Question Scene opening performance and optimization?

[subs4]

It's been years since I tried VaM and while the VR tech as well as processing power, SSD speed etc. has gone a long way, it seems that there is still a serious bottle neck in opening scenes. It can take really up to minutes, way longer than it would take to copy the whole VaM folder from drive to drive multiple times over. During that period the Steam VR freezes and glitches like no tomorrow.

I can't remember if there was some optimization that would help? What is actually taking all the resources and what should be focused on when I next go shopping for a new PC? Is it all CPU at that stage?

 

[MacGruber]

If you got a scene that loads for multiple minutes, it might be because it has lots of audio files that aren't properly handled. Some scenes have hundreds or thousands of voice lines, sfx audio, etc. If those are loaded from individual audio files, loading can easily take multiple minutes as each file has to be imported and converted into the format that is actually needed by the engine. Audio files loaded from Unity AssetBundle are MUCH faster, like 50x faster. Minutes become seconds. I'm not kidding.

To handle Audio files from Unity AssetBundle, you need to use my LogicBricks plugin suite, specifically either RandomSoundFromAB or SoundFromAB bricks.

Of course there are plenty of other reasons loading could be slow. For example a huge number of atoms, huge number of plugins (like 100+), lots of animation data for Timeline, etc.

Obviously all this is something for the scene creator to do, not for the consumer.

 

[subs4]

Thanks for your reply. Minutes may have been exaggerating but just one minute with non responding, flickering VR headset feels long. I notice that it is not directly related to the complexity of the scene so there must be something going on with bundling stuff in a wrong way as you say.

Still it just makes me wonder what is going on when the data itself should move lightning fast and seemingly very complex AAA games load much faster while staying responsive at the same time.

 

[SlimerJSpud]

Vam was not designed to be interactive during scene load. I just wish scene creators wouldn't auto-start the first animation. That's where you get a lot of stuttering during scene load, when the people start moving before the scene is finished loading. One way around that is to open scenes that do that in Edit mode. I don't know if this applies to VR. I prefer scenes that load up stationary, and there's a start button to click.

 

[MacGruber]

seemingly very complex AAA games load much faster while staying responsive at the same time.

You can't compare that as its a very different thing. VaM is designed to be customizable and easy to use. Yes, yes...people find VaM complicated but it's trivial compared to actual game dev. In contrast, AAA games are usually extremely optimized, with data being prepared, compressed and arranged in the most optimal way. This is especially true for OpenWorld titles where the loading performance (on the slowest platform) often determines the speed limit for the player to move.

 

[Anand]

It's been years since I tried VaM and while the VR tech as well as processing power, SSD speed etc. has gone a long way, it seems that there is still a serious bottle neck in opening scenes. It can take really up to minutes, way longer than it would take to copy the whole VaM folder from drive to drive multiple times over. During that period the Steam VR freezes and glitches like no tomorrow.

I can't remember if there was some optimization that would help? What is actually taking all the resources and what should be focused on when I next go shopping for a new PC? Is it all CPU at that stage?

A major factor is the number of morphs in your VAM installation. (Note that not all VARs have morphs - e.g. assets. And some VARS are practically stufffed with hundreds of morphs. So technically, the number of VARs in your AddonPackages dir is not the most accurate indicator). I don't understand all the details, but the amount of processing time grows geometrically not linearly with the number of morphs. There are a few solutions that helps with this problem by "hiding" VARs from VAM - but still provides you a way to access those VARs when you want. I use Var Browser. JayJayWon's Browser Assist apparently does something similar.

 

[SlimerJSpud]

In the Package Manager, there is a tab for User Preferences. On that tab, there is a box for pre-load morphs. Check that box ONLY on the packages that you know contain custom morphs you want to use in a general way. Checking that box on too many things will make your Vam slower. Unchecking it on scenes that pre-load morphs unnecessarily will speed it up.