Creating Profiler module detail panels

The module details panel appears in the bottom of the Profiler window when you select a module. You can customize this section to display additional details relevant to your module or to display a custom visualization of your performance data.

To create a module details panel for your ProfilerA window that helps you to optimize your game. It shows how much time is spent in the various areas of your game. For example, it can report the percentage of time spent rendering, animating, or in your game logic. More info
See in Glossary module:

Create a module details panel Controller script to draw a custom module details panel.
Create a Profiler module script to connect the controller to your profiler module .

Creating a script to control the module details panel

Use the ProfilerModuleViewController base class to customize the module details panel in the Profiler window. To do this, create a script that controls what appears in the module details panel when you select a specific module.

The script must do the following:

Define a public constructor for the view controller that calls the base constructor base(profilerWindow).
Override CreateView to build the custom module details panel.

For example:


 public class CustomDetailsViewController : ProfilerModuleViewController
 {   
    public CustomDetailsViewController(ProfilerWindow profilerWindow) : base(profilerWindow) { }

    protected override VisualElement CreateView()
    {
        // Create your UI.
    }
}

Module details panel controller script example

The following example script creates a module details panel controller that draws a single label in the module details panel that displays text:

The script example does the following:

Defines and creates a label to display the value you want to capture, and adds this label to the module details panel.
Defines a constructor to control the module details panel and uses CreateView to build the custom module details panel.
Populates the label with data from the current frame, and updates the label after each frame.
Fetches a counter value as a string that you can display in the module details panel.
Specifies the text to display in the module details panel, and tells the Profiler to automatically update it each frame.

 using UnityEditor;
 using UnityEditorInternal;
 using Unity.Profiling.Editor;
 using UnityEngine.UIElements;
 
 public class TankEffectsDetailsViewController : ProfilerModuleViewController
 {
    // Define a label, which will display the total particle count for tank trails in the selected frame.
    Label m_TankTrailParticleCountLabel;

    // Define a constructor for the view controller, which calls the base constructor with the Profiler Window passed from the module.
    public TankEffectsDetailsViewController(ProfilerWindow profilerWindow) : base(profilerWindow) { }
    {
        var view = CreateView();

        // Populate the view with the current data for the selected frame. 
        ReloadData();

        // Be notified when the selected frame index in the Profiler Window changes, so we can update the label.
        ProfilerWindow.SelectedFrameIndexChanged += OnSelectedFrameIndexChanged;

        return view;
    }
    
    protected virtual VisualElement CreateView()
    {
        var view = new VisualElement();
        
        // Create the label and add it to the view.
        m_TankTrailParticleCountLabel = new Label() { style = { paddingTop = 8, paddingLeft = 8 } };
        view.Add(m_TankTrailParticleCountLabel);
    }
    

    // Override Dispose to do any cleanup of the view when it is destroyed. This is a standard C# Dispose pattern.
    protected override void Dispose(bool disposing)
    {
        if (!disposing)
            return;

        // Unsubscribe from the Profiler window event that we previously subscribed to.
        ProfilerWindow.SelectedFrameIndexChanged -= OnSelectedFrameIndexChanged;

        base.Dispose(disposing);
    }

    protected virtual void ReloadData()
    {
        // Retrieve the TankTrailParticleCount counter value from the Profiler as a formatted string.
        var selectedFrameIndexInt32 = System.Convert.ToInt32(ProfilerWindow.selectedFrameIndex);
        var value = ProfilerDriver.GetFormattedCounterValue(selectedFrameIndexInt32, GameStatistics.TanksCategory.Name, GameStatistics.TankTrailParticleCountName);

        // Update the label's text with the value.
        m_TankTrailParticleCountLabel.text = $"The value of '{GameStatistics.TankTrailParticleCountName}' in the selected frame is {value}.";
    }

    void OnSelectedFrameIndexChanged(long selectedFrameIndex)
    {
        // Update the label with the current data for the newly selected frame.
        ReloadData();
    }
}

Tip: You can use Unity’s UI(User Interface) Allows a user to interact with your application. Unity currently supports three UI systems. More info
See in Glossary Toolkit to build a custom UI for the module details panel. For more information, refer to UI Toolkit.

The following example image shows a custom module details panel that belongs to a custom Adaptive Performance module:

Connecting a custom module details panel to a Profiler module

To display a custom module details panel, you need to instantiate the module details panel controller when you select your Profiler module. To do this, override CreateDetailsViewController to create and draw a new module details panel controller. Unity then invokes this method when it displays your module’s details panel.

The following code example instantiates a custom module details panel for a module called TankEffectsProfilerModule:


 using Unity.Profiling.Editor;

 [System.Serializable]
 [ProfilerModuleMetadata("Tank Effects")]
 public class TankEffectsProfilerModule : ProfilerModule
 {
    static readonly ProfilerCounterDescriptor[] k_Counters = new ProfilerCounterDescriptor[]
    {
        new ProfilerCounterDescriptor(GameStatistics.TankTrailParticleCountName, GameStatistics.TanksCategory),
        new ProfilerCounterDescriptor(GameStatistics.ShellExplosionParticleCountName, GameStatistics.TanksCategory),
        new ProfilerCounterDescriptor(GameStatistics.TankExplosionParticleCountName, GameStatistics.TanksCategory),
    };

    public TankEffectsProfilerModule() : base(k_Counters) { }

    public override ProfilerModuleViewController CreateDetailsViewController()
    {
        return new TankEffectsDetailsViewController(ProfilerWindow);
    }
}

Visualizing additional counters in the module details panel

You can display additional profiler countersPlaced in code with the ProfilerCounter API to track metrics, such as the number of enemies spawned in your game. More info
See in Glossary that aren’t included in your module’s chart view. This is useful when you want to display additional data for a selected frame.

The Profiler automatically captures the categories of all counters that belong to a module’s chart view when that module is active. To capture additional counters, write a script to tell the Profiler to capture specific categories when your module is active.

For example, the following script uses the autoEnabledCategoryNames constructor argument to specify the Scripts and Memory categories. The script enables these categories when the module is active:

 
using Unity.Profiling;
using Unity.Profiling.Editor;

[System.Serializable]
[ProfilerModuleMetadata("Tank Effects & Memory")]
public class TankEffectsAndMemoryProfilerModule : ProfilerModule
{
   static readonly ProfilerCounterDescriptor[] k_Counters = new ProfilerCounterDescriptor[]
   {
       new ProfilerCounterDescriptor(GameStatistics.TankTrailParticleCountName, ProfilerCategory.Scripts),
       new ProfilerCounterDescriptor(GameStatistics.ShellExplosionParticleCountName, ProfilerCategory.Scripts),
       new ProfilerCounterDescriptor(GameStatistics.TankExplosionParticleCountName, ProfilerCategory.Scripts),
   };

   // Enable the ProfilerCategory.Scripts and ProfilerCategory.Memory categories when the module is active.
   static readonly string[] k_AutoEnabledCategoryNames = new string[]
   {
       ProfilerCategory.Scripts.Name,
       ProfilerCategory.Memory.Name
   };

   public override ProfilerModuleViewController CreateDetailsViewController()
   {
       return new TankEffectsAndMemoryDetailsViewController(ProfilerWindow);
   }
   
   // Pass the auto-enabled category names to the base constructor.
   public TankEffectsProfilerModule() : base(k_Counters, autoEnabledCategoryNames: k_AutoEnabledCategoryNames) { }
}

The following example code displays the built-in Mesh Memory profiler counter alongside TankTrailParticleCount:

 using UnityEditor;
 using UnityEditorInternal;
 using Unity.Profiling.Editor;
 using UnityEngine.UIElements;
 
 public class TankEffectsAndMemoryDetailsViewController : TankEffectsDetailsViewController
 {
    // Define a label, which will display the total mesh memory in the selected frame
    Label m_MeshMemoryLabel;
    
    protected override VisualElement CreateView()
    {
        var view = base.CreateView();
        
        // Create the label and add it to the view.
        m_MeshMemoryLabel = new Label() { style = { paddingTop = 8, paddingLeft = 8 } };
        view.Add(m_MeshMemoryLabel);
    }
    
    protected override void ReloadData()
    {
        base.ReloadData();
        
        // Retrieve the Mesh Memory counter value from the Profiler as a formatted string.
        var selectedFrameIndexInt32 = System.Convert.ToInt32(ProfilerWindow.selectedFrameIndex);
        var value = ProfilerDriver.GetFormattedCounterValue(selectedFrameIndexInt32, ProfilerArea.Memory, "Mesh Memory");

        // Update the label's text with the value.
        m_MeshMemoryLabel.text = $"The value of 'Mesh Memory' in the selected frame is {value}.";
    }
}

Additional resources

Creating Profiler modules

Profiler Module Editor reference