Choose a rendering path in URP

Deciding on which 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 is most suitable for your Universal 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 (URP) project depends on the type of project, and on the target hardware.

Use the default Forward renderingA rendering path that renders each object in one or more passes, depending on lights that affect the object. Lights themselves are also treated differently by Forward Rendering, depending on their settings and intensity. More info
See in Glossary path if you don’t have many lights in the sceneA 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 or you’re rendering on a mobile or low-end platform, because Unity limits both the number of lights and the number of per-pixel lights.

Choose the Forward+ rendering path in the following cases:

• You have many lights in your scene, and the Deferred rendering path renders too slowly on the platform you build for.
• You need to blend more than 2 Reflection ProbesA rendering component that captures a spherical view of its surroundings in all directions, rather like a camera. The captured image is then stored as a Cubemap that can be used by objects with reflective materials. More info
  See in Glossary.
• You use the Entities package.

Choose the Deferred rendering path in the following cases:

• You don’t need to use Rendering Layers. URP renders an extra G-buffer render target if you use Rendering Layers in the Deferred rendering path, which might impact performance.
• You don’t need accurate terrainThe landscape in your scene. A Terrain GameObject adds a large flat plane to your scene and you can use the Terrain’s Inspector window to create a detailed landscape. More info
  See in Glossary blending. For more information, refer to Introduction to the deferred rendering path.

Avoid using lights with a Subtractive or ShadowmaskA Texture that shares the same UV layout and resolution with its corresponding lightmap. More info
See in Glossary Lighting Mode with the Deferred rendering path, because these lights are optimized only for the Forward rendering path.

Unity falls back to a different rendering path in the following situations:

• If you select the Deferred rendering path but a shaderA program that runs on the GPU. More info
  See in Glossary doesn’t support deferred shadingA rendering path in the Built-in Render Pipeline that places no limit on the number of Lights that can affect a GameObject. All Lights are evaluated per-pixel, which means that they all interact correctly with normal maps and so on. Additionally, all Lights can have cookies and shadows. More info
  See in Glossary. Unity renders the GameObjectThe 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 using a Forward rendering path at the end of rendering.
• If the GPU on the device you build for doesn’t support the rendering path you select. Unity falls back to a different rendering path.

Rendering path comparison

The following table lists the differences between the rendering paths in URP.

Additional resources

• Light limits in URP
• Per-pixel and per-vertex lights
• Rendering paths in URP