diff --git a/crates/pyrowave-sys/vendor/pyrowave/pyrowave_encoder.cpp b/crates/pyrowave-sys/vendor/pyrowave/pyrowave_encoder.cpp
index f5ac6dcc..ad4e9746 100644
--- a/crates/pyrowave-sys/vendor/pyrowave/pyrowave_encoder.cpp
+++ b/crates/pyrowave-sys/vendor/pyrowave/pyrowave_encoder.cpp
@@ -187,8 +187,13 @@ void Encoder::Impl::init_block_meta()
 	meta_buffer = device->create_buffer(info);
 	device->set_name(*meta_buffer, "meta-buffer");
 
-	// Worst case estimate.
-	info.size = aligned_width * aligned_height * 2;
+	// Worst case estimate. PUNKTFUNK PATCH (patches/0001-payload-data-444-sizing.patch):
+	// 4:4:4 carries 3 samples per pixel vs 4:2:0's 1.5 — the same per-sample headroom
+	// needs twice the bytes, or busy 4:4:4 content overruns this buffer on the GPU and
+	// corrupts the adjacent meta/bucket allocations (nondeterministic bad bitstreams and
+	// crashes at ANY target bitrate). Validated on RTX 5070 Ti @1080p/4K, 8/16-bit.
+	info.size = VkDeviceSize(aligned_width) * aligned_height *
+	            (chroma == ChromaSubsampling::Chroma444 ? 4 : 2);
 	payload_data = device->create_buffer(info);
 	device->set_name(*payload_data, "payload-data");