extremly slow scene loading?

thell_michael

hey

since i have my new pc and got into building larger scenes I noticed that loading and clearing of scenes takes a lot of time. 
Some scenes take 3-4 minutes to load and while monitoring the performance monitor i see hardly any activity at all.
CPU is arround 20%, Memory 15%, GPU 3-4%, Harddisks hardly any traffic, only plenty of short ethernet traffic bursts

not sure what s going on?
is daz verifying each asset used in the scene one by one over the internet? 
cause i don t see any other explaination at the moment.

thx in advance

 

PerttiA

3-4 minutes isn't long. It can even take an hour if one has enough conflicts between installed morphs for the figures in the scene.

When loading figures, DS reads all the installed morphs for that base figure (for example G8F) in order to create the morph dials and interdependencies between the dials, the more characters/morphs one has installed for the base figure (G8F), the more time it takes to process the morphs, and if there are morphs that don't want to work together, the time it takes to process the morphs is increased quite a lot. All this is also single threaded process.

Figuring out how to solve the conflicts and optimize the amount of installed morphs, is quite usefull with DS.

hansolocambo

Too many bundles installed = Extremely slow DAZ (and I agree with PerttiA 3 or 4 minutes is not long at all, I got way worse than that).

To cut down loading times from dozens of minutes down to a minute or less :

Build your characters and load all clothes, environments, light presets, shaders, etc. that you'll need for the scene. Note down all DAZ bundles you used for that.

Save your scene, leave DAZ.

Create a new libray folder (any hard drive, any name, doesn't matter).

In DIM set this new folder as default installation folder and re-install only the packages you used in your scene.

Then start DAZ and remove from Edit > Preferences > Content > Content Directory Manager : all library folders you have except the default one in C:\Users\Public\Documents\My DAZ 3D Library)

Then still in Edit > Preferences > Content > Content Directory Manager : add the library you created with only the bundles you need for the work.

Now load your scene. It'll load very fast. And work on it.

 

1/ Keeping the default Library on C with the strict minimum in it (what's installed by DAZ at first install) 2/ having another Library folder with all your bundles (slow) to create characters, etc. 3/ having more Libraries (1 per scene) with only what you need :

Takes a bit of time to set up at first. But once you're used to work this way, you're gonna save hours ! not having to wait for DAZ to react every time you click somewhere, move a keyframe add a basic Genesis 8 figure, load a scene, etc.

The difference in terms of speed is outstanding and well worth the little time it takes to set up things this way. Hopefully someday DAZ will find a way to optimize their code to prevent those loading times and slowness of the UI when too many bundles are installed and even when none is used in the current scene.

----------

Something that helps me a lot with that workflow is the file "Launch Instance.dse". This enables you to start two instances of DAZ.

https://www.daz3d.com/forums/discussion/comment/5112696/#Comment_5112696

I use the main DAZ with a minimum of Libraries for faster loading times and fluid working conditions.

And I use the second DAZ instance in the background with all bundles installed (in this one you edit the Content Directory Manager differently of course). It's slow but I don't mind as it's in the background and I can still work whenever this DAZ session struggles. And if I forgot a bundle that I need I can still test it on the slow DAZ session and install it for the fast DAZ session.

 

Hope that makes sense.

thell_michael

oh ok thx

so no specific need to be worried

 

Richard Haseltine

Bundles have nothing to do with it - the issue is the number of linked proeprties you have - typically human shapes haev links to other properties for things like correctng poses or expressions, and the more such links there are the more processing is needed on loading (even if the morphs aren't used the links still have to be logged) and so the slower the process will be.

Togire

Note that a new product "trubo loader" is specifically proposed to allow an easy masking of chars in order to improve loading times.

https://www.daz3d.com/turbo-loader-for-genesis-8-and-81

hansolocambo

"Packs have nothing to do with it"

Load times have always been a problem with DAZ, and having a glimpse of what DAZ is doing and why it takes so long, doesn't make it any more acceptable that the code isn't written with "speed and optimization" in mind.

The fact remains that : some scenes that used to take about 15-20 minutes to load with my default DAZ library, now load in less than 1 minute if I install only the necessary packages (light presets, expressions, clothes, etc.) for a specific scene in a separate DAZ library folder. Then I place this folder alone in the content directory manager.

In addition to loading normally, working with the scenes becomes incredibly faster. Whereas I sometimes had to wait 10 minutes just to move a keyframe.

DAZ instances + separate DAZ library folders (1 per scene) are the key to speed as far as I am concerned.

Matronius

hansolocambo said:

"Packs have nothing to do with it"

Load times have always been a problem with DAZ, and having a glimpse of what DAZ is doing and why it takes so long, doesn't make it any more acceptable that the code isn't written with "speed and optimization" in mind.

The fact remains that : some scenes that used to take about 15-20 minutes to load with my default DAZ library, now load in less than 1 minute if I install only the necessary packages (light presets, expressions, clothes, etc.) for a specific scene in a separate DAZ library folder. Then I place this folder alone in the content directory manager.

In addition to loading normally, working with the scenes becomes incredibly faster. Whereas I sometimes had to wait 10 minutes just to move a keyframe.

DAZ instances + separate DAZ library folders (1 per scene) are the key to speed as far as I am concerned.

Thanks for your insight, I am going to follow your advice!!!! Best wishes, Gio

Matronius

I also stumbled into this amazing product which sorted my problems out!!! :)

Turbo Loader for Genesis 8 and 8.1 | Daz 3D

Best wishes,

Gio

Padone

In general it is a very bad idea to keep everything installed, because apart slow speed you may get conflicts, that the turbo loader will not help with. Personally I manual install what's needed for the current project. Not using DIM or Connect is much easier so you don't have to maintain the metadata, which may conflict/slow down as well.

Matronius

Interesting @Padone. How can you avoid using DIM or Connect please? Is there a way to disable them? I do not want to do any manual installation as I believe that it is cumbersome and time-consuming, but I would be happy to disable some of the settings to speed up DazStudio!

Padone

No, DIM and Connect can't be "disabled" you either use them or not. If you use DIM and Connect then the metadata will be installed. You can stop the CMS with "content library > menu > stop CMS", this way the metadata will not work and you have to autofit by hand.

But installing by hand is not time-consuming at all, you just unzip and copy in the content folder. The DIM is not faster, rather the opposite since it also have to deal with metadata and the CMS.

PerttiA

If one doesn't log in to DS, Connect is essentially disabled.

Logging in to DS is only needed when one makes the informed and concious decision of using Connect as ones primary method of installing content, and in that case it is pointless to use any other method as the Connect installed content uses a different location for the files and takes priority over the installations made by the other methods.