Unity Game Optimization - Third Edition

Employing GPU instancing

GPU Instancing is a means to render multiple copies of the same mesh quickly by exploiting the fact that they will have identical Render States, hence require minimal draw calls. This is practically identical to dynamic batching, except that it is not an automatic process. In fact, we can think of dynamic batching as a poor man's GPU instancing since GPU instancing can enable even better savings and allows for more customization by allowing parameterized variations.

GPU Instancing is applied at the Material level with the Enable Instancing checkbox, and variations can be introduced by modifying shader code. This way, we can give different instances of different rotations, scales, colors, and so on. This is useful ...