# Understanding the size of the bank vs size of samples in RAM

**URL:** <https://qa.fmod.com/t/understanding-the-size-of-the-bank-vs-size-of-samples-in-ram/24251>\
**Category:** FMOD Engine\
**Tags:** cpp\
**Created:** [May 11, 2026, 8:01pm UTC](https://qa.fmod.com/t/understanding-the-size-of-the-bank-vs-size-of-samples-in-ram/24251 "2026-05-11T20:01:21Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![sidebail](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e274bd/32.png) [@sidebail](https://qa.fmod.com/u/sidebail)\
**Post date:** [May 11, 2026, 8:01pm UTC](https://qa.fmod.com/t/understanding-the-size-of-the-bank-vs-size-of-samples-in-ram/24251/1 "2026-05-11T20:01:21Z")

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Hello! It’s this time of the year where we hit some memory allocation crashes in FMOD and jumped the rabbit hole of profiler and fixes. So, as I’m investigating the memory usage that’s allocated we’ve stumbled upon a question that we can’t figure out by google or the doc reading (so far at least).

Here is a question!  
We got the bank file that takes 41MB on the disc. We pre-load the sample data from that bank into the memory on system creation. FMOD Studio Profiler yields that sample data is taking only 19MB in memory. 41MB is quite far from 19MB. Is it a sign of an issue?

Could anybody explain why this is happening? FMOD studio build parameters are Vorbis, Compressed, 37% quality, 48.0kHz sample rate (if those have anything do with it).

Looking forward for an answer, cheers!

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**Author:** ![Connor\_FMOD](https://yyz2.discourse-cdn.com/flex036/user_avatar/qa.fmod.com/connor_fmod/32/3685_2.png) [@Connor\_FMOD](https://qa.fmod.com/u/Connor_FMOD)\
**Post date:** [May 15, 2026, 4:31am UTC](https://qa.fmod.com/t/understanding-the-size-of-the-bank-vs-size-of-samples-in-ram/24251/2 "2026-05-15T04:31:33Z")

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Hi,

> [@sidebail](#):
>
> Could anybody explain why this is happening?

There are a couple of factors at play here.

- Depending on the [FMOD Studio | Managing Assets - Advanced Loading Modes](https://fmod.com/docs/2.03/studio/managing-assets.html#advanced-loading-modes) applied to the assets in bank will change the memory impact [FMOD Engine | Studio Api Bank - Studio:: bank::Loadsampledata](https://fmod.com/docs/2.03/api/studio-api-bank.html#studio_bank_loadsampledata) as streamed assets will not be loaded into memory with `loadSampleData()`
  - Under [FMOD Studio | Getting Events Into Your Game - What Building Creates](https://fmod.com/docs/2.03/studio/getting-events-into-your-game.html#what-building-creates) the option “Build metadata, non-streaming assets, and streaming assets to separate banks” found in the preferences:

- Included in the `Example.bank` file is a small amount of metadata for the events as well

> [@sidebail](#):
>
> Is it a sign of an issue?

I would not expect this as a sign of an issue. Splitting the bank with the build option could provide a greater level of control for memory management.

Hope this helps.

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**Author:** ![sidebail](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e274bd/32.png) [@sidebail](https://qa.fmod.com/u/sidebail)\
**Post date:** [June 10, 2026, 6:00pm UTC](https://qa.fmod.com/t/understanding-the-size-of-the-bank-vs-size-of-samples-in-ram/24251/3 "2026-06-10T18:00:27Z")

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Thank you so much! This answer really helped out and we were able to figure out our problem! Cheers!