Linux Player settings

This page details the Player settings for the Linux platform. For a description of the general Player settings, see Player SettingsSettings that let you set various player-specific options for the final game built by Unity. More info
See in Glossary.

You can find documentation for the properties in the following sections:

• Icon
• Resolution and Presentation
• Splash Image
• Other Settings

Icon

Enable the Override for Windows, Mac, Linux setting to assign a custom icon for your desktop game. You can upload different sizes of the icon to fit each of the squares provided.

Resolution and Presentation

Use the Resolution and Presentation section to customize aspects of the screen’s appearance in the Resolution and Standalone Player Options sections.

Resolution section

This section allows you to customize the screen mode and default size.

Property		Function
Fullscreen Mode		Choose the full-screen mode. This defines the default window mode at startup.
	Fullscreen Window	Set your app window to the full-screen native display resolution, covering the whole screen. This mode is also known as borderless full-screen. Unity renders the app content at the resolution set by a script, or the native display resolution if none is set and scales it to fill the window. When scaling, Unity adds black bars to the rendered output to match the display aspect ratioThe relationship of an image’s proportional dimensions, such as its width and height. See in Glossary to prevent content stretching. This process is called letterboxing. The OS overlay UI(User Interface) Allows a user to interact with your application. Unity currently supports three UI systems. More info See in Glossary displays on top of the full-screen window (such as IME input windows). All platforms support this mode.
	Exclusive Fullscreen (Windows only)	Set your app to maintain sole full-screen use of a display. Unlike Fullscreen Window, this mode changes the OS resolution of the display to match the app’s chosen resolution. This option is only supported on Windows.
	Maximized Window (Mac only)	Set the app window to the operating system’s definition of maximized, which is typically a full-screen window with a hidden menu bar and dock on macOS. This option is only supported on macOS. Fullscreen Window is the default setting for other platforms.
	Windowed	Set your app to a standard, non-full-screen movable window, the size of which is dependent on the app resolution. In this mode, the window is resizable by default. Use the Resizable Window setting to disable this. All desktop platforms support this full-screen mode.
Default Is Native Resolution		Enable this option to make the game use the default resolution used on the target machine. This option isn’t available if the Fullscreen Mode is set to Windowed.
Default Screen Width		Set the default width of the game screen in pixelsThe smallest unit in a computer image. Pixel size depends on your screen resolution. Pixel lighting is calculated at every screen pixel. More info See in Glossary. This option is only available if the Fullscreen Mode is set to Windowed.
Default Screen Height		Set the default height of the game screen in pixels. This option is only available if the Fullscreen Mode is set to Windowed.
Mac Retina Support		Enable this option to enable support for high DPI (Retina) screens on a Mac. Unity enables this by default. This enhances Projects on a Retina display, but it’s somewhat resource-intensive when active.
Run In background		Enable this option to have the game running in the background instead of pausing if the app loses focus.

Standalone Player Options section

Use this section to specify the settings to customize the screen. For example, you can set options for users to resize the screen and specify how many instances can run concurrently.

Property	Function
Capture Single Screen	Enable this option to ensure desktop games in Fullscreen Mode don’t darken the secondary monitor in multi-monitor setups. This isn’t supported on macOS X.
Use Player Log	Enable this option to write a log file with debugging information. Defaults to enabled. Warning: If you plan to submit your application to the Mac App Store, leave this option disabled. For more information, see Publishing to the Mac App Store.
Resizable Window	Enable this option to allow resizing of the player window. Note: If you disable this option, your application can’t use the Windowed Fullscreen Mode.
Visible in Background	Enable this option to display the application in the background if the Windowed Fullscreen Mode option is used (in Windows).
Allow Fullscreen Switch	Enable this option to allow default OS full-screen key presses to toggle between full-screen and windowed modes.
Force Single Instance	Enable this option to restrict desktop players to a single concurrent running instance.
Supported Aspect Ratios	Enable each aspect ratio that you want to appear in the Resolution Dialog at startup (as long as they are supported by the user’s monitor).

Splash Image

Use the Virtual Reality Splash Image setting to select a custom splash image for Virtual Reality displays. For information on common Splash Screen settings, see Splash Screen.

Other Settings

This section allows you to customize a range of options organized into the following groups:

• Rendering
• Vulkan Settings
• Mac App Store Options
• Configuration
• Shader Variant Loading
• Script Compilation
• Optimization
• Logging
• Legacy

Rendering

Use these settings to customize how Unity renders your game for desktop (Windows, Mac, Linux) platforms.

Setting		Function
Color Space		Choose which color space should be used for rendering: Gamma or Linear. See the Linear rendering overview for an explanation of the difference between the two.
Auto Graphics API		Enable this option to use the best Graphics API on the Linux machine it runs on. Disable it to add and remove supported Graphics APIs.
Color Gamut		You can add or remove color gamuts for the iOS platform to use for rendering. Click the plus (+) icon to see a list of available gamuts. A color gamut defines a possible range of colors available for a given device (such as a monitor or screen). The sRGB gamut is the default (and required) gamut. When targeting recent tvOS devices with wide color gamut displays, use DisplayP3 to use full display capabilities. Use Metal Editor Support as a fallback for older devices.
Multithreaded Rendering		Enable this option to use multithreaded rendering. This is only supported on Metal.
Static BatchingA technique Unity uses to draw GameObjects on the screen that combines static (non-moving) GameObjects into big Meshes, and renders them in a faster way. More info See in Glossary		Enable this option to use Static batching.
Dynamic BatchingAn automatic Unity process which attempts to render multiple meshes as if they were a single mesh for optimized graphics performance. The technique transforms all of the GameObject vertices on the CPU and groups many similar vertices together. More info See in Glossary		Check this box to use Dynamic Batching on your build (enabled by default).
Compute Skinning		Enable this option to use DX11/ES3 GPU compute skinningThe process of binding bone joints to the vertices of a character’s mesh or ‘skin’. Performed with an external tool, such as Blender or Autodesk Maya. More info See in Glossary , which frees up CPU resources.
Graphics Jobs (Experimental)		Enable this option to instruct Unity to offload graphics tasks (render loops) to worker threads running on other CPU cores. This is to reduce the time spent in Camera.Render on the main thread, which is often a bottleneck. Note: This feature is experimental. It may not deliver a performance improvement for your project, and may introduce new crashes.
Texture compression format		Choose between ASTC, ETC2 and ETC (ETC1 for RGB, ETC2 for RGBA). See texture compression format overview for more information on how to pick the right format. See Texture compression settings for more details on how this interacts with the texture compression setting in the Build Settings.
Normal Map Encoding		Choose XYZ or DXT5nm-style to set the normal mapA type of Bump Map texture that allows you to add surface detail such as bumps, grooves, and scratches to a model which catch the light as if they are represented by real geometry. See in Glossary encoding. This setting affects the encoding scheme and compressionA method of storing data that reduces the amount of storage space it requires. See Texture Compression, Animation Compression, Audio Compression, Build Compression. See in Glossary format used for normal maps. DXT5nm-style normal maps are of higher quality, but more expensive to decode in shadersA program that runs on the GPU. More info See in Glossary .
Lightmap Encoding		Choose Low Quality, Normal Quality, or High Quality to set the lightmapA pre-rendered texture that contains the effects of light sources on static objects in the scene. Lightmaps are overlaid on top of scene geometry to create the effect of lighting. More info See in Glossary encoding. This setting affects the encoding scheme and compression format of the lightmaps.
HDRhigh dynamic range See in Glossary CubemapA collection of six square textures that can represent the reflections in an environment or the skybox drawn behind your geometry. The six squares form the faces of an imaginary cube that surrounds an object; each face represents the view along the directions of the world axes (up, down, left, right, forward and back). More info See in Glossary Encoding		Choose Low Quality, Normal Quality, or High Quality to set the HDR Cubemap encoding. This setting affects the encoding scheme and compression format of the HDR Cubemaps.
Lightmap Streaming Enabled		Whether to use Mipmap Streaming for lightmaps. Unity applies this setting to all lightmaps when it generates them. Note: To use this setting, you must enable the Texture Streaming Quality setting.
Streaming Priority		Set the priority for all lightmaps in the Mipmap Streaming system. Unity applies this setting to all lightmaps when it generates them. Positive numbers give higher priority. Valid values range from –128 to 127.
Enable Frame Timing Stats		Enable this option to gather CPU/GPU frame timing statistics.
Swap Chain Bit Depth		Select the number of bits in each color channel for swap chain buffers. Only available if HDR Mode is enabled.
Bit Depth 10		Unity will use the R10G10B10A2 buffer format and Rec2020 primaries with ST2084 PQ encoding.
Bit Depth 16		Unity will use the R16G16B16A16 buffer format and Rec709 primaries with linear color (no encoding).
Virtual Texturing		Indicates whether to enable Virtual Texturing. Note: Virtual Texturing isn’t compatible with Android.
Shader precision model		Controls the default precision of samplers used in shaders. See Shader data types and precision for more details.
360 Stereo Capture		Indicates whether Unity can capture stereoscopic 360 images and videos. When enabled, Unity compiles additional shader variants to support 360 capture (currently only on Windows OSX). When enabled, enable_360_capture keyword is added during the Stereo RenderCubemap call. Note that this keyword is not triggered outside the Stereo RenderCubemap function. For more information, see Stereo 360 Image and Video Capture.

Vulkan Settings

Property	Description
SRGB Write Mode	Enable this option to allow Graphics.SetSRGBWrite() renderer to toggle the sRGB write mode during runtime. That is, if you want to temporarily turn off Linear-to-sRGB write color conversion, you can use this property to achieve that. Enabling this has a negative impact on performance on mobile tile-based GPUs; therefore, do NOT enable this for mobile.
Number of swapchain buffers	Set this option to 2 for double-buffering, or 3 for triple-buffering to use with Vulkan renderer. This setting may help with latency on some platforms, but in most cases you should not change this from the default value of 3. Double-buffering might have a negative impact on performance. Do not use this setting on Android.
Acquire swapchain image late as possible	If enabled, Vulkan delays acquiring the backbuffer until after it renders the frame to an offscreen image. Vulkan uses a staging image to achieve this. Enabling this setting causes an extra blit when presenting the backbuffer. This setting, in combination with double-buffering, can improve performance. However, it also can cause performance issues because the additional blit takes up bandwidth.
Recycle command buffers	Indicates whether to recycle or free CommandBuffers after Unity executes them.

Mac App Store Options

The properties in this section are only relevant to macOS. For more information, see macOS Player Settings.

Configuration

Property		Description
Scripting BackendA framework that powers scripting in Unity. Unity supports three different scripting backends depending on target platform: Mono, .NET and IL2CPP. Universal Windows Platform, however, supports only two: .NET and IL2CPP. More info See in Glossary		Choose the scripting backend you want to use. The scripting backend determines how Unity compiles and executes C# code in your Project.
	Mono	Compiles C# code into .NET Common Intermediate Language (CIL) and executes that CIL using a Common Language Runtime. For more information, see MonoA scripting backend used in Unity. More info See in Glossary .
	IL2CPP	Compiles C# code into CIL, converts the CIL to C++ and then compiles that C++ into native machine code, which executes directly at run time. See IL2CPPA Unity-developed scripting back-end which you can use as an alternative to Mono when building projects for some platforms. More info See in Glossary for more information.
API Compatibility Level	Choose which .NET APIs you can use in your project. This setting can affect compatibility with third-party libraries. However, it has no effect on Editor-specific code (code in an Editor directory, or within an Editor-specific Assembly Definition). Tip: If you are having problems with a third-party assembly, you can try the suggestion in the API Compatibility Level section below.
	.Net Standard	Compatible with .NET Standard 2.0. Produces smaller builds and has full cross-platform support.
	.Net Framework	Compatible with the .NET Framework 4 (which includes everything in the .NET Standard 2.0 profile as well as additional APIs). Choose this option when usng libraries that access APIs not included in .NET Standard 2.0. Produces larger builds and any additional APIs available are not necessarily supported on all platforms. See Referencing additional class library assemblies for more information.
IL2CPP Code Generation		Defines how Unity manages IL2CPP code generation. This option is only available if you use the IL2CPP scripting backend.
	Faster runtime	Generates code optimized for runtime performance. This setting is enabled by default.
	Faster (smaller) builds)	Generates code optimized for build size and iteration. This setting generates less code and produces a smaller build, but may reduce runtime performance, especially for generic code. Use this option when faster build times are important, such as when iterating on changes.
C++ Compiler Configuration		Choose the C++ compiler configuration used when compiling IL2CPP generated code. Note: This property is disabled unless Scripting Backend is set to IL2CPP.
Use incremental GC		Uses the incremental garbage collector, which spreads garbage collection over several frames to reduce garbage collection-related spikes in frame duration. For more information, see Automatic Memory Management.
Allow downloads over HTTP	Indicates whether to allow downloading content over HTTP. The options are Not allowed, Allowed in Development builds only, and Always allowed. The default option is Not allowed due to the recommended protocol being HTTPS, which is more secure.
Active Input Handling	Chooses how to handle input from users.
	Input Manager (old)	Use the default Input window.
	Input System (Preview)	Use the newer Input system. The Input System is provided as a preview package for this release. To try a preview of the Input System, install the InputSystem package.
	Both	Use both systems side by side.

Shader Variant Loading

Use these settings to control how much memory shaders use at runtime.

Setting	Function
Default chunk size (MB)	Sets the maximum size of compressed shader variant data chunks Unity stores in your built application for all platforms. The default is 16. See Shader loading for more information.
Default chunk count	Sets the default limit on how many decompressed chunks Unity keeps in memory on all platforms. The default is 0, which means there’s no limit.
Override	Enables overriding Default chunk size and Default chunk count for this build target.
Chunk size (MB)	Overrides the value of Default chunk size (MB) on this build target.
Chunk count	Overrides the value of Default chunk count on this build target.

API Compatibility Level

You can choose your mono API compatibility level for all targets. Sometimes a 3rd-party .NET library uses functionality that is outside of your .NET compatibility level. To understand what’s going on in such cases, and how to best fix it, try following these suggestions:

1. Install ILSpy for Windows.
2. Drag the .NET assemblies for the API compatilibity level you are having issues with into ILSpy. You can find these under Frameworks/Mono/lib/mono/YOURSUBSET/.
3. Drag in your 3rd-party assembly.
4. Right-click your 3rd-party assembly and select Analyze.
5. In the analysis report, inspect the Depends on section. The report highlights anything that the 3rd-party assembly depends on, but that is not available in the .NET compatibility level of your choice in red.

Script Compilation

Property	Description
Scripting Define Symbols	Sets custom compilation flags. For more details, see Platform dependent compilation.
Additional Compiler Arguments	Adds entries to this list to pass additional arguments to the Roslyn compiler. Use one new entry for each additional argument. To create a new entry, click Add (+). To remove an entry, click Remove (-). When you have added all desired arguments, click Apply to include your additional arguments in future compilations. Click Revert to reset this list to the most recent applied state.
Suppress Common Warnings	Indicates whether to display the C# warnings CS0169 and CS0649.
Allow ‘unsafe’ Code	Enables support for compiling ‘unsafe’ C# code in a pre-defined assembly (for example, Assembly-CSharp.dll). For Assembly Definition Files (.asmdef), click on one of your .asmdef files and enable the option in the Inspector window that appears.
Use Deterministic Compilation	Indicates whether to prevent compilation with the -deterministic C# flag. With this setting enabled, compiled assemblies are byte-for-byte identical each time they are compiled. For more information, see Microsoft’s deterministic compiler option.
Enable Roslyn Analyzers	Indicates whether to compile user-written scriptsA piece of code that allows you to create your own Components, trigger game events, modify Component properties over time and respond to user input in any way you like. More info See in Glossary without Roslyn analyzer DLLs that might be present in your project.

Optimization

Property		Description
Prebake Collision Meshes		Adds collision data to Meshes at build time.
Keep Loaded Shaders Alive		Indicates whether to prevent shaders from being unloaded. For more information, see Shader Loading.
Preloaded Assets		Sets an array of Assets for the player to load on startup. To add new Assets, increase the value of the Size property and then set a reference to the Asset to load in the new Element box that appears.
AOT compilation options		Additional options for Ahead of Time (AOT) compilation. This helps optimize the size of the built iOS player.
Strip Engine Code		Enable this option if you want the Unity Linker tool to remove code for Unity Engine features that your Project doesn’t use. This setting is only available with the IL2CPP scripting backend. Most apps don’t use every available DLL. This option strips out DLLs that your app doesn’t use to reduce the size of the built Player. If your app is using one or more classes that would normally be stripped out under your current settings, Unity displays a debug message when you try to build the app.
Managed Stripping Level		Chooses how aggressively Unity strips unused managed (C#) code. The options are Minimal, Low, Medium, and High. When Unity builds your app, the Unity Linker process can strip unused code from the managed DLLs your Project uses. Stripping code can make the resulting executable significantly smaller, but can sometimes accidentally remove code that’s in use. For more information about these options and bytecode stripping with IL2CPP, see ManagedStrippingLevel.
Vertex Compression		Sets vertex compression per channel. This affects all the meshes in your project. Typically, Vertex Compression is used to reduce the size of mesh data in memory, reduce file size, and improve GPU performance. For more information on how to configure vertex compression and limitations of this setting, see Compressing mesh data.
Optimize Mesh Data		Enable this option to strip unused vertex attributes from the mesh used in a build. This option reduces the amount of data in the mesh, which can help reduce build size, loading times, and runtime memory usage. Warning: If you have this setting enabled, you should remember to not change material or shader settings at runtime. See PlayerSettings.stripUnusedMeshComponents for more information.
Texture MipMap Stripping		Enables mipmap stripping for all platforms. This strips unused mipmaps from Textures at build time. Unity determines unused mipmaps by comparing the value of the mipmap against the Quality Settings for the current platform. If a mipmap value is excluded from every Quality Setting for the current platform, then Unity strips those mipmaps from the build at build time. If QualitySettings.masterTextureLimit is set to a mipmap value that has been stripped, Unity will set the value to the closest mipmap value that has not been stripped.

Logging

Select what type of logging to allow in specific contexts.

• Select your preferred stack trace method by enabling the option that corresponds to each Log Type (Error, Assert, Warning, Log, and Exception) based on the type of logging you require. For example:
  
  • ScriptOnly: Logs only when running scripts.
    
  • Full: Logs all the time.
    
  • None: No logs are ever recorded.
    

See stack trace logging for more information.

Legacy

Property	Function
Clamp BlendShapes (Deprecated)	Enable the option to clamp the range of blend shape weights in SkinnedMeshRenderers.
Upload Cleared Texture Data	This is a legacy feature and currently not needed because it uses up the bandwidth. By default, this is enabled for debugging purposes. Enabling this setting clears the initial data and automatically uploads the Texture from script to the video memory.