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⚠️ Update

Since the version 0.125 of Three.js, all Geometries are now BufferGeometries without having to write Buffer. Thus, making this point irrelevant.

⚠️ Update

In the latest versions of Three.js, BufferGeometryUtils must be imported like this:

import * as BufferGeometryUtils from 'three/examples/jsm/utils/BufferGeometryUtils.js'

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Next lesson
46.

Performance tips

Difficulty Medium

Introduction 00:00

As we said in one of the first lessons, you should target a 60fps experience, at least. Some users might even have configurations where the experience should run at a higher frame rate. Those are usually gamers and are even more exigent in terms of performances and frame rate.

There can be two main limitations:

  • The CPU
  • The GPU

You need to keep an eye on the performances and test across multiple devices with different setups and don't forget mobile devices if your website is supposed to be compatible with those.

It would help if you also kept an eye on the overall weight of the website. When we are developing in local, things load remarkably fast, but once online, it depends on the user connection and the server speed. We need to keep the assets as light as possible.

There are many tips to improve both performances and weight, and we've already seen most of them, but here's an exhaustive list.

Setup 01:35

Some of the following tips have code examples in the starter, and each tip has a number. Uncomment the corresponding code part if you want to test it.

Monitoring 02:02

First, we need to measure the performance and not just eyeball it.

1 - Monitor FPS

Chrome used to have a nice FPS meter but not anymore. Instead, we can use a JavaScript FPS meter like stats.js.

Add it to the dependencies with npm install stats.js.

Import it and instantiate it

import Stats from 'stats.js'

const stats = new Stats()
stats.showPanel(0) // 0: fps, 1: ms, 2: mb, 3+: custom
document.body.appendChild(stats.dom)

Call it's begin() and end() methods in the tick function

const tick = () =>
{
    stats.begin()

    // ...

    stats.end()
}

You should get a nice looking FPS meter.

2 - Disable FPS limit

There is a way to unlock Chrome frame rate regardless of the screen capabilities.

That will enable frame rate monitoring even on good computers. For example, if you are developing on a good computer and you see 60fps, you might think it's okay. But maybe your website can only run at 70~80fps on that good computer, but the frame rate will drop below 60fps on other computers, and you won't know it.

If you unlock the frame rate limit, you'll see that the performances aren't good enough, and you should run at something like 150~200fps on this computer to be safe.

To unlock Chrome framerate:

Chrome should open without the frame rate limit. You can test it on with the exercise by opening the FPS meter again. If it didn't work, close it and retry. If it still doesn't work, you'll have to do without it.

Be careful; doing this will draw much more power from your computer and might result on Chrome crashing.

3 - Monitoring draw calls

Draw calls are actions of drawing triangles by the GPU. There will be many draw calls when we have a complex scene with many objects, geometries, materials, etc.

Usually, we can say that the less draw calls you have, the better. We will see some tips to reduce these, but first, we would like to monitor them.

There is a great Chrome extension named Spector.js that can help you with that.

Wait a little, and a new page will open with many intricate details about the recorded frame.

In the Commands tab, you'll see how the frame has been drawn step by step. We won't explain everything here, but the blue steps are draw calls, and the other steps are usually data sent to the GPU such as the matrices, attributes, uniforms, etc.

The less you have, the better.

4 - Renderer informations

The renderer can provide some information about what's in the scene and what's being drawn.

Just log the renderer.info to get this information:

console.log(renderer.info)
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How to use it 🤔

  • Download the Starter pack or Final project
  • Unzip it
  • Open your terminal and go to the unzip folder
  • Run npm install to install dependencies
    (if your terminal warns you about vulnerabilities, ignore it)
  • Run npm run dev to launch the local server
    (project should open on your default browser automatically)
  • Start coding
  • The JS is located in src/script.js
  • The HTML is located in src/index.html
  • The CSS is located in src/style.css

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