Game Development Reference
In-Depth Information
Draw Calls.
This refers to the total number of times per frame that the Unity
engine calls on the lower-level rendering functionality to display your scene to
the screen. The higher this value, the more complex and expensive your scene
is to render. For this reason, lower values are generally preferred. There are two
easy ways to reduce draw calls. One is to use batching (we'll see this later) and
the other is to reduce the number of different materials that your objects are
using. Each unique material in your scene will cost an additional draw call. For
this reason, if you merge textures together into larger atlas textures, and also
share and reuse materials across multiple meshes, then you can significantly
reduce draw calls and improve performance.
Saved by Batching.
This indicates the number of batching operations Unity
managed to perform on your objects to reduce the number of draw calls.
Typically, each Saved by Batching operation saves us at least one additional
call. In most cases, the higher this value, the better.
Tris.
This is the total number of triangles being rendered
in the current frame
,
after culling and clipping have been applied. (Thus, it doesn't refer to the total
number of triangles in the scene). Most contemporary graphics hardware on
desktop computers and consoles are adept at processing triangles quickly,
meaning high tri-counts can, in principle, be achieved. The same cannot always
be said of mobiles, however. Consequently, the lower this value, the better it'll
be generally. Of course, don't be too ruthless in reducing triangles. Reduce
only to a level that's
consistent with your artist vision
, and target hardware.
If we always reduced triangle count to the
minimum number possible
, then every
game we'd make would just be one triangle!
VRAM Usage.
Again, the lower this is, the better for performance—keeping
within reasonable limits. It tells us how much video memory on the graphics
hardware is being used for processing and texture storage.
Note
More information on the Stats panel can be found in the online Unity documentation at
Tip #12: Testing Resolution and Aspect Ratio
If your game is intended for a specific resolution, such as 1920×1080 or 1024×768, or for a specific
aspect ratio, such as 16:9, then it's useful to test your game in the Unity Editor at the appropriate
size. Achieving this is easier now than it ever has been. Switch to the Game tab, and then click the
Aspect drop-down box in the top-left corner. From here you can choose a range of preconfigured
resolutions and aspect ratios, or you can click the Plus icon at the bottom of the list to input your
own custom settings (see Figure
1-32
).
