Unity Performance Checklist for Indie Games

• Record a Player build with Unity Profiler or Frame Debugger — Editor numbers lie.
• Capture a 30–60s “worst” scene: combat, inventory open, streaming load, or dense VFX.
• Write down the top 3 costs (CPU main thread, GPU, GC spikes) before changing anything.
• Fix one bottleneck at a time and re-measure. Random toggles waste days.

• Kill empty Update / LateUpdate on idle objects; prefer events and coroutines with clear exit conditions.
• Cache component lookups. No GetComponent in hot loops.
• Replace per-frame LINQ and string concat in gameplay paths.
• Batch AI / perception: fewer agents thinking every frame beats smarter agents thinking constantly.
• Use Jobs/Burst only where you already measured a win — not as cargo cult.

• Target a real platform budget (e.g. 1080p medium on a mid laptop / Steam Deck class).
• Reduce materials and variants. Atlas where it helps; avoid unique shaders per prop.
• Enable GPU instancing / SRP Batcher-friendly shaders; check Frame Debugger for unexpected breaks.
• LOD groups on characters and dense environment meshes; cull aggressively outdoors.
• Cap realtime lights and shadows. Prefer baked or mixed lighting for static worlds.
• Turn off unused post effects in builds players actually ship (depth of field, heavy bloom stacks).

• Watch GC Alloc in Profiler during combat and UI opens — spikes feel like stutter.
• Pool frequent spawns (bullets, VFX, enemies, damage numbers).
• Avoid allocating arrays/lists every frame; reuse buffers.
• Audit texture sizes and compression (ASTC/DXT/ETC as platform requires). Mipmaps on 3D textures.
• Unload unused addressables/scenes; do not keep “just in case” worlds resident.

• Limit simultaneous voices; use mixers and prioritization so combat does not explode DSP cost.
• Compress large clips; streaming for long music beds.
• UI Toolkit / uGUI: avoid rebuilding huge canvases every frame; split static vs dynamic canvases.
• Disable idle UI objects instead of leaving heavy panels active off-screen.
• Input polling is cheap; input-driven allocation (new strings, new events each frame) is not.

• Ship IL2CPP (or the platform default that matches your store) and test a Development Build only for diagnosis.
• Strip engine code / managed stripping level carefully; verify reflection-heavy plugins still work.
• Quality settings: expose Low/Medium/High that actually change shadow distance, MSAA, and particle budgets.
• Remove demo scenes, sample content, and unused Asset Store packages from the player.
• Measure cold start and first-scene load on a clean machine — first impressions matter.

1. 30 minutes of continuous play on target hardware with no thermal crash.
2. Worst-case VFX + UI + AI scene stays within your FPS floor.
3. No multi-second hitch when opening inventory / map / pause.
4. Memory stable across a full level transition loop (watch for leaks).
5. Controller + keyboard paths both feel responsive under load.

Related reading: Asset Store vs Package Manager, Controller & Input Assets, and our Top 100 Paid tools list.

Performance is a product feature. Run this checklist early, again before trailer capture, and once more before submission. Players forgive rough art longer than they forgive stutter.