The “out of video memory” error in CONTROL Resonant isn’t a random crash. It’s a sign your GPU can’t allocate the VRAM the game demands — often because corrupt or conflicting driver files are misreporting available memory or causing allocation failures. Simply updating through Device Manager or relying on a quick “check for updates” inside your GPU software rarely fixes it. What does: a full clean install of your graphics driver, wiping every trace of the old one before putting in the latest version.
Why a Clean Install Beats a Simple Update
When you update a GPU driver normally, Windows keeps remnants of the old driver. Those leftovers — registry keys, cached shaders, DLL files — can conflict with the new driver’s memory management. CONTROL Resonant is particularly sensitive here because its Unreal Engine pipelines aggressively pre-allocate VRAM. A single corrupted shader cache or mismatched driver module can trigger the DXGI_ERROR_DEVICE_REMOVED error the moment the game tries to load a texture-heavy scene.
That's the single most defensible fix for CONTROL Resonant's out of video memory error.
A clean installation (either via the manufacturer’s installer option or a dedicated tool like Display Driver Uninstaller) removes those remnants entirely. The result is a fresh driver state that matches exactly what the game’s engine expects.
The Step-by-Step: Clean Install on Nvidia and AMD
Step 1: Download the latest Game Ready driver.
Go to the official Nvidia or AMD website. Enter your GPU model and OS. Download the newest driver — not a beta, not an optional. The Game Ready branch is tested specifically for new titles.
Step 2: Use DDU for a thorough wipe (recommended).
Download Display Driver Uninstaller (DDU). Boot Windows into Safe Mode (press Shift + Restart from the login screen, then Troubleshoot > Advanced Options > Startup Settings > Restart > 4). Run DDU, select your GPU vendor, and click “Clean and Restart.” This removes every driver file, registry entry, and cached shader.
Step 3: Install the new driver with the clean option.
After the restart, run the driver installer you downloaded. On Nvidia, select “Custom (Advanced)” then check “Perform a clean installation.” On AMD, the installer automatically overwrites, but you can also use the “Factory Reset” option in AMD Software: Adrenalin Edition under Settings > Factory Reset.
Step 4: Restart again, then launch CONTROL Resonant.
Do not install GeForce Experience or AMD Software’s overlay during the process if you don’t need them — overlays hook into the rendering pipeline and can compete for memory.
The One Counterargument: “Rolling Back Is Safer Than Updating”
The source material itself warns that “a newer driver is not always stable on every system” and suggests rolling back. It’s a fair concern — driver updates have occasionally broken older games or introduced stuttering. Some argue that if your current driver works for everything else, you should roll back rather than upgrade.
That argument misses the target for this specific error. The “out of video memory” problem is fundamentally a memory-management bug. Newer drivers almost always include better VRAM allocation logic — fixing bugs where the engine misreads free memory, or where the driver incorrectly flags a segment as in-use. Rolling back to an older driver may restore stability for other games, but it also restores the exact memory-management flaw that triggers this error. You’d be trading one crash type for another.
If you’ve already rolled back and the error persists—which it likely will—you’ve just confirmed that the problem lies in the driver version itself. The right move is then to try a clean install of the latest driver, not to settle for an older one that lacks the fix. Clean installation minimizes the chance that the new driver inherits instability from the old one. If the clean install still crashes, you can roll back with confidence knowing you eliminated the most probable cause.
One More Thing: Virtual Memory Matters Here Too
The source also suggests increasing the Windows pagefile (virtual memory) to 12288 MB initial and 24576 MB max. That’s good advice for any VRAM-intensive game — it gives the system a fallback when the GPU runs out of dedicated memory. But raising the pagefile without cleaning the driver is like adding a bigger fuel tank to a car with a clogged fuel line. The clean install must come first.
So: DDU in Safe Mode, then the latest Game Ready driver installed cleanly. That’s the single most defensible fix for CONTROL Resonant’s out of video memory error. Everything else — rolling back, disabling overlays, lowering texture quality — treats symptoms. This treats the cause.
- What causes the out-of-video-memory error in CONTROL Resonant?The error is caused by corrupt or conflicting GPU driver files that misreport available VRAM or cause allocation failures.
- How do you perform a clean install of GPU drivers?Download the latest Game Ready driver, use Display Driver Uninstaller in Safe Mode to wipe old files, then install the new driver with the clean installation option.
- Why is a clean install better than a standard update?A standard update leaves remnants of the old driver that can conflict with memory management, while a clean install removes all traces for a fresh driver state.
- Should you roll back to an older driver instead?Rolling back may restore the memory-management flaw that triggers the error; a clean install of the latest driver is the recommended fix.
- Does increasing Windows virtual memory help fix the error?Increasing the pagefile is helpful but ineffective without first cleaning the GPU driver; the clean install must come first.
