Fastest load for Asset Bundle

Unity Engine
1

Hi,

i start to use Asset Bundle, and create one what have 82mb whitch contains 1 fbx, 1 prefab, textures, and materials.

I’m using Unity 2017.4.0f1, free version.

Problem is, that i tried LoadFromFile, LoadFromFileAsync, LoadFromMemory and LoadFromFileAsync and all these are loading my bundle in 32 seconds!

So, i wonder, is there another methods what are faster that i already tried.

Thx!

1 Like
2

You can try building an uncompressed assetbundle Unity - Scripting API: BuildAssetBundleOptions.UncompressedAssetBundle

Other than that, the only time we’ve seen assetbundle load times this slow was when we used extremely complex 3d models, think millions of vertices.

3

Thx, i will try it.
Really don’t know how many vertices are there, but on Galaxy s6 is going with no freezes, so it’s really optimised.

4

Check out the build log for the sizes of your files, maybe you can apply some more compression on the texture for example.

Did you test on the device or in editor? That will differ greatly too.

5

Asset Bundle is DEPRECATED now.

6

Assetbundles aren’t deprecated. What are you referring to?

3 Likes
7

Assetbundle is mostly used for DLC. You download a compressed package then uncompress it. Or use it immediately if asset was packed with LZ4 compression.
If care about build size and only publish in one-go. Then the best practice for now is using Resources
The game load all stuff in Resource immediately when “called”. The only downsize is you have to manually unload Resource if you dont destroy object that are using file in Resource.

In my case, I have to load 200 images 1080p in game. Using AssetBundle:

  • No compression: 5-8s open up scene.(99% CPU to uncompress everytime you load from Assetbundle)
  • LZ4 compression: 0.5s to load an image (with high priority). Took me a few minutes to see all Images (the game still run smoothly though).
  • Normal compression: smaller build size. 10-20s to open up scene and load all assetbundle for 1 session.

When using Resource: file build size = LZ4 assetbundle build.

  • All the images just instantly popup. Open scene only took 2-3s since no images was called.
  • RAM usage will increase to 400Mb if you do no unload Images not used.
8

Unity Technologies says in their “Best practices for the Resources system” document: “Don’t use it!”
https://unity3d.com/learn/tutorials/topics/best-practices/resources-folder

9

Well I develop game for Android. The only fallback of Assetbundle is that it have to do uncompressing everytime I reopen the app and nothing was cached in disk except ads. Using Resource is much faster for loading on small project since there was not that many stuff to control like in Unity tutorial said.

And on older mobile device, phone heat up really fast when use assetbundle since it is CPU intensive.

10

We use assetbundles in many of the apps on several platforms without issues. We also use resources, though less frequently. Just have to use what is right for the particular feature. There has never been a heat issue with assetbundles either on mobile. They both have their uses.

11

Seem like I have to recheck on Assetbundle later.

12

Hi Brathnann,
I use AssetBundles for both iOS and Android.
But when downloading assetbundles from server on Android, it takes 10 times longer than on iOS!
Have you ever experience that?
Best

13

I haven’t. iOS tends to take longer just due to the assetbundle size and the compression on our images. For our text files that we have bundled, they are similar in size and both download about the same.

If it’s taking longer, compare the size of your bundles and if Android is much larger, you might want to see what is making it larger. If they are similar or Android is smaller, than I’m not sure what is having it take longer for you.

14

I am using sceneAssetBundles, they are bigger in iOS, but downloading fast. In Android, they are smaller due to compression - normal. For example, I have a scene-bundle that has 5 Mb, if I put it on DropBox server it takes more o less the same time to download (5 seconds) as the ios bundle, and it is fine. But if I use another server (on Android only) it takes like 50 seconds (10 x longer), I am using the same c# scripts just changing servers…

15

Well, if one server takes longer than others, I would say it’s that server. But honestly, I don’t know. I’ve never had issues with speed on Android.

16

Hey! I’m new to unity and C# scripting. Can you please tell me how did you calculate the download time?

17

Careful about using resources. There is a hard limit of 4GB – go beyond this size and you’ll encounter resource data corruption in built players.

1 Like
18

I have 300 objects in my asset bundles it takes about 6 seconds to load but I need to make it faster is there any way?

19

You should move on to Addressable System if have time to research.
And if you think it load slow because of objects numbers… Most likely you are using loading synchronous (wait for each assets load done before move next) and not asynchronous (load everything in parallel).
Or the project still load slow due to big files/scenes/textures, it might be bundles included too many asset not need right now in scene. Then chopping down assets into smaller bundles and load it as the game progress.

1 Like
20

What Unity version?
What target platform?
What type of assets are they?
What size do these assets have?
How are you loading them?
Do you load all 300 assets or just a single asset from the bundle?

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