UE5 absolutely has issues, some quite series and persistent across generations. Though 5.4 has gone a long way toward improving them, as Xeth said, it'll be some time before the end user experiences those improvements.

These issues get exacerbated when so many games use the same engine and thus have the same issues on release. But that isn't going to change anytime soon. Part of the problem is just how successful Epic has been at gaining market dominance with a combination of funding development of many games, pushing for universities to teach primarily UE, and pricing models that have sidelined the competition (though some of that competition have sidelined themselves.. looking at you Unity!). Creating a holistic game engine is no easy task, proprietary engines are extremely costly and that cost never stops. Add the fact that you need to teach almost every new hire how to use your engine and those costs balloon even more. It's a big part of why so many studies are moving away from their proprietary engines to UE.

Razumen wrote on Nov 26, 2024, 02:08:

Xeth Nyrrow wrote on Nov 25, 2024, 22:46:
Games in development I follow have said that the recent updates like 5.3 and 5.4 are very helpful making things much easier/better/faster. I don't think there are many complete games on the market using the bleeding edge stuff though so time will tell.

Lots of games complete games already use Nanite and lumen.

"easier/better/faster" You can only pick two.

I meant compared to the original 5.0 version of UE5. So this would be games that started development in the past few years I'm talking about. As for the other engines, I don't know anything about engine licensing costs/profits but I bet it's the main reason games are using UE in the first place.

HoSpanky wrote on Nov 25, 2024, 14:04:
Satisfactory runs on UE5. Runs great, the stuttering that existed on UE4 is gone.

Yup. Runs like butter, and you can build endless amount of factory in it. Just won GOTY (PC) at the Golden Joystick Awards.

Xeth Nyrrow wrote on Nov 25, 2024, 22:46:
Games in development I follow have said that the recent updates like 5.3 and 5.4 are very helpful making things much easier/better/faster. I don't think there are many complete games on the market using the bleeding edge stuff though so time will tell.

Lots of games complete games already use Nanite and lumen.

"easier/better/faster" You can only pick two.

Games in development I follow have said that the recent updates like 5.3 and 5.4 are very helpful making things much easier/better/faster. I don't think there are many complete games on the market using the bleeding edge stuff though so time will tell.

One big problem is that UE5's Lumen and Nanite systems are huge performance hogs, and in many cases shouldn't even be used. I was playing Abiotic Factor on an older PC and was surprised how badly it ran compared to other games because it is not graphically impressive at all.

Nanite in particular can actually perform WORSE than using regular LOD system in many games. But developers will probably just enable it because it saves them from more work. There's a really well done video on Youtube that goes into this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M00DGjAP-mU

Argonius the 3rd wrote on Nov 25, 2024, 16:01:
Some visually impressive engines, that offer great performance and look/perform better than UE5 :

• Decima
• Frostbyte
• Ubisoft's Snowdrop engine
• Bungie's Tiger engine
• ID Tech
• Naughty Dog Engine
• ForzaTech, which will be used in the upcoming Fable game and looks absolutely impressive

Mostly proprietary though...

CryEngine!

I'm currently playing SurrounDead which is an UE5 game. The graphics are pretty simple and low-poly, but I've noticed that my GPU fans kick on quite frequently where they typically don't for other games. So I wonder how optimized it is.

Maybe you should upgrade your shit, and acknowledge you need a higher end CPU to go with that GPU. Gosh, dude cant even play Fortnight with max settings on his “beefy hardware”

Some visually impressive engines, that offer great performance and look/perform better than UE5 :

• Decima
• Frostbyte
• Ubisoft's Snowdrop engine
• Bungie's Tiger engine
• ID Tech
• Naughty Dog Engine
• ForzaTech, which will be used in the upcoming Fable game and looks absolutely impressive

Mostly proprietary though...

Knee-jerk reaction from a guy (me) who hasn't done any serious game development in years: one-size-fits-all engines always have performance drawbacks. I wouldn't expect Unreal to be any different. If you want performance, you have to cut corners or make assumptions that reduce the engine's flexibility. Which is totally fine! Plenty of great engines had major limitations (see: all of id software's engines).

The problem seems to stem from how few of the released UE5 titles with issues ever end up on solid footing. There's definitely something about it that is causing developers problems. Even the games without many technical problems tend to have very real performance issues like Remnant 2 did on launch.

At the end of the day it seems most likely to be a developer time issue than anything else. Of course this is something large portions of the industry don't care about and will keep churning out games that aren't ready.

broken wrote on Nov 25, 2024, 13:56:

Simon Says wrote on Nov 25, 2024, 13:03:
RedEngine for one ( CP2077 ).

Didn't CDPR say that they would be using Unreal in future games? I'm not sure that anyone will be developing RedEngine going forward.

Correct.
The RedEngine is doa
published Apr 5, 2022 CD Projekt Red Explains Why It's Using Unreal Engine 5 for The Witcher 4

Satisfactory runs on UE5. Runs great, the stuttering that existed on UE4 is gone. It doesn't use all the features of the engine, but it's a rock solid game.

I think a lot of it boils down to "the new engine does so much for the devs easily...that they are incapable of doing the harder stuff". Maybe look into how many devs have only been doing this for a couple years, since studios have been purging their older, more experienced developers for cheaper college recruits who can make stuff pretty but aren't interested in the "boring" optimization part.

Simon Says wrote on Nov 25, 2024, 13:03:
RedEngine for one ( CP2077 ).

Didn't CDPR say that they would be using Unreal in future games? I'm not sure that anyone will be developing RedEngine going forward.

Clickbaity article. 4 causes, CPU, GPU, engine issues and developer familiarity. Ya, its been a steep learning curve.

While I generally agree, got to give a shoutout to The Talos Principle 2. Great game looks absolutely gorgeous and runs great. Granted it's a more modest use of UE5, not open world multiplayer or anything like that. It does use Lumen and I believe Nanite (not positive but some things look extremely detailed up close).

Jivaro wrote on Nov 25, 2024, 12:56:
I don't necessarily disagree with the overall take that Unreal 5 has some issues, but what else is out there currently that can compete overall?

RedEngine for one ( CP2077 ).

But there are plenty others.

I don't necessarily disagree with the overall take that Unreal 5 has some issues, but what else is out there currently that can compete overall?