How To Improve Unity Game Performance on Mobile and PC

Hey everyone! In today’s video, we’re going to go over some essential tips to optimize your Unity game for better performance. Whether you’re developing for mobile devices or just want to make sure your game runs smoothly on all platforms, these tips will help you get there. Let’s dive in!

1. Reduce or Remove Unnecessary Mesh Colliders

Mesh colliders are more detailed and, therefore, more performance-intensive than simpler colliders like boxes or spheres. Use primitive colliders wherever possible, especially for objects that don’t need complex collision detection. This reduces the workload on the physics engine and helps your game run smoother.

2. Remove or Comment Out Debug.Log() from All Scripts

While Debug.Log() is super helpful during development, it can significantly slow down your game if left in the final build, especially when placed in loops or frequently called methods. Make sure to remove or comment out all Debug.Log() statements in your production code to enhance performance.

3. Remove Empty Methods

Did you know Unity calls methods like Update, Start, and Awake even if they’re empty? That’s right! If you have unused or empty methods in your scripts, Unity still spends a tiny bit of time checking them. Removing these empty methods can save processing time and reduce overhead, making your game run more efficiently.

4. Set Static for All Game Objects That Don’t Move

If you have game objects that don’t move, like buildings or terrain, mark them as static. This tells Unity that these objects won’t change, allowing for optimizations like lightmapping and static batching, which reduce the number of draw calls and calculations during runtime.

5. Use Occlusion Culling

Occlusion culling is a great way to boost performance by only rendering objects that are visible to the camera. Objects that are off-screen or hidden behind other objects won’t be drawn, reducing the load on the GPU and helping your game run faster.

6. Reduce Physics Calculations in Project Settings

Physics calculations can be expensive, especially if you have a lot of colliders and rigidbodies. You can optimize this by lowering the frequency of physics calculations in the project settings or by reducing unnecessary physics components. This can greatly improve performance, especially in physics-heavy games.

7. Set Target Frame Rate to 60 FPS

Setting a target frame rate can help ensure your game runs smoothly across different devices. You can easily do this by adding Application.targetFrameRate = 60; in your scripts. This helps maintain a consistent performance level and ensures your game isn’t wasting resources on unnecessary frames.

8. Reduce Camera Render Size

Reducing the camera’s render size, or the resolution it renders at, can significantly improve performance. This decreases the number of pixels the GPU needs to process, which is especially helpful for lower-end devices or when you have a lot going on in your scene.

9. Edit Quality Settings

Adjusting the quality settings can make a huge difference in performance. Lowering settings like shadows, texture quality, and anti-aliasing reduces the strain on both the CPU and GPU, making your game run better on less powerful devices.

10. Uncheck VSync

Vertical Sync, or VSync, synchronizes your game’s frame rate with the display’s refresh rate, which can reduce screen tearing but may also cause input lag and lower frame rates. Unchecking VSync allows your game to render as many frames as possible, improving responsiveness. However, be cautious, as this might cause screen tearing on some displays.

Bonus Tip: Use GPU Instancing

If you have many identical objects in your scene, like trees or rocks, use GPU Instancing. This technique allows the GPU to render multiple instances of the same mesh in a single draw call, significantly improving performance by reducing the CPU load.