Graphics 5.4.0F2 is unusable for me - graphics performance->massive spiking

[topic fixed by mod]

I'm releasing my product on Steam on Tuesday, July 26th. I've been using 5.3.5p2 which has been great. In preparation for release it was recommended that I switch to Unity 5.4 to get integrated Vive support.

Just tried that, but unfortunately it is not usable because the graphics keeps spiking up to 36ms (dropping from 100+ fps to only 27 FPS). See pic below for detailed info on one spike.

http://www.speedboatsim.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/ProfilerSpikesUnity5-4-0F1.png



Is there anything that I can do about this? 5.3.5p2 does not do this at all, it's smooth everywhere. Do I have to choose between Vive support and acceptable graphics performance, or does anyone know a trick to get rid of this? I have changed nothing in my project, I simply updated Unity and now I have show stopping problems.

If anyone knows of an earlier 5.4 version that doesn't have this problem, but does have integrated Vive support, I'd be grateful to learn about it. I've only got a few days until release so have some difficult decisions to make here.

 

Update: This appears to be caused by my reflection probe in the scene. If I turn that off it's as smooth as silk and very fast. Is there something new about reflection probes I need to learn? 5.4 apparently has SSR now, so maybe I could just use that instead? It might be preferable anyway.

Anyway, I'll go find out what I can. If anyone has any ideas I'd be grateful to hear them.

 

More problems:

http://forum.unity3d.com/threads/water-reflections-in-vr-are-wrong-in-5-4-0f1.417495/

Took me five minutes to run into all three of these issues. Please don't anyone dare call this a release candidate or final.

 

Is your reflection probe set to Realtime perhaps?

 

Yes. Same as the setting before I upgraded. I changed nothing.

 

It's all screwed in VR anyway. The water reflections don't work correctly and that has nothing to do with my reflection probe.

 

And if that doesn't work, it's not releasable. I don't then want to go monkeying with SSR and all that to fix one problem when another game breaking issue is there. Think I'm just going to revert to 5.3 and skip OpenVR/Vive support until it's ready. I have a Steam release coming on Tuesday and don't have time to mess with this.

 

https://unity3d.com/learn/tutorials/topics/virtual-reality/optimisation-vr-unity

 

Ugh, guys, come on... The spikes are not there in the previous version of Unity, only this new one. So this isn't an optimization issue. The project is identical.

 

So, our perf tests are growing, but perhaps doesn't cover this. So, sounds like a performance bug we're unaware of.

If you could submit a bug report to help us reproduce, that would be great.

 

Thank you.

 

Could you post the bug # here so we can follow up?

 

Yes, I'll try to do a repro after I get some sleep and come back with a bug #. Thanks for popping in. After that you're on your own though, I'm going to need to revert to 5.3 unfortunately because of the problems. I'm not too miffed about it, this is beta after all. I'm just bummed that I'm going to have to launch on Steam without the integrated Vive support. Bad timing.

 

It makes no difference at all to the end user where you get the SteamDLL's from.

Truth is, before you go yelling to hard at the Unity developers, you upgrading your main branch to 5.4 beta, a week before launch, without creating a backup first? That's a pretty boneheaded move.

 

@shawnblais Doesn't sound like he did anything wrong to me. Sounds like he wanted to see if he could get Vive support for the cost of trying out the new build. Doesn't mention anywhere that I see that he can't simply revert and release, he was just hoping he wouldn't have to.

 

Coulda swore that in yesterday's version of the post, he was going on and on about how many bugs the 5.4 has (most were not true) and what a hassle it would be to revert to 5.3. Apologies if I mis-remembered.

Any way you slice it though, upgrading to Beta a week before launch is not the smartest of moves. I've done it myself, had to revert, and was equally harsh on myself

 

That's true, it's very tempting though to try out the new stuff. I've probably switched back and forth 10+ times through 5.4's beta period, hoping each time for the best. It's definitely looking a lot better now, than it was.

 

What's boneheaded is somehow coming to the conclusion that I did anything of the sort.

"Most were not true?" I recall reporting three bugs and providing screenshots of two of them. I assure you I did not fake the screenshots.

Shawn, I'd love to tell you who advised me to do precisely what I did, the full spectrum of reasons why it was done, and how it differs from what your imagination has apparently invented to fill in the blanks, but can't due to an NDA. Just add me to your ignore list and call it a day, ok? You're not helping.

This thread should have ended with my reply to Alex and contained nothing after it except a case #. The Unity staff are adults, they don't need their members rushing out to protect their precious feelings every time somebody gets upset by finding three game breakers in the first five minutes of trying the beta.

 

No idea what this mumbling about SteamDLLs is all about. Please, just put me on your ignore list and go about your business.

Thanks.

 

I can't use 5.4.0f2 myself because in some cases unloading scenes seems to get unity stuck in an infinite loop (every time I break it's stuck in editor get scene name or flushing dirty scene in unity native code). I can't get a repo case to work outside of my project and the project is too big, so I can't report it though, but downgrading to f1 solves the case.

 

The "integrated vive support" you were after, just means that they delete the DLL's from SteamVR plugin folder as they are included in Unity. It's a pointless reason to upgrade unless you're after Stereoscopic rendering, or improved performance from render jobs.

I distinctly remember you whining about how long it would take you to revert your project, and you are launching next week, so I really don't know what I made up.

In terms of wrong issues, you posted a bunch of nonsense about bad tracking, exaggerated head movement etc when actually 5.4 works perfectly.

 

5.3 has Vive support built in without the SteamVR plugin? Fascinating.

Head movement issues, upside down rendering, etc., were issues pertaining to the SteamVR plugin in my project on 5.3 (5.4 can use OpenVR of course so doesn't need the plugin, that's one of the reasons for the last minute attempt at 5.4). I really am not making any of this up, Shawn.

I will continue to report problems in the forums, especially in beta, regardless of whether defensive Unity users imagine a verbal delivery of the messages as whining or not. I am pointing out very specific, real problems that actually do exist in my project whether you believe me or not.

Now add me to your ignore list as I have just done with you and kindly bugger off. Your posts to me have not been the least bit helpful.

 

Thanks, Doddler, for the helpful post. Before I revert I'll perhaps give 0f1 a try and cross my fingers.

 

@Alex-Lian:

I've made a repro with similar scenery (World Composer generated), but it's running perfectly even with a real time reflection probe in the scene so it's probably not going to be useful. I'm not sure what's different about my project, why it's silky smooth in 5.3 at 150fps or so, but spiking badly in 5.4 with bursts every few seconds down to 27 fps. Maybe my repro scenery is too simple, it's running 500+fps.

Should I still submit a bug report even though the repro isn't going to show any spiking occurring? Can't imagine that's going to be useful, it'd probably get ignored. I'll try for another 30 minutes or so, but if I can't make it happen, the only way to do it would be for me to send you my problematic project which isn't an option, unfortunately.

 

Hold that thought... This might actually be because of terrain details, not the reflection probe. My project is a high speed boat game. Just confirmed that the stuttering is still there even without the reflection probe, but only when running the boat through the scenery at high speed. This looks like it might be to do with batches of bushes and so forth coming into view. I'll keep at it, I might be able to repro this after all.

 

Yep, it looks like it's the terrain detail (trees, really, in my actual use case) doing it and nothing to do with the reflection probes. Probes just made it more obvious because the frame rate is a lot lower in that case. If I turn the terrain detail off and turn the reflection probe back on, it's smooth as silk at 180+ fps in the editor no matter how fast I'm moving through the scenery. No stuttering at all. Maybe something changed about how the loading/unloading of terrain details works between 5.3 and 5.4?

I'll change the repro to animate the camera running quickly through a scene so details are popping in and out of view to show the stuttering if that would be useful.

 

@Alex-Lian Case 816989. Thanks for the help.