Digital Foundry Article Technical Discussion [2024]

[davis.anthony]

That’s certainly one way to look at it. I don’t agree but that’s ok…

What's there to disagree about?

It's 100% the developers responsibility to ensure they manage their rendering budgets correctly, EPIC do not force any developer to use any feature or target any specific frame rate or resolution.

That's 100% a developer decision.

 

[Lurkmass]

I get you. My problem is that this is Epics second or 3rd consecutive miss on consoles. UE3 really struggled for a while on consoles. UE4 on the ps4/xb1 was rough especially due to the cpu. Features had to be scaled back. Now with UE5, it's again another feature-set miss. That's 3 strikes and they're out. Theses guys really struggle to develop performant features that can run on console hardware. Even on pc, it's a joke. It's slowly making the 4090 look like a 1440p card.

UE5 is arguably more optimized on consoles than many other engines that attempts to use hardware ray tracing ...

Epic Games even goes as far to apply console exclusive optimizations. Unreal engine traditionally struggled on consoles solely down to it's origin as a PC centric game engine which is why every major releases prior to it's fourth major iteration (UE4) wasn't exactly a "breakout success" on consoles and for the longest time at the engine logic side (CPU), Epic refused to embrace data oriented design until very recently ...

Smaller publishers or other independent developers today with custom engines are even bigger offenders than Epic Games with UE with regards to console performance optimizations ...

 

[Boss]

UE5 is arguably more optimized on consoles than many other engines that attempts to use hardware ray tracing ...

Epic Games even goes as far to apply console exclusive optimizations. Unreal engine traditionally struggled on consoles solely down to it's origin as a PC centric game engine which is why every major releases prior to it's fourth major iteration (UE4) wasn't exactly a "breakout success" on consoles and for the longest time at the engine logic side (CPU), Epic refused to embrace data oriented design until very recently ...

Smaller publishers or other independent developers today with custom engines are even bigger offenders than Epic Games with UE with regards to console performance optimizations ...

I’m not so sure man, you’re going to have to name those engines. I don’t think many other devs push for raytracing and when they do, they’re very smart about when and where it’s used. The doom devs for example, or the Spider-Man devs for example. Even I think snowdrop devs for avatar are trying. With ue5, if you use either lumen or nanite, games pretty much guaranteed to be a slideshow. Other than Fortnite, I can’t recall any ue5 games with acceptable performance.

 

[cwjs]

Not a necessary seeming remaster to me, the first game looks quite a bit better overall. Seems like they hit their locked target fps on all three platforms though.

 

[arandomguy]

What's there to disagree about?

It's 100% the developers responsibility to ensure they manage their rendering budgets correctly, EPIC do not force any developer to use any feature or target any specific frame rate or resolution.

That's 100% a developer decision.

I feel this depends on perspective here with respect to the marketing

UE5 did basically cross market and launch with the PS5, and promotion for the new features as been heavily linked with the PS5. Which means I think it is fair on some level that that there is an implication that the host of features would be implementable on the PS5.

It's basically that question that's been asked already is when or are we ever going to be seeing the Matrix Awakens equivalent on a shipping PS5 game? How much of the issue is UE5 over promising vesus the developers not utilizing it correctly?

 

[Boss]

I feel this depends on perspective here with respect to the marketing

UE5 did basically cross market and launch with the PS5, and promotion for the new features as been heavily linked with the PS5. Which means I think it is fair on some level that that there is an implication that the host of features would be implementable on the PS5.

It's basically that question that's been asked already is when or are we ever going to be seeing the Matrix Awakens equivalent on a shipping PS5 game? How much of the issue is UE5 over promising vesus the developers not utilizing it correctly?

They also did this on ps4 with their elementals demo which was also noticeably worse than pc. They just create features which aren’t performant on the platforms they advertise it on. Of the engines used, it’s definitely one of the worst in terms of performance, shader compilation management, resource utilization(render thread).

 

[Lurkmass]

I’m not so sure man, you’re going to have to name those engines. I don’t think many other devs push for raytracing and when they do, they’re very smart about when and where it’s used. The doom devs for example, or the Spider-Man devs for example. Even I think snowdrop devs for avatar are trying. With ue5, if you use either lumen or nanite, games pretty much guaranteed to be a slideshow. Other than Fortnite, I can’t recall any ue5 games with acceptable performance.

Well for starters there's CD Projekt's RED engine which got obsoleted in favour of UE5 since their last AAA project didn't go down very well on consoles and Remedy's Northlight has relatively middling results on consoles ...

Avatar looks really polished but I don't think it's truly pushing the boundaries real-time graphics since it still has asset pop-ins, cascaded/screen space shadows, and low quality acceleration structure. It's a similar case for Capcom's RE engine too ...

Unless you're only looking for polished last generation real-time rendering, there's not many better alternatives that do NOT come from big publishers in comparison to UE5's high-end rendering features. When we look at the likes of Red engine it's reasonable to see why many smaller publishers or independent developers can't trust themselves that their own hypothetical solutions WON'T end up that way ...

 

[Andrew Lauritzen]

Other than Fortnite, I can’t recall any ue5 games with acceptable performance.

Jusant perhaps? But for the sake of the argument about game vs engine, isn't even a single example sufficient to prove it is possible?

 

[arandomguy]

I'm not in the camp that thinks UE5 doesn't have "acceptable performance" as that's way to vague and undefined of a statement.

But I'm not sure if Fortnite and Jusant are really what people are thinking of compared to what was shown in the Lumen in the Land of Nanite and Matrix Awakens demos.

Granted it's a marketing versus reality (at least so far) issue and not something singular to UE5.

 

[Boss]

Jusant perhaps? But for the sake of the argument about game vs engine, isn't even a single example sufficient to prove it is possible?

I do not think so at all. It is proven so when even less experienced developers for the most part can put out something that is performant. In the case of UE5, putting a performant game is an exception not the rule. As it was with shader compilation stutters in UE4. When too many devs have problems, it's the engine's fault. Either the information isn't clear to the devs or it could be a myriad of technical issues or something else. At the end, if 3rd party devs struggle with the engine, it's in the engine's developers best interest to understand why and try to address those concerns. The "gamers" sentiment around ue5 is not great and it doesn't seem to me that epic particularly cares. My defacto stance on UE5 games is that they're not to be purchased. Only played when gotten for free through the epic store, game pass, ps+, etc.

 

[Below2D]

I think Lumen might be doing a number on this game. The light of the sun bouncing around in outdoors scenes cripples the frame rate.

 

[Boss]

Well for starters there's CD Projekt's RED engine which got obsoleted in favour of UE5 since their last AAA project didn't go down very well on consoles and Remedy's Northlight has relatively middling results on consoles ...

Is CD Projekt's sunsetting of the RED engine an engine issue or a project mismanagement scapegoat issue? After reading stories about the troubled development and a serious lack of actual progress during the first half of the project, I don't think the engine was the issue.

Avatar looks really polished but I don't think it's truly pushing the boundaries real-time graphics since it still has asset pop-ins, cascaded/screen space shadows, and low quality acceleration structure. It's a similar case for Capcom's RE engine too ...

Unless you're only looking for polished last generation real-time rendering, there's not many better alternatives that do NOT come from big publishers in comparison to UE5's high-end rendering features. When we look at the likes of Red engine it's reasonable to see why many smaller publishers or independent developers can't trust themselves that their own hypothetical solutions WON'T end up that way ...

Perhaps, but if the alternative's is EPICs engine which has lead to several games with not great performance, I'm not really interested. I'll have to use my money elsewhere I guess.

 

[Lurkmass]

Is CD Projekt's sunsetting of the RED engine an engine issue or a project mismanagement scapegoat issue? After reading stories about the troubled development and a serious lack of actual progress during the first half of the project, I don't think the engine was the issue.

On a technical surface, Cyberpunk on consoles clearly exhibited some fundamental design issues on a deeper level with their technology ...

Perhaps, but if the alternative's is EPICs engine which has lead to several games with not great performance, I'm not really interested. I'll have to use my money elsewhere I guess.

Talos Principle 2 had reasonable performance on consoles with UE5's high-end features and we're still left with smaller publishers/developers who want to spend most of their budget on producing the game itself over making an engine that might not last for another project if RED engine being constantly gutted is an example to go by ...

 

[Andrew Lauritzen]

At the end, if 3rd party devs struggle with the engine, it's in the engine's developers best interest to understand why and try to address those concerns.

Sure, but you seem to be implying that you think that leads into what I take as your main argument:

It is proven so when even less experienced developers for the most part can put out something that is performant.

That doesn't follow, nor do I really agree with that notion in general. While it would obviously be great if my 10 year old son could make a highly performant AAA game with all of the fancy new tech in UE5, the tools are simply too powerful and complicated for someone to understand fully in a short period. There are separate tools for less experienced developers: UEFN and Twinmotion for instance, not to mention a myriad of non-UE stuff. UE has always aimed at the high end part of this spectrum; you get a lot of power, but you have to accept some amount of complexity.

The new rendering tech in UE5 makes some things a lot easier, but any sufficiently powerful new tool comes with its own complexities. I think we've seen several examples of cases where small dev teams have been able to punch higher than they otherwise would have because of the tech (ex. Jusant, Robocop come to mind). Games that arguably would never have been covered on DF in the past because they were too small and niche are hitting a visual bar that makes them worth looking at, for good or for bad. I don't think anyone would tell you that means you don't still need a high degree of experience and time to polish a game if you're going to shoot for bleeding edge rendering features, and even more so with new tech. Maybe that'll change one day, but as long as performance remains limited, I sort of doubt it.

Honestly for Brothers my take is just they shouldn't have bothered with a performance mode. While 60fps (or more!) is great, Brothers is a perfect example of a game that really doesn't need it. Why let people shoot themselves in the foot if they aren't going to spend the time to optimize it; the 30fps mode seemed fine from the video.

The "gamers" sentiment around ue5 is not great and it doesn't seem to me that epic particularly cares. My defacto stance on UE5 games is that they're not to be purchased.

It's perhaps easy to forget on Beyond3D, but people who know - or care - what game engine something uses are still in the vast minority. The audience for game engines and related technology is developers. The audience for the games is the consumers. For your average consumer there's no reason to know or care what game engine something uses; just evaluate the game on its own merits or faults.

 

[Remij]

Like I've said before, Unreal Engine in its later forms has shifted from being a gaming focused engine, to a multi-industry production driven engine. For better or worse. In its pursuit to be an all-in-one defacto engine meant to bridge industries, it has perhaps promised a bit more than what today's console class hardware is truly capable of.

As the saying goes, "With great power comes great responsibility"... Unreal just gave developers a lot more power, but it's their responsibility to use it in a way which is optimal for their specific project. I do think Epic has perhaps lost a bit of focus on the gaming side.. where certain outstanding issues have continued to fester longer than they should have.

Still, it's important to have forward looking technology, even if the hardware of today isn't up to the task completely. It will catch up eventually. And like I've also said before... we've really yet to see a big AAA studio release an Unreal Engine 5 game. There's some big ones with games in development, and those studios have teams of programmers which will have a much better understanding of how to optimally implement these technologies into their games.

 

[Shifty Geezer]

I do not think so at all.

1) If there is any game that runs well on UE5, that shows UE5 isn't the problem.

2) Devs don't have to use features of an engine if they don't run well. The fact a game engine can scale up to uber levels doesn't mean that needs to happen. Use UE5 and use baked lights instead of Lumen - that's an option. Nanite too demanding? Don't use it. Use the same techniques used prior to these techs. If devs throw too much at a game, it'll crawl on any engine. See Crysis 2! UE5 was not created just for consoles, but for many platforms including scaling up to ultra PCs (and even driving Hollywood FX), but taking an Uber PC game and sticking it on consoles isn't going to work well.

At the end, if 3rd party devs struggle with the engine, it's in the engine's developers best interest to understand why and try to address those concerns.

Yes and no. If it's because the devs aren't managing expectations and are throwing all the pretty bells and whistles because it makes for gorgeous screenshots that drives early interest, that's on the devs. And that's what a lot seem to be doing, chasing the 'next gen' look even if the hardware isn't up to it. "Wow check out this lumen! that looks great. Woah, see this Nanite geometry! Amazing, let's get that in there. Okay, let's build for console...oh"

UE5 provides plenty of flexibility to use different techniques. That moves the onus onto the developers to choose wisely, and it seems a lot can't. But we know this. The moment 'post processing' became a thing, we got excessive brown-o-vision, bloom and chromatic aberration. These were layered on with a trowel just to ram home that 'next gen' look. Give devs some amazing lighting results and geometry options and they'll pile it on and then step back and admire their visuals, ignoring the framerate. This isn't anything new. There were plenty of 20 fps games on PS2, pushing the graphical (or gameplay) features beyond the hardware's ability to run them at a decent framerate.

So going back to point one, where you say it's UE5's fault, the existence of one game that uses features and runs well proves it's not an engine limitation. The engine can run well, also using high end features. Either design your game to fit the features so they'll run well, or pick the features that'll run your game at the preferred framerate.

We can only point to UE5 being bad if there are other engines achieving the same visuals/features at better framerates. In the absence of that, there's no evidence other than circumstantial that UE5 is dodge, and that's not a logical nor fair conclusion to jump to.

 

[cheapchips]

I can't help think that half of this conversation on Brothers wouldn't have happened without the '60fps' performance mode.

 

[Globalisateur]

UE5 is arguably more optimized on consoles than many other engines that attempts to use hardware ray tracing ...

Epic Games even goes as far to apply console exclusive optimizations. Unreal engine traditionally struggled on consoles solely down to it's origin as a PC centric game engine which is why every major releases prior to it's fourth major iteration (UE4) wasn't exactly a "breakout success" on consoles and for the longest time at the engine logic side (CPU), Epic refused to embrace data oriented design until very recently ...

Smaller publishers or other independent developers today with custom engines are even bigger offenders than Epic Games with UE with regards to console performance optimizations ...

What games are using hardware ray-tracing on consoles using UE5? Is there even one?

 

[function]

And it's another compute (and most likely bandwidth) heavy game where the Series X consistently outperforms the PS5 when both are GPU constrained. The difference isn't vast (average of 13% according to DF), but along with Alan Wake, Avatar, Immortals of Thingy and some other stuff I've forgotten, it does reinforce the idea that the Series X is the "powerful" machine it was intended to be - it just wasn't designed to work optimally with legacy / cross gen games that would be more likely to spend more time limited by the likes of opaque fill and vertex shaders.

MS built Series X around powering next gen games, and made it to be as capable as possible across a generation of maybe 7 or 8 years, without thinking that they'd have lost the generation and be going multiplatform after 3. Things might be looking pretty good for the Series X now if it wasn't trailing quite so much in the market, and wasn't going to have to compete against the much bigger Playstation as a platform to run MS's own software. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

 

[Globalisateur]

And it's another compute (and most likely bandwidth) heavy game where the Series X consistently outperforms the PS5 when both are GPU constrained. The difference isn't vast (average of 13% according to DF), but along with Alan Wake, Avatar, Immortals of Thingy and some other stuff I've forgotten, it does reinforce the idea that the Series X is the "powerful" machine it was intended to be - it just wasn't designed to work optimally with legacy / cross gen games that would be more likely to spend more time limited by the likes of opaque fill and vertex shaders.

MS built Series X around powering next gen games, and made it to be as capable as possible across a generation of maybe 7 or 8 years, without thinking that they'd have lost the generation and be going multiplatform after 3. Things might be looking pretty good for the Series X now if it wasn't trailing quite so much in the market, and wasn't going to have to compete against the much bigger Playstation as a platform to run MS's own software. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

All those games are GPU and compute limited without any kind of hardware RT (which is CPU demanding). Getting 13% better performance with 16% more compute and 25% more bandwidth is actually disappointing.

Others kind of games can run better on PS5 like Baldur's Gate 3 (CPU limited?), Cyberpunk 2077 (CPU / I/O limited) or Hogwarts Legacy running better in fidelity RT mode and open-world I/O streaming (XSX being better in fidelity mode when there is no I/O involved or without hardware RT similar to those latest UE5 games).

XSX is more powerfull in some games, PS5 is more powerful in others games.