Memory Leak: Quick Sync (Hardware Acceleration)

The Quick Sync Video Memory Leak

Some versions of the Intel Graphics Driver cause a memory leak when Hardware Acceleration is used in Blue Iris. On systems with this problem, memory usage, CPU usage, or both will climb continuously, typically reaching their limit within a few hours.

To exacerbate this problem, Windows 10 often "upgrades" your Intel Graphics Driver in the background, causing this problem to reappear spontaneously after you thought you fixed it. On Windows 10 Professional, you can disable driver updates for specific hardware by following this procedure.

The Solution

The solution is to install an Intel Graphics Driver version that does not suffer from the memory leak problem. Different CPU generations require different drivers.

2nd Generation (Sandy Bridge)

Driver Version 9.17.10.4459 is known to be good. This link is for Windows 10 drivers: <https://www.catalog.update.microsoft.com/Search.aspx?q=9.17.10.4459>

2nd generation processors mostly use Intel® HD Graphics 3000. There are two download options for this. The larger (99.6 MB) download is for a 64-bit OS (Architecture: AMD64) while the smaller (59.2 MB) download is for a 32-bit OS (Architecture: X86).

3rd Generation (Ivy Bridge)

Driver Version 10.18.10.4358 is known to be good: <Download Intel HD Graphics Driver 10.18.10.4358 64-bit for Windows 7 64 bit, Windows 8.1 64 bit, Windows 10 64 bit>

More details: <Quick Sync>

4th Generation (Haswell) / 5th Generation (Broadwell)

Driver Version 15.40.41.5058 is known to be good: <https://downloadcenter.intel.com/download/28163/Intel-Graphics-Driver-for-Windows-15-40->

Driver Version 15.40.42.5063 is known to be good: <https://downloadcenter.intel.com/download/28662/Intel-Graphics-Driver-for-Windows-15-40->

More details: <BlueIris memory leak?>

6th Generation (Skylake) / 7th Generation (Kaby Lake)

Driver Version 15.45.18.4664 is known to be good: <15.45.18.4664: Intel® Graphics Driver>

More details: <cpu utilization of BI process rises up to 100%>

8th Generation (Coffee Lake)

Driver Version 24.20.100.6194 is known to be good: <24.20.100.6194: Intel® Graphics Driver for Windows® 10 64-bit>
24.20.100.6229 works too: <Download Intel® Graphics Driver for Windows® 10>

More details: <Anyone running 8th gen Intel without memory leak problems in Blue Iris?>

Disable Windows 10's Automatic Driver Updates

It is often necessary to prevent Windows 10 from automatically updating the graphics driver, or else it can reinstall a bad version again.

This can be done via the setting "Prevent installation of devices that match these device IDs" in the group policy editor in Windows (Pro editions). Here is the full procedure: <Disable Windows 10's Automatic Driver Updates>