Shader Level of Detail

Shader Level of Detail (LOD) works by only using shaders or subshaders that have their LOD value less than a given number.

By default, allowed LOD level is infinite, that is, all shaders that are supported by the user’s hardware can be used. However, in some cases you might want to drop shader details, even if the hardware can support them. For example, some cheap graphics cards might support all the features, but are too slow to use them. So you may want to not use parallax normal mapping on them.

Shader LOD can be either set per individual shader (using Shader.maximumLOD), or globally for all shaders (using Shader.globalMaximumLOD).

In your custom shaders, use LOD command to set up LOD value for any subshader.

Built-in shaders in Unity have their LODs set up this way:

VertexLit kind of shaders = 100
Decal, Reflective VertexLit = 150
Diffuse = 200
Diffuse Detail, Reflective Bumped Unlit, Reflective Bumped VertexLit = 250
Bumped, Specular = 300
Bumped Specular = 400
Parallax = 500
Parallax Specular = 600

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Platform-specific rendering differences

Texture arrays

Unity Manual

Shader Level of Detail