Turning off cooking for invisible TOPs eliminates wasted GPU time in multi-layer VJ rigs

In TouchDesigner every active TOP consumes GPU resources each frame (‘cooks’) whether or not its output is visible. A performance rig that loads many scenes simultaneously wastes GPU on scenes not currently on output. The discipline of ensuring inactive TOP branches do not cook — either through Switch TOPs, Display flags, or explicit cook flag management — is the primary efficiency lever in a large TD rig. Simple Mixer follows this rule: whenever TOPs are not visible, they are all turned off. Avoiding VRAM flush operations (which cause stutters) makes cook-on-demand the preferred strategy over flush-and-reload.

Examples

A rig with 20 scenes: at any moment, 1 scene is on air. 19 scenes have cooking disabled. GPU cost is approximately 1 scene worth of processing rather than 20.

Assessment

A TD project shows dropped frames during scene transitions. Identify two causes related to cooking policy and propose a fix for each without using VRAM flush operations.