Lots of sprites always on screen

[mfcas]

I have a screen always filled with 16x16 sprites (for fullscreen full HD it will be 8100 sprites). I need to change the sprites' spriteID very often.

For now I create an array of sprites, but it takes very long to instantiate a big number of sprites, and also having such a big number of GameObjects on the screen slows things considerably.

What's the best way to make this run fast?

Can I use a tilemap and change tile's sprite id without rebuilding the whole mesh?

[unikronsoftware]

You could use the tilemap. The tilemap system updates based on partitions - default is 32x32 tiles, but user definable to be smaller or bigger. When a tile changes, a partition is marked as dirty and when you call Build, only dirty partitions are rebuilt. Could work quite well in your case.

[mfcas]

Can we expect tiles rotation by 90, 180, 270 degrees anytime soon?

[unikronsoftware]

You can vote for it on the trello, but I can't commit to any timescales.
It is high up in the tilemap requests right now, though.

[mfcas]

Voted, and removed my vote from autotile just to make it stand out more. Even 90 degrees rotation would get me a long way because I can manage the rest with flipping.
The performance is so much better when using a tilemap! I have to switch back to the sprites though, but only until the rotation gets in.

Thanks for the help!