How much time can you save with the On-Demand BuiltData plugin for the Unreal Engine?

With the raging pandemic, many game development studios are working remotely. It means that developers have to use their home network connection, which typically is many times slower than the one available in the office.

In a UE4 project, I'm working on, the Content folder has 178.23 GB, of which 55.62 GB is BuiltData. Each morning there are up to 16.19 GB of assets to sync, with 15.10 GB being BuiltData (9.62 GB with 8.78 GB on average).

Assuming a network speed of 100 Mbps, sync of 16.19 GB takes 22 minutes 14 seconds. On-Demand BuiltData can reduce it to 1.15 GB, which will take only 1 minute 33 seconds to sync.

Some of the remaining 15.10 GB of BuiltData can (but doesn't have to) get automatically synced later. If a developer is working on a map that had the lighting build, they will have an additional 1 GB or so to sync (1 minute 22 seconds). On the other hand, if the map didn't have the lighting build or the lighting is not needed (e.g., when working on gameplay), the fast morning sync will be the only one performed.

It means you can easily save more than 20 minutes each morning!!!

But it does not end here. During the whole day, there's up to 60.71 GB of assets submitted to the repository, with 55.38 GB being BuiltData (25.33 GB with 23.20 GB on average). If a developer has to sync frequently (e.g., a game designer of an animator working closely with a gameplay programmer), the On-Demand BuiltData plugin can save them over 1 hour 15 minutes!!!

Check out the On-Demand BuiltData plugin on UE4 Marketplace