diff --git a/Assets/Scripts/Game/GameAssets.cs b/Assets/Scripts/Game/GameAssets.cs
index b0db6dc..ae0063c 100644
--- a/Assets/Scripts/Game/GameAssets.cs
+++ b/Assets/Scripts/Game/GameAssets.cs
@@ -1,5 +1,6 @@
 using System.Collections;
 using System.Collections.Generic;
+using Unity.Collections;
 using UnityEngine;
 
 public class GameAssets
@@ -63,15 +64,33 @@ public class GameAssets
     }
 
     public void UploadLightmap(int lightmapNum, int width, int height, byte[] data)
+    {
+        var lightmap = GetOrCreateLightmap(lightmapNum, width, height);
+        lightmap.SetPixelData(data, 0);
+        lightmap.Apply();
+    }
+    
+    public void UploadLightmap(int lightmapNum, int width, int height, NativeArray<byte> data)
+    {
+        var lightmap = GetOrCreateLightmap(lightmapNum, width, height);
+        lightmap.SetPixelData(data, 0);
+        lightmap.Apply();
+    }
+
+    private Texture2D GetOrCreateLightmap(int lightmapNum, int width, int height)
     {
         if (!lightmaps.TryGetValue(lightmapNum, out var lightmap))
         {
-            lightmap = new Texture2D(width, height, TextureFormat.RGBA32, false) { name = $"Lightmap_{lightmapNum}", wrapMode = TextureWrapMode.Clamp };
+            lightmap = new Texture2D(width, height, TextureFormat.RGBA32, false)
+            {
+                name = $"Lightmap_{lightmapNum}",
+                wrapMode = TextureWrapMode.Clamp,
+            };
+            
             lightmaps.Add(lightmapNum, lightmap);
         }
 
-        lightmap.SetPixelData(data, 0);
-        lightmap.Apply();
+        return lightmap;
     }
 
     public bool TryGetLightmap(int lightmapNum, out Texture2D lightmap)
diff --git a/Assets/Scripts/Modules/RenderModule.Interop.cs b/Assets/Scripts/Modules/RenderModule.Interop.cs
index ac39906..d9c7e33 100644
--- a/Assets/Scripts/Modules/RenderModule.Interop.cs
+++ b/Assets/Scripts/Modules/RenderModule.Interop.cs
@@ -1,6 +1,8 @@
 using System;
 using System.Runtime.InteropServices;
 using AOT;
+using Unity.Collections;
+using Unity.Collections.LowLevel.Unsafe;
 using UnityEngine;
 using UnityEngine.Profiling;
 
@@ -138,7 +140,9 @@ public partial class RenderModule: CallbackHandler<RenderModule>
         return result;
     }
 
+#if UNITY_EDITOR
     private readonly byte[] lightmapBytes = new byte[QConstants.LightmapBlockWidth * QConstants.LightmapBlockHeight * 4];    // 32 bits per pixel
+#endif
     
     [UnmanagedFunctionPointer(CallingConvention.Cdecl)]
     private delegate bool UploadLightmapCallback(IntPtr context, int lmap, IntPtr data);
@@ -146,13 +150,26 @@ public partial class RenderModule: CallbackHandler<RenderModule>
     [MonoPInvokeCallback(typeof(UploadLightmapCallback))]
     private static bool Callback_UploadLightmap(IntPtr context, int lmap, IntPtr data)
     {
+        bool result;
         Profiler.BeginSample("UploadLightmap");
         
-        // TODO: this is a fairly pointless additional data copy step; we could probably make this faster by wrapping the IntPtr directly into a NativeArray
+#if UNITY_EDITOR
+        // This is fairly pointless additional data copy step; the below NativeArray approach is faster and doesn't
+        // produce any garbage, but it doesn't work inside the Unity Editor for some reason.
         var self = GetSelf(context);
         Marshal.Copy(data, self.lightmapBytes, 0, self.lightmapBytes.Length);
-        bool result = self.UploadLightmap(lmap, QConstants.LightmapBlockWidth, QConstants.LightmapBlockHeight, self.lightmapBytes);
-        
+        result = self.UploadLightmap(lmap, QConstants.LightmapBlockWidth, QConstants.LightmapBlockHeight, self.lightmapBytes);
+#else        
+        unsafe
+        {
+            // More efficient code path that passes the native byte buffer directly to the Texture2D's pixel data
+            var dataArray = NativeArrayUnsafeUtility.ConvertExistingDataToNativeArray<byte>(data.ToPointer(),
+                QConstants.LightmapBlockWidth * QConstants.LightmapBlockHeight * 4, Allocator.None);
+            
+            result = GetSelf(context).UploadLightmap(lmap, QConstants.LightmapBlockWidth, QConstants.LightmapBlockHeight, dataArray);
+        }
+#endif
+
         Profiler.EndSample();
         return result;
     }
diff --git a/Assets/Scripts/Modules/RenderModule.cs b/Assets/Scripts/Modules/RenderModule.cs
index bf75e35..3cd480b 100644
--- a/Assets/Scripts/Modules/RenderModule.cs
+++ b/Assets/Scripts/Modules/RenderModule.cs
@@ -1,4 +1,5 @@
 using System.Collections.Generic;
+using Unity.Collections;
 using UnityEngine;
 using UnityEngine.Rendering;
 
@@ -77,6 +78,15 @@ public partial class RenderModule
         return true;
     }
     
+    private bool UploadLightmap(int lightmapNum, int width, int height, NativeArray<byte> data)
+    {
+        if (width == 0 || height == 0)
+            return false;
+        
+        uq.GameAssets.UploadLightmap(lightmapNum, width, height, data);
+        return true;
+    }
+    
     private void SetupView(QVec3 origin, QVec3 angles, QLeaf viewLeaf)
     {
         var cam = uq.Camera;
diff --git a/Assets/Scripts/UniQuake.cs b/Assets/Scripts/UniQuake.cs
index 7c513ec..a537829 100644
--- a/Assets/Scripts/UniQuake.cs
+++ b/Assets/Scripts/UniQuake.cs
@@ -2,6 +2,7 @@ using System;
 using System.Collections.Generic;
 using System.Text;
 using UnityEngine;
+using UnityEngine.Profiling;
 
 public partial class UniQuake: MonoBehaviour
 {
@@ -133,6 +134,8 @@ public partial class UniQuake: MonoBehaviour
 
         logHandler = CollectLog;    // Collect and dump logs to Unity once per frame
 
+        Profiler.BeginSample("QuakeEngineUpdate");
+        
         try
         {
             UniQuake_Update(Time.deltaTime);
@@ -152,6 +155,8 @@ public partial class UniQuake: MonoBehaviour
             Shutdown();
         }
         
+        Profiler.EndSample();
+        
         FlushLog();
     }
 
diff --git a/ProjectSettings/ProjectSettings.asset b/ProjectSettings/ProjectSettings.asset
index 9bdbf4c..ebbe776 100644
--- a/ProjectSettings/ProjectSettings.asset
+++ b/ProjectSettings/ProjectSettings.asset
@@ -609,7 +609,7 @@ PlayerSettings:
   managedStrippingLevel: {}
   incrementalIl2cppBuild: {}
   suppressCommonWarnings: 1
-  allowUnsafeCode: 0
+  allowUnsafeCode: 1
   useDeterministicCompilation: 1
   useReferenceAssemblies: 1
   enableRoslynAnalyzers: 1