Improving performance through reduced draw calls by designing for draw call batching

Optimization principal 5: Minimize the number of draw calls.

One way to minimize draw calls is by prioritizing design decisions to qualify objects for Unity's Static and Dynamic draw call batching.

The more CPU-efficient batching method is Unity's static batching. It allows reduction of draw calls for any sized geometry. If that is not possible, then the next best thing is dynamic batching, which again allows Unity to process together several moving objects in a single draw call.

Note that there is a cost—batching uses memory, and static batching uses more memory than dynamic memory. So, you can improve performance with batching, but you'll be increasing the scene's memory "footprint." As always, use memory and performance profiling to evaluate which use of techniques is best for your game and its intended deployment device.

How to do it...

In this section, we will learn...