Request: Up to date performance Best practices

[VAM12132312]

Hi Community,
ive been here since the beginning and i know there are many things to make vam perform better. Whats is missing is a comprehensive easy step by step best practice and list of tools or how tos, that helps beginners (and long time users ?) to get the best out of vam.
I know there are many variables like hardware used, var count etc. but there are some things that are universal and these could be listed and updated. Ideally by the community ?.

So will start with what i know and please copy/paste and update, expand fill the list with details including links:

Overall Performance Tipps

1.
launch without Steam

Guides - How to launch without SteamVR (Performance Increase)

thinoreos submitted a new resource: How to launch without SteamVR (Performance Increase) - How to increase VR performance by launching without SteamVR As of right now (Feb 2023), there are 3 methods I know of to launch in VR without SteamVR. Will go through them quickly to increase your...

hub.virtamate.com

Some performance increase (Ideally someone that tested with the benchmark tool could provide a ballpark measurement in %)

2.
CPU Performance Patch

CPU Performance Patch (Up to 30% faster physics, up to 60% more FPS) - Other -

As requested in this thread https://hub.virtamate.com/threads/benchmark-result-discussion.13131/page-37 here is a release of the cpu performance patch. FAQ at bottom Only VaM 1.22.0.3 is supported! Please share before and after benchmarks with...

hub.virtamate.com

Performance increase depends on System (If there is a list Thanks!)

Too Many vars

1.

Paid Tool - VaM Thin Twin (FULL) - Super fast load times

Hugely reduce your VaM load times! Now with full graphical interface! This tool seamlessly integrates with your VaM installation, providing shortcuts and a graphical interface to automatically create and start a thinned-down version of your...

hub.virtamate.com

Performance increase unknown i never tried


Im sure there are more tipps. Lets come together and expand

Thanks in advance

 

[atani]

The hardware and VAR numbers are universal and condition all other plugins and tweaks. Essentially, more powerful hardware more FPS; fewer VARs, more FPS.

On the VAR numbers side, if you overdo it, anything you do is just to try compensating for the problem and you're better off resolving it. If you have 1 TB of VARs, you're fucked. It's like a house full of stuff, all the clutter prevents you from doing anything efficiently.

Naturally, your user preferences matter too, your screen (monitor/vr headset), resolutions, etc.

On scenes, things that weigh it down are:

• Number of person atoms
• Soft physics
• Sim clothes
• Hairs
• Lights
• Animations
• Combined and complex animation moments
• Number of cameras and reflections
• Viewpoint of camera
• Collisions

 

[trashinator]

The hardware and VAR numbers are universal and condition all other plugins and tweaks. Essentially, more powerful hardware more FPS; fewer VARs, more FPS.

On the VAR numbers side, if you overdo it, anything you do is just to try compensating for the problem and you're better off resolving it. If you have 1 TB of VARs, you're fucked. It's like a house full of stuff, all the clutter prevents you from doing anything efficiently.

Naturally, your user preferences matter too, your screen (monitor/vr headset), resolutions, etc.

On scenes, things that weigh it down are:

• Number of person atoms
• Soft physics
• Sim clothes
• Hairs
• Lights
• Animations
• Combined and complex animation moments
• Number of cameras and reflections
• Viewpoint of camera
• Collisions

the amount of vars can affect performance even when its not loaded into the scene?
its eating fps just by collecting dust on the cabinet? ???

if this is true, i'd have some heavy cleaning up to do ???

 

[HolySchmidt]

if this is true, i'd have some heavy cleaning up to do ???

Yep, long known problem. Best way to handle this is probably have a second VaM installation and check all downloaded content on another one. If you like it, copy it over to your clean one. This or that way, I think every VaM installation is bloated at some point.
If I remember correctly the main performance killers are morphs. The less, the better.

 

[GenericUsername1]

I found out about var browser (https://hub.virtamate.com/resources/var-browser.27150/) this week and think it is the best thing since sliced bread. If you have a lot of vars, this will fix your life. Basically you move all your vars out of AddonPackages and use var browser's session plugin to load back whatever you like in game. Loading saved presets (e.g. appearances) will also transparently load back the necessary vars.

 

[hazmhox]

• Number of cameras and reflections
• Viewpoint of camera

• Number of cameras do not matter, unless they are render textures. It's important to specify this. Render Textures are extremely heavy, you should have a proper count (or a proper resolution setup for every texture)
• Reflections do not matter "much", if they are properly optimized cubemaps. If you're refering to mirrors, then we're back on the render textures (see previous point, mirrors are simply cameras with render textures).
• Point of view is not a very good "optimization technic". If you're looking in a direction and VAM starts to die, and you turn back and you go back to 150fps, it does not mean you should point the other direction, it means you should fix what is going on from the initial view point

I think atani sums up pretty well the need for optimization in scenes.

Optimizing your vam is one thing, but optimizing a scene should be the focus. You should have a clean vam and always test the scenes with the best scenario possible to ensure your scene is running properly in a standard situation.

Then for the rest, all the usual technics are good to know:

• Overdraw (mostly for VFX but can be a problem with very high density models too)
• Instanciation for recurring assets
• Culling ( Only keeping the needed atoms active at one specific moment of the scene, re-enabling the other when needed )
• Material optimization (some very cool shaders can kill your framerate)
• Number of atoms
• Texture optimization (mostly for loading time)
• Caching ( to avoid stutters during playthrough )

 

[atani]

• Number of cameras do not matter, unless they are render textures. It's important to specify this. Render Textures are extremely heavy, you should have a proper count (or a proper resolution setup for every texture)
• Reflections do not matter "much", if they are properly optimized cubemaps. If you're refering to mirrors, then we're back on the render textures (see previous point, mirrors are simply cameras with render textures).
• Point of view is not a very good "optimization technic". If you're looking in a direction and VAM starts to die, and you turn back and you go back to 150fps, it does not mean you should point the other direction, it means you should fix what is going on from the initial view point

You know most of us are all cavemen , including myself, that have no idea what things are "under the hood", so it's all terms taken from the real world that may be very very wrong in VaM and IT

 

[hazmhox]

So then mirrors

(camera costs nothing if that's not like a mirror or a screen fed to a texture)

 

[atani]

Yap, a camera screen render texture thingie whatchamacallit

The viewpoint part I wanted to say - in cavemen speech of course - if a lot of stuff fills the screen it lowers FPS.
e.g.
fewer FPS when you get very close

That's supposed to happen, right?