Game built for mac has much lower graphics quality than that in the Unity Editor

Hi there. I am currently making a game for MacOS. When I try to test my game in the Unity Editor, everything is just fine. However, when I build the game to MacOS Application and run it on my MacBook 15inch Retina with Iris Pro graphics card, it seems to me that the images become blurry and aliasing, just like a very low resolution!

It is obvious that the game run in the player is much worse than that in the Unity Editor. I have tried googling all manners of solutions, including Quality settings, texture overriding and etc. Obviously none of them worked. However even though I just create an empty scene and add only one UI Label in Unity UI canvas, the quality is still annoying:


This is what it looks like in the Build Application.

This is what it looks like in the Editor.

Quality Setttings:

Fantastic - green arrow by default both in player and editor.

Pixel Light Count : 4

Texture Quality : Full Res

Anisotropic Textures : Forced On

Anti Aliasing : Disabled (Although disabled, it shouldn't be that the player has more blurs and aliases than the editor)

Unity Version : 5.5.1f1

MacOS version : 10.12.3

MacBook Pro (Retina, 15-inch, Mid 2015)

Intel Iris Pro 1536 MB

Any help would be appreciated. Thanks!

 

Just mention a bit. It seems that the built application only supports LDR rather than HDR ... I don't know whether this is the problem of Unity Editor or the MacOS system or the graphics card.

 

Important Update: I built the same game for Windows and it runs correctly. Hence I think this issue is for the MacOS System. I am currently using the newest 10.12.3.

 

Wait, when you say it looks great "in the Unity editor," are you running this (Unity) on the same system as the one you're testing on?

 

Yes of course. I am running Unity on my MacBook, and everything is just fine. I built two versions of the game, one for the MacOS and one for the Windows. I ran the MacOS version of game on the same MacBook and the aliasing and blurry effect is shown. However when I ran the Windows version of game on another computer, everything is fine. Thank you for your reply, and if you need any more information please simply tell me.

 

OK, then it can't be a problem with the system hardware or OS — if it looks great within the editor, then the system is (of course) capable of making it look great.

This means it must have something to do with the quality settings. But I know you've already fiddled with all the knobs you can think of. Hopefully somebody else will chime in with a good suggestion.

One more question though: are you running in windowed mode, or full screen? Does that make a difference?

 

I tried both running in windowed mode and full screen mode on MacOS and such an aliasing effect remains under both settings. However here is something weird when I tried windowed mode: my screen resolution is of 2880 * 1800, and when I tried a 1920 * 1200 windowed option, the game window is actually as large as about 3200 * 2000 rather than in common situations where the game window should locate totally inside my screen, which means my hardware actually rendered my game in 1920 * 1200 resolution but the OS has enlarged the window to 3200 * 2000 and potentially cause the effect.

 

Yes, it sounds as though you're somehow using the screen magnifier feature of the OS. When in this state (with the window), are you able to scroll around to different parts of the bigger-than-the-screen window by moving the mouse? And at the top, is the menu bar also magnified? Or is it just the window content?

 

I can move the window by dragging the menu bar, not by scrolling. The menu bar is not magnified. Only the windows content is influenced.

 

OK, then I don't quite understand this:

Can you post a full screenshot?

 

I has the same experience: in the editor all looks great, but when I build the game(with Fantastic quality) for Mac OS X the quality became much worse(it seems like all textures are low resolution).
I'm using: MacBook Pro (Retina, 15-inch, Mid 2015).
OS X version: 10.11.6 (15G31)
Unity version: 5.5.1f1 Personal

 

Have you checked the export settings on your textures? It's quite possible that Unity is doing exactly what it's been told to do...

 

Everyone, Mac standalone does not support retina. This has been a limitation for many years. Please vote here:
https://feedback.unity3d.com/suggestions/retina-for-os-x-standalone-builds
Tell all your friends, we need as many votes as we can possibly get.

 

I wonder if this is what the posters above are seeing?

Anyway, I agree, it's rather shocking. I don't use a Retina display myself, so I never noticed, but it's something I assumed would Just Work (tm). It's very disappointing to hear that Unity doesn't support retina displays.

I've added my vote!

 

There is another known issue that if you ever happened to build it with Resolution Dialog and selected low quality or low resolution, the setting is remembered on your computer for ever. Rebuilding or changing the resolution dialog flags won't fix it.

Try deleting these files:
~/Library/Preferences/unity.your.bundle.identifier.plist
~/Library/Application Support/Your Company Ltd
~/Library/Containers/your.bundle.identifier/
Maybe also ~/Library/Preferences/Unity but this wipes your editor settings too

Or try on another Mac and make sure you select High Quality with a high resolution.

 

Doesn't PlayerPrefs.DeleteAll() work?

 

macOS retina support is scheduled for Unity 2017.2, have a look at the Roadmap:
https://unity3d.com/de/unity/roadmap

It's listed as "On Track", so hopefully in a few month we will have this.

 

It's available right now. Go grab 2017.2

 

Hooray!

 

WebGL build on Mac is still really in bad quality for me, I am using Unity 2019.

Standalone build looks great.

Anyone has any clue what could be wrong?