Performance DIfference Between Blueprints & Static Meshes

Hi,

Is there any performance/level loading time impact if I create Blueprints out of my Static Meshes and place them on the map as opposed to directly placing Static Meshes on the map?

Thanks :slightly_smiling_face:

hi,
this depends on how many meshes you spawn when the game starts…
i spawn mostly all parts when the game / level starts and it makes no impact at all… but for some cases like prebuild architecture or complex levels i split my level into pieces like level geometry (if you have for example a large facility), props (like lights, effects,…) and last the characters… and have them load async…

hope this helps you :slight_smile:

cheers :vulcan_salute:

Alright I was interested in this so I actually sat down and did some testing. I created two different levels that were mostly blank. Map1 had 10,000 static mesh cubes in it. Map2 had 10,000 actors with a static mesh cube in them.

Map1 was significantly better on the GPU. I’d say if you have a ton of actors, static meshes themselves are the way to go (especially since UE will group a lot of meshes that are the same into ISMs if I recall correctly not sure if they do that for BPs).

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Thanks a lot! :man_bowing: I’ll replace the BPs with Static Meshes then.

ISMs or HISMs are the way to speed it up properly - replace all static meshes of each type with Instanced Static Meshes - you’ll see a dramatic speed increase.

You can create ISMs/HISMs pretty easily in Blueprint (just need to make a global ISM manager and use that to create them). It’s not something that UE groups and converts - it’s something you have to do manually.

I’ve got a plugin on the marketplace which simplifies it even more and makes it very easy to control them - rdInst.

What’s the link to your plugin?

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So for those who dont get it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cfR36FTbvcQ