# 6. Quest Cost and Quality Tiers Part of [[Post-Processing]]. Previous: [[5. HDRP Comparison]]. Next: [[7. Post-Processing Pitfalls]]. > [!note] Verification status > Quest *frame* budgets (72 FPS, ~13.9 ms, draw-call and triangle ranges) are from Meta's official performance page, cited in [[6. Quest Performance Budgets]]. Meta warns that full-screen post-processing and overdraw are typical fill-rate killers. **Meta does not publish a per-effect URP whitelist** on that page, so the "conservative list" below is engineering judgment, marked as such, and must be proven with OVR Metrics + the Frame Debugger on a headset. VR work targets **Unity 6.3 LTS (6000.3.27f2+)**. **Not tested on a Quest 2 for this write-up.** ## 6.1 Why volumes are expensive in VR Every enabled full-screen effect is at least one extra pass over both eyes' buffers (and sometimes more, as with multi-iteration Bloom). On a Quest 2 you already have: - Stereo rendering - A 13.9 ms budget - A tile-based GPU that hates large overdrawn transparents *and* extra full-screen passes A desktop "cinematic" stack (Bloom + DoF + Motion Blur + CA + Grain + a heavy vignette) can look like a different game in the Editor and still be a missed-frame machine on a headset. Profile it ([[4. Frame Debugger and GPU]], [[6. Quest Performance Budgets]]). If `ExecuteRenderGraph` shows passes you did not remember enabling, check the **Default Volume** as well as the scene. ## 6.2 A conservative Quest list (unofficial) Treat this as a **starting hypothesis**, then measure: | Effect | On Quest 2? | |---|---| | Tonemapping | Often **yes**, a cheap, useful grade | | Color Adjustments, White Balance | **Yes**, if you need a look; these are not usually the expensive ones | | Bloom | **Maybe**, one low-iteration / low-intensity bloom, or none. Measure. | | Vignette | **Maybe**, a very slight one; heavy vignette plus comfort is a bad mix in VR | | Film Grain, Chromatic Aberration, Lens Distortion | **Usually no** for a standing look; maybe a *short* gameplay pulse, measured | | Depth of Field | **No** for gameplay. Conflict with how the eyes focus in VR, and it is expensive | | Motion Blur | **No** in VR | | Panini Projection | Only if you have a measured reason | | SSAO (renderer feature) | **Probably no**, or the lowest quality, measured | | MSAA | A quality setting, not a volume; it interacts badly with heavy shading. Follow [[5.Quest 2 Performance and Rendering]] | Put these decisions in a **Quality level** (part 1): `Desktop.High` may have Bloom + SSAO; `Quest2` should have its own URP asset and a stripped Volume Profile, not "the desktop profile at 0.5 weight." ## 6.3 A lab you can actually run 1. Build the courtyard walk on Quest 2 with **no** scene post-processing (Default Volume as empty as you can legally make it). Record FPS and stale frames. 2. Enable only Tonemapping + Color Adjustments. Measure again. 3. Add Bloom. Measure again. 4. Stop at the last step that still holds 72 FPS with almost no stale frames. Write the winning list into the Quest quality volume. Students trust a table they produced. ## Official docs - Meta performance: https://developers.meta.com/horizon/documentation/unity/unity-perf/ - [[6. Quest Performance Budgets]], [[5.Quest 2 Performance and Rendering]]