Which is better for performance?

Unity Engine
,
1

Simple question, which is better:

4 x 1024x1024 textures

or

1 x 2048 x 2048 texture

target platform is < iPhone 4 (3GS model hardware).

Thanks! :slight_smile:

2

As I understand it, the 3G is still very much in us and only supports 1024 x 1024 whereas the 3GS and 4G support 2048 x 2048. For this reason alone, I believe the 1024 textures would be wiser. That limit the ability to squeeze more materials onto one texture though.

If you are sure you only want 3GS and higher and are using a large atlas to reduce draw calls, then go with 2048.

3

Yeah, not interested in 3G at all. 3GS+ only.

Would the size of the texture at 2048x2048 and memory transfers not make it slower?

4

The committed RAM is the same, being 2048 x 2048 x 4 octets, is about 16MB in both cases. The only real difference in this case would be the number of pointers to the start of the texture, which would go from 4 to 1. I really don’t think that would be a detectable difference.

My hunch is that there would be no significant difference, but if you really want to know, you’d probably have to test it under well controlled conditions. If you do opt to test it, don’t re-UV everything to test it, just make a contrived test scenario and please share the results.