Having a big number of atlases in a 2d mobile game

I've decided to make an interactive fairytale for children.

I'll be depending a lot on my narration and on images (characters, sceneries) that I will create. The controls will be minimal and as simple as they get.

The number of atlases that Unity will create will be big. This of course will increase the app's size and I don't mind that. My question is if this will pose a burden to the devices' hardware. Will the device only load the graphics used at any given moment or will the big number of atlases make everything heavier for the hardware regardless of what is only being shown?

(I hope I expressed my inquiry in a comprehensive way)

 

Wooah, this is a semi tough one to answer. And alot can be said here.
The other thing is, I have no idea, what type of enviroments, characters
and objects, will be in this game. And what game objects, can be interacted
with etc. I'll need more info.

My suggestion would be, to use texture atlases, for large enviroments
and landscapes. Use them a good bit and use them where you think, it
would be important and necessary to use them.

Check out this cool article.
http://www.paladinstudios.com/2012/07/30/4-ways-to-increase-performance-of-your-unity-game/

 

Thank you and apologies for being so late!

 

Your texture atlases will be loaded into memory on a scene by scene basis. During loading screens you should call Resources.UnloadUnusedAssets() and System.GC.Collect() to cleanup the previous scene.

 

Very useful, thank you

 

I feel the need to elaborate on what I said above. It is an overly simplified version of what I believe is happening.

From my understanding, texture atlases, sounds and other assets are loaded into memory, if they are referenced within the scene you are loading.

So if you have a texture atlas for your UI, and you are using any image on that atlas in your scene, then the entire atlas will be loaded into memory.

 

yes that's what I thought too, I did not know that I could unload the unused assets though

 

This discussion really helped ..!!