I'm running into some strange issues with Shader Complexity... Even default Editor Assets are red.

[PrezThompkins]

Hey, thanks for taking a look at this one.

I’ve been working on a VR game for a while, and in the last few weeks perf has been suffering.
I started looking at analytic tools, and noticed everything was in the red for Shader Complexity… Today after a lot of troubleshooting and forum-scrolling I decided to start up a fresh map to try and draw an example of what I should expect.

What I got was an empty map still showing all red across the filter.
Even the BasicShapeMaterial is saying it’s got 300 instructions, with nothing changed from how it comes in the editor.

I’ll continue working at it, and if I find a solution I’ll be sure to post it… Though I’m worried I’m at the limit of my -current- knowledge to tackle this quickly.

Anybody running into a similar issue?

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Edit for those of you who stumble across this post in 6 months with the same issue:
Forward Rendering will always have a lot of extra instruction counts, and while you should be accounting for it (i.e. You should expect far more instructions for anything lit), you also need to pay heed to the bright red on screen.

If you have some overhead to work with, and you know it, you can edit BaseEngine.ini to change MaxPixelShaderAdditiveComplexityCount to dictate the upper limit that the filter checks for. By default it’s at 2000.

[3dRaven]

It’s not normal to have red debug complexity on such a simple material.

Are you using any post processing materials that might be increasing the overall complexity?

A lot of complexity (red) usually comes from overdraw, processing many alpha channels. So most materials with blend modes other than cuttout and opaque can ramp up the complexity fast.

[Arkiras]

This is completely normal for Forward Shading, which is probably what you are using since you mentioned this is a VR project.

The complexity coloring is arbitrary, you can set it where ever you need to.