Load times are absurdly long, Daz unusable

Cinnatwist

By load times, I mean specifically the wait for loading a new figure, clothing item, material (eye, skin, whatever), or auto-fitting anything. It has become not just a mult-minute wait, but now 15 min plus. Just changing the eye color is taking that long, for godssakes.

I've read other similar postings which seem to point the cause of this issue being something to do with installed content. What they (or maybe I missed) don't explain is really how to go about solving this issue. Why does the content cause this? What do I do with my library to go about fixing this? Checking the log after a long session of "load time" doesn't reveal much to me.

Any help with this?

JP

I was going to ask if you have Mesh Smoothing enabled with any of the characters? But after reading again I see this is happening even when loading a new figure. Daz has become slower since installing a lot of content, but not that slow. I just loaded a HD G8F and it took less than 1 minute to load on my computer. My computer is 7.5 years old. I9 with 10 cores and 128 GB RAM and a RTX 3090.

15 minutes sounds excessive. I have found that Mesh Smoothing on a character set with a high Mesh Resolution will slow Daz to a crawl. The interface becomes very slow. I usually have Mesh Smooth disabled until render time.

Are all your content saved on a SSD drive?

Cinnatwist

Thanks for the response.

The metric butt-ton of content I have installed is concentrated on an additional SSD drive, connected to my PC with a USB-C input. There is some content installed in my C drive (OS drive), but that is a tiny amount. I'll note that the main change I've made in the past month is updating my OS to Win11, though the slowness has only occurred in the last few days. Maybe that? Again, I have no idea where to even start.

Mesh smoothing is enabled, but it has never had this effect before.

JP

Cinnatwist said:

Thanks for the response.

The metric butt-ton of content I have installed is concentrated on an additional SSD drive, connected to my PC with a USB-C input. There is some content installed in my C drive (OS drive), but that is a tiny amount. I'll note that the main change I've made in the past month is updating my OS to Win11, though the slowness has only occurred in the last few days. Maybe that? Again, I have no idea where to even start.

Mesh smoothing is enabled, but it has never had this effect before.

How is the performance after the characters have loaded. Is the interface sluggish? Can you easily rotate around the figures in texture / filament mode? Or is the program only slow to load the characters in the scene? The USB-C interface might be a bottleneck. I run my Daz Content off multiple M.2 SSD drives. The Daz application and content is on a separate M.2 from where I save my scene files. I also load some HDRI files from a second M.2 drive. Some people recommend having your OS and programs on separate drives.

I will be building a new computer soon that will have many fast M.2 drives along with a faster processor and memory. I have had all the components for over a 18 months but been too lazy to assemble it. The new machine will have 192 GB RAM, 36-CORE CPU, and a built-in GPU. I am going to try and run two RTX 3090s and see if the shared 48 GB memory can be used. I know others have had issues with textures rendering incorrectly in Daz with two GPUs. We'll see...

Richard Haseltine

There are potentially a lot of file accesses when loading a character (mainly the .dsf files for properties, but also textures etc.). The fact that this is affecting materials as well as shape/character presets does suggest that it is some kind of security or system check on each file access slowing operations down.

Cinnatwist

Interface performace is slightly sluggish ever since this began -- program locking up without reason when browsing or clicking things, randomly. USB-C is creating a bottleneck? I thought it was faster than standard USB, but seems both options are not ideal I guess. As for the Daz program itself, I have it on my OS drive, but everything else (including saved scenes and subsets and ect) are on the separate SSD.

I'll try moving the Daz program to my SSD, see if that magically makes the difference ... but I feel like it can't be that simple. Never is lol.

Cinnatwist

Richard Haseltine said:

There are potentially a lot of file accesses when loading a character (mainly the .dsf files for properties, but also textures etc.). The fact that this is affecting materials as well as shape/character presets does suggest that it is some kind of security or system check on each file access slowing operations down.

This sounds likely, I think. What can I do to fix or alleviate it? I'm still new to Win11, so a lot of things with it I am still feeling out. I am using the basic Microsoft Windows Security, nothing else. What can I do?

JP

Cinnatwist said:

Interface performace is slightly sluggish ever since this began -- program locking up without reason when browsing or clicking things, randomly. USB-C is creating a bottleneck? I thought it was faster than standard USB, but seems both options are not ideal I guess. As for the Daz program itself, I have it on my OS drive, but everything else (including saved scenes and subsets and ect) are on the separate SSD.

I'll try moving the Daz program to my SSD, see if that magically makes the difference ... but I feel like it can't be that simple. Never is lol.

An M.2 drive has a much faster PCIe interface. Modern USB drives are much faster, but the performance is not anywhere close to a M.2 drive that's plugged directly into the motherboard's PCIe interface. The PCIe interface is upgraded every few years similar to the USB standards. Newer motherboards support faster data transfer rates.

Here's an AI Overview from Google:

When comparing performance, an M.2 drive is significantly faster than a USB-C connection, as M.2 utilizes the much higher bandwidth of the PCIe interface directly connected to the motherboard, while USB-C is limited by the slower speeds of the USB protocol, even at its highest current standards; meaning an M.2 SSD will generally offer significantly faster read/write speeds compared to a USB-C external drive.

Key points to remember:

• M.2 Advantages:

  • Much faster data transfer speeds due to direct PCIe connection. 
  • Lower latency for quicker application loading times. 
  • Designed for internal storage, optimized for high performance. 

     

• USB-C Advantages:

  • Portability and versatility - can be used with various devices 
  • Easier to connect and disconnect external drives 
  • Newer USB-C standards can achieve relatively high speeds, but still not as fast as M.2

Cinnatwist

Richard Haseltine said:

There are potentially a lot of file accesses when loading a character (mainly the .dsf files for properties, but also textures etc.). The fact that this is affecting materials as well as shape/character presets does suggest that it is some kind of security or system check on each file access slowing operations down.

Not sure what happened to my last message...

Any more help on this, how to go about it and ect, would be apprecaited.

artxtap

when you load an actor, all morphs that actor may use are also load, even if you are not going to use them. or they were in the past.

Cinnatwist

artxtap said:

when you load an actor, all morphs that actor may use are also load, even if you are not going to use them. or they were in the past.

Very true, but the loading in of an actor was just one of many things (not to mention it taking upwards of 15 or 30 mins plus). Daz also freezes for minutes at a time, randomly, or when doing mundane traversal of the interface, or yeah, when loading in models, shaders, clothing, hair, or just switching from Iray Preview to any other mode.

This can't be normal, can it? Richard mentioned some good potentials, which I did my best by allowing every Daz related exe through my firewall, but I am still having this problem. I've used Daz for years and it has never been this ridiculous.

JP

Speaking of slow Daz performance - I recently decided to play around with the Octane Render. It seemed a bit cumbersome so I decided to stick with Iray. I forgot about the installation and noticed my Iray renderings for an animation went from 2 minutes per frame to 5 minutes. Moving to various frames in the timeline with shaded or texture mode enabled became extremely slow. Even doing a test animation rendering with just shaded or texture mode enabled took about 2 minutes per frame. Then I remembered the Octane plugin. I disabled it, restarted Daz, and my original render times was restored. I'll look at Octane in the future, but it appear to really bog down the system. I disabled live updates I believe per the instructions.

SpectralFrames

Cinnatwist said:

artxtap said:

when you load an actor, all morphs that actor may use are also load, even if you are not going to use them. or they were in the past.

Very true, but the loading in of an actor was just one of many things (not to mention it taking upwards of 15 or 30 mins plus). Daz also freezes for minutes at a time, randomly, or when doing mundane traversal of the interface, or yeah, when loading in models, shaders, clothing, hair, or just switching from Iray Preview to any other mode.

This can't be normal, can it? Richard mentioned some good potentials, which I did my best by allowing every Daz related exe through my firewall, but I am still having this problem. I've used Daz for years and it has never been this ridiculous.

You probably have too much content installed. I always install ONLY the character morphs I need for my current project and put them in a separate content library. Having multiple enviroment and prop packs won't affect load times, but multiple installed figures will, as every figure adds loads of new files like corrective morphs and so on.

I have noticed also, If I have multiple Genesis 9 figures installed at once, posing them becomes impossible.

On the other hand, Multiple G8 figures make the load times absurdly long.

One way to debug this problem:

1) Make a new folder for a new content library such as for example D:/MyNewTestLibrary

2) Download manually (so NOT using DIM or Daz central) .zip packs with Genesis 8 and Genesis 9 starter Essentials and unpack them to the root of the newly created library

3) Launch DAZ, go to Edit -> Preferences -> Content -> Content Directory Manager and un-plug every DAZ library you have there in the "Daz studio formats" (just note down where they are as you will need to replug them later)

4) Plug in the D:/MyNewTestLibrary that contain only fresh G8 and G9 files

5) Test the load times. If they're lightning fast, than some of your installed content causes this problem. Most probably it's too much characters installed.

Cinnatwist

SpectralFrames said:

Cinnatwist said:

artxtap said:

when you load an actor, all morphs that actor may use are also load, even if you are not going to use them. or they were in the past.

Very true, but the loading in of an actor was just one of many things (not to mention it taking upwards of 15 or 30 mins plus). Daz also freezes for minutes at a time, randomly, or when doing mundane traversal of the interface, or yeah, when loading in models, shaders, clothing, hair, or just switching from Iray Preview to any other mode.

This can't be normal, can it? Richard mentioned some good potentials, which I did my best by allowing every Daz related exe through my firewall, but I am still having this problem. I've used Daz for years and it has never been this ridiculous.

You probably have too much content installed. I always install ONLY the character morphs I need for my current project and put them in a separate content library. Having multiple enviroment and prop packs won't affect load times, but multiple installed figures will, as every figure adds loads of new files like corrective morphs and so on.

I have noticed also, If I have multiple Genesis 9 figures installed at once, posing them becomes impossible.

On the other hand, Multiple G8 figures make the load times absurdly long.

One way to debug this problem:

1) Make a new folder for a new content library such as for example D:/MyNewTestLibrary

2) Download manually (so NOT using DIM or Daz central) .zip packs with Genesis 8 and Genesis 9 starter Essentials and unpack them to the root of the newly created library

3) Launch DAZ, go to Edit -> Preferences -> Content -> Content Directory Manager and un-plug every DAZ library you have there in the "Daz studio formats" (just note down where they are as you will need to replug them later)

4) Plug in the D:/MyNewTestLibrary that contain only fresh G8 and G9 files

5) Test the load times. If they're lightning fast, than some of your installed content causes this problem. Most probably it's too much characters installed.

 

Thanks for this response!

This is what I was thinking/afraid of, as I have 90% more content installed than I use or need for any given project. File hoarding tendency, I guess...

I'll try your idea out and report back.