  We study the non-steady relaxation of a driven one-dimensional elastic
interface at the depinning transition by extensive numerical simulations
concurrently implemented on graphics processing units (GPUs). We compute the
time-dependent velocity and roughness as the interface relaxes from a flat
initial configuration at the thermodynamic random-manifold critical force.
Above a first, non-universal microscopic time-regime, we find a non-trivial
long crossover towards the non-steady macroscopic critical regime. This
"mesoscopic" time-regime is robust under changes of the microscopic disorder
including its random-bond or random-field character, and can be fairly
described as power-law corrections to the asymptotic scaling forms yielding the
true critical exponents. In order to avoid fitting effective exponents with a
systematic bias we implement a practical criterion of consistency and perform
large-scale (L~2^{25}) simulations for the non-steady dynamics of the continuum
displacement quenched Edwards Wilkinson equation, getting accurate and
consistent depinning exponents for this class: \beta = 0.245 \pm 0.006, z =
1.433 \pm 0.007, \zeta=1.250 \pm 0.005 and \nu=1.333 \pm 0.007. Our study may
explain numerical discrepancies (as large as 30% for the velocity exponent
\beta) found in the literature. It might also be relevant for the analysis of
experimental protocols with driven interfaces keeping a long-term memory of the
initial condition.
