Memory overflow when using "--video" flag with local USD models

[H-Hisamichi]

Hello everyone,

I have a problem when I run RL with the --video flag.

I use a custom model. I added wheels to the Isaac Sim official model "go2.usd". When I record a video, the DRAM (about 100GB) overflows very quickly.

I think the reason is that the model is uninstanced. How can I enable instancing for this model?

Thank you!

Logs:

(il_231_rollopod) robot@robot-System-Product-Name:~/IsaacLab_v231_Rollopod/IsaacLab$ python scripts/reinforcement_learning/rsl_rl/train.py --task Isaac-Velocity-Flat-Unitree-Go2-W-Comparison-v0 --headless --video
[INFO][AppLauncher]: Using device: cuda:0
[INFO][AppLauncher]: Loading experience file: /home/robot/IsaacLab_v231_Rollopod/IsaacLab/apps/isaaclab.python.headless.rendering.kit
Loading user config located at: '/home/robot/isaacsim_510/kit/data/Kit/Isaac-Sim/5.1/user.config.json'
[Info] [carb] Logging to file: /home/robot/isaacsim_510/kit/logs/Kit/Isaac-Sim/5.1/kit_20260416_104908.log

|---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|
| Driver Version: 580.126.09    | Graphics API: Vulkan
|=============================================================================================|
| GPU | Name                             | Active | LDA | GPU Memory | Vendor-ID | LUID       |
|     |                                  |        |     |            | Device-ID | UUID       |
|     |                                  |        |     |            | Bus-ID    |            |
|---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|
| 0   | NVIDIA RTX A4000                 |        |     | 16622   MB | 10de      | 0          |
|     |                                  |        |     |            | 24b0      | 6469bd6c.. |
|     |                                  |        |     |            | 3         |            |
|---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|
| 1   | NVIDIA RTX A4000                 | Yes: 0 |     | 16622   MB | 10de      | 0          |
|     |                                  |        |     |            | 24b0      | 44ccd3c0.. |
|     |                                  |        |     |            | 6         |            |
|=============================================================================================|
| OS: 22.04.5 LTS (Jammy Jellyfish) ubuntu, Version: 22.04.5, Kernel: 6.8.0-107-generic
| XServer Vendor: The X.Org Foundation, XServer Version: 12101004 (1.21.1.4)
| Processor: AMD Ryzen 7 2700 Eight-Core Processor
| Cores: 8 | Logical Cores: 16
|---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|
| Total Memory (MB): 96462 | Free Memory: 93673
| Total Page/Swap (MB): 2047 | Free Page/Swap: 1555
|---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|
2026-04-16T01:49:11Z [3,145ms] [Warning] [gpu.foundation.plugin] IOMMU is enabled.
2026-04-16T01:49:11Z [3,145ms] [Warning] [gpu.foundation.plugin] Detected IOMMU is enabled. Running CUDA peer-to-peer bandwidth and latency validation.
Unidirectional P2P=Enabled Bandwidth (P2P Writes) Matrix (GB/s)
   D\D     0      1 
     0 386.95   3.27 
     1   3.00 388.01 
P2P=Enabled Latency (P2P Writes) Matrix (us)
   GPU     0      1 
     0   1.52   2.01 
     1   2.04   1.45 

   CPU     0      1 
     0   2.77   2.63 
     1   2.23   2.66 
2026-04-16T01:49:14Z [6,061ms] [Warning] [omni.log] Source: omni.hydra was already registered.
2026-04-16T01:49:14Z [6,758ms] [Warning] [carb] Acquiring non optional plugin interface which is not listed as dependency: [omni::physx::IPhysxBenchmarks v1.0] (plugin: <default plugin>), by client: omni.physics.physx.plugin. Add it to CARB_PLUGIN_IMPL_DEPS() macro of a client.
2026-04-16T01:49:14Z [6,781ms] [Warning] [omni.isaac.dynamic_control] omni.isaac.dynamic_control is deprecated as of Isaac Sim 4.5. No action is needed from end-users.
2026-04-16T01:49:20Z [11,836ms] [Warning] [pxr.Semantics] pxr.Semantics is deprecated - please use Semantics instead
2026-04-16T01:49:20Z [12,503ms] [Warning] [omni.graph.core.plugin] Found duplicate of category 'Replicator' - was 'Annotators', adding 'Fabric Reader'
2026-04-16T01:49:20Z [12,503ms] [Warning] [omni.graph.core.plugin] Category 'Replicator' not accepted on node type 'omni.replicator.core.FabricReader' in extension 'omni.replicator.core'
2026-04-16T01:49:20Z [12,508ms] [Warning] [omni.replicator.core.scripts.extension] No material configuration file, adding configuration to material settings directly.
2026-04-16T01:49:27Z [19,230ms] [Warning] [omni.fabric.plugin] Warning: attribute viewportHandle not found for bucket id 7

[INFO]: Parsing configuration from: isaaclab_tasks.manager_based.locomotion.velocity.config.go2_w.flat_env_cmp_cfg:UnitreeGo2WFlatEnvCfg
[INFO]: Parsing configuration from: isaaclab_tasks.manager_based.locomotion.velocity.config.go2_w.agents.rsl_rl_ppo_cfg:UnitreeGo2WRoughPPORunnerCfg
[INFO] Logging experiment in directory: /home/robot/IsaacLab_v231_Rollopod/IsaacLab/logs/rsl_rl/unitree_go2_w_rough
Exact experiment name requested from command line: 2026-04-16_10-49-31

======================================================================================
[INFO][IsaacLab]: Logging to file: /tmp/isaaclab/logs/isaaclab_2026-04-16_10-49-31.log
======================================================================================

10:49:31 [simulation_context.py] WARNING: The `enable_external_forces_every_iteration` parameter in the PhysxCfg is set to False. If you are experiencing noisy velocities, consider enabling this flag. You may need to slightly increase the number of velocity iterations (setting it to 1 or 2 rather than 0), together with this flag, to improve the accuracy of velocity updates.
[INFO]: Base environment:
	Environment device    : cuda:0
	Environment seed      : 42
	Physics step-size     : 0.005
	Rendering step-size   : 0.02
	Environment step-size : 0.02
10:49:32 [terrain_importer.py] WARNING: Visual material specified for ground plane but no diffuse color found. Using default color: (0.0, 0.0, 0.0)
Killed

[RandomOakForest]

Thank you for adding this post to our Discussions. @ooctipus maybe this could be an addition to our docs.