Choose a mode for Cached Playback

Cached Playback improves animation playback performance. But you can optimize your playback performance even further by finding a caching mode that works the most efficiently for your setup.

The default Caching Mode is Evaluation cache, as it provides performance gains in most common hardware configurations. This is the recommended mode if you are not sure of your setup. However, it is worth experimenting with the other caching modes to see if a different mode might produce an even bigger performance gain.

Note: For more technical details on Cached Playback, see the Maya Cached Playback whitepaper.

To set a different Mode for Cached Playback

Right-click the Cached Playback icon in the Playback Options or right-click the Time Slider and select a Cached Playback mode from the menu.

There are three modes:

Caching Mode	Description
Evaluation cache	This mode is the default as it works well with different hardware configurations. This is the recommended mode if you are unsure of what your advantages your setup has. Evaluation caching mode is renderer-independent. It also is the only caching mode that functions in Viewport 1, and Viewport 2, with other renderers, or a baking/exporting script. However, since this method stores data in a renderer-independent way, there is a translation step required for the renderer to access it, and this additional step can make this method marginally slower. Note: This is the only mode that supports Cached Playback for Image Planes.
Viewport software cache	Viewport software caching mode takes the scene's transform and geometry data (such as transforms, meshes, NURBS (curves and surface), subdivs, Bezier curves, lattice and baseLattice shapes, lights, cameras, and image planes), and stores it in a format that the renderer can read. Unlike Evaluation caching mode, it avoids the translation step that occurs when restoring from the cache and so is faster. VP2 Software Caching mode stores the data in main memory or RAM, and so this method works best with RAM-heavy machines.
Viewport hardware cache	Similar to Viewport software caching mode, except that buffers are stored as hardware buffers on the GPU, or VRAM (instead of the CPU). This caching mode stores data directly on the GPU, which is faster, except is cases where GPU memory is limited.

Caching Mode

Description

Evaluation cache

This mode is the default as it works well with different hardware configurations. This is the recommended mode if you are unsure of what your advantages your setup has.

Evaluation caching mode is renderer-independent. It also is the only caching mode that functions in Viewport 1, and Viewport 2, with other renderers, or a baking/exporting script.

However, since this method stores data in a renderer-independent way, there is a translation step required for the renderer to access it, and this additional step can make this method marginally slower.

Note: This is the only mode that supports Cached Playback for Image Planes.

Viewport software cache

Viewport software caching mode takes the scene's transform and geometry data (such as transforms, meshes, NURBS (curves and surface), subdivs, Bezier curves, lattice and baseLattice shapes, lights, cameras, and image planes), and stores it in a format that the renderer can read.

Unlike Evaluation caching mode, it avoids the translation step that occurs when restoring from the cache and so is faster. VP2 Software Caching mode stores the data in main memory or RAM, and so this method works best with RAM-heavy machines.

Viewport hardware cache

Similar to Viewport software caching mode, except that buffers are stored as hardware buffers on the GPU, or VRAM (instead of the CPU).

This caching mode stores data directly on the GPU, which is faster, except is cases where GPU memory is limited.

Debugging caching modes

You can find other caching modes to help with troubleshooting and evaluating Cached Playback in the Evaluation Toolkit Caching section.

Choose a mode for Cached Playback

Debugging caching modes

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