[Bug Report] Potential decrease in runtime performance for release v.1.4.0

[lukasfro]

Describe the bug

I don't know whether you could call this a "bug" per se, but we noticed a decrease in runtime performance after upgrading to release v1.4.0. I'd be glad if someone else could confirm these results.

Steps to reproduce

I ran the benchmark_rlgames.py script with tags v1.3.0 and v1.4.0 checked out respectively:

• --task=Isaac-Cartpole-RGB-Camera-Direct-v0 --num_envs=512 --enable_cameras --headless
• --task=Isaac-Repose-Cube-Shadow-Direct-v0 --headless
• --task=Isaac-Humanoid-v0 --headless

The following table summarizes some of the runtime KPIs that the benchmark provides:

For v1.3.0:

in millisecs	Isaac-Cartpole-RGB-Camera-Direct-v0	Isaac-Repose-Cube-Shadow-Direct-v0	Isaac-Humanoid-v0
Min Env only step time	0.9988	0.9332	0.4514
Max Env only step time	1.0786	2.4190	1.4377
Mean Env only step time	1.0267	1.1632	0.5798

For v1.4.0:

in millisecs	Isaac-Cartpole-RGB-Camera-Direct-v0	Isaac-Repose-Cube-Shadow-Direct-v0	Isaac-Humanoid-v0
Min Env only step time	1.0561	0.9742	0.7952
Max Env only step time	1.4216	2.5009	1.6507
Mean Env only step time	1.1108	1.2365	0.9133

Across all three tasks, the mean environment step time increases by up to 50% (Humanoid).

System Info

Describe the characteristic of your environment:

• Commit: v1.3.0 and v1.4.0
• Isaac Sim Version: pip list gives me isaacsim 4.2.0.2
• OS: Ubuntu 22.04
• GPU: RTX 4060 Ti
• CUDA: 12.2
• GPU Driver: 535.183.01

Additional context

I'm happy to help out with more comparisons.

Checklist

• I have checked that there is no similar issue in the repo (required)
• I have checked that the issue is not in running Isaac Sim itself and is related to the repo

Acceptance Criteria

Add the criteria for which this task is considered done. If not known at issue creation time, you can add this once the issue is assigned.

• Criteria 1
• Criteria 2

[Mayankm96]

Yes, we are aware of this drop in the performance. The regression crept up in this MR: #966

We have made a fix since: #1695

@kellyguo11 @jtigue-bdai for vis

[lukasfro]

Thanks for the quick reply @Mayankm96 I'm glad it is already fixed.