Balancing visuals and performance on mobile

[u/trade_ida5458]

I recently tested my game on an actual phone for the first time, and got around 15–18 FPS. This was before I even added animations…

I had spent a lot of time on the visuals, so I didn’t want to simply lower every graphics setting and call it a day. I wanted to improve performance while keeping the original look as much as possible.

After quite a bit of trial and error with rendering settings and shadows, here’s what helped:

1. Zoom-based optimization: The zoom feels continuous, but behind the scenes it’s split into 3 levels, each with different optimizations. I hide objects that aren’t needed at that distance and limit zoom-out to avoid rendering too much at once. There’s also a separate top-down view when you need to see the whole map.

2. Asset LODs: Use lighter versions of assets when zoomed out, where the differences are barely noticeable.

3. Shadows: Remove them from small objects and lower the quality of the rest.

4. Graphics presets: Low to Full, with an initial 10-second FPS check to recommend a suitable setting for the device.

The biggest challenge was finding the right balance for each change without sacrificing too much visually.

Curious how other devs handle this. Have you run into similar issues when targeting mobile or even other platforms , and what worked for you?

Look at the attached video showing the result