So the title is pretty self explanatory; how do materials affect performance?
Over the past few days I’ve been working on optimizing my game as much as humanly possible. However, my building style revolves around the built-in materials Roblox offers. Depending on how cost heavy materials are, if I want my game to run on lower end devices I might end up adding an option to remove materials entirely. I’m just wondering if it’s worth the trouble.
I’ve read some fairly conflicting statements that state either materials have little to no impact on performance or they cost just as much as textures.
So which is it??
Also bonus question: Which materials have more impact on performance compared to others?
Hello.
If you are talking about the Roblox Materials they don
t have impact on lag or anything. Although too many parts in one area causes lag. As too many unions in a game can cause lag as well. But the Roblox Materials do not cause lag. But Textures can and will cause lag depending by the size.
Materials don’t have a giant impact on performance. If you want your game to run smoothly I suggest limiting yourself to high-tris models. I won’t go into that though because it isn’t the question you asked so I’m just gonna assume you already knew that.
To answer your question, Roblox materials are better to use than custom textures. The most optimized materials are SmoothPlastic and Neon (when it doesn’t glow). I would think that ForceField and Glass have the most impact on Performance and possibly Neon when it’s glowing.
To make neon not glow, make its color property darker.
Edit: When the OP was referring to custom materials, they were talking about Textures/Decals/etc. Since this reply was made, custom materials have become a real feature utilizing the Material Manager in Studio. I’m sure if you optimize (compress the images before uploading) your custom textures, they can be performant.