Enabling bloom takes a massive toll on performance, which is why I switched to using MK glow. But there’s some materials that still need to use bloom, which is why I still have it enabled. Here’s my question, if there’s like 3 objects using bloom in the scene, does it still have the same performance impact as a hundred objects with bloom in the scene? Or does it not matter to have a couple things with bloom on them?
I don’t think it matters how many objects because it’s a post-processing effect. It doesn’t operate on individual objects, rather it works on the frame buffer. Probably the most effective way to improve performance would be to render at a lower screen resolution.
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It might also help to define what you mean by ‘massive toll’ as well. I can’t say I’ve seen a noticeable impact from a bloom effect since the early 2000’s but that isn’t to say that there’s not an upfront overhead to using the post processing stack in general. Consider that many of the effects might be nearly free of cost once you opt in to using the system. So for the one-time little bit of a hit up front work you can get a lot of effects that are very cheap or free. Not all effects are like that of course but a great many are.
Yeah it’s not a massive toll on PC, but I’m building for mobile so it’s a problem.
As [kdgalla]( https://discussions.unity.com/t/914178 members/kdgalla.223821/) said, doesn’t matter how many objects you have. Bloom performance is the same for zero objects or 1000 objects, since it’s a post process effect it operates on the resulting screen image. Being an image, what’s important for performance is the resolution (size) of the image, not how many objects it depicts.
Also, the quality and intensity of the bloom effect also affect performance. It’s usually cheaper to have a small bloom (by “small” I mean low radius) than a very big bloom that spans the entire screen.
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