Update v FixedUpdate – Unity

Thank you Unity Answers for giving me the low down on this one. Read the full thread HERE

eric5h5 gives us a quick answer

Update runs once per frame. FixedUpdate can run once, zero, or several times per frame, depending on how many physics frames per second are set in the time settings, and how fast/slow the framerate is.

And duck gives us a further explanation

FixedUpdate should be used when applying forces, torques, or other physics-related functions – because you know it will be executed exactly in sync with the physics engine itself.

Whereas Update() can vary out of step with the physics engine, either faster or slower, depending on how much of a load the graphics are putting on the rendering engine at any given time, which – if used for physics – would give correspondingly variant physical effects!

The exception to this would be that if your scene was putting such a load on the physics engine that it approaches the point where it becomes impossible to execute the required number of physics time steps to keep up to speed with ‘real time’. This means that your game has become impossible to simulate in real time – and in this case you need to seriously think about redesigning your game! This can happen if you have large numbers of complex objects (eg, rigidbody mesh colliders) all clumped together so you have lots of many-to-many collisions occuring each step.