Time of scene load, fundamental question lol

[5DVoom]

Sorry if it already was discussed (i'm sure tho).

As i understand, with growing up of "AddonPackages" folder, all scenes become to require more and more time to load.
But seriously, what logic ?
No, i can understand that with increasing of VARs quantity, the program itself require more time to launch (for scan vars), it's ok.

But why it touch separate scenes ?

Why each time scene should "recall" all exists VARs, during load ?? (Instead of just appealing to her dependencies only).
Added: even with no hdd activity.

 

[atani]

Have you tested this?

 

[5DVoom]

Have you tested this?

What exactly ?

 

[atani]

What exactly ?

That it takes longer to load a scene when you have more VARs in the folder AddonPackages compared to the same scene when you have fewer VARs in AddonPackages.
Isn't that the assertion you're making?

 

[5DVoom]

That it takes longer to load a scene when you have more VARs in the folder AddonPackages compared to the same scene when you have fewer VARs in AddonPackages.
Isn't that the assertion you're making?

Ok sorry, yes logically statement.
Well, no, i not tried yet.
But isn't that so?
I proceed from the fact that scenes load much slower than, say, half a year ago, and all that has changed is only the increased number of VARs.

For example, now some scenes can load from 5 to 10 minutes (again, without HDD activity, i.e. the fact that I don’t have SSD, I suppose, does not change anything). Also, I do not observe significant CPU load at this wait time. Usually its about 10+ %.
It seems to me that initially scenes could load in a minute after clicking on preview picture.
If your question implies that the behavior i describing (i.e. such dependency) shouldn't exist, I think I'll run a test.

 

[atani]

There may be a difference in loading time because of certain aspects of VaM, like populating the morphs list, but I don't think it's that meaningful on scene load (did not test, speculating). Then again, 5 to 10 minutes for a scene to load is insanely long, either you have a very weak system or something's really wrong there.

 

[5DVoom]

I clarify a little how this happens: I click on the preview, the program freezes accordingly. The waiting process I described begins. And after this time, the HDD activity actually turns on, and I begin to see how the components are loaded. So this period of disk activity takes about less than minute, rather 15-20 seconds. And scene loaded.
Ie What exactly happens BEFORE disk activity (and why so much time long) is unclear to me.

My specs: PC desctop. CPU i7-8700, GPU GTX 1660 6GB, 64GB RAM
(I suppose it's still not very weak)

 

[atani]

Scenes can take quite a diverse time to load depending on how they're like. For example, a scene that loads 50 mp3 files can take a minute just for that, but the same 50 mp3 in a assetbundle form will take 2 seconds.
If you're willing to test, opening the default or a built-in scene in your VaM and the same on a smaller VaM, compare the times, then a comparison with a big scene in both and see how much they differ.

 

[5DVoom]

Scenes can take quite a diverse time to load depending on how they're like. For example, a scene that loads 50 mp3 files can take a minute just for that, but the same 50 mp3 in a assetbundle form will take 2 seconds.
If you're willing to test, opening the default or a built-in scene in your VaM and the same on a smaller VaM and compare the times would answer the question.

Hm... ok will test (and post here how it go)

 

[5DVoom]

So, virgin fresh installed VAM.
Results Lol, i'm in shock.

Default scene (/MeshedVR/default.json, with single model) load for 5 sec.
Tried next (something more heavy by preview), "In Your Face" again from default collection, load for 15 sec.

Ok. Along the way, I will add components from the large VAM and check how everything will change.

 

[5DVoom]

First i tried take all "AddonPackages" content, nothing more, without touch all non-var stuff like morphs, my saved scenes\appearances etc.

So, scene with single look model load for about 3 minutes, but i noticed that first loading (after VAM start) always occurs most quick. So, loading scene over already loaded scene is most relevant test. So next i tried to load "In your face" ("DemoScenes2" variant ones, there is another), so, it taken almost 5 minutes. (With all resp symptoms I described) (this is vs 15 sec with clean VAM !)
Edit: And i sure if i will tried to load some complex scene atop again, it will taken even more time.

So, my initial statement confirmed, unfortunately. Therefore issue still relevant.

 

[atani]

Interesting.
I'll test it on my system as well to compare.

 

[5DVoom]

Need say, maybe about 15 minutes it's i exaggerated a bit, got excited. I think 10 minutes is about the maximum, in my 18k var's case.
But anyway, definitely there is difference, what is 15 sec and what 5 min.

 

[atani]

I did some testing on mine using my playing VaM (VAM1) and a clean VaM (VAM2). I'll start with the results and then the description of what I did:

VAM1		VAM2
VaM boot:	36.5 s	VaM boot:	23 s
3 light default scene loading:	14.5 s	3 light default scene loading:	12 s
2023 Template loading:	85 s (1 m 25 s)	2023 Template loading:	74 s (1 m 14 s)

Setup

VAM1: around 2150 VARs totalling 90 GB
VAM2: essentially a clean VaM with one scene added for testing, its dependencies and all existing VARs updated

• VAM1 and VAM2 are on the same disk (NVME), same user preferences and session plugins at load
• Cache disabled and cleared
• 2560x1080 screen
• AMD Ryzen 9 3900X 3.8 Ghz 12 core
• NVIDIA Ge 3070 Ti 8 GB VRAM
• 32 GB RAM

Testing scene is my 2023 Template scene that has 2 persons, male and female, built-in appearances with no hair or clothes.

Methodology

1. Restart PC and wait a minute after boot to let it settle
2. Start VAM(1/2) and time it (a)
3. Open the default scene 3LightSetup and time it (b)
4. Hard reset (red button in user prefs) and wait a few seconds after to settle
5. Open my 2023 template scene and time it (c)

(a) I use UIAssist as a session plugin and when the UIA UI shows up on screen (no user input needed) I consider that the end of the loading process
(b) When Lexi shows up on the screen with no blue loading bars
(c) When there's no blue loading bars and all looks loaded

Conclusions

The differences between VAM1 and VAM2 exist and they may be explained by many reasons. I know that the amount of morphs impacts loading time, it has been mentioned that more than 10.000 morphs you can start to notice the effect, especially on slower systems. What is loaded on a scene can vary wildly depending on what it is, like I mentioned with the audio files earlier being in Scene Audio or in assetbundle form.

Considering my test scenes, the difference in mine are not meaningful enough. The bigger scene loaded (2023 template) takes just 10 seconds (14%) longer than the clean VaM loading, something I could expect just for the morphs thing alone. How much a difference could it have if I had a double the size VAM1 with no care of what I have or maintain it? No idea.

 

[atani]

For fun I copied the VAM1 and VAM2 folders to a spinner HDD to compare with the NVME results:

VAM1	HDD	NVME	VAM2	HDD	NVME
VaM boot:	250 s (2 m 50 s)	36.5 s	VaM boot:	38 s	23 s
3 light default scene loading:	20 s	14.5 s	3 light default scene loading:	19 s	12 s
2023 Template loading:	171 s (2 m 51 s)	85 s (1 m 25 s)	2023 Template loading:	125 s (2 m 05 s)	74 s (1 m 14 s)

Clearly there's a lower performance using a rotating disk compared to a NVME SSD on a PCI slot. The massive VaM boot time increase is very clear when comparing both the VAM2 boot time (HDD) to the NVME time for VAM1. And while still roughly twice the time loading the 2023 template compared to a NVME, it isn't that dramatic the difference.

 

[5DVoom]

I quite allow that with 2k vars i would not pay attention to that problem lol.

 

[atani]

18k vs my 2k VARs is the problem. Do you really need this much stuff available all the time? It will just destroy your performance and possibly you could get rid of half and not even notice.

I only keep the latest version of something, so that makes my VAR count much lower than it would normally be. I change all the VARs meta.json files to be the latest to not have the Error log crying about it, manual boring work but I want as much performance as I can get.
If you have stuff that you only ocasionally want to use you could move them out of the VaM folder to another folder, then move them back in if you want to use them. Or you could have another VaM folder, using one for things you want to use and another for things you haven't tried yet or want to test first.

 

[5DVoom]

Well, yes i agree, definitely need to do something with this, and movement between two VAMs as option.

As for strictly checking what you use and monitoring dependencies, this was my second attempt. It didn't last long for me. After tinkering the filtration\selection all weekend, I almost went crazy, gave up on everything and returned everything back again. (Not to mention digging with j'sons).

I remember there is some paid plugin, that make this process with two VAMs in some kind of automatic way, as i understand (or automatically selects dependencies for temporary moving). Maybe will try it too.