Troubleshooting

This section addresses common problems that can arise when using Unity. The section addresses each platform separately.

Platform-specific troubleshooting

GeForce 7300 GT on macOS 10.6.4

Materials aren’t displayed correctly for GeForce 7300 GT on macOS 10.6.4 due to buggy video drivers, so the system disables deferred rendering.

Script editing

Script opens in default system text editor, even when Visual Studio is set as the script editor

This happens when Visual Studio reports that it failed to open your script. The most common cause for this is an external plug-inA set of code created outside of Unity that creates functionality in Unity. There are two kinds of plug-ins you can use in Unity: Managed plug-ins (managed .NET assemblies created with tools like Visual Studio) and Native plug-ins (platform-specific native code libraries). More info
See in Glossary (such as ReSharper) displaying a dialog at startup, requesting input from the user. This causes Visual Studio to report that it failed to open.

Graphics

Slow frame rate and/or visual artifacts

This might occur if your video card drivers aren’t up to date. Make sure you have the latest official drivers from your card vendor.

Shadows

• Shadows require certain graphics hardware support. Refer to Shadow Performance page for details.
• Make sure shadows are enabled in the Quality window.
• Shadows on Android and iOS have limitations: soft shadows aren’t available, and in 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 only a single directional light can cast shadows. There is no limit to the number of lights casting shadows in the deferred rendering path.

Some GameObjects don’t cast or receive shadows

An object’s Renderer must have Receive Shadows enabled for shadows to be rendered onto it. Also, an object must have Cast Shadows enabled to cast shadows on other objects (both are on by default).

Only opaque objects cast and receive shadows. This means that objects using the built-in Transparent or Particle shaders will not cast shadows. Usually it’s possible to use Transparent Cutout shaders for objects like fences, vegetation, etc. If you use custom written ShadersA program that runs on the GPU. More info
See in Glossary, they have to be pixel-lit and use the Geometry render queue. Objects using VertexLit shaders don’t receive shadows but are able to cast them.

Only Pixel lights cast shadows. If you want to make sure that a light always casts shadows no matter how many other lights are 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, then you can set it to Force Pixel render mode (refer to the Light reference page).