Removing the GUILayer, GUIText & GUITexture components

What I want to know is if I can safely remove the GUILayer from everywhere without getting a performance hit, since Unity searches for the component anyway, even though it’s deprecated.

Context: https://divillysausages.com/2016/01/21/performance-tips-for-unity-2d-mobile/

 

Then please, please remove it.

My sample size is small and my evidence anecdotal, but the only “use” I’ve heard anyone have for the GUILayer, is to add it to workaround that issue.

(edit: And personally, you can go ahead and delete OnGUI as well)

 

Hey @Aras and @lina_unity ,

I hope you are interpreting the lack of participation in this thread as what I think it is, which is that no one really cares about GUILayer, GUIText or GUITexture (and I would go as far as to include OnGui as well) and that in fact, their inclusion in Unity only causes problems and nothing else.

Please remove them.

 

You should probably post these in a forum that's actually read - like Scripting or Editor.

I would love it if you purged these, as they're just in the way.

 

Please remove

 

Never used these components sind 2013.

 

So why is GUI Layer still in Unity? No one uses it, it makes everything worse, it's just bad.

I do not understand how you can deprecate and remove other stuff that people actually use, without much warning, but you hold on to GUI Layer for dear life, much to the dismay of your users.

 

Good news! Thank you for the update.

 

Hi, i am very concerned about this because, i am not a software guy, i am just a scientist using Unity since the beginning of Unity to make educational apps that I and others use for teaching, my apps are build on GUI Layer and GUI Text and other legacy stuff, I have been using my apps for years now regularly updating them and now with this removal I will not be able to update them.
What are you proposing to fix this? I use to write my scripts in unity javascript, this is also gone, What shall I do?

 

From my point of view as a user: If you want to use the newest Unity engine features, upgrade your code to C# and replace GUIText components with either IMGUI, Unity UI (4.6 version) or the upcoming UIElements system (2020 or later). Unity has been supporting legacy feature for years now, but at some point users just have to upgrade to the newer versions or continue to use the old editor version. If you do not want to upgrade, you can continue to use Unity 2019.1 for multiple years until some incompatibility with newer operating systems would force you to upgrade. Even more, you can always delay upgrading your operating system as long as possible, that would give you a couple of years on top of that.

 

Thank you for your answer, the problem is that since I upgraded my mac with the last mac os and xcode, i am not able to get a working build with the unity version 2017 or the early 2018, either unity freeze when trying to build the resources folder in mono or fail when using il2cpp and for an other app of mine the build succeed but xcode fails to build refering to il2cpp issues (see my post in ios dev part of the forum).

 

My game relies on some key asset DLL's that are no longer supported. Some of these DLL's have references to GuiTexture and fail my build since I upgraded to 2019.3...

What do I do now?

 

If you're in control over development you have a couple of options:

• Contact the original authors of the DLLs and ask them if they consider upgrading them to a newer version without GuiTexture.
• Try to obtain the source code for the DLLs
• Use a tool like ILSpy to decompile the library and try to remove the legacy code this way and rebuild
• Ditch the tool entirely and replace it with your own

If you're doing this for somebody else:

• Tell them it's too late to upgrade the project with reasonable costs. GUIText was deprecated years ago, its been more than enough time to upgrade to IMGUI, Unity UI, NGUI, 2DTK or any toolset that has replaced the old GUI components since.

In both cases, you can also opt for not upgrading to Unity 2019.3. That's pretty bleeding-edge. How come you need cutting-edge features as well as deprecated ones? Maybe it's easier to stay on an older version.

 

This change crashes my game (Unity's cpp GameObject::WillDestroyGameObject) when changing between scenes that contain Cameras made in Unity 2019.2 (aka mods). Crash dmp and more info in: https://forum.unity.com/threads/modding-with-addressables.539926/#post-5471910

 

@ascentress

Hello,
I am trying to open a 5.5.3f1 project into 2019.3.2f1 for multiple reasons.

Everything went quite smoothly as I upgraded some scripts to match the current API.

The only remaining issues I have are related to this very topic, here are the last errors I get :


(end of the two cut lines)


All these errors come from the same script : "SteamVR_Camera.cs". Here are screenshots of this script namespaces and of the problematic areas :





Do you know what I have to use instead of GUILayer for my project to compile ?
Thanks in advance.

 

The GUILayer is very fast...
Ideal for mobile games...
The GUILayer (GUITexture/GUIText) removal is a lot of work for nothing...
I have to completely rewrite the games interfaces...
I would have done something else instead...
Thanks Unity...

And the Unity does not handle AAR files (Null Reference Exception at runtime) from Unity 2019.2.11 to 2019.2.21.
Fixed in 2019.3. But 2019.3 does not contain GUILayer. LoL...
Google (Android) Play Services Resolver use AAR files... Unity from 2019.2.11 to 2019.2.21 are unusable... LoL...

If Unity would use its head, then it would have taken GUILayer out of Unity 2020.1.0, because Unity 2019.2 is not compatible with Unity 2019.3, and the newer versions of Unity 2019.2 are unusable for Android development.

 

What? No, that is absolutely false.

 

I have been using it since 2014.
I know what I'm talking about.
The GUILayer is very fast.
The Unity Canvas and a lot of scripts (Resolution, Raycaster, Text, Image, Button, Layout, Content Size, Aspect Ratio, etc.) are very slooooooooooooooooooooooow.

 

Untiy can't program GUIs, both are slow, roll your own.

 

I've been using Unity since 2009, I know what I 'm talking about more than you.
It is not fast.

 

I tested this.
Android game while playing with GUILayer: 60 fps.
Same Android game with Canvas UI and buttons: 54 fps.

Why not take GUILayer out in Unity 2020.1.0?
Unity 2019.3 will be LTS, but this version is not compatible with Unity 2019.2.
The games with GUILayers can't use Unity 2019.3 LTS. Ahhh...

The Unity 4 was the best for mobile development.
The Unity 5 was a Terrain killer (sloooow) and the PBS shaders (sloooow), ohhh... Performance killers for mobile developers. And the lags in 3D games. Incremental GC and Optimzed Frame Pacing options didn't really help.

https://forum.unity.com/threads/unity-ui-performance-tips-sharing-my-findings.524916/
"Uncheck "Pixel Perfect" in the Canvas settings. Big performance hitter."

https://create.unity3d.com/Unity-UI-optimization-tips
https://learn.unity.com/tutorial/optimizing-unity-ui

 

Ascentress how do I use the script you have made?
I have a god deal of VR projects that use the "Movement pack for VR" from the asset store, and all their scripts gives problems after update to 2019.3.4f1

 

Thanks

 

Would you know what replaced the "GUILayer" component ?
Can Anyone tell me the exact answer. What should I write in the GUILayer?
Reference
cam.AddComponent<GUILayer>();

 

You should find a tutorial made after 2015!

 

Man, did this break the project...