diff --git a/gpu/gpu.go b/gpu/gpu.go
index b9cb538a..143e1467 100644
--- a/gpu/gpu.go
+++ b/gpu/gpu.go
@@ -131,10 +131,11 @@ func getCPUMem() (memInfo, error) {
 func CheckVRAM() (int64, error) {
 	gpuInfo := GetGPUInfo()
 	if gpuInfo.FreeMemory > 0 && (gpuInfo.Library == "cuda" || gpuInfo.Library == "rocm") {
-		// allocate 384MiB for llama.cpp overhead (outside of model)
-		overhead := uint64(384 * 1024 * 1024)
-		if gpuInfo.FreeMemory <= overhead {
-			return 0, nil
+		// leave 10% or 400MiB of VRAM free for overhead
+		overhead := gpuInfo.FreeMemory / 10
+		minOverhead := 400 * 1024 * 1024
+		if overhead < minOverhead {
+			overhead = minOverhead
 		}
 
 		return int64(gpuInfo.FreeMemory - overhead), nil
diff --git a/llm/llm.go b/llm/llm.go
index 1026debc..a0230205 100644
--- a/llm/llm.go
+++ b/llm/llm.go
@@ -117,6 +117,7 @@ func New(workDir, model string, adapters, projectors []string, opts api.Options)
 			bytesPerLayer := int64((requiredModel + requiredKv) / int64(ggml.NumLayers()))
 			log.Println("bytes per layer:", bytesPerLayer)
 			layers := available / bytesPerLayer
+			log.Println("total required with split:", requiredAlloc+(layers*bytesPerLayer))
 			if layers < int64(opts.NumGPU) {
 				opts.NumGPU = int(layers)
 			}