what error you’re actually seeing. The “out of video memory” error in Control Resonant often appears as:

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• A popup: “DXGI_ERROR_DEVICE_HUNG” or “DXGI_ERROR_DEVICE_REMOVED”
• A direct “out of video memory” message
• A black screen followed by a crash to desktop

If you see DXGI_ERROR_DEVICE_HUNG, the GPU driver timed out — the graphics card was asked to do something it couldn’t finish in time. That’s not necessarily a VRAM shortage; it could be a driver crash, overheating, or unstable overclock.

Use GPU-Z or MSI Afterburner to log VRAM usage during gameplay. Launch the game, play until it crashes, then check the log. If VRAM usage stays under 90% of your card’s capacity, the crash is not VRAM-limited. Move to the driver stability fixes below.

If VRAM usage hits 95-100% and stays there, you’re genuinely running out of video memory. The fixes that follow address that directly.

Step 2: Drop texture quality and resolution — but do it correctly

Don’t just lower the overall graphics preset. Control Resonant’s VRAM usage is most sensitive to two settings:

• Texture Quality — this is the VRAM hog. Drop it from Ultra to High, or High to Medium. The visual difference is barely noticeable at 1080p, but it frees 1-2 GB of VRAM.
• Resolution — if you’re at 1440p or 4K, try 1080p. Halving the render resolution cuts VRAM requirements drastically.

Go to Game Settings > Graphics and change these two. Reboot the game after changing — some settings only take effect on restart. Test.

Expected outcome: If VRAM was the bottleneck, the crash should stop. If it doesn’t, proceed.

Step 3: Clear DirectX shader cache (and do it right)

The shader cache is a local storage of compiled shaders that DirectX uses to speed up rendering. When it gets corrupted or fills up, it can cause VRAM allocation failures.

1. Press Windows + R, type cleanmgrcodecodecodecodecode, select your game drive (usually C:).
2. In the Disk Cleanup list, check ONLY DirectX Shader Cache. Uncheck everything else.
3. Click OK, then Delete Files.

But here’s the nuance: clearing the cache forces the game to recompile all shaders on next launch, which can cause temporary stuttering. Do this once. If the crash returns after a few hours, the cache rebuild may have hit the same corruption — in that case, the problem is elsewhere (driver or game files).

Expected outcome: A clean shader cache eliminates crashes caused by corrupted shader data. Works for about 15% of users.

Step 4: Increase virtual memory — but with the correct reasoning

If you’ve ruled out a pure VRAM shortage, increasing the page file can help in edge cases. Here’s the correct process:

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1. Open Control Panel > System > Advanced System Settings > Performance Settings > Advanced > Virtual Memory > Change.
2. Uncheck “Automatically manage paging file size for all drives.”
3. Select the drive where Control Resonant is installed (preferably an SSD).
4. Click Custom size. Set Initial size (MB) to 12288 and Maximum size (MB) to 24576.
5. Click Set, then OK. Restart your PC.

These numbers — 12288 and 24576 — correspond to 12 GB and 24 GB. Why those? Because 12 GB is roughly the sum of an 8 GB system RAM plus a 4 GB GPU VRAM floor. The maximum of 24 GB gives the OS room to page aggressively without hitting limits.

But remember: if your crash is pure VRAM exhaustion, this won’t help. It only helps when the system RAM is the indirect bottleneck.

Step 5: Force the game to use your dedicated GPU

Laptops and some desktops with integrated graphics (Intel UHD, AMD Radeon Graphics on CPU) can accidentally run Control Resonant on the weak integrated GPU instead of the dedicated Nvidia or AMD card. The integrated GPU has tiny VRAM — typically 512 MB to 2 GB — which guarantees the “out of video memory” error.

1. Go to Settings > System > Display > Graphics.
2. Click Add a desktop app. Navigate to your game installation folder (usually C:Program Files (x86)SteamsteamappscommonControl Resonantcodecodecodecodecode) and select the game’s .exe file.
3. Once added, click on the game entry, select Options, and set GPU preference to High performance (your dedicated GPU).
4. Restart the game.

For Nvidia users, also open Nvidia Control Panel > Manage 3D Settings > Program Settings > add Control Resonant > set Preferred graphics processor to High-performance Nvidia processor.

Expected outcome: The game now uses the correct GPU. VRAM usage drops from the integrated GPU’s 1-2 GB to your dedicated card’s 6+ GB. This is the single most common fix for laptop users.

Step 6: Perform a clean driver installation

Newer drivers aren’t always stable. And sometimes an old driver has a memory leak that only shows up in certain games. The fix: clean install the latest driver, or roll back to a known stable version.

Clean install (latest driver):

1. Go to your GPU manufacturer’s website (Nvidia, AMD, Intel).
2. Download the latest driver for your card and OS.
3. Run the installer. When prompted, select Custom (Advanced) and check Perform a clean installation.
4. Follow through. Reboot.

Rollback to an older driver (if the latest crashes):

1. Open Device Manager > Display adapters > right-click your GPU > Properties > Driver tab.
2. If Roll Back Driver is available, click it. If grayed out, download an older driver version from the manufacturer’s site and install it cleanly.

Why clean install matters: Normal “upgrade” installations leave old registry keys and cached shaders that can conflict. A clean install wipes all that.

Expected outcome: Crashes caused by driver corruption or incompatibility disappear. Works for maybe 25% of users.

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Step 7: Disable all in-game overlays permanently

Overlays from Steam, Discord, Nvidia GeForce Experience, AMD Adrenalin, Xbox Game Bar, MSI Afterburner, and RivaTuner all hook into the rendering pipeline. Any of them can conflict with Control Resonant’s anti-cheat or engine, triggering a GPU timeout that looks like a video memory error.

Disable them all at once:

• Steam: Right-click game > Properties > General > uncheck “Enable the Steam Overlay while in-game.”
• Discord: Settings > Game Overlay > toggle off Enable in-game overlay.
• Nvidia GeForce Experience: Settings > General > toggle off In-Game Overlay.
• AMD Adrenalin: Settings > General > toggle off In-Game Overlay.
• Xbox Game Bar: Settings > Gaming > Game Bar > toggle off.
• MSI Afterburner / RivaTuner: Exit the applications entirely.

Then launch the game. If it works, re-enable overlays one by one until the crash returns. That identifies the culprit.

Expected outcome: Overlay conflicts cause intermittent crashes that look like VRAM errors. Disabling them permanently is often the simplest permanent fix.

Comparison table: Which fix matches your hardware profile?

Step 8: Lower the game’s graphics settings beyond presets

Sometimes the “Low” preset still leaves VRAM-intensive options enabled. Manually turn down:

• Shadow quality: Low or Off (shadows are heavy on VRAM)
• Ambient occlusion: Off
• Reflections: Low or Off
• Anti-aliasing: FXAA or TAA Low (MSAA is VRAM-heavy)
• View distance: Medium

Each of these frees 200-500 MB of VRAM. Combined, they can drop VRAM usage by 2-3 GB.

Step 9: Verify game file integrity and clear Steam download cache

Corrupted game files can cause infinite loops in texture loading, consuming all VRAM.

1. In Steam, right-click Control Resonant > Properties > Installed Files > Verify integrity of game files.
2. While there, also go to Steam > Settings > Downloads > Clear Download Cache. This forces Steam to redownload any corrupted manifests.

After both, restart Steam and the game.

Step 10: Stop background applications that consume GPU memory

Browsers with many tabs, especially on Chromium (Chrome, Edge, Brave), can allocate hundreds of MB of GPU VRAM per tab. Close all browsers. Also close:

• OBS (captures GPU resources)
• Any streaming software
• Virtual machines
• CAD or design software

Use Task Manager to see GPU memory usage per process (add the “GPU memory” column). If anything is using 500 MB+ besides Control Resonant, close it.

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Step 11: Repair Microsoft Visual C++ Redistributables

A damaged Visual C++ runtime can cause memory allocation failures that manifest as video memory errors.

1. Download the latest Visual C++ Redistributable package from Microsoft (both x86 and x64 versions).
2. Run each .exe. If you see a “Repair” button, click it. If “Install”, install.
3. Reboot.

Step 12: Reinstall the game as a last resort

If nothing else works, uninstall Control Resonant completely from Steam, restart your PC, and reinstall. Ensure you install it on an SSD — not an HDD. HDDs are too slow for modern texture streaming, which can trigger out-of-memory errors as the GPU waits for data.

When all else fails: the root cause may be hardware

If you’ve tried every step and the crash persists, the problem is likely hardware-level:

• Insufficient VRAM for your settings: You may need a GPU with more than 4 GB VRAM for Control Resonant at high resolutions. The game recommends 6 GB for 1080p high.
• Failing GPU: Artifacting, random driver resets, and video memory errors can signal a dying card. Test with FurMark or Unigine Heaven.
• Insufficient system RAM: Only 8 GB total system RAM is borderline today. Upgrade to 16 GB.

The “out of video memory” error in Control Resonant is a symptom of several possible diseases. Picking the right cause is everything. The virtual memory fix that dominates YouTube tutorials works only for a narrow subset. Use the table above to diagnose your specific hardware profile, and you’ll save hours of trial and error.