Shader Precompilation

[convensive]

Really enjoyed the demo. New puzzle mechanics are intriguing, Happy enough with the way it looks, although I did expect somewhat better performance from a 4070 Ti.

But Croteam, for the love of all that is holy, PLEASE include a shader precompilation step in the final game. I don't care if it would make the first load take all ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ day if it would stop the horrendous stutter. I don't want to have to play the game twice to play it once, if you get me.

I'm not kidding, guys. You NEED to do this. This is not optional. I know this isn't a full-priced AAA game, but that's no excuse. Even the most budget of restaurants aren't allowed to put gravel in your food.

[DEN [CT]]

We're still investigating this. It's not that easy. We've added low-level driver shader precompilation in last patch, but somehow it's not enought.

High-level precompilation (game shaders, driver-agnostic) might invoke serveral minutes(!) delay at first run! Hopefully not in subsequent runs. I need to be sure that this helps.
And if it does, then we gonna need some kind of loading/precaching intro screen, with a proper progress bar.

Thanx for your report and stay tuned...

[fletcher1]

I can confirm that precompiling takes several minutes - as i saw it in "Atomic Heart" - but really only at first run! It may pay off, because Atomic Heart was running smoother on my system than TTP2.

[Eludium]

I agree, this would definitely make for a better gaming experience on the first playthrough (which for most people will be the most important one). I notice plenty of newer titles precompile shaders when you run them for the first time, and I see that people (generally) don't mind this. People calm down when they read the text on the screen which says "this process will only happen once". Forza Horizon 5 is one of the games that takes quite a long time to precompile shaders when you run it for the first time. But, if it means a smooth and proper experience whilst playing and loading new areas, then most people would agree that it is worth the one-time wait.

[Torus]

I had a very long loading time the first start with just a black screen. Did not happen on the second game start, so I assume it was the shader compilation.
Some progress animation would be a good idea, because I almost killed the unresponsive black screen game with the task manager.

[puddingtopf]

The process can also be optional, right?

[fletcher1]

Many people have to wait hours until their new game is downloaded, so it shouldn't matter if we have to wait another 2-10 minutes for shader-precompilation at first run.
I bet if this process would double the framerate, people would be willing to wait for 1 hour!

[O.n.e.]

Publicado originalmente por DEN CT:

We're still investigating this. It's not that easy. We've added low-level driver shader precompilation in last patch, but somehow it's not enought.

High-level precompilation (game shaders, driver-agnostic) might invoke serveral minutes(!) delay at first run! Hopefully not in subsequent runs. I need to be sure that this helps.
And if it does, then we gonna need some kind of loading/precaching intro screen, with a proper progress bar.

Thanx for your report and stay tuned...

BTW, with the current demo build the following helps with stutters/hitches very much - maybe up to 80-90% or so:

"\AppData\Local\Talos2Demo\Saved\Config\Windows\Engine.ini" edit and add to bottom...

[/script/engine.renderersettings]
r.PSOPrecaching=1

Save and exit the file.

It looks like there's no need to clear the caches except for testing reasons (although I didn't test leaving it well enough to be completely sure).

Start the game. (It takes a small amount longer as its adding more to ushaderprecache but keep waiting.)

PSO Precaching is noted in the UE docs as available only for UE 5.3+ however it does indeed help the demo at 5.2. Go figure.

You may of course have greater success with the way you're going. Just thought I'd mention it as it could be a positive addition anyway.

[convensive]

Hi DEN. Thank you so much for taking the time to reply! If I'd known I wasn't just ranting into a void, I would have made an effort to sound less peevish! Am a ride or die fan of the first game (especially Gehenna) and will absolutely be buying the full game on release day, even if the demo had leapt off my hard drive and stolen my car.

It sounds like y'all are nervous about the first load of the game taking forever, which is a perfectly reasonable fear. I've seen shader comp take an unholy amount of time in the past. Especially on my old Ivy Bridge setup. And I know shader compilation won't change the overall framerate, just smooth out the spikes and make the whole experience a little bit more reliable and predictable. But Eludium is right, you only get one chance to make a first impression. Especially in a puzzle game where replay value is limited. And having my introduction to these gorgeous new puzzle arenas be punctuated by such egregious stuttering just catapulted me out of the experience. An utter disaster for immersion. In the last biome, I resorted to sprinting around the map before starting any puzzles so I could get the worst of the first-run stutter out of the way. Or taking the fast travel tube twice. Once to get the stutter done with, the second time to actually appreciate the view.

In terms of the work to add a precaching screen, surely a "Precaching shaders" note on a black screen with a '... 47%' type percentage would get the job done? Maybe with a note under it saying "Precaching shaders. This may take a while, but will result in smoother gameplay."

[Eludium]

Publicado originalmente por convensive:

In terms of the work to add a precaching screen, surely a "Precaching shaders" note on a black screen with a '... 47%' type percentage would get the job done? Maybe with a note under it saying "Precaching shaders. This may take a while, but will result in smoother gameplay."

I may be wrong, and take my entire post with a grain of salt, but I did a bit of research about this on Epic's forums and I haven't really found any kind of "official" way to precompile shaders in UE-based titles. There were some "hacky" ways presented by the users (things such as: when you first run the game, every single material gets loaded in the background, but hidden from the view of the player, thereby forcing the engine to compile all of the shaders). It's possible that the main problem here is the way in which Croteam should force Unreal to compile all shaders at launch.
Now, most of the people on the Unreal forums are not necessarily professional developers with years of heavy-duty work in the engine (though some are), so I am being optimistic that, given Croteam's long-record of producing high quality titles, they will be able to use all of their knowledge to come up with a workaround if it is indeed proven that Unreal Engine does not have some official ways for this process.

[fletcher1]

Publicado originalmente por O.n.e.:

"\AppData\Local\Talos2Demo\Saved\Config\Windows\Engine.ini" edit and add to bottom...[/script/engine.renderersettings]
r.PSOPrecaching=1

I did this and i can confirm that loading the game took a little longer as usual - so something must have been changed under the hood. But as convensive said, the overall framerate will not change but the spikes are removed.
Although having a RTX 3090 i have to adjust several settings to "medium" to come close to 60FPS in some areas of Grasland. (I play on 4K-resolution).
The demo has been more performant already - it was before the last patch!

[O.n.e.]

Publicado originalmente por fletcher1:

Publicado originalmente por O.n.e.:

"\AppData\Local\Talos2Demo\Saved\Config\Windows\Engine.ini" edit and add to bottom...[/script/engine.renderersettings]
r.PSOPrecaching=1

I did this and i can confirm that loading the game took a little longer as usual - so something must have been changed under the hood. But as convensive said, the overall framerate will not change but the spikes are removed.
Although having a RTX 3090 i have to adjust several settings to "medium" to come close to 60FPS in some areas of Grasland. (I play on 4K-resolution).
The demo has been more performant already - it was before the last patch!

The issue you see is different. This PSO cache helps when stuff are first brought into close enough view as you're playing the game and the stutter that results from it. Second time plus it does nothing and is no longer a problem since the cache is saved with this game (as long as the cache exists and isn't invalidated).

The r.PSOPrecaching is an automatic way that simply catches ones they weren't able to catch.

r.PSOPrecaching is only one tool in a toolbox. Yes, they do indeed need to try to do what they're doing.

[convensive]

Seems there's a lot more to this issue than I perhaps realised... (stutter discussion starts at 7:58)

https://youtu.be/XnhCt9SQ2Y0?t=478

[Hofstadter]

Publicado originalmente por DEN CT:

We're still investigating this. It's not that easy. We've added low-level driver shader precompilation in last patch, but somehow it's not enought.

High-level precompilation (game shaders, driver-agnostic) might invoke serveral minutes(!) delay at first run! Hopefully not in subsequent runs. I need to be sure that this helps.
And if it does, then we gonna need some kind of loading/precaching intro screen, with a proper progress bar.

Thanx for your report and stay tuned...

it's fine to wait several minutes to have a smooth experience rather than playing straight away with a lot of stutter. Please add shader pre compilation. Just put a warning while the shaders are being compiled.

[DEN [CT]]

For now, the problem is that even with that several minutes delay at startup (for precaching), stuttering is not completely solved. :(
WIP...

[puddingtopf]

Publicado originalmente por DEN CT:

For now, the problem is that even with that several minutes delay at startup (for precaching), stuttering is not completely solved. :(
WIP...

That already sounds better than nothing. Your reactions to all the feedback are appreciated.