URP vs standard render

There will never a definitive answer because there's just too many parameters to take into account
Personally I did extensive tests before we migrate our projects to URP
And for heavy scenes there's some improvements on URP side and please don't count Built-in PP for mobile it's too heavy

 

Not for mobile. That guy's tests were a standalone build on PC, and I'm also targeting PC.
And what I mean is, even if there are too many parameters, let's say, 100, nobody even gives 10 parameters to play around with that usually help to reach the "faster" side of URP.

 

Nobody wants to help by sharing their findings. When they reach the treasure, they won't share the map with you to get there as well.
Don't forget we are all competition after all, pretending we want to help each other

 

I've done extensive testing on a lot of scenes, small, medium and large. The results say that URP is faster.
In those tests I've also done my best to balance the settings between the two. latest LTS. Personally I prefer built-in, even changing the graphic settings is a pain in urp and for some reason is split between multiple windows.
but, urp is the future of unity. 2021 LTS should finally be step up for urp. Decal, point lights, deferred, etc.





Post processing disabled except on urp, and some fog I couldn't find. Noneless, this does nothing to help urp, the opposite.

I see a lot of tests of... empty scenes(?), or a bunch of cubes. These aren't tests, they don't give you the information your looking for.

URP is faster, it's a fact by now. I can't speak for mobile as I have zero Interest in mobile.
Settings were matched as best as I can. I have done a ton more tests In different scenes, in builds with the profiler etc, all point to urp being faster by default with matched settings (as far as possible). Benchmark real scenes if you want to see real results.

 

I already compared with in depth settings. Both had same performance (Built-in vs Lightwqeight)

First of all, thanks for the nice comparison

my opinion:
It is better to test in simple scenes such as cube scenes so that the settings are 100% the same
In large scenes it is simply not possible to set the settings exactly the same

It does not matter if your scene is colorful and beautiful ... it is technically important
my old compares (lightweight is same as URP in technic)

Spoiler: Realtime

Spoiler: Baked

 

I main it's a fair point about the post processing, but as far as I know, URP lit shader is roughly equivalent (with less features in certain cases even) that the Standard Built-in shader, so what is there to adjust?

I mean the Unity manual says they are roughly equivalent : https://docs.unity3d.com/Packages/c...-shaders.html#built-in-to-urp-shader-mappings

 

I disagree, your game won't be anything like your comparison -- a real project isn't like that. Although it is going to be harder to get everything the same with a large project, I don't believe the difference in settings would be too big at all.

Lightweight is also older, urp gets constant improvements and new features and optimizations where built-in doesn't.
If one of my tests said urp is higher and the rest were equal or close to each other, I'd say alright -- but it happened constantly, every time In a scene that's more similar to real games.

 

In the end, in my personal opinion, URP may as well be faster once you figure out what makes it tick and play to its strengths. For example maybe you need to lean a lot into the SRP batcher.

It's not so clearly faster, that with a decent amount of effort you can port your built-in game (that was presumably playing to built-in's strengths for performance) and easily get it to perform well.

And frankly that's too little too late for me. Unless I am forced, I won't move to URP so that I can maybe get faster results, sometimes. I've already learned to dodge performance pitfalls in built-in, and URP isn't fast enough to get me superior performance without re-discovering a whole new set of pitfalls and bullshit to avoid.

 

In the interior comparison, you can see the quality dropped overally on lightweght pipeline:

Spoiler: Editor Sample

 

URP has many limitations
In this standard pipeline , I simply optimized the Auto Exposure (eye-adaptation) image effect for mobile and it runs without any performance cost on poor mobiles.
But in URP, writing an image effect is a lot of trouble
In the standard pipeline you can easily switch between platforms (high end <=> low end)
But when you use URP, your goal is 100% clear, only low-end argets

 

Well, apparently the URP 11 has seen a huge improvement in stability and performance. We have to take this into account too.

I remember that HDRP was horrible at first, and I only started using it from version 8.2 when I started to see its potential. URP is arriving at this same stage today, URP12 must bring the rest of the remaining resources to be equated with the built-in pipeline

Unity urgently needs to create a good practice guide for the URP that is not "disable this or that". HDRP has several videos on youtube that shows exactly where to optimize and how to optimize, since URP still lacks this type of content.

Still, our team is considering using URP for our next mobile game, and as I am responsible for UX, so optimization is at the top of the list now.

 

Jeez, no one cares about how LWRP looked anymore. Not to mention you used 2018 BETA to prove your point.
You should test these with the latest URP (11 & 12) to at least make an up-to-date comparison.

 

Unity 2021 : this is not a valid test because the fps below 60 is valid for benchmarking

Shaders : Baked Unlit... URP had 630 fps using Lit shader

 

What is that supposed to prove? For real games these fps are not realistic anyway and nobody cares about whether a game runs at 600 or 800fps. It's about how URP scales.
In our first game after porting to URP without any noticeable loss in visual quality we doubled our fps in our benchmark scene. Our second game never was tested with built in and we had some problems with bugs and missing features of URP that didn't even get fixed in LTS versions sadly, but runs fine on all platforms and hardware performance wise.
Our new project also is based on URP as we plan to release it on all consoles (Xbox One, Series, PS4/5 and Switch) and PC and at least on PC (haven't tested consoles yet, but especially old gen is a good benchmark for low end) scales very well, so even without an optimization pass so far we we reach our performance goals there with pretty good graphics (announcement isn't out yet, might create a WIP thread then).

I can say nothing bad about the performance of URP so far. Some missing features are super annoying (HDR output for consoles, reflection probe blending), the bugfixing policy of Unity sucks (not only related to URP, 2020.3 is a real mess for us to work with), but in general I like URP a lot. Never was that deep in built-in though, so maybe the same would have been achievable there, but for us it was easy to get way better performance with URP out of the box while I tried a lot for our first game in built-in and couldn't squeeze out that much. We don't do mobile games though (just one mobile port of a PC game so far) and I read URP is lacking there.

 

This week I did a quick test to see the performance of URP compared to Built-in. (Unity 2020.3.13f)

This test was performed on URP 10.6 (Does not include URP 11/12 improvements)

Built-in (1920x1080)



URP 10.6 (1920x1080)




There are 9,600 blocks in total, none of them static. Just a directional light with real-time shadows. URP does very well.

I tried copying all the settings and apparently URP tends to be 25 to 50 percent faster than the integrated pipeline. (That's on my computer)

And not only that. Even with the lack of some features, to me it seems quite stable and scalable. And even though I don't really like this simplistic comparison I made, it shows the strength of URP now. But my test does not include mobile. My next test is to see the possible lack of performance that URP has on mobile.


edit 1: Ok, URP is not that stable, I just caused a visual bug in Scene View
back to the work...

 

Why is there no static or dynamic batching enabled for built in?

 

I advocated for URP and it's speed with many tests in previous pages, but the truth is urp is faster 'by default', because of things like SRP batcher and other stuff. Yet, built-in will be MORE affected by manual optimizations compared to URP. So a true and fair test is where you Optimize BOTH scenes as if it was a real game.

Same settings, went over them the one by one, slowly. Did many tests with this scene.

Results:

Built-in BEFORE: 12ms~ (80~ FPS)
built-in forward AFTER simple mesh-combine optimization (1 minute): 8.3ms~ (120~ FPS)
built-in AFTER + deferred: 140 FPS

---------------------------------------

URP forward BEFORE manual simple mesh-combine optimization: 10.8ms (98~ FPS)
URP forward AFTER simple mesh-combine optimization (1~ minute): 7.5ms~ (135FPS~)
URP AFTER + deferred: 140 FPS

The funny thing is, you know what's eating a ton of performance in forward built-in? This: https://forum.unity.com/threads/poor-performance-of-updatedepthtexture-why-is-it-even-needed.197455/

You know why it wasn't fixed after all these complaints and years? Because SRP is the solution, from the comments.

In the end, here we are, 2021, There is no LTS with point light shadows, light layers, deferred renderer, reflection probe blending, auto exposure, or anything major built-in lacked (volumetrics for example).

What we have (in terms of box features) is about the same as built-in, with some missing (2021 will help with parity but that's all it is, parity in terms of features)

and a small performance boost 'by default'. I'm convincing myself that 2022 is when URP gets new, shiny features like volumetrics but honestly, I'm tired of constantly telling myself next year is when URP will shine. I did it with 2021 LTS, now that it didn't turn out that way, I started chanting for 2022. Always waiting and hoping.

Built-in deferred gets rid of the depth texture draw calls (mentioned in the link), but URP doesn't have that problem so built-in gets a bigger boost. In the end, they equal out. Like I said, built-in is more affected by optimizations, and is slower by default. URP is faster by default, but is less effected by manual optimizations.


in any real project, you'll do an optimization pass. Not a complex one, at least a simple one.
Each pass took me under 1 MINUTE. Cell based mesh combining.


Note: URP was tested in 2020 LTS & 2021.2 beta 3 for deferred.
In 2020 LTS, forward URP (after optimization) has approx 5~ FPS gain over the beta. the results in the post are from the faster 2020 LTS version, for the forward test.

URP deferred seems to be visually buggy in shaded mode, but all the meshes and render work is still there and is being rendered normally.

built-in version: 2020 LTS.


scene used for tests:

Spoiler: scene image

GTX 1070
Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-6700HQ CPU @ 2.60GHz, 2601 Mhz, 4 Core(s), 8 Logical Processor(s)

 

Disable shadows, use mobile diffuse shader and share the result

from my opinion, URP is just the same built-in pipeline with maximum optimization and the lowest features

 

To be honest, I am not sure where Unity is heading in terms of rendering pipeline for last several years. (6 years maybe?)

I actually don't mind the change, and I am one of those developer who actually thrives and tries the new tech as it comes along, but this SRP, LWRP, URP, HDRP change was (and STILL is) taking wayyyyyy toooooo LONG! It's like I have been in beta / alpha for like forever now...

I really hate to bring in the example of other Engine ( you know which one I am talking about) , but man 5-6- years? That's enough to even make a brand new engine in my opinion.....( or at least a new rendering pipeline..)

Looking back, I think Unity should have just made Builtin V2 with a lot of customizable options so the rendering fits light or heavy depending on the needs, instead of splitting the developers with totally different rendering paths. Which is really bad in terms of not helping themselves by making it difficult for Asset Store publishers to support the engine. (which I think is the biggest trait of Unity Engine)

SRP, on the outside, is a novel idea, but if you think about it, how many Unity developers will actually (be able to) customize the rendering pipeline? Majority of the users of Unity, (unfortunately) is not capable of going that far, because of various reasons. One of my personal reasons for not going deeper to modify the URP source is because I am afraid of the future "changes" that may come along to just break everything and having to relearn it all. It almost feels like that you don't really want to mess with the plugin code from the Asset Store, because you know that future updates will break things.

It's like we were all a football player, but now some of us are playing basketball, baseball etc...

 

If you are looking to create complex shader effects I suggest the Built-in shader. Some things are harder to do in URP shaders, some are impossible and nothing is easier.

Working with shaders, I've yet to see any reason to use the URP. Support for modifying the render pipe has been added in standard as well, with Command buffers. Whenever I try to implement a custom shader feature, it is WAY harder to do in URP than built-in. Maybe for programmers and artists the URP has redeemable features, but so far as a VFX artist - the URP has failed in the exact category it should excel at: Customizability and power of shaders and rendering.

 

That's my feeling also. I don't know if i'm doing things wrong, but I also get better performance on my tests using Built-In, and I find it easier to do some shader effects with Built-in.

 

Actually URP looks attractive because of different Forward render (in compare with Built it). URP handle with light in different way (often it compare with deferred render but its not so heavy). And if you add on scene pixel light its wont hit your performance as much as in Built In.

This is built in: https://prnt.sc/1wb6c0o
This is urp: https://prnt.sc/1wb6dh8

 

Pretty sure the lack of a Volume with tonemapping on it (neutral) is the root cause of that difference.

 

Sorry for my English, but my main idea was that Forward render in URP its like deferred render (good for many lights on scene) but not so heavy.

* Built IN (forward render) - every light gives additional pass
* URP is a single-pass forward renderer.

And we all know that Forward render must have for mobile devices.

This is built in (3 lights): https://prnt.sc/1wb6c0o
This is urp (3 lights): https://prnt.sc/1wb6dh8

But if you dont want to use more than one direct light, i think its good to use built in

 

Built in forever. The two new additions really broke the "unity".
Wish they worked on revamping that one instead of coming up with these two new pipelines that are so cluncky...

 

Well came here to see if URP / HDRP would be some options to consider in 2021, guess i'll wait 2022 ... ^^

 

Well, one thing is RIGHT, now i know about the existence of mesh combiner, i ll try find something on web about it. I really need a better optimization to my prototype (have a city with many objects).

 

The best tool for model's optimization is the Simplygon:

 

Thanks, will help me much, but its not models the problems, LOD I have simple cubes, but many with some parallax. Zero insues about fps, i can run it without nothing at 100fps and 130+ in URP (dont ask me why, i have zero idea about). But, im a 'angry guy' like, if my project run at 100 fps, i wanna 150, when i reach it, i ll want 200.

Interestingly and coincidentally, yesterday I was watching your channel, looking for more information about 'built-in' + lights + better (general) setting for bake light. Unfortunately I didn't find it, or because I don't speak English (I speak Portuguese) I ended up not finding anything about it. But I still run after the 'best practice' or a practice experienced about.

 

Higher than 60fps is not valid. For mobile platforms you can forget higher than 30 fps.
So when your game can run at stable 30fps, you have a well optimized game

About baking, i suggest you to watch my mobile specific videos:
Built-in:
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLVXvfvDWvto2anK19SLItDKyz0hhJ1QMc
URP:
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLVXvfvDWvto32hdpX_e-mkzhdgUWczkyK

 

My prototype is exclusive to Windows/PC.

 

So you just need to optimize the poly count

About lighting on low-end pc platforms (like WebGL):
1. Use post processing effects
2. Bake ambient lights (stingray and GTA V solution ) - sky light + ao
3. Use 1 real-time sunlight

 

Thanks so much for the all tips.

 

I want to confirm that URP and Built-In pipeline are both 100% identical in terms of graphics and performance.
My settings are 99% accurate between the two
Redmi 9A
Used post processing in the both
Native resolution
GIF comparison:

 

well, all these comparisons are not really useful because nobody that creates a mobile game will use the default standard shaders unless you want to lose performance left and right.

In built-in you could create a mobile shader with a couple of lines and it ran hyper fast with lighting, fog and shadows enabled, and you skip PBR completely which is slow. Shader in memory less than 1mb.

In URP, the default URP Simple Lit is so slow compared to the one I mentioned, it's ridiculous. Plus it takes about 40mb in the android device memory (more than the whole unity engine). So you need to also create your own one too, but the difference here is that there is almost zero info about this.

For instance, the default URP Terrain shader is horribly horribly horribly slow and large in memory (over 50mb on the android). And I cannot find a replacement that avoids all the PBR render path as of today. Even microsplat URP is using the default URP Terrain Lit behind the scenes for rendering as of today. So just adding a terrain in URP will slow down drastically all your rendering in the game compared to the mobile terrain shader of built-in.

 

I have tested shader performance 1 year ago. The baked lit in URP is the fastest shader... I couldn't run standard pipeline shaders as fast as URP baked lit... Even mobile diffuse shader
The simple lit shader was very faster than Lit shader...
And the standard shader on both pipelines are the same... The main problem is older devices with a old gpu technology that has black screen with most effects (post effects or shaders)

for realtime lighting the urp has better shadows and better control on shadows to optimize them
Also has vertex lighting option that make your realtime lights very performant

 

Is there anything in URP that compares to the mobile diffuse shader? I haven't found anything. It all seems to go into PBR path making it ultra slow and ram prohibitive for mobile.

And terrain shaders? Same thing. The URP terrain shader for android is a total waste but I can't find a replacement.

 

URP designed for new devices... For older devices the built-in is the best choice

 

That doesn't make any sense. I use mobile diffuse shader on newer devices and it runs at more than double the speed than URP. What this means is that URP is not for newer devices, it's just that it's so much slower than it requires a newer device to perform as well as a mobile diffuse.

There is nothing in URP that runs as far or near as fast as the mobile diffuse which looked just fine on all devices (newer and old)?

 

Try baked lit or simple lit and compare with mobile diffuse

 

Baked Lit I cannot use because I'm using real time lighting. Simple Lit, that's what I use and it's horrible performance wise compared to Mobile Diffuse. And I mean, HORRIBLE. Plus it takes 38mb of ram. If you add the Terrain UPR shader, that's about 120mb of ram on mobile just in 2 shaders using Unity 2021.2.18f and with a huge drop in FPS on the android device.

There is no way to avoid PBR when using the URP pipeline? I just want to write a simple mobile diffuse shader without all that junk included.

 

You can do it with URP as well, it's just much, much harder, at least if you want the SRP batcher to work.

 

Is there any shaders doing it? I can't find any posts about this on the forum or the asset store either. I would love to be able to replace that URP Simple Lit junk on mobile.

 

AFAIK, no.

 

I think the simple lit is what you are looking for... It's very cheap and you can leave slots and use base map only
I already tested urp shaders on a old onboard gpu on my mini case. URP shaders was much faster than mobile diffuse

I didn't share the urp vs standard comparison results because I am a fan of standard pipline !!! urp was faster

No shader can compete with baked lit... Simple lit is very fast too

Reference

 

Well, right now all my project is simple lit and it runs at 7fps in my android device while using mobile diffuse it runs at full 60fps. And that’s without memory problems.

so I don’t think simple lit is remotely close to performance of the mobile diffuse shader

 

No... 7fps is not related to the shader...
Share your shader inspector screenshot here

 

Well, it’s either the terrain lit shader or the simple lit shader, because those are the only 2 shaders in my whole project right now. I tried switching the terrain to microsplat for urp and the fps still was 7. You can see my game and check it on any device, it’s free to download “dogfight elite” on the apps stores. The compiled and uploaded version is not using URP. It’s using mostly mobile diffuse and you will see it runs fast even on the worst devices, with real time lighting, shadows and water.

In urp I had to remove shadows, water and all shaders and only use the simple lit and terrain shaders. Fps and memory consumption is horrible.

 

Here you can see a same performance on a most low-end device. I have used realime shadows, HDR,Post effects and terrain deformation script
Also the URP is same as built-in pipeline with the lowest preset

Try URP APK demo

Optimization guide

 

Here is my shader settings, as you can see it's the most basic it can be.