Selecting a Rendering Backend for Dual‑Platform 2D Games in Godot 4

Goal

Determine the most appropriate rendering backend for a 2D title that targets both high‑end desktop PCs and low‑end Android devices.

Constraints & Uncertainty

The project must run on Vulkan‑capable desktops and on devices that may only support a subset of Vulkan features. Light2D nodes and sprite batching are central to the visual style, yet the current documentation does not quantify how each backend handles 2D canvas batching or Light2D performance on constrained GPUs. Additionally, switching the rendering_method project setting after scenes are loaded can leave stale shader caches, potentially affecting runtime performance.

Unresolved Questions

• How does the Light2D implementation differ in performance and shader complexity between Forward+ and Mobile on low‑end Android GPUs?
• What are the measurable impacts of canvas batching under each backend, especially when the same scene is rendered on desktop versus mobile?
• Does changing the rendering_method at runtime reliably purge cached shaders, or can stale binaries cause frame‑rate stalls on target devices?