Isaac Sim 5.x and 4.5 won't run on Quadro RTX 3000 (6 GB VRAM) — recommended path for internship?

Hi,

I’m an intern starting a digital twin project on a modular construction production line. My workstation is an HP ZBook with NVIDIA Quadro RTX 3000 (6.44 GiB VRAM) and Intel UHD Graphics 630, Windows 11 Pro.

The Compatibility Checker flags VRAM as insufficient (red), but the rest passes (Driver 596.59, Intel i9-9880H, 34 GB RAM).

What happens:

  • Isaac Sim 5.x → immediate crash at startup

  • Isaac Sim 4.5 (eco mode on) → UI loads, “Not Responding”, app closes silently

  • Isaac Sim 4.5 (eco mode off, Intel GPU disabled, NVIDIA forced) → full UI appears, NVIDIA GPU reaches 20-40%, but app closes after a few seconds

  • Test Kit → ends with error 55

What I’ve tried: latest Studio Driver, Intel GPU disabled in Device Manager, NVIDIA forced via Control Panel, cleared %localappdata%\ov cache, Visual C++ Redistributables installed, long path support enabled, both “Isaac Sim Full” and “Streaming” variants.

My questions:

  1. Is 6 GB VRAM a hard limit, or any documented workaround?

  2. Any older Isaac Sim version known to work on 6 GB cards?

  3. Is Brev cloud the recommended path for this hardware?

  4. Any kit.exe launch flags to reduce VRAM usage?

Thank you!

Isaac Sim 5.x → immediate crash at startup

Could you share the complete log file for the startup crash?

Please use the latest versions and review their requirement pages:

Yes, Brev is an official supported option.

Hi,

Thanks for the reply!

I’m attaching 3 crash logs from Isaac Sim 4.5, the 5.1 crash happened too early to leave much in the logs.

Looking at the requirements page, I see the minimum VRAM is16 GB, so my 6 GB Quadro RTX 3000 is clearly out. Brev sounds like the right path for the internship.

Quick question: for a digital twin project on a modular production line, would you recommend the L4, A10, or L40 GPU on Brev?

Thanks again!

isaac_sim_4.5_crash_logs.zip (316.6 KB)

Please also attach the full startup the log.

Please open a separate topic so we can keep this thread focused on the startup crash and VRAM compatibility issue. Thanks.

Hi,

Perfect! I’ll open a separate topic for the Brev GPU question.

Attaching the full startup log (uncompressed this time), this is the session where the UI loaded before the crash.

kit_20260602_124541.log (1.1 MB)

Thanks!

[Info] [carb] Logging to file: C:/Users/IMP-LAPTOP/.nvidia-omniverse/logs/Kit/Isaac-Sim Full/4.5/kit_20260602_124541.log

This log is from Isaac Sim 4.5.0 – could you also share the 5.1 startup log?

I have been using Sim 6 and lab 3 on my laptop RTX2070, at 12 to 25 FPS however, but its running great headless.

I would downgrade your driver to match what Nvidia says is the minimum, for 5.1 its 580. I have used 4.5, 5.1, and now 6.0 and i always have trouble getting things to run unless i match the listed minimum driver exactly.

My setup differs however but my working setups have been: driver 535 for ubuntu 22.04 dual boot (sim 4.5, 5.1) and now i am on driver 580 ubuntu 24.04 dual boot for isaac sim 6.0.

Hi mi335159, welcome to the NVIDIA Developer Forum and thanks for sharing your experience.

Hi,

Here’s the Isaac Sim 5.1 startup log.

Thanks!

kit_20260604_165800.log (1.7 MB)

Hi,

Great, thanks!

I’ll give it a try and see how it goes.

Hi @Yoyo_E,

Thanks for uploading the Isaac Sim 5.1 log. I’ve analyzed it and the crash has the same root cause as the 4.5 crash – your Quadro RTX 3000’s 6 GB VRAM is below the minimum required.

What the 5.1 log shows:

  • Isaac Sim starts up and completes shader compilation successfully (~4 minutes, normal for a first run with empty shader cache).
  • The app reaches “ready” state at ~252 seconds.
  • 2 seconds later, it crashes in rtx.scenedb.plugin.dll when the RTX renderer tries to allocate GPU resources for the first viewport render frame.
  • The crash is a hard segfault in the scene database plugin – there’s no graceful “out of VRAM” error, it just can’t allocate what it needs within 6 GB.

Your driver (596.59 Studio) is fine – the issue is purely VRAM. Isaac Sim 5.1 requires a minimum of 8 GB VRAM (10 GB recommended), and the Quadro RTX 3000 at 6 GB is ~40% below that minimum.

Hi,

Thanks so much for the detailed analysis. This confirms I’ll move forward with Brev for the internship.

Really appreciate your help!