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Profiler Overview page contains misleading information

Discussion in 'Documentation' started by Peter77, Apr 14, 2018.

  1. Peter77

    Peter77

    QA Jesus

    Joined:
    Jun 12, 2013
    Posts:
    6,609
    https://docs.unity3d.com/Manual/Profiler.html says:
    Profiling the game running in the editor is very inaccurate, as the editor comes with performance overhead. The editor also allocates a ton of garbage memory that is completely gone in a build. For example, GetComponent calls, where that Component is missing, allocates garbage memory in the editor, but it does not in a build.

    Therefore, this Profiler page is very misleading. People should profile a build running on the target device to get accurate results. Profiling the game running in the editor is misleading.

    This issue comes up a a lot in the Unity forums. People profile in the editor and wonder about these things. Then everybody responds with "Please profile a build, not the editor".

    In order to minimize this support overhead in the forums, could you please add something along the lines:
    "For accurate results on performance and memory, profile a build running on the target hardware." in big bold letters to the Profiler Overview page.

    Thank you.
     
    MartinTilo likes this.
  2. MartinTilo

    MartinTilo

    Unity Technologies

    Joined:
    Aug 16, 2017
    Posts:
    2,448
    Hi Peter, a bit of a delayed circling back on this but thanks again for highlighting this. We've made sure that the revamped Profiler documentation is now very explicit about the approximate nature of Play Mode profiling. If you have any further feedback about the documentation, please keep it coming. It is much appreciated.

    (FYI that particular section has been moved here)