UE5 Optimize Foliage

Development World Creation
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Hey guys,

So this has me messed up beyond belief: how do I optimize foliage? I’ve tried culling, LOD’s, less dense foliage, but anytime I make a forest environment the fps drops from 90-120 to 20-40, which isn’t playable. I have an RTX 3080 so if it performs that way for me than no one will be able to play these games. It isn’t even a big area. It’s a little smaller than the default landscape size when you create a new landscape. I know I’m not gonna get 120 fps in a forest but I want my players to have a stable 60.

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It’s possible to get a 'forest 'running on a phone, so you have some way to go :wink:

Some ideas:

  1. Lower poly meshes.

  2. Smaller number of meshes ( I don’t mean in total, I mean the less you are instancing, the better ).

  3. Occlude areas using height changes in the landscape, also possibly large rocks. It makes a more interesting map also.

  4. I assume you’re not using Nanite.

  5. Simplify the ground material.

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You’re not able to use nanite on foliage, right? Because it moves?

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Because it’s masked ( and it moves ).

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For better context, here are a few photos. My trees aren’t complicated (at least as far as I can tell), they’re spread out, and the last picture shows you how small it is because that’s the whole game.

Screenshot (38)
Screenshot (38)1920×1080 115 KB

Screenshot (39)
Screenshot (39)1920×1080 106 KB

Screenshot (40)
Screenshot (40)1920×1080 88.6 KB

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Ok, you’ve got a serious optimization problem there :slight_smile:

Easiest way to find what’s causing it, is to just delete stuff from the scene and watch the FPS.

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Did you make the trees? How high poly are they?

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I got them on the marketplace (the Stylized Indian Temple pack). Attached is a screenshot with the tree info on it (It’s LOD 1 because I’m not using LOD 0 on that tree). I went through and deleted everything one at a time, but nothing seemed to get my fps back up. Even when I deleted the foliage, it only went up about 10, which is weird because adding foliage is what initially caused it to drop.

Screenshot (41)
Screenshot (41)1920×1080 113 KB

9

Very low poly.

I noticed you have streamed levels. Did you unload some, or all?

You must get a massively high fps on an empty level, right?

Try just a rough remake of the level, and keep your eye on the fps as you go.

I know there are problems with UE5 and 3000 series cards at the moment, I guess it could be related to that.

If you’re totally stuck, you can PM a link to the project if you like. But I won’t be able to take a look until tomorrow late. ( If you want to do that just migrate the critical parts to a new empty project and zip it ).

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Yeah I get 120 on an empty level. Basically when the game starts the only level that’s loaded is that picture I sent showing the whole game. The other levels are the sky, blockout, a deleted level that is being cut from the game, and a room that shows up at the end of the game. All non-foliage meshes are nanite. I’m not fully aware of the issue with 3000 series cards (other than the constant crashes, but that’s a separate issue). I’ll play around with it some more and if need be I’ll PM the project Tuesday morning.

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What do you mean by Instancing? Something like Foliage?

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Yes.