Forum Discussion
Instanced Stereo Rendering suggestion (halve VR draw calls)
I couldn't find any mention of VR in the Unity roadmap, so if I'm missing something (a VR-specific roadmap?) and this is already planned, please let me know.
In Bullet Train, Epic uses hardware instancing to draw objects to both eyes in a single draw call. It's planned to be released for UE4 generally, soon, and they're saying it could provide a 40% out-of-the-box performance boost. Apparently it improved Bullet Train performance by about 22%, which is presumably closer to the average real-world benefit, but that's still a huge difference. Halving draw calls also seems like it should be especially effective on mobile devices (it would probably require OpenGL ES3).
I expect the Unity team is already aware of the technique, but if anyone would like to vote for this suggestion, it might help to show that there is a demand for it and move it up a bit in priority. It's currently up to 6th place out of 6400 suggestions sorted by Most Active, but its vote count is pretty low.
In Bullet Train, Epic uses hardware instancing to draw objects to both eyes in a single draw call. It's planned to be released for UE4 generally, soon, and they're saying it could provide a 40% out-of-the-box performance boost. Apparently it improved Bullet Train performance by about 22%, which is presumably closer to the average real-world benefit, but that's still a huge difference. Halving draw calls also seems like it should be especially effective on mobile devices (it would probably require OpenGL ES3).
I expect the Unity team is already aware of the technique, but if anyone would like to vote for this suggestion, it might help to show that there is a demand for it and move it up a bit in priority. It's currently up to 6th place out of 6400 suggestions sorted by Most Active, but its vote count is pretty low.
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- We are hoping to land a single-traversal rendering codepath, at least for D3D11, sometime in the Unity 5.4 timeline. As you can imagine, it's a pretty impactful change for the engine and API, so it will take some time to reach all platforms.
- Excellent! Thanks for letting me know. Best of luck with it.
- Is it also for Gear VR or only for desktop VR ?
- Gear VR support for this is another layer of complexity and probably involves the GL_OVR_multiview extension (https://www.opengl.org/registry/specs/OVR/multiview.txt). We can't give a firm date when all of this will be available.
- So I am guessing current performance limitations is something we have to live with for at least another year? (or until JC gets MC for Gear VR out :P )
- Not sure what you mean, but we're working on it.
- It looks like this feature is not on Unity's roadmap and is still up for voting. It also seems that UE4 isn't going to offer instanced rendering for Gear VR any time soon.
Oculus folks, do you happen to know if Unity will bring instanced rendering to Gear VR in 5.4 ? - Unity is not planning to include instanced rendering for Android in 5.4.0. We don't have an ETA for it yet, but we will let you know when one is available.
