Originally posted by Vantablack:

- I create a session, I load a map, and no matter how tiny or simple it may be, the memory shoots up to about 1300 MB. -

This is normal.
(Even if you load a basic cubic map, Source Filmmaker "is" still Team Fortress 2; many models, textures, sounds, and particles will be loaded by the game mode (F11) running in the background.)

Originally posted by Vantablack:

- I disable progressive refinement, -

Progressive refinement only applies when staying still in time in the Clip Editor with the scene (non-work) camera active, and when doing a final export, so disabling progressive refinement won't help. (Disabling ambient occlusion will, though.)

Originally posted by Vantablack:

- I then load a model, again, no matter how simplistic or small in file size, and the memory goes through the roof. -

Which model, and which roof(/what does the memory usage reach in one of the cases)?

Originally posted by Vantablack:

- A bit of maneuvering around, and then SFM promptly crashes. -

Do you happen to have Grammarly, Microsoft PowerToys, or a VPN installed? These are known to sometimes cause issues for Source Filmmaker.
If not, at least one person says that running Source Filmmaker as an administrator fixed a crash for them.

Originally posted by Zappy:

Which model, and which roof(/what does the memory usage reach in one of the cases)?

Any model, be it from the SFM workshop, ported over from GMOD or SFMLab or literally any other website. Any asset whatsoever. It makes the memory increase to about 1800 if I am lucky, If I am unlucky it can be well over that. The funny thing is that the memory never decreases. It used to, while I worked on renders and spent more time in SFM, it decreased gradually, even if by a little. Not anymore. It just keeps on increasing. Before this issue started happening, even bigger maps only made my memory go up to 700 MB in the worst cases, and models barely made a difference.

Originally posted by Zappy:

Do you happen to have Grammarly, Microsoft PowerToys, or a VPN installed?

Well there's a VPN I sometimes use, but it's an extension on Edge. So I don't really see what that would have to do with SFM. I could remove it and see if it does anything.

Originally posted by Zappy:

If not, at least one person says that running Source Filmmaker as an administrator fixed a crash for them.

Eh, I'll try that as well. I got nothing to lose. Wish me luck

Originally posted by Zappy:

If not, at least one person says that running Source Filmmaker as an administrator fixed a crash for them.

You're not gonna ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ believe this. But when I right click SFM there's no option to run as administrator. Not on the desktop, not from the start menu and not from the file location. All I can do is open it

Originally posted by Vantablack:

- from the SFM workshop, ported over from GMOD or SFMLab or literally any other website. -

Some community models use multiple high-resolution, uncompressed textures, which can easily take up a lot of RAM. (Especially if you select multiple models in the model browser before finding the one that you want, as Source Filmmaker will load any model that you touch in order to preview it.)


Just for testing, right-click Source Filmmaker in your Steam library, choose "Launch" to open a pop-up menu, select "Launch SDK" and launch it, and click "Edit Search Paths For Selected Mod". In the window that pops up, disable "workshop" and all of your custom search paths.
Reboot Source Filmmaker, make a new session, load "ctf_2fort.bsp" as a map, search for "hwm" in the model browser, and only create animation sets for Team Fortress 2's "HWM" class models (while trying not to select/preview other models).

Does it also crash when moving the camera around for a bit after this? (Remember to re-enable any search paths that you want after testing this.)

Originally posted by Vantablack:

- It makes the memory increase to about 1800 if I am lucky, -

Source Filmmaker should be fine up to around 3,500 - 4,000 megabytes, so that doesn't seem to be the issue.

Originally posted by Vantablack:

- when I right click SFM there's no option to run as administrator. Not on the desktop, not from the start menu and not from the file location. All I can do is open it

Right-click Source Filmmaker in your Steam library, choose "Manage" > "Browse local files" to open File Explorer in -/steamapps/common/SourceFilmmaker/, enter the "game" folder, right-click "sfm.exe", choose "Properties" > "Compatibility", and enable the "Run this program as an administrator" checkbox.

I don't know whether this will help, especially if Source Filmmaker seems to crash randomly as you move around rather than after specific actions, but it's worth a try.