[5.2] Massive GC alloc when using Text with Shadow and Outline

We're seeing a massive drop in performance and huge GC allocs when rendering text with shadow and outline on a world space canvas. The profiler shows the issue under Canvas.SendWillRenderCanvases. Here are the numbers:

Test | GC Alloc | Time ms
------------------------|----------|---------
Plain Text | 2.6 KB | 0.36
Text + Shadow | 68.6 KB | 1.82
Text + Outline | 289.8 KB | 4.10
Text + Shadow + Outline | 0.6 MB | 8.81

That's right, 0.6 megabyte per frame!

What is this? A bug? A feature we're using wrong?

 

its fixed already...

http://forum.unity3d.com/threads/5-2-major-ui-performance-issues.354050/

 

I can confirm the allocations are fixed in Unity 5.2.1p1, however, the CPU overhead for using Shadows / Outlines is now Criminal.

 

Just ran the first benchmark comparing UI.Text with Oultine & Shadow vs. TextMesh Pro with Outline & Shadow in Unity 5.2.1p1. The results for Canvas.SendWillRenderCanvases() in the Profiler using a Desktop build with "Don'tSync" are as follows:




Top object is UI.Text and bottom is TextMesh Pro.

Please note this test was done with the version of TextMesh Pro that I am currently working on which is now using the Mesh class and CanvasRenderer.SetMesh() instead of the previous UiVertex and CanvasRenderer.SetVertices(). This release should be out within the next 7 days.