How to optimize tile map draw calls? (SOLVED)

Questions
#1

I have very simple layout it has just 5 tile maps and one sprite as character. And I have 360 draw calls
19
layer1-3 use the same tile set. main map use another tiles with different texture, so I expected that I’ll take just 4 or 5 draw calls for this scene but i have 360

upd1: I tried to remove parallax layers from the scene - so after that i got 320 draw calls. maybe it’s related to the main level tile map which has the size 300x1000?

upd2: reduced the tile map size to 30x30 draw call reduced to the 17. So it’s definitely related to the big map somehow

upd3: if i make all layers in my big map invisible draw call reduced to the same value (16) as well

upd4: One more interesting thing. If i reduce the number of used tiles in the map - like make just an empty map with 4tile width border - it also reduce draw calls to something like 100) in both cases tile map has size 300x1000

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Untitled Jumper platformer
#2

I tested this now too and can confirm that drawcalls increase as the absolute size of a tilemap increases even if the extra area is outside of the game view. There seems to be some obvious issues with tilemaps in the engine.

Perhaps use a chunk tilemap approach instead of a giant one? Maybe even use game objects for tiles and stream them in and out based on distance - that may help you reduce draw calls but you’ll still be constrained by world transformations. Should probably use Tiled for making tilemap layouts and exporting data to use.

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#3

Just hit this.
250x250 tilemap with a single layer and single tile cause 64 draw calls. I know this is not reasonable. I just wanted to test the limits :slight_smile:

#4

Can you upload a minimal sample?

#5

This is nothing serious. I’m trying to stress my astar native extension. Just wanted to test it with 500x500 tilemap for fun :slight_smile: Going over 128x128 is pointless. 32x32 chunk is the way to go.

#6

This is really strange. I started hacking together a little project on saturday which uses a full screen 1024x768 pixel tilemap, with 2x1 tiles (so 512x768 tiles) which I’m manipulating quite often at runtime in small sections. I realize this isn’t an ideal thing to do, with all the loops I’m running (which is why i said “hacking together” above :stuck_out_tongue:), but I just checked the profiler, and with about 1/3 - 1/2 of the tilemap filled up with 4 different tiles, and a couple GOs on the scene as well, my drawcalls are at a steady 32.

#7

Solved in 1.2.161

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