I’m about to start a new project with Unity, and with the addition of SRPs it became quite unclear what to choose to start with. The built-in pipeline is still there, but the new Shader graph only supports SRPs. This left me wondering whether the built-in renderer is going to be deprecated / dropped support for in the near future and I should choose an SRP (even if I am unsure if I actually need to customize the pipeline).
The HDRP looks great but is still experimental, while the LWRP looks like a stripped down version of the built-in, and I do not see any compelling reason to choose it, other than shader graph.
Any advice/information in this regard?
I’d say not sooner than ~10-15 years.
SRP’s will probably come out of preview / experimental state in about a few years.
Then a few years to iron out all bugs and issues.
No idea for an actual timing, just my speculations.
I don’t think it will happen while there’s a large user base of it, so it might take even longer.
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I bet the built-in pipeline will stay for a long time.
Check out Amplify Shader Editor if you’re looking for a Shader Graph-like tool for the built-in pipeline.
The LWRP is already out of preview, and the HDRP is due out of preview by the end of the year.
https://blogs.unity3d.com/2019/04/16/introducing-unity-2019-1/
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HDRP is supposed to be out of preview in 2019.3. If they hit that goal, I’d expect the legacy renderer to be deprecated for 2020.1, then removed in 2020.3 or 2021.1.
Unity keeps around deprecated features a while which don’t require ongoing maintenance, but I don’t see the legacy renderer as fitting that category. They will probably want the headache of supporting the legacy renderer off their plate as soon as possible.
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It took them forever to remove unityscript because it was still used in a lot of projects, just as the default pipeline is.
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Yes and I expect the traditional pipeline to hang around for ages. Just without any love in terms of getting major new features. I already stopped using it but thats a luxury I have that many dont.
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If they get the feature set on parity, the performance better or parity in all cases and have a good auto upgrade tool then I think the uptake of the new pipelines will be fairly swift
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Thanks for the comments. I was mainly interested in knowing what their intentions are, if they plan to keep supporting/adding new features to the built-in pipeline so that it coexists with the SRPs, or they plan to drop it entirely sooner or later. Reading the comments and Shader graph only supporting the SRPs would suggest the latter, but they did not say anything officially. (I believe)
I wish they were a bit more clear on this point.
It’s pretty early on still, so I imagine they’re waiting to determine if/when deprecation for the builtin pipeline is viable, based on LWRP/HDRP/SRP adoption rates.
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See this post from January 2018:
[#248]( https://discussions.unity.com/t/664083 page-5#post-3369161)
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Yeah, but that’s just for new versions. Because of the LTS versions, it will still be around for a couple of years in terms of support and usage even when they remove it from a version in the future.
That said LTS releases won’t receive new features either.
After a certain point, I don’t really see that being too much of an issue. Through some bizarre miracle, the whole SRP system is simple enough that even I was able to pick up on how to do stuff with it. I think this is going to be more like the 4.6 UI situation than it is mecanim or enlighten.
Yes, the main reason I am in this thread is to emphasise prior information, especially the ‘no new features’ bit. The deprecation bit will be very slow I’m sure, so its not really of much interest to me at the moment, I’m sure Unity know what would happen if they tried to axe it too quickly.
But it still all needs saying to give people a fair idea of the likely future. To start with (ages ago) I think plenty of people were not sure if the scriptable render pipelines were just an exotic sideline for Unity, rather than where all the mainstream action is supposed to be going forwards. The future is in the pipelines, and I recommend people either start embracing them or start to consider the reasons why they cant embrace them yet, and how/when that might change.
I’m guessing the traditional pipeline will be phased out within 2-3 years probably. The HDRP will probably be out of preview within a year and the main option within 1.5 years. The traditional pipeline will probably be “deprecated” within 4 years or so, if not sooner. Just my guesses though.
To me it looks like the HDRP and LWRP are the future, and relatively quickly.
Here is a really stupid question for you guys.
So SRP is for mobile. Sounds good.
HDRP is for PCs.
However, I read that HDRP is for high end machines. So what if you have a PC but it is not high end but you do not want to use a mobile rendering pipeline.
Can HDRP be used in games that are not super photo realistic? We will be able to make games that look like Skyrim or games of that time period?
I figured the current built in would stay around for a while for those of us who did not need high fidelity but want more than a mobile rendering system would do for us.
Please do not laugh at me. lol 
Edit: I have a high end machine but my customers, due to the niche, will probably not.
As I understand that, LWRP is not targeted to Mobile only. It’s designed to execute faster on weaker hardware in general, due to a different/restricted feature-set than HDRP. You can still use LWRP on higher-end hardware, if you don’t need the more advanced features.
https://unity.com/lightweight-render-pipeline
HDRP is targeted to more powerful hardware, like PC, XboxOne and PS4 for example.
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I wasn’t a lot of projects. Only 3.6% of users had more than 20% of their project code as UnityScript.
https://blogs.unity3d.com/2017/08/11/unityscripts-long-ride-off-into-the-sunset/
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Yes, by the time it was removed that was the case. There were years before that where that was not exactly viable.