Profiling

The public IFX library includes a profiling tool that you can use to evaluate the performance of your locations and IFX.

• If you want to evaluate a location, start a session in that location and then load the profiler IFX.

• If you want to evaluate an IFX, start a session in the location where you are most likely to use the IFX. Alternatively you could use a simple location, such as one of the creator rooms. We recommend that you then load the profiler IFX to identify baseline statistics, load the IFX that you want to evaluate, and then review the new statistics shown on the profiler.

Profiler Tool

Loading the profiler IFX

1. In a session, open your menu or tablet.

2. Select IFX.

3. On the IFX page, search for profiler.

4. Select the ENGAGE Profiler IFX, and then place it in the location.

Evaluating profiler statistics

The following sections describe some of the main statistics that the profiler IFX displays, and how you can improve them. Many of the statistics match those used in Unity's Memory Profiler module, and you can find more information about them in the Unity documentation.

As a best practice, evaluate your location or IFX on the hardware that you expect your target audience to use.

The lowest specification devices that ENGAGE supports are typically Android phones and tablets, iPhones, and iPads. To accommodate all ENGAGE users, we recommend that you also test on these devices.

Frames per second

The simplest measures of performance are the frames per second (FPS) statistics: Current FPS and Average FPS.

• For a location, when you are the only user present and no IFX are loaded, we recommend that you achieve a minimum of 60 fps on a modern VR headset, and 90 fps on a desktop device.

• For an IFX, it will depend on your intended use. However, we recommend that an individual IFX does not lower the framerate by more than 3 fps.

The frame rate provides an overall measure of performance and is determined by all of the other contributing factors. For guidance on how to improve the frame rate, see the following sections.

Vertices and TriCount

These statistics represent the complexity of the geometry. For recommendations on the number of triangles (TriCount), see Guidelines for locations and Guidelines for IFX.

For information about how to reduce these values, see Optimizing 3D geometry.

Batches and draw calls

These statistics count the number of requests that are made to the graphics system of the device each frame. We recommend that the number of draw calls remains below 80 for mobile devices, and below 400 for desktop devices.

You can improve the efficiency of your assets, and reduce the values for these statistics, by using fewer materials, combining materials, using baked lighting instead of dynamic lights, and removing reflection probes. You may also be able to improve performance if you combine meshes. For more information, refer to Manually combining meshes in the Unity documentation.

Memory

Memory usage indicates how much information your assets include. This includes the geometry, as described in Vertices and TriCount; lighting and reflections, as described in Batches and draw calls; and also textures.

For information about how to reduce the memory required for textures, see Optimizing textures.