Monitor Your Memory Usage - By Asset Type & Automatically

Access your Unity Memory Metrics without attaching the Profiler? I'm sold! Let me introduce you to the new Unity Memory Profiler Module available since Unity 2020.2b.

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Table of Contents

Imagine This
The Solution: The Unity ProfilerRecorder API
Unity Memory Profiler Module: The Metrics
Some Ideas to Try Out
What's Next?

Imagine This

Would you like to...

... but you never tried because you knew you couldn't because you depend on attaching the profiler?

Well, that no more.

Since Unity 2020.2 you have access to a new API that will give you all sort of metrics without even attaching the profiler.

And even better, many of these metrics work on release builds.

Juicy.

decoration-meme-mind-blown

The Solution: The Unity ProfilerRecorder API

Here's how it works.

A typical pattern is to use this in a memory-intensive section of your game that you want to track, such as a boss fight where many enemies are present.

Here's an example:

public class MemoryProfiler : MonoBehaviour
{
    string _statsText;
    ProfilerRecorder _totalReservedMemoryRecorder;
    ProfilerRecorder _gcReservedMemoryRecorder;
    ProfilerRecorder _textureMemoryRecorder;
    ProfilerRecorder _meshMemoryRecorder;
    void OnEnable()
    {
        _totalReservedMemoryRecorder = ProfilerRecorder.StartNew(ProfilerCategory.Memory, "Total Reserved Memory");
        _gcReservedMemoryRecorder = ProfilerRecorder.StartNew(ProfilerCategory.Memory, "GC Reserved Memory");
        _textureMemoryRecorder = ProfilerRecorder.StartNew(ProfilerCategory.Memory, "Texture Memory");
        _meshMemoryRecorder = ProfilerRecorder.StartNew(ProfilerCategory.Memory, "Mesh Memory");
    }
    void OnDisable()
    {
        _totalReservedMemoryRecorder.Dispose();
        _gcReservedMemoryRecorder.Dispose();
        _textureMemoryRecorder.Dispose();
        _meshMemoryRecorder.Dispose();
    }
    void Update()
    {
        var sb = new StringBuilder(500);
        if (_totalReservedMemoryRecorder.Valid)
            sb.AppendLine($"Total Reserved Memory: {_totalReservedMemoryRecorder.LastValue}");
        if (_gcReservedMemoryRecorder.Valid)
            sb.AppendLine($"GC Reserved Memory: {_gcReservedMemoryRecorder.LastValue}");
        if (_textureMemoryRecorder.Valid)
            sb.AppendLine($"Texture Used Memory: {_textureMemoryRecorder.LastValue}");
        if (_meshMemoryRecorder.Valid)
            sb.AppendLine($"Mesh Used Memory: {_meshMemoryRecorder.LastValue}");
        _statsText = sb.ToString();
    }
    void OnGUI()
    {
        GUI.TextArea(new Rect(10, 30, 250, 70), _statsText);
    }
}

And here's how it looks:

meme-angryface

Unity Memory Profiler Module Example

Unity Memory Profiler Module: The Metrics

Right now, you have access to the following metrics

Available on Development & Release builds:

Available only on Development builds:

You can see the full documentation here.

Some Ideas to Try Out

I already gave you a few, but here are a few more:

What's Next?

You need some sort of memory tracking to make sure your game doesn't crash in low-end devices.

But one thing is to notice them, and another is to fix them.

The natural second step is actually reducing the memory usage of your game. For that, you can read my Introduction to Unity Addressables.

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Let me know if you plan to use the ProfilerRecorder API and what your use case is.

I certainly have big plans for it.

~ Ruben (The Gamedev Guru)