Unreal Engine 5, [UE5 Developer Availability 2022-04-05]

[Andrew Lauritzen]

17 mins of Lords of the Fallen gameplay

Lords of the Fallen definitely goes back and forth between looking amazing and looking mediocre in the previews so far... hopefully just an issue of settings or pre-release content. Cautiously optimistic based on the latest previews, but I've been hurt before

 

[defghik]

Comparision of the reflection quality in DESCODRE - Software Lumen with screen tracing, HW Lumen without screen tracing and Pathtracing:

Imgsli

And it looks like that Pathtracing works very good with higher geometry fidelty objects:

Imgsli

The full raytracing mode looks incredible. I wonder if the developer is planning to add in Ray Reconstruction?

 

[cheapchips]

10th Anniversary Slenderman is receiving a 5.2 update.

Slender: The Arrival 10 Year Anniversary Update will be launching October 18!

We are excited to announce that the Slender: The Arrival 10 Year Anniversary Update will be launching on Steam, Epic Games Store, PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S on October 18 for $19.99. Pre-Order Now! Starting today, September 1st, you’ll have the opportunity to pre-order Slender: The...

www.slenderarrival.com

 

[Jupiter]

Desordre - Introducing Path Tracing Mode in Update 1.3.0: A Revolution in Game Lighting

"Hello everyone,

I'm thrilled to announce the all-new Update 1.3.0! This update represents a significant milestone for Desordre, offering you an unprecedented visually stunning gaming experience like never before.

[...]

Path Tracing Mode

Path Tracing offers a significant improvement over our previous lighting techniques. It provides a more consistent and unified way to simulate light, shadow, and reflection in the game. While it's not quite reality-level, it is a big step up from traditional methods.

Powered by RESTIR Global Illumination and RESTIR Direct Illumination, this feature offers an enhanced lighting model that brings a new level of depth and vibrancy to the game. You'll see more nuanced shadows, improved light distribution, and a richer overall visual experience.

To enable this feature, navigate to your Settings menu, click on Graphics, and select the "Path Tracing" option. Note that a high-end GPU is recommended to fully enjoy this advanced lighting technology.

Important Note: To achieve smooth gameplay with Path Tracing enabled, it is highly recommended to also use frame generation and upscaling features available in the settings.

[...]

Known Issues and Path Tracing Preview

As excited as I am about this update, it's important to note that the Path Tracing feature is currently in a "preview" state. While it brings incredible visual fidelity, there are some limitations and known issues:

The particles from portals are not currently visible in reflections due to both bugs and performance considerations.

FSR 2 is experiencing issues and has been temporarily replaced with TSR.

It is strongly recommended to use Frame Generation along with Upscaling for a smoother gameplay experience when using Path Tracing.

Thank you for your ongoing support and enthusiasm for the game. I'm thrilled to bring these new features and improvements in the 1.3.0 update. Your feedback is invaluable, especially as the Path Tracing mode is in its preview stage. I look forward to hearing your thoughts and seeing your reactions to the revamped visuals and gameplay enhancements. Stay tuned for more updates and happy gaming!"

https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/2097490/view/3687939575944521961?l=english

 

[Dampf]

@Andrew Lauritzen I can report that there is a significant loss of performance on the latest versions of Fortnite on the same settings. I'm aware it introduced a new map, but how are consoles still holding the performance?

But even in the beginning before entering the bus, where the map is the same, the loss in performance is significant. It was well above 70 FPS before and now it's just a little under 60 FPS.

 

[Andrew Lauritzen]

@Andrew Lauritzen I can report that there is a significant loss of performance on the latest versions of Fortnite on the same settings. I'm aware it introduced a new map, but how are consoles still holding the performance?

But even in the beginning before entering the bus, where the map is the same, the loss in performance is significant. It was well above 70 FPS before and now it's just a little under 60 FPS.

I haven't been keeping up with the details of the latest Fortnite season, so not sure I can offer any specific explanation. I know there were some virtual shadow flicker bugs (my main area) that slipped through that will be fixed in the next patch, but they do not affect performance. Beyond double checking that no settings were changed/reset by the new season I'm not sure what to recommend. I know the Fortnite team does track performance in a fair bit of detail though so if there was an unexpected regression I suspect they are already looking into it.

 

[Jupiter]

There does seem to be something weird going on in some of those shots... why are there not even any screen space reflections of the bright surfaces?
[...]
Also something funky going on with that image comparison there... even if you set the same image between the two sides the one on the left looks more aliased depending on the size of the browser window...??

I disable SSR as I do in most games where there are ray tracing reflections.

I did not change anything regarding the screen resolution between the screenshots.

 

[doob]

Maybe you shouldn't because some rely on SSR in combination with RT applying RT only for the areas where the SSR start to fail, you may get partially missing reflections like in some screenshots you posted.

 

[Cyan]

The Witcher 3 has started development, it seems. It'll use Unreal Engine

The Witcher 4 is getting a development boost

CD Projekt Red's latest update on the next mainline title in The Witcher series will surely excite fans who've been waiting for an update.

www.xfire.com

How much this engine has evolved. I always disliked Unreal Engine except when Unreal 1 and Unreal Tournament came out, mostly 'cos I ended up associating it with grey/brown games with very poor AA that wasn't compatible with the X360 eDRAM.

 

[Scott_Arm]

Immortals of Aveum has some new graphics options. Not sure what they map to in UE5 docs.

• Added three graphics settings: Mesh Pool Quality, Shadow Rendering Pool Size, Render Target Pool Size

Haven’t seen any details on how they’re adjusted, and whether they have presets or can be increased beyond whatever the launch settings were.

 

[cheapchips]

The Witcher 3 has started development, it seems. It'll use Unreal Engine

They're repeating the quicker/faster development rhetoric they used when they first announced the switch to UE. It'll be fascinating to see if that really bears fruit.

Cyberpunk was 9 years in the making. If The Witcher 4 lands before 2026 then we should count that as success?

 

[JPT]

Cyberpunk was 9 years in the making. If The Witcher 4 lands before 2026 then we should count that as success?

Did they not announce Witcher 3 and Cyberpunk at the same time and then finished Witcher before they went into full development on Cyberpunk?

 

[cheapchips]

Did they not announce Witcher 3 and Cyberpunk at the same time and then finished Witcher before they went into full development on Cyberpunk?

Something like that. Its a little ambiguous, which is why I plumped for 2026 as doing well. Three years of full production after some preproduction.

 

[SmooTh]

They announced them both but Cyberpunk development started around late 2016.

 

[Cyan]

They're repeating the quicker/faster development rhetoric they used when they first announced the switch to UE. It'll be fascinating to see if that really bears fruit.

Cyberpunk was 9 years in the making. If The Witcher 4 lands before 2026 then we should count that as success?

hope so. Still UE5 should be used with care. The idea of a single engine monopolizing the industry isn't very appealing. In addition, I just hope that we don't end up in a similar situation compared to UE3. During the PS3 and X360 era where UE3 reigned supreme many games looked too similar in many cases. In fact you could almost immediately tell when a game used UE3.

 

[trinibwoy]

hope so. Still UE5 should be used with care. The idea of a single engine monopolizing the industry isn't very appealing. In addition, I just hope that we don't end up in a similar situation compared to UE3. During the PS3 and X360 era where UE3 reigned supreme many games looked too similar in many cases. In fact you could almost immediately tell when a game used UE3.

Programmable shading was pretty new when UE3 landed so lots of developers probably used the out of the box shading model, shadows etc. Things are a lot different now so less chance of that happening.

 

[SlmDnk]

 

[metacore]

They're repeating the quicker/faster development rhetoric they used when they first announced the switch to UE. It'll be fascinating to see if that really bears fruit.

Cyberpunk was 9 years in the making. If The Witcher 4 lands before 2026 then we should count that as success?

Widely known tool will help with employers churn rate for sure. At the same time, I wonder how it will influence , leadership, cohesive vision, milestones for their titles, might be a little double edged.

 

[Frenetic Pony]

They're repeating the quicker/faster development rhetoric they used when they first announced the switch to UE. It'll be fascinating to see if that really bears fruit.

Cyberpunk was 9 years in the making. If The Witcher 4 lands before 2026 then we should count that as success?

Improvements in tools have been pretty constant, averaged out over the industry and time anyway, but a lot of AAA games have used that to just make themselves bigger. It's interesting to see that start to change in some places, Resident Evil games have been positively churned out recently and they're more popular than ever. Similarly Jedi Survivor has hit super fast for a AAA game sequel, and while I can't say it's best game I've ever played, or even the best game this year, or even close to it, it's still fun enough.

And maybe that "enough" is finally hitting in scoping for big games. Sure, some still have that dream, but maybe with the success of RE4 and Jedi Survivor (a good 10 hours of useless side quests you can and should skip) there will form a general consensus that AAA games, at least single player ones that cost $70, have indeed gotten "big enough" to be successful without a need to go bigger.

 

[arandomguy]

hope so. Still UE5 should be used with care. The idea of a single engine monopolizing the industry isn't very appealing. In addition, I just hope that we don't end up in a similar situation compared to UE3. During the PS3 and X360 era where UE3 reigned supreme many games looked too similar in many cases. In fact you could almost immediately tell when a game used UE3.

I feel that was more a by product of the time in that "gritty realism" was in vogue with American media in general. The correlation is there because UE3 was heavily adopted by American studios.

Guilty Gear Xrd as an example was made with UE3, it's clearly a completely different design from an art stand point from what you're describing. This similarly applies to other Japanese (or even Korean) developers who used UE3. They weren't looking to for the "gritty" and "tacticool" appeal.