This section contains information about new features, improvements, and issues fixed in URP 17.
For a complete list of changes made in URP 17, refer to the Changelog.
This section contains the overview of the new features in this release.
In this release, Unity introduces the render graph system. The render graph system is a framework built on top of the Scriptable Render PipelineA series of operations that take the contents of a Scene, and displays them on a screen. Unity lets you choose from pre-built render pipelines, or write your own. More info
See in Glossary (SRP) API. This system improves the way you customize and maintain the render pipeline.
The render graph system reduces the amount of memory URP uses and makes memory management more efficient. The render graph system only allocates resources the frame actually uses, and you no longer need to write complicated logic to handle resource allocation and account for rare worst-case scenarios. The render graph system also generates correct synchronization points between the compute and graphics queues, which reduces frame time.
The Render Graph Viewer lets you visualize how render passes use frame resources, and debug the rendering process.
For more information about the render graph system, refer to the render graph documentation.
URP 17 adds an Alpha Processing setting (URP Asset > Post-processing > Alpha Processing). If you enable this setting, URP renders the post-processing output into a render texture with an alpha channel. In previous versions, URP discarded the alpha channel by replacing alpha values with 1.
The render target requires a format with the alpha channel. The camera color buffer format must be RGBA8 for SDR (HDR off) and RGBA16F for HDR (64-bits). You can configure the format using the settings in URP Asset > Quality.
Example use cases for this feature:
Render in-game UI(User Interface) Allows a user to interact with your application. Unity currently supports three UI systems. More info
See in Glossary, such as a head-up display. You can render multiple render texturesA special type of Texture that is created and updated at runtime. To use them, first create a new Render Texture and designate one of your Cameras to render into it. Then you can use the Render Texture in a Material just like a regular Texture. More info
See in Glossary with different post-processingA process that improves product visuals by applying filters and effects before the image appears on screen. You can use post-processing effects to simulate physical camera and film properties, for example Bloom and Depth of Field. More info post processing, postprocessing, postprocess
See in Glossary configurations and compose the final output using the alpha channel.
Render a character customization screen, where Unity renders a background interface and a 3D character with different post-processing effects and blends them using the alpha channel.
XRAn umbrella term encompassing Virtual Reality (VR), Augmented Reality (AR) and Mixed Reality (MR) applications. Devices supporting these forms of interactive applications can be referred to as XR devices. More info
See in Glossary applications that need to support video pass-through.
URP 17 contains new features that let you speed up the rendering process by moving certain tasks to the GPU and reducing the workload on the CPU.
URP 17 includes a new rendering system called the GPU Resident Drawer.
This system automatically uses the BatchRendererGroup API to draw GameObjectsThe fundamental object in Unity scenes, which can represent characters, props, scenery, cameras, waypoints, and more. A GameObject’s functionality is defined by the Components attached to it. More info
See in Glossary with GPU instancing, which reduces the number of draw calls and frees CPU processing time.
For more information on the GPU Resident Drawer, refer to the section Reduce rendering work on the CPU.
When using GPU occlusion cullingA process that disables rendering GameObjects that are hidden (occluded) from the view of the camera. More info
See in Glossary, Unity uses the GPU instead of the CPU to exclude objects from rendering when they’re occluded behind other objects. Unity uses this information to speed up rendering in scenesA Scene contains the environments and menus of your game. Think of each unique Scene file as a unique level. In each Scene, you place your environments, obstacles, and decorations, essentially designing and building your game in pieces. More info
See in Glossary that have a lot of occlusion.
For more information on GPU occlusion culling, refer to the section Reduce rendering work on the CPU.
The Forward+ Rendering PathThe technique that a render pipeline uses to render graphics. Choosing a different rendering path affects how lighting and shading are calculated. Some rendering paths are more suited to different platforms and hardware than others. More info
See in Glossary now supports foveated rendering.
This release contains the camera history API which lets you access per-camera history textures and use them in custom render passes. History textures are the color and depth textures that Unity rendered for each cameraA component which creates an image of a particular viewpoint in your scene. The output is either drawn to the screen or captured as a texture. More info
See in Glossary in previous frames.
You can use history textures for rendering algorithms that use frame data from one or multiple previous frames.
URP implements per-camera color and depth texture history and history access for custom render passes.
The Rendering Debugger now contains a Mipmap Streaming section. This section lets you inspect the texture streaming activity.
Spatial Temporal Post-Processing (STP) optimizes GPU performance and enhances visual quality by upscaling frames Unity renders at a lower resolution. STP works on desktop platforms, consoles, and mobile devices that support compute shadersA program that runs on the GPU. More info
See in Glossary.
To enable STP, in the active URP Asset, select Quality > Upscaling Filter > Spatial Temporal Post-Processing (STP).
This section contains the overview of the major improvements in this release.
This release contains the following improvements to Adaptive Probe Volumes:
This release comes with CPU performance optimizations of the volume framework on all platforms, especially mobile platforms. You can now set global volume default values and override them in quality settings.
The Shadow Resolution property now contains the 8192 option for the Main Light and Additional Lights.
The URP Config package lets you change certain render pipeline settings that are not available in the Editor interface.
For example, you can change the maximum number of visible lights.
The documentation for the Universal Render Pipeline in Unity 6 has moved from the separate URP documentation site to the main Unity Manual. We’ve restructures URP-specific and general graphics pages so they focus more on user outcomes. The purpose of this change is to improve the discoverability of the URP documentation and reader experience.
Links to pages on the separate URP site now redirect to the relocated pages in the main manual (or an equivalent).
The URP scripting API documentation remains on the separate website.
For a complete list of issues resolved in URP 17, refer to the Changelog.
For information on the known issues in URP 17, refer to the section Known issues.