Are data tables loaded from disk when a handle is made and unloaded when it’s broken? Or is there some other arrangement in place? We’re deciding whether to access directly from data tables or load into an array on startup and access from that, and we’re worried that fetching from disk often, and potentially in the middle of cutscenes will kill our performance.
I’d also like to kwow, for the same reasons 
Same here. It would be great to hear some comments from Epic staff. For example, info about Fortnite development and the way of DataTable’s usage in it.
I still don’t know, neither… Yes it would be nice some answer from Epic. We want to make a very intensive and real time fast use of previously saved data, and it’s crucial to know when they are readed from RAM and when from disk, so we can decide if we need a preload to array or not, just the same as BurnGameVen13 said.
I would also like to know about this. Does anyone know if there’s a considerable advantage to storing & retrieving the data through class variables, when compared to directly accessing them from the table?
Bumping this. I don’t know C++ well enough to dig into the engine and figure it out, but the answer is important!
DataTables are assets so as any other asset it is is loaded wither if you load something that reference it or manually with TSoftObjectPtr (TSoftObjectPtr | Unreal Engine Documentation), once that happens everything stays in memory until nothing is using it (not referenced anywhere anymore) then it’s unloaded.
If you circling thru large amount of data even in memory can freeze as you delaying game thread processes by doing so, so you should do that only when user don’t notice that.
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Finally!
Thanks!