I don’t know if this is a bug or a setting somewhere, but I have a very large nav mesh on my level and when I play from editor it takes several minutes to launch the game.
This is not happening in a package game, only from editor (even in standalone mode). I think Unreal is building navigation again.
Is it possible to avoid this extra calculations with some editor / project settings ?
I could use Nav Invokers on pawns but there are too many AI, the performance cost is higher than a huge nav mesh for this level.
First you should disable auto-recompilation of blueprints in the Advanced Settings (click the little arrow to the right of the play button), because that might be the problem if you have a lot of blueprints (especially if some have circular references or child actors in them).
If it still happens when auto-recompile is disabled (and you say no to the popup about recompiling), then you can try setting your NavMesh to Static instead of Dynamic, in your project settings (assuming you dont need runtime regeneration of NavMesh).
Depending on the number of calculations you’re running, especially if you’re doing any sort of procedural level or mesh generation, it can take a while for PIE to start up, especially if you happen to be working on a lower-end machine.
If Navigation Invokers are actually costing you performance due to the number of AI in your level, perhaps it would be best to consider using another method to get the AI to behave the way you’d like. If you could describe your setup a bit, and what the reasoning behind having a high number of AI is, I’d be glad to try to help you come up with some alternatives if any exist.
Also, keep in mind that as long as it’s running fine in a packaged game, that means the end-user will not be having a bad experience. I’d recommend also trying to play the game in a new editor window to see if that still experiences a slow startup time, and also launching the game as another method of testing, which may be quicker depending on how long your PIE is taking to start up.
Let me know if you have any further questions, but at the current time I do not believe that this is a bug. I’m glad to offer any alternatives though if you’re able to provide more details on your setup.
My machine is not a lower end (CPU: intel core i7, GPU: Nvidia GTX 970, RAM: 16 GO), so I don’t think it is a harwdare problem.
I don’t use any procedural generation for the world geometry or the nav mesh.
I have tested Navigation Invokers with 50 AI. I can have a lot of AI because we have fauna and its a part of gameplay (so I really need AI and not just autonomous agent).
My AI use nav mesh for path following when accuracy is needed (follow player or an other moving actor), and home made steering for more simple behaviors when navigation is not complex at all.
For the nav mesh, it takes up to 100 000 instructions to build it (as we have many sublevels and are playing with streaming, a single nav bound volume is not huge, but all nav bound volumes together represent a huge surface).
Also, keep in mind that as long as it’s running fine in a packaged game, that means the end-user will not be having a bad experience
Yes, I agree with you, but it is almost a problem for us when we want to test the level.
Playing in standalone mode or in a new editor window doesn’t reduce the start up time.
I will try others methods to run game.
Edit: tried to launch unreal editor with ProjectName.uproject -game command line but a “failed to open descriptor file” error happens.
Out of curiosity, would you be able to provide the project so I can take a look at your setup and see if I can determine a way to increase its performance? If so, zip it up, upload it to Drive or Dropbox and provide me with a link through PM on the forums: https://forums.unrealengine.com/member.php?160394-Sean-Flint
In the near future I should be able to privately provide you the project, but for the moment the game has not been anounced yet and I am not able to do it (it is not a personnal project).
Yes I have seen this thread but this error happens for editor, not for packaged game as in this thread and the others I could read.
Understood, I’ll go ahead and do a little bit of testing today to see if I can come up with something or reproduce the slow PIE start time, as I have not been able to reproduce it in my own test project.
I don’t know if it can help you, but the level is composed of several sublevel, and we have several nav bounds volume to make them navigable, but all of the nav volumes are on the persistent level (adding nav bound volume to sublevels make editor crashing when showing / hidding sublevel in editor, maybe due to nav mesh generation in editor in real time).
Unfortunately, I still have not been able to reproduce the long PIE start time. You said you’d be able to provide the project privately in the near future. When this is the case, or if you’re able to reproduce it in a simplified test project, feel free to reopen this thread and send me a PM with the link to download the project.
I gave this a quick shot just now and I’m unable to see the behavior you’re reporting. Could you please fill out our Bug Submisson Form and provide us with repro steps and/or a test project so we can investigate this further?
