Lately I’ve been experimenting a lot with using custom textures in my builds, and sometimes even for every part. How much more efficient is it to use materials over custom textures? Assuming I cover all six sides of a part with a custom texture, how many regular parts would be equal to one custom textured part in terms of performance?
5 Likes
I’m not really in depth of testing the performance of this however:
More complex materials like neon, glass, forcefield, etc are of course more intensive on performance but have more unique properties compared to custom textures which if you wanted to try and copy the same look are hacky/nearly impossible.
However, the good side to custom textures are that you can place one where you know the player will see rather than all sides hence lowering load times with your own textures (i dont recommend placing all six sides unless they see all of them at once.
Both have cavets. Custom textures require load times of course due to being online and having to grab the ID. If you already have the texture in the roblox materials, use it.
However, this might change due to PBR/custom textures comming soon/etc so stay on the lookout 
2 Likes
Using materials is a better option. Textured parts require the asset to be loaded into the game which can reduce performance drastically if there are various different textures being used. In your case having textures on each side of a part would significantly use more memory.
6 Likes