How to Speed Up CLO

In this article, learn how to improve the performance of your CLO software and keep it optimal. The overall performance of CLO is affected by computer specifications, maintenance, and the number of programs running, but it also varies depending on user settings and garment file properties within the software.

Problem Situations

CLO software becomes unresponsive or quits unexpectedly.
It takes a long time to open the file.
It takes a long time to save the file you worked on.
Simulation slows down or quits unexpectedly.
Rendering freezes or quits unexpectedly.

Show Frame Rate

Go to the top menu > Settings > Display > Environment > Show Frame Rate, and you will see several numbers in the lower left corner of the 3D window, including FPS (Frames Per Second), which shows real-time results of the simulation speed of your garment and the overall performance of your computer.
The screenshot above is the result of putting a halter-neck dress on a CLO avatar, adjusting the particle distance to 10, and simulating in Normal-CPU mode. It consists of 6 patterns, 0 trims, 20 sewing lines, 15261 vertices, and shows a speed of about 52fps in Normal (Default) simulation.
Each user's perceived performance is different, and it is advantageous to do actual garment editing and design work under high frame rate conditions.

User Settings

Graphic Options > Antialiasing: For low-end computers with only Intel Graphics as well as Macs with integrated memory of 8GB or less, set the Antialiasing value to x8 or lower. The higher the anti-aliasing setting, the smoother the images and videos that eliminate jaggies will be, but more video memory and high-performance graphics processing will be required.
Normal Blending, Default Rendering, Image Resolution Setting: These are options that determine the various methods and modes for configuring graphics, images, textures, and screens, and the CLO team recommends using them in their default unless there is a special purpose.
Please note that starting with CLO 2024.2, the VBO setting has been removed and integrated into the CLO software as "VBO_enabled." VBO allows you to store vertex data in GPU memory, enabling fast 3D rendering. All modern GPUs support this, so users do not need to manually turn it on or off.

Default Files > Auto Save > Time Interval (min): Starting with CLO v6.1, it is set to 10 minutes by default. If you set this value as low as 1 or 2 minutes, file writing may occur frequently, slowing down CLO's speed.

File Properties

Particle Distance; default setting 20
- Lower particle distance allows for more realistic garment expressions, but the number of vertices that make up 2D patterns and 3D garments increases dramatically. As a result, the amount of calculations that need to be done on a computer can increase by several to tens of times, which in turn slows down simulation and garment editing.
- Rather than setting the particle distance low from the beginning and then creating the garment, it may be more efficient to lower the particle distance after the design stage.

Excessive use of OBJ topstitching; change to type "texture"
- OBJ topstitching is a method of dividing the mesh of narrow and long areas into finer pieces than the mesh of regular patterns. Therefore, if you use a lot of OBJ topstitching, the amount of mesh calculation increases and CLO's speed may slow down.
- For faster work, it is advantageous to use OBJ topstitches only on the areas where it's absolutely necessary and apply texture-type topstitches to the remaining areas.

Project file containing animation
- In the case of project files containing animation recordings or files containing motion created in other programs, the file size can be several to tens of times larger than a typical CLO project file. So it may take longer to read, edit, and save files. In particular, files containing animation and motion have a file structure that is relatively easy to damage, so handle them with care.

Project file containing custom avatars or heavy OBJ trims
- The two pictures above are examples showing the mesh count of the custom avatar's hair and of the trim attached to the garment.
- The software is optimized for avatars provided by CLO. If your project file contains heavy custom avatars or heavy OBJ or FBX objects, it may run slowly.
- If you're experiencing slow behavior when opening and working with certain project files, check to see if they contain custom avatars or heavy trim objects.

Ultra-high resolution image files
- When using ultra-high-resolution textures and graphic images to create and express realistic 3D garments, more computer processing and file input/output are required. This leads to performance and speed issues:
- When using image files larger than 4000x4000 pixels as textures or graphics images, you may experience speed issues on and in certain computers and CLO usage scenarios. If speed problems occur due to the texture or graphic image you are trying to use, lower the resolution of the images.

Export files at high resolution
- In file export scenarios, including VRAY rendering, setting the target resolution too high can cause CLO to become very slow or freeze.
- In the case of VRAY render, increasing the resolution increases rendering time, and in some cases, rendering may stop due to insufficient video memory. Start with a small image size and default resolution and gradually increase the size to find the optimal render settings for your computer.
- When using features such as PDF export and 2D snapshot export, we recommend the default setting of 127 ppi. If it exceeds 200 ppi, both image size and file size may increase tremendously, and file saving may fail in the PDF file format.

Project file created in an old CLO version
- Due to a flaw in certain versions of CLO software, project files created in those versions may experience speed issues when opened in newer versions. Re-saving in the latest version may resolve these issues.

Simulation Modes

Normal (Default)
- This is the basic simulation mode for most cases.

Fitting (Accurate Fabric)
- This feature is designed to produce extremely precise and accurate clothing simulation results. It performs at least 5 times more calculations than the Normal simulation, so it runs slower.

Animation (Stable)
- This is a preset optimized for garment animation recording. While other simulation modes focus on representing a stationary avatar and the clothes worn on it, this one is designed to simulate the natural movement of clothes following the motion of the moving avatar without losing the sophistication that can be relatively lacking.

CPU vs. GPU
- CPU simulation is the default and works well for all garments and use scenarios.
- GPU simulation is only enabled on Windows computers which equipped Nvidia graphics card, and although there are differences depending on the garment and its properties, it is up to 20 times faster than the CPU-based simulations. When tested on commonly used project files, it is approximately 2 to 5 times faster.

Animation Recording
- CLO's animation recording simulates garments that change slightly at each frame and saves the results as a file. Therefore, the CPU-GPU simulation principle described previously is applied as is. You can change animation recording presets and various properties, for high quality animation, use the default 'Animation (Stable)'.
- The more flashy and heavy the garment is, and the more total frames of animation there are, the larger the animation data generated, the more hardware resources are required. If you need to record a very long and complex animation, it may be advantageous to record the entire scene by splitting it into about 100 frames as shown above.

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