GPU Usage Profiler module

The GPU Usage Profiler module displays where your application spends time in the GPU. You can only use the GPU Profiler in Playmode, or for builds of your application. You cannot use it to profile the Editor.

Note: If you have Graphics Jobs enabled in the Player Settings, GPU profiling is not supported. For more information, see the documentation on Standalone Player Settings. Additionally, on macOS, you can only profile the GPU on Mavericks 10.9 or later.

GPU profiling support

The following table lists the platforms that the GPU Usage Profiler module supports:

On Windows, Unity supports Playmode profiling in the Editor with Direct3D 9 and Direct3D 11 APIs only. This is convenient for quick profiling, because it means you don’t need to build the Player; however, the overhead of running the Unity Editor affects the Profiler, which might make the profiling results less accurate.

Chart categories

The GPU Usage Profiler module’s chart has several different categories that you can use to investigate GPU timings. To change the order of the categories in the chart, you can drag and drop them in the chart’s legend. You can also click a category’s colored legend to toggle its display.

Module details pane

When you select the GPU Usage module, the details pane below it displays a breakdown of where the application spent time in the selected frame. You can display the timing data as a hierarchical table. To change the table views, use the top-left dropdown in the details pane (set to Hierarchy by default). The views available are:

When you select the GPU Usage Profiler module, the lower pane of the Profiler displays hierarchical time data for the selected frame. Select an item from the Hierarchy to see a breakdown of contributions in the right-hand panel. See documentation on the Profiler window to learn more about the Profiler window’s functionality.

The table views have the following columns: