Performance Tips
intermediate performanceShiny SSR 2 · Troubleshooting & FAQ
Performance Tips
Shiny SSR 2 is designed for high performance, but screen-space raytracing is inherently GPU-intensive. Use these tips to find the right balance between quality and frame rate for your target platform.
Use Quality Presets
Shiny includes built-in presets you can apply at runtime. Create multiple Volume profiles and let the player choose their quality level.
| Preset | Sample Count | Best For |
|---|---|---|
| Fast | Low | Mobile, low-end hardware |
| Medium | Moderate | Mid-range PCs, consoles |
| High | High | Desktop PCs |
| Superb | Very high | High-end desktop |
| Ultra | Maximum | Screenshots, cinematics |
Optimization Checklist
| Optimization | Impact | Details |
|---|---|---|
| Reduce Sample Count | High | The single biggest factor. 16–32 samples are often sufficient for indoor scenes. Increase only where needed. |
| Use Downsampling | High | Set downsampling to 2 to render reflections at half resolution. Barely noticeable with blur enabled. |
| Dark Reflections mode | Medium | Uses an optimized shader path with reduced blending cost. |
| Lower Max Ray Length | Medium | Shorter rays = fewer samples wasted on distant misses. Use 20–50 for interiors. |
| Enable Temporal Filter | Medium | Allows using fewer samples while maintaining stable output across frames. |
| Use Low Precision | Low–Medium | Switches internal buffers to RGBA32. Reduces memory bandwidth at slight quality cost. |
| Forward + selective objects | High | In Forward mode, only tagged objects are processed. This can be much faster than full-screen Deferred. |
| Reduce Blur Passes | Low | Increase Blur Downsampling to reduce the cost of the post-blur pass. |
| Stencil Masking | Medium | Skip reflection computation on screen regions you know don't need it (UI areas, sky). |
Profiling
Use Unity's Frame Debugger (Window > Analysis > Frame Debugger) to see exactly which Shiny passes are running and how much time each consumes. The Output Mode debug option in the Shiny inspector also lets you visualize individual buffers.
Mobile Considerations
- Use the Fast preset as a baseline.
- Set downsampling to 2 or 3.
- Prefer Forward rendering with Reflections scripts on only the most important objects.
- Disable Compute Back Faces to avoid the extra depth pre-pass.
- Enable Low Precision to reduce bandwidth.
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