TextMesh Pro TextMeshProUGUI.LateUpdate() = performance spike

For some reason I keep getting regular performance stutters and according to the profiler it is caused by TextMesh late update. I installed TextMeshPro today, I dont believe I have used it in a way that should cause performance issues, I created 6 separate UI objects, and one of my scripts can change the text during gameplay, that's really all i've done?

 

TextMesh Pro does use LateUpdate() to check if the scale of the text objects has changed between frames. However, unless you have a lot of text objects, you should not see any measurable performance impact from this.

Can you post an example of the script you are using to change the text?

P.S. In the next release of TMP due in part to the [ExecuteInEditMode] attribute being deprecated for Unity 2019.1, TextMesh Pro will be using an update manager instead of LateUpdate(). This will result in a slight performance improvement.

 

I have 1535 TextMesh instances in scene, it takes 0.64ms.
That's quite expensive for doing 'nothing'.

If it would be possible to disable such detection on per-instance basis, I'd disable it on 99.5% of instances.

If it would be possible to disable only globally for all TextMeshes, I'd be okay with that too.
I can add component to 0.5% which would do that.

To be sure, I'm talking about text meshes on 3d objects in 3d scene, not UGUI canvas texts.
I can imagine it's not problem for canvas texts, there's usually no more than hundred of them.

Unity 2018.3.2f1

 

I was able to "optimize" it by using this inherited class instead

Code (CSharp):

1. public class TextMeshProFast : TMPro.TextMeshPro
2. {
3.     private void LateUpdate()
4.     {
5.         // This is defined to disable private LateUpdate in base class
6.         // Base class implementation detects scale changes and updates text
7.         // It takes 0.64ms for 1530 instances
8.     }
9. }
10.  

Attached profiler screenshot, this 'hack' is about 5-6x faster (measure in build)

EDIT:
After changing all instances to TextMeshProFast, it takes 0.12ms, that's 5.33x improvement

 

I have replaced the use of LateUpdate in the next release of TMP for a manager which should provide some improvements. I'll re-run some benchmarks and provide results thereafter.

In terms of your hack just be mindful that LateUpdate is mostly used to account for scaling changes on the text object. Provided the scale of your text object will not change, your teak should be fine

 

Hi Stephan,
I've encountered the issue again, it has smaller impact but it's still there.

Since it now uses manager and InternalUpdate, I'm unable to "fix it" myself.
Can you please make InternalUpdate public or provide some mechanism to prevent it?
- a simple checkbox in some Advanced section of TextMeshPro would be okay (would prevent InternalUpdate registration into manager)

I have a lot of texts in scene, which don't scale. There's no need to call method which does "nothing".
5000 texts take 1.8 ms in Profiler, that's a lot of frame budget.

It would be also nice to add Profiler BeginSample/EndSample around manager rebuilds, I took me a loooong time to figure out why Camera.FireOnPreCull was so slow.

Using version 2.0.1 in Unity 2019.2.9

Thank you!

 

I was able to reintroduce the hack in following manner
It increases a cost of OnEnable a little, but reduces update cost to zero.
(properly implemented functionality in package would have no impact on OnEnable)

Btw, I'm not sure about queue implementation in TMP_UpdateManager, inserts are O(1), but removals are O(n), which is a little concerning.

EDIT: I just tested disabling 5000 regular TextMeshPro and it spend over 1000ms in "UnRegisterTextObjectForUpdate", other queues are fine, because they are cleared after processing, but update it not.

Thankfully TextMeshProFast solves issue with disabling, because it keeps internalUpdateQueue empty

Code (CSharp):

1. using TMPro;
2.  
3. public class TextMeshProFast : TextMeshPro
4. {
5.     protected override void OnEnable()
6.     {
7.         // Registers into update and graphic rebuild
8.         base.OnEnable();
9.  
10.         // Unregisters from everything
11.         TMP_UpdateManager.UnRegisterTextElementForRebuild(this);
12.  
13.         // Registers into graphic rebuild
14.         TMP_UpdateManager.RegisterTextElementForGraphicRebuild(this);
15.  
16.         // Registers into layout rebuild when needed
17.         if (m_autoSizeTextContainer)
18.         {
19.             TMP_UpdateManager.RegisterTextElementForLayoutRebuild(this);
20.         }
21.     }
22. }
23.  

 

I have been thinking about this and considering adding an option to the Inspector's static pulldown options to mark the text object scale as static or add this property in the Extra Settings of the text object. This would internally exclude the text object from the internal update.

Update
I went ahead and adding the option in the Extra Settings as seen below



When Enabled, this will exclude the text object from InternalUpdate callbacks. As such, if the scale of the text object or potential parent changes, the text object's SDF Scale will not be updated potentially resulting in the text becoming blurry or too sharp.

Changes to properties of the text object will continue to behave as expected.

 

Thank you very much!

 

In which release version will this be available and will it only be for the 3d Texts or also for UI?

 

Bumping this thread as I have a problem here which causes 65 of my TMProUGUI instances to cause huge drawbacks to the renderer.



I can confirm that the TMProUGUI is causing it because whenever I disable that component alone, the game performs really well at 60 fps but when it's enabled it's running at around 30-45fps.

 

You can mark the text objects with IsScaleStatic in the extra settings of the text objects. This will remove them from the update loop.

 

Thank you Stephan, I don't have that option, I probably have an older version, should I update this? Or do you have another option for me to have the optimal performance. Thanks!

 

This option is only available in the latest releases.which are:

Version 1.5.0 for Unity 2018.4
Version 2.1.0 for Unity 2019.x
Version 3.0.0 for Unity 2020.x

 

Thanks, I haven't had the need to update it though as the conversion from TMP GUI to TMP gave a massive increase on the performance.

 

As TMP is now almost a part of Unity core, isn't maybe better if Unity Devs add some event on scale change so you can handle it internally? Adding IsScaleStatic isn't so intuitive...

 

I brought this up a few times but the issue is related to the RectTransform and the dispatcher. But having an event similar to OnRectTransformDimensionsChange but for scale would be so nice.

 

I have a similar problem. We have an application tracking ships, each ship has a label for it's name. We now have access to over 100,000 vessel's positions and when they are all loaded (zoomed right out on map) after closing the application in editor it takes many minute to finish closing cleanly, seems to be calling the OnDestroy() method for every label which in turn calls the TMP_UpdateManager unregister methods - how can I avoid this?