Scriptable Render Pipeline Batcher

The Scriptable Render Pipeline (SRP) Batcher is a draw call optimization that significantly improves performance for applications that use an SRP. The SRP Batcher reduces the CPU time Unity requires to prepare and dispatch draw calls for materials that use the same shaderA program that runs on the GPU. More info
See in Glossary variant.

Requirements and compatibility

This section includes information about the render pipeline compatibility of the SRP Batcher.

Render pipeline compatibility

Feature	Built-in Render Pipeline	Universal Render Pipeline (URP)	High Definition Render Pipeline (HDRP)	Custom Scriptable Render Pipeline (SRP)
SRP Batcher	No	Yes	Yes	Yes

GameObject compatibility

In any given sceneA Scene contains the environments and menus of your game. Think of each unique Scene file as a unique level. In each Scene, you place your environments, obstacles, and decorations, essentially designing and building your game in pieces. More info
See in Glossary, some GameObjectsThe fundamental object in Unity scenes, which can represent characters, props, scenery, cameras, waypoints, and more. A GameObject’s functionality is defined by the Components attached to it. More info
See in Glossary are compatible with the SRP Batcher, and some aren’t. Compatible GameObjects use the SRP Batcher code path, and non-compatible GameObjects use the standard SRP code path. For more information, see How the SRP Batcher works.

A GameObject must meet the following requirements to be compatible with the SRP Batcher code path:

• The GameObject must contain either a meshThe main graphics primitive of Unity. Meshes make up a large part of your 3D worlds. Unity supports triangulated or Quadrangulated polygon meshes. Nurbs, Nurms, Subdiv surfaces must be converted to polygons. More info
  See in Glossary or a skinned mesh. It can’t be a particle.
• The GameObject mustn’t use MaterialPropertyBlocks.
• The shader that the GameObject uses must be compatible with the SRP Batcher. For more information, see Shader compatibility.

Shader compatibility

All lit and unlit shaders in the High Definition Render Pipeline (HDRP) and the Universal Render Pipeline (URP) fit this requirement (except for the particle versions of these shaders).

For a custom shader to be compatible with the SRP Batcher it must meet the following requirements:

• The shader must declare all built-in engine properties in a single constant buffer named UnityPerDraw. For example, unity_ObjectToWorld, or unity_SHAr.
• The shader must declare all material properties in a single constant buffer named UnityPerMaterial.

You can check the compatibility status of a shader in the InspectorA Unity window that displays information about the currently selected GameObject, asset or project settings, allowing you to inspect and edit the values. More info
See in Glossary panel.

Using the SRP Batcher

This section contains information on how to use the SRP Batcher in Unity’s pre-built Scriptable Render Pipelines.

Using the SRP Batcher in URP

To activate the SRP Batcher in URP:

1. In the Project windowA window that shows the contents of your Assets folder (Project tab) More info
   See in Glossary, select the URP Asset.
2. In the Inspector for the URP asset, go to Advanced, and enable SRP Batcher.

Using the SRP Batcher in HDRP

When you use HDRP, Unity enables the SRP Batcher by default. Disabling the SRP Batcher is not recommended. However, you can temporarily disable the SRP Batcher for debugging purposes.

To enable and disable the SRP Batcher at build time using the Editor:

1. In the Project window, select the HDRP Asset.
2. In the Inspector for the asset, enter Debug mode. In Debug mode, you can see the properties of the HDRP Asset, including the SRP Batcher property.
3. Select Enable SRP Batcher to enable or disable the SRP Batcher.

To enable or disable the SRP Batcher at runtime, toggle the following global variable in your C# code:

GraphicsSettings.useScriptableRenderPipelineBatching = true;

How the SRP Batcher works

The traditional way to optimize draw calls is to reduce the number of them. Instead, the SRP Batcher reduces render-state changes between draw calls. To do this, the SRP Batcher combines a sequence of bind and draw GPU commands. Each sequence of commands is called an SRP batch.

To achieve optimal performance for your renderingThe process of drawing graphics to the screen (or to a render texture). By default, the main camera in Unity renders its view to the screen. More info
See in Glossary, each SRP batch should contain as many bind and draw commands as possible. To achieve this, use as few shader variants as possible. You can still use as many different materials with the same shader as you want.

When Unity detects a new material during the render loop, the CPU collects all properties and binds them to the GPU in constant buffers. The number of GPU buffers depends on how the shader declares its constant buffers.

The SRP Batcher is a low-level render loop that makes material data persist in GPU memory. If the material content doesn’t change, theSRP Batcher doesn’t make any render-state changes. Instead, the SRP Batcher uses a dedicated code path to update the Unity Engine properties in a large GPU buffer, like this:

Here, the CPU only handles the Unity Engine properties, labeled Per Object large buffer in the above diagram. All materials have persistent constant buffers located in GPU memory, which are ready to use. This speeds up rendering because:

• All material content now persists in GPU memory.
• Dedicated code manages a large per-object GPU constant buffer for all per-object properties.

Intentionally removing SRP Batcher compatibility for GameObjects

In some rare cases, you might want to intentionally make particular GameObjects incompatible with the SRP Batcher. For example, if you want to use GPU instancing, which isn’t compatible with the SRP Batcher. If you want to render many identical meshes with the exact same material, GPU instancing can be more efficient than the SRP Batcher. To use GPU instancing, you must either:

• Use Graphics.DrawMeshInstanced.
• Manually remove SRP Batcher compatibility and enable GPU instancing for the material.

There are two ways to remove compatibility with the SRP Batcher from a GameObject:

• Make the shader incompatible.
• Make the renderer incompatible.

Tip: If you use GPU instancing instead of the SRP Batcher, use the ProfilerA window that helps you to optimize your game. It shows how much time is spent in the various areas of your game. For example, it can report the percentage of time spent rendering, animating, or in your game logic. More info
See in Glossary to make sure that GPU instancing is more efficient for your application than the SRP Batcher.

Removing shader compatibility

You can make both hand-written and Shader Graph shaders incompatible with the SRP Batcher. However, for Shader Graph shaders, if you change and recompile the Shader Graph often, it’s simpler to make the renderer incompatible instead.

To make a Unity shader incompatible with the SRP Batcher, you need to make changes to the shader source file:

1. For hand-written shaders, open the shader source file. For Shader Graph shaders, copy the Shader Graph’s compiled shader source code into a new shader source file. Use the new shader source file in your application instead of the Shader Graph.
2. Add a new material property declaration into the shader’s Properties block. Don’t declare the new material property in the UnityPerMaterial constant buffer.

The material property doesn’t need to do anything; just having a material property that doesn’t exist in the UnityPerMaterial constant buffer makes the shader incompatible with the SRP Batcher.

Warning: If you use a Shader Graph, be aware that every time you edit and recompile the Shader Graph, you must repeat this process.

Removing renderer compatibility

You can make individual renderers incompatible with the SRP Batcher. To do this, add a MaterialPropertyBlock to the renderer.

Profiling the SRP Batcher in the Unity Frame Debugger

You can check the status of SRP batches in the Frame Debugger window. Each SRP Batch displays how many draw calls Unity used, which keywords Unity attached to the shader, and the reason why Unity didn’t batch that draw call with the previous one.

To check the status of SRP Batcher batches:

1. In the Editor, open the Frame Debugger (menu: Window > Analysis > Frame Debugger).
2. In the Frame Debugger, go to Render Camera > Render Opaques.
3. Expand the RenderLoopNewBatcher.Draw list.
4. Select on the SRP Batch you want to inspect.

In the example below, the reason is: Nodes have different shaders. This means that the shader for that SRP batch os different to the one in the previous SRP batch. Because the SRP Batcher used a different shader, the SRP Batcher created a new batch. If several SRP batches have a low number of draw calls, it often means the project uses too many shader variants.

If you write your own Scriptable Render Pipeline, instead of using either the Universal Render Pipeline or the High Definition Render Pipeline, try to write a generic multi-purpose shader with a minimal number of keywords. This is optimal because you can use as many material properties as you want.