Performance Tips

intermediate performance

Highlight Plus 2D · Troubleshooting & FAQ

Highlight Plus 2D is lightweight by design, but these tips help you get the best performance in scenes with many highlighted sprites.

Key Optimisation Levers

Setting	Recommendation
Glow Passes	Reduce the number of glow passes (default 4). Fewer passes = fewer draw calls. Two passes are often sufficient.
Glow Width	Keep glow width moderate. Very large values increase fill-rate cost.
Outline Quality	Lower quality levels use fewer samples and render faster.
See-Through	Only enable on sprites that actually need x-ray visibility. Each see-through sprite adds an extra pass.
Shadow	Shadows add an extra draw per sprite. Disable on sprites where the shadow is not visible.
Include Mode	Use Only This Object when children do not need highlighting. This avoids processing child renderers.

Manager vs Per-Sprite

Approach	Best For
HighlightManager2D	Scenes with many sprites that should react to pointer hover. The manager only activates effects on the hovered sprite.
Per-sprite HighlightEffect2D	Sprites that need always-on effects or custom configurations. Combine with scripting for precise control.

General Tips

Disable Preview In Editor when not actively tuning effects — it runs the shader pipeline in the Scene view.
Use the Ignore flag on sprites that should never be highlighted instead of removing the component (avoids re-adding later).
When highlighting groups, prefer Include = Children on the parent rather than adding individual HighlightEffect2D components to each child.

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