Performance Guide
Real Sweat System load changes with the Sweat Quality tier, how much of the screen the sweat covers, Droplet Depth, mirrors, particle effects, and how many avatars are being rendered.
v2.0.0 is much lighter than v1.1.3. The shader compile freeze other players get when they first load this avatar is about two-thirds shorter, the default install at 100% sweat costs about half of v1.1.3's, and sweat at 0% costs far less.
Recommended adjustment order
- Keep 3D Particles off and use the default lightweight 2D particles.
- Keep the Flat look, or turn Droplet Depth (Tessellation / High Load) off in game if Droplet Depth was installed.
- Use Low Load (Recommended) instead of Standard. Lightweight leaves out a little more but costs about the same GPU time as Low Load.
- Disable optional effects, starting with Body Steam.
- Set Body Steam in Mirrors to Hidden if mirror steam is not needed.
- Leave High-Quality Sweat in Mirrors off.
- Enable Remote Low Load for other viewers.
- Use Only Visible to Me when remote visibility is not needed.
- Use Hide Skin Sweat when you do not need the skin sweat at all. It costs nothing.
Make one change at a time and compare the same camera distance and mirror state.
Measured load
GPU time of the avatar as a multiple of the same avatar without RSS (lower is lighter). One PC (RTX 5090, D3D11, 2880 × 2880, no MSAA), Milltina filling 28% (full body) / 69% (upper body) of the screen, median of 7 alternating runs of 100 frames. Other GPUs give other multiples, so compare the rows with each other. Anime unless noted.
| Full body / upper body | v1.1.3 | v2.0.0 |
|---|---|---|
| Default install (Low Load), sweat 100% | 5.04× / 4.44× | 2.68× / 2.36× (Realistic 2.61× / 2.27×) |
| Standard, sweat 100% | 5.25× / 4.55× | 3.59× / 2.98× (Realistic 3.90× / 3.23×) |
| Droplet Depth, Low Load, sweat 100% | 6.58× / 5.33× | 3.57× / 2.93× |
| Default install as other players see it with Remote Low Load | 3.53× / 3.22× | 2.45× / 2.18× |
| Sweat 0% | 2.10× / 2.09× | 1.18× / 1.10× |
| Hide Skin Sweat | 1.00× / 1.00× | 1.00× / 1.00× |
- Anime Standard costs about as much as v1.1.3's Public material preset (3.21× / 2.86×); Realistic Standard costs a little more.
- First load (shader compile freeze for other players, same PC): about 0.81 s with v1.1.3, about 0.27 s with v2.0.0.
- An avatar uses only the shader of its own style, so other players' first load is about the same whichever style you pick.
- Sweat 0% and Sweat Display off are not completely free: the screen copy for refraction (GrabPass, about +0.05 ms) remains. Only Hide Skin Sweat costs nothing.
Droplet Depth (Tess and No Tess)
Droplet Depth is optional and is not installed by default. If you include it, the avatar menu can switch Droplet Depth on or off.
It costs more GPU up close. At the default precision (Simplified) it draws the same as without Droplet Depth from about 0.7 m away (from about 1.5 m for Balanced and 2.2 m for Precise). When Droplet Depth is off, the system uses the No Tess material instead of continuing to process tessellation invisibly. Leave it off for general play and enable it only when its close-up shape is useful.
This surface option is separate from 3D Particles, which changes Breath, Falling Drops, and Body Steam to mesh particles.
Sweat style
Realistic has slightly fewer shader instructions than Anime (3457 against 3523 at Standard). Its GPU time is about the same, up to about 14% more when the whole torso fills the screen up close. With Droplet Depth it costs about 1.07× Anime's Droplet Depth at Standard and about 0.95× at Low Load.
Mirrors
A mirror draws the avatar through another camera, so visible shader and particle work can increase sharply. Check performance with the same avatar:
- With the mirror off
- With the mirror on
- At normal conversation distance
- In a close-up where the Body fills much of the view
If the drop is significant, first turn Droplet Depth off, leave High-Quality Sweat in Mirrors off, set Body Steam mirrors to Hidden, then lower Sweat Quality.
High-Quality Sweat in Mirrors is off by default. While it is off, mirrors leave out the small pore droplets and Droplet Depth does not rise there. When it is on, mirrors draw the same as the normal view, increasing mirror GPU load.
Body Steam offers Full, Low, and Hidden mirror modes. 2D Low draws the steam in mirrors at 0.8× the density of Full without reducing particle count. 3D Low currently costs the same as Full; use Hidden for the lowest mirror cost.
Remote Low Load
Remote Low Load keeps your chosen local presentation while reducing the work shown to other users. It does not require a separate performance material to be uploaded by the user.
Other users' screens draw No Tess without the small pore droplets, and at Low Load and Lightweight also without the residual beads and Anime's thin film lines, with less work where two surface directions meet (about 4-8% less GPU time for them at Low Load, 23-29% at Standard). Remote Body／Custom Steam keeps its puffs at 0.6× density (3D body steam: 25% of the puffs). With 3D particles, it also halves remote Falling Drop emission and disables remote strong-motion fling. Local quality is unchanged.
Render queue and screen copy
2.0.0 sweat reads the skin from a screen copy (GrabPass). Sweat drawn at a queue other than 2350 (a kept body queue, another mesh after cutout, a manual queue) uses the "(Late Queue)" shaders and takes its own copy when it is drawn, which costs one more screen copy. See Compatibility.
Multiple sweat targets
Every selected Body Element or experimental additional Renderer uses its own sweat material and draw. Additional meshes can also add independent Rest data, shell assets, and optional Falling Drops. Add only the targets you need, especially on avatars with large meshes or many BlendShapes.
Particle controls
When the Effects Module is installed, open:
Sweat → Effects
Disable only the effects you do not need, or use All Effects as a single master control.
- The splash adds 2 particle systems and 2 material slots, so the VRChat performance rank can drop one step (for example 15 → 17 material slots: Medium → Poor).
- The new body steam uses fewer particles (a default install: at most 168 → 95), but the wider steam draws more pixels up close.
- The 3D body steam and breath have far lower Mesh Particle Active Polys in the VRChat performance rank (a default install's steam and breath: 96,000 → 92).
FPS depends on the CPU, GPU, VR headset mode, world, mirrors, and every visible avatar. A specific FPS increase cannot be guaranteed from one setting change.