How should I do this, I wonder if Unreal writes files inside the engien while it compiles ? Or does it just read, i’m sure it reads engine files when you compile project files.
So the process of writing thing, does it write anything inside the engine while it does this, or just writes in the project folder ? Reason I’m asking is to know if it’s worth getting a SSD, if it writes inside the engine files as it compiles then I think it would be pointless because the SSD wears out fast, most of them have 1000 cycles per cell.
It would be nice if it does not write much inside the engine or not at all and it just reads and the writing is only done in the project folder. I could hold my project folder on the HDD and unreal on the SSD for reading fast when unreal builds things for the build system ? So I’m confused what it is written during built time before my project files are actually compiled, and when it does compile does it write to the engine anything ?
I believe that compilation is multi-threaded, so the fastest way to speed up compile times would be to get a fast CPU with many cores. I’ve also heard that having more RAM helps, but my overall experience with compiling the editor is limited.
SSD should help as well, but I’m unsure of how much it would get ‘thrashed’. I think most modern SSDs should last a long while if they are not filled. (Wear-leveling built in?)
My cores stay at under 20% when I build.
It’s all build system as I see it, when it loads the actual project files for compiling it takes 30 seconds. But before getting there it’s doing something I don’t know, spending time somewhere else compiling what in a file called shaddow errors, maybe it’s not compiling anything just reading ? Here you go.
I’m not an expert on how unreal build system works. But if I can skip this part faster with the time it spends there and reduces it would be magnificent. As you see from the picture it’s just reading from there ? or maybe it’s writing as well I got to pay attention again to it I guess.
3 mins or even longer time like 5 mins it becomes a drag.
So I thought I find a way to reduce the time speading there because I looked at my drive and while there the speed of my hard drive drops to 2 meg per second maximum since it reads all these small files.
So I was asking does it also write or does it only read inside the engine, is there anything writen inside the engine while compiling or building ?
SSD has a greater speed even 50 MB pers second would be a great improvment.
My hard drive is not broken or anything, but when it gets to lots of small stuff reading from various parts it slows down.
So it stays there and it reads from that file in an intense way sometimes minutes Shadow Errors phc. After it’s done there I can see the files loaded from my cpp project and the CPU go’s up and it only takes 30 seconds or even less. So while it’s in the Shadow Errors PHC my cpu level is under 20% and it just stays there and reads whatever, I do not understand what it’s reading.
So the idea is to somehow speed this reading up from there from this file it always stays in there.
So my problem is not from the CPU, once it actualy compiles my cpu spikes to near 100% and in 10 to 30 secs it’s done
This is a more clear picture, it’s reading what ?
From what I understand it’s shared files stuff for compilation, it’s assembling them there, what is it doing ?
If somehow I can use a ramdisk or a ssd, a ssd would be good since ssd’s don’t wear out from reading, so if it only reads from there and only writes in project files that be grat.
My experience is limited here. But I see what you’re getting at, you’d want to see either max CPU utilization or HDD utilization (but maybe with small files are preventing that…) Hopefully someone else will chime in with info.
I sort of solved my problem, I’m on 8gb of ram and want to add some more ram.
At least for me with 8gb of ram in Unreal 4 I noticed if I manage to keep the unreal usage to minimum meaning it’s within 3gb scope under the ram and not past it I am able to compile very fast, once the unreal usage go’s beyond that it starts hanging.
So one thing I did is to get rid of all the 8k texturing I had and multiple procedural meshes saved inside the editor and leave just the minimum I work on currently to compile, meaning just some texture to test afterwards and a single mesh that I make use of to keep down the Unreal Usage regarding ram. Once is bellow this ram usage I compile on average under 1 min.
So once Unreal gains lots of things and has more and more ram usage it becomes slughish for some reason, so a way is to get rid of these things and just do your compiling and then bring them back into the editor after multiple compilations to get what you want.
I’m going to get more ram but I do not believe this to be the case for it, since there is plenty of Ram left when it get’s past the 3 gb mark , the memory just unreal wastes and it still hangs.
It’s just memory managment problem from Unreal.
I’m happy anyway I can now do compilings faster and not wait forever for it to finish.
I have no idea if unreal 5 latest does the same, I’m going to try it once I get more ram.
