John,
Are you referring to DP's project file size on disk, or memory usage?
I am testing on Windows at the moment, so there will likely be significant differences in actual numbers, but comparing relatively, maybe this will help:
On disk, a DP11 project takes 175kb here, and with a single instance of VEPro,198kb, connected and not connected (same either way).
In RAM, the project takes over 2G with no tracks, and no VEPro - just an empty DP project.
Nuendo 12 is similar, though it takes a bit less RAM at first, and about twice as much as DP for the save file - still low. 290M isn't a lot for a DAW project save file with tracks, plugins, routing, etc, unless that is the amount DP's file size grows per instance of VEPro - that could be an issue for sure.
DP uses a lot of resources for connections - busses, VEPro, etc. On Windows, it becomes too sluggish to use. On Mac M1, DP is 1000x better, but it still may be a bit resource intensive.