Memory management is an important part of working with the Wwise Unreal Integration. For background on memory management in Wwise, refer to Optimizing Memory Allocation and Tips to Reduce Memory Usage. In addition, the .

Memory usage in the Wwise Unreal Integration is strongly affected by the type of SoundBank your project uses:

• With auto-defined SoundBanks, much of the memory management is automatic: each Event has its own SoundBank, which is loaded when the Event occurs, but media assets are stored outside of the bank. Individual SoundBank memory usage is therefore kept to a minimum; however, if many Events occur at the same time, memory usage can spike.
• With user-defined SoundBanks, you have granular control over memory. However, because the SoundBanks contains Events as well as associated media assets, and the entire SoundBank must be loaded even if only a single Event is required, memory usage can be inefficient without manual optimization. It is your responsibility to optimize your SoundBank memory, which can add a significant amount of time and effort to your project. The Wwise 251 Certification has several strategies and tips about memory management in projects with user-defined SoundBanks.

For more information about the differences between auto-defined and user-defined SoundBanks, refer to Managing SoundBanks.

In Wwise, you can use the Advanced Profiler to view Wwise memory usage in detail (refer to Advanced Profiler). However, the Profiler only displays memory usage related to the Wwise SoundEngine. For Unreal projects integrated with Wwise, you can monitor memory usage in the Unreal Editor.

Wwise Memory Stats

The Wwise Unreal Integration enables several options in Unreal Stats that monitor Wwise memory usage, including several items in the WwiseMemory category. You can view the stats as an overlay in the editor or through the Session Frontend. For more information about Unreal Stats, refer to Stat Commands in Unreal Engine.

The following Wwise memory statistics are available, which you can view in different places in Unreal:

• SoundEngine Reserved: The memory pool requested by the SoundEngine.
• ExtSrc: Memory required for external sources that are loaded, not streamed.
• ExtSrc Prefetch: The memory required to stream external sources.
• ExtSrc Device: Device-allocated memory for external sources on certain platforms. Not applicable on Windows.
• Media: Memory required to load media assets.
• Media Prefetch: Memory required to stream assets.
• Media Device: Device-allocated memory for loaded or streamed media assets on certain platforms. Not applicable on Windows.
• SoundBank Mapped: The memory required for mapped files, which are only relevant in the editor or on iOS.
• SoundBank: Memory required for SoundBanks. For auto-defined SoundBanks, which do not contain media, memory consumption is only loaded briefly and then transferred to Wwise. However, some memory usage might appear here for user-defined SoundBanks that contain media.
• SoundBank Device: Allocation for loading SoundBanks that contain media assets that require device-allocated memory on certain platforms. Not applicable on Windows.

Viewing Stats in the Viewport

Through the Unreal Stats, you can view Wwise memory usage information in the Unreal Editor's level viewport.

To view Wwise memory usage:

1. Open the Unreal project in the Unreal Editor.

2. In the viewport, open the menu in the upper left and select Stat > Wwise > WwiseMemory. The Unreal memory monitor opens in the viewport and displays Wwise memory usage statistics.

   

Viewing Stats in the Session Frontend

The Unreal Session Frontend includes a Profiler, in which you can view the Wwise memory Stats. For more information about the Session Frontend, refer to Using the Frontend Tool.

To view Stats in the Session Frontend:

1. Open the Unreal project in the Unreal Editor.
2. Open Tools > Session Frontend, and open the Profiler.

3. Enable Data Capture and Data Preview. You can select any of the WwiseMemory Stats: