Do the work in background thread

[amaimon]

Ok, don't want to sound like a smartass, but could you outsource all work to a background thread? Right now VAM looks like it was loading resources in UI thread, which is... well... It makes the UI stutter and it's not a way gentlemen do things nowadays...

 

[MacGruber]

VaM is using Unity engine, which is doing many things in the main thread. There is only so much that can be done. However, doing everything in the main thread makes Unity easy to use....making it a favorite choice for many Indie projects.

 

[amaimon]

While I understed that's Unity, not VAM what's broken, writing multithreaded code ain't a nightmare for some time now... Any app you have on your smartfone uses at least two threads, but most of the apps use tens of hundreds of them...

 

[meshedvr]

The version of Unity VaM 1.X is using is highly restricted as to what can run on side threads. Most of the Unity API is restricted from side thread access. Things have gotten a bit better in newer versions of Unity, but there are still some restrictions. Unity does provide some async functions, and even 1.X uses those. But some things like actually creating game objects after an asset is loaded all ends up on the main thread and is the cause of stutters during load.

I'll do the best I can to improve this in 2.X, but there may still be stutters during load of assets.

 

[Jiraiya]

The stutters are jarring and headache inducing. I would rather a blank screen with small "loading" indicator than the epilepsy inducing 3 image shuffle that attacks me at the moment.
If you can't get rid of them, blank the screen for the love of god.

 

[amaimon]

Yeah, I can imagine they could fry a brain of photosensitive epileptic person...

 

[Jiraiya]

I have recently discovered that if you don't use steam VR it doesn't stutter!
I have a Quest2 and use Virtual Desktop. I launch VaM directly through Virtual Desktop now (SteamVR doesn't open) and it runs faster, loads quicker and doesn't stutter.
It has completely changed VaM for me.

 

[TToby]

Yeah, I can imagine they could fry a brain of photosensitive epileptic person...

Not only of epileptic persons...
I am somewhat sensitive to fps drops and micro stuttering in VR.
Doing things in the UI and constantly moving my head around in VR to see the changes on the person, is some of the things that is giving me headache and a bad stomache feeling after a while. Like the OP said, those threads are making the UI stutter and with it the whole VR world.
And to save some time: yes, I had "gained my VR-Legs" the first time many years ago, but this is only a temporary state as you might know and strongly depends on your actual VR usage.

 

[TToby]

I have recently discovered that if you don't use steam VR it doesn't stutter!
I have a Quest2 and use Virtual Desktop. I launch VaM directly through Virtual Desktop now (SteamVR doesn't open) and it runs faster, loads quicker and doesn't stutter.
It has completely changed VaM for me.

I guess using SteamVR with an Oculus HMD is less performant than using a native SteamVR HMD, so this is maybe a good solution for FaceBookVR-users to not have an additional performance break, but doesn't really apply to the thread issue?
But nevertheless, this might be a good tip for Quest users.