Unreal Engine 5.5 is amazing

[Keith_W]

This popped up in my Youtube video feed. I watched it and I was amazed. The video talks about improvements in the new Unreal rendering engine, allowing real-time ray tracing with multiple light sources without dropping the fps by too much. It also discusses other features.

But the real reason why you should watch it is the eye candy. I haven't played a PC game since Unreal Tournament 2002, which used the first version of the Unreal Engine. This is almost enough to make me want to splurge thousands on a new PC and graphics card just to see what the new games are like.

 

[staticV3]

For a more in-depth look behind the scenes of modern render engines, I highly recommend this YouTube channel:

And for pure eye candy, this channel is really nice:

 

[ZolaIII]

I don't have time to watch and it's pretty much progressing in small steps. Thing are still far from rossy and Unity for brother licensing has better adoption (if you love something, let it free and we didn't bought it).

Drivers adoption and new futures are another pair of sleepers. I did recently my own evaluation of MALI (Immortalis in generaly) one's to found out property support is up to VK 1.3, strong in 1.1 but no 1.5 as it is and ray tracing is low. Arms losy texture compress isn't used almost by anything and variable shading makes very little difference. Regarding open source driver's things are far from very good but it's not the worst offender either and I am confident with new projects and some mesa recognition (received) will get much better in a year or two. Little MALI had quete grown up and more than competitive on performance and cost metrics.
I am a fun of animation in general.

 

[Count Arthur]

This is almost enough to make me want to splurge thousands on a new PC and graphics card just to see what the new games are like.

Some modern games do look amazing, but that doesn't necessarily mean they are also great games.

 

[staticV3]

Amazing (but wasteful) graphics and undercooked gameplay is the trend in AAA releases.

It's sad how their developers are no longer given the opportunity to really flesh out interactive environments, mechanics, AI etc.

If a game looks good and works at a surface level, then that's good enough for the shareholders.

Seems like Valve and Rockstar are the only studios bucking the trend (no shareholders, go figure).

 

[napfkuchen]

Seems like Valve and Rockstar are the only studios bucking the trend (no shareholders, go figure).

I spent nights playing Half-Life 1 Deathmatch (crossfire) and Quake 3. Today the stress factor of such games would be far too high for me. I'm now just a casual gamer and enjoy good graphics and an interesting story. Since things are currently pretty bad in the gaming industry due to what you described, maybe some companies have learned that the customer has to be no1 priority.

But I mainly drive racing sims (Iracing) with VR glasses. Despite the somewhat backward graphics and the performance hunger of VR, the feeling of being in the middle of the action is outstanding. I still see a lot of potential here.

 

[GM3]

Some modern games do look amazing, but that doesn't necessarily mean they are also great games.

This, or that games will run just as well as on the demo.

For reference, what I can see is that a 4090 is $1600, (btw keep seeing repair videos on them because they seem to 'often' self-destroy) and while there are more affordable options, ray tracing and other effects are just expensive in terms of resources, so what you see on the tech demos likely won't be what you'll be able to achieve at home. Also in the real world, it'll likely take a while (years) before all those features make it into real games.

These days, I keep seeing news about large gaming companies self-imploding... And as mentioned, the market has for decades prioritized graphics over gameplay... I never was too enthralled by graphics, gameplay is much more crucial. Last games I played besides Forza series was Skyrim & Fallout New Vegas I think it was, the later titles didn't seem very appealing due to departure from single player to online with DLC & microtransactions.

So many games are just shinely wrapped turds; looks nice, but no depth. Made for people to buy them, play them a few days/weeks, then discard. All about $.

So I'm really not too excited about new graphics. Graphics are far from what makes a good game a good game.

 

[Keith_W]

So I'm really not too excited about new graphics. Graphics are far from what makes a good game a good game.

Agree! The last time I played a game seriously was Star Control II. Terrible graphics by today's standards, and even when it was new it wasn't cutting edge. It was a space adventure game, but what was engaging about it was how well fleshed out the alien races were. And the theme music suited them so well:

The Spathi were a race of cowards and would flee from battle if they had a chance. They came from crustaceans, and each Spathi had thousands of siblings so their parents don't recognise them.

The Slylandro were gaseous organisms native to a gas giant. Because they can't go spacefaring, they bought some probes and sent them out. When you encounter a probe, this music is what you hear.

The Melnorme were intergalactic traders. Come across one and you can refuel your ship, buy supplies, etc. The music puts you in the mood to go shopping.

There were a couple of dozen alien races and most of them were memorable, some of them recognisably based on people. Like a race of kamikaze raccoons who are a bit too keen to die for honour. And an all-female race called the "Syreen" who fly a spacecraft called "the Penetrator" (you can guess what it looks like). And another race which are incredibly ugly but also incredibly vain. And a race of violent thugs. I loved this game

 

[RayDunzl]

I watched it and I was amazed.

Me too.

 

[GM3]

Watched the clip, which is typically a good idea before commenting... Lots of sweet dev features, as well as optimizations. Apparently their mega light system has very low cost, far lower than typical ray tracing, so actually is a bit the opposite as my last comment; it has the potential to reduce hardware requirements and improve performance/quality, color me impressed! (Wasn't part of UE 5.5 clips I previously saw!)

 

[antcollinet]

This popped up in my Youtube video feed. I watched it and I was amazed. The video talks about improvements in the new Unreal rendering engine, allowing real-time ray tracing with multiple light sources without dropping the fps by too much. It also discusses other features.

But the real reason why you should watch it is the eye candy. I haven't played a PC game since Unreal Tournament 2002, which used the first version of the Unreal Engine. This is almost enough to make me want to splurge thousands on a new PC and graphics card just to see what the new games are like.

link snipped.

Perfect intro to a video - thanks. Watching now.

 

[Timcognito]

WOW! great video. Not a gamer but buy CAD, Tech programs and Engineering stuff penny's on the $ from these guys, a charity. They are mostly discount game seller and their Bundles are fantastically inexpensive. If you contemplating playing games again or want to explore some new games this may be just the ticket and help charities at the same time.

Humble Bundle

Pay what you want. Support charity. Get awesome games.

www.humblebundle.com

 

[kemmler3D]

Amazing (but wasteful) graphics and undercooked gameplay is the trend in AAA releases.

It's sad how their developers are no longer given the opportunity to really flesh out interactive environments, mechanics, AI etc.

If a game looks good and works at a surface level, then that's good enough for the shareholders.

Seems like Valve and Rockstar are the only studios bucking the trend (no shareholders, go figure).

Yep. Anecdotally, concepts for games are driven by executives who conflate the format of a game (e.g. "hero shooter") with its commercial success and don't seem to understand "fun". This has never been more evident than in the case of Sony's utter catastrophe Concord, which cost $300M and was shut down for lack of players in one week.

Meanwhile you have Balatro, a huge winner this past year, with basically no graphics and one song in the entire soundtrack, made by one guy, probably at a cost of about $1000.

However, you're incorrect about Rockstar, they're owned by Take Two which is a public company. And I wouldn't even necessarily accept the argument that Rockstar has really avoided putting profits over fun / quality games. After GTA V came out, they sank 10 years into mostly just building content for GTA Online instead of putting out more story-driven stuff. GTA 6 is coming out late next year I think, making it 12 years between mainline GTA games.

 

[staticV3]

However, you're incorrect about Rockstar, they're owned by Take Two which is a public company. And I wouldn't even necessarily accept the argument that Rockstar has really avoided putting profits over fun / quality games. After GTA V came out, they sank 10 years into mostly just building content for GTA Online instead of putting out more story-driven stuff. GTA 6 is coming out late next year I think, making it 12 years between mainline GTA games.

Each of their releases is an undertaking of ridiculous proportions, which to me explains the long downtime in between, where externally they seem to focus on minimum effort updates (GTA Online etc) with maximum profits to keep the lights on and allow their devs to chisel away at the next big hit.

That such a lax release cycle is even allowed at Rockstar, IMO suggests that even if there are shareholders at T2 to be reported back to, they must have negligible influence.

 

[kemmler3D]

Each of their releases is an undertaking of ridiculous proportions, which to me explains the long downtime in between,

I partially agree with this, but:

Even if you give an allowance for higher complexity over time, they went from a 5-7 year release cadence for major generational "upgrades" to the game, a ~1 year cadence for releases of new 1-player content, to 12. It's noticeable.

Supposedly they've been working on the 6th one since 2014 or 2017 depending on who you ask, but I'm sure they could have gone faster if they weren't putting so much time into stuff for GTA Online.

An example of a game that really does prove a point about privately held companies and game development is Larian and Baldur's Gate 3... which had a similarly long development cycle, AAA quality and scope, and was a massive hit with no online-specific content.

Interestingly, Rockstar has been a subsidiary of Take Two from nearly the beginning and they've been public almost the whole time. The exception that proves the rule, I guess.

 

[JSmith]

Unreal Tournament 2002, which used the first version of the Unreal Engine.

UT was in 1999, but prior to that there was Unreal in 1998 that used the Unreal 1 engine. There are still online servers up for UT99 actually with some regular players.

improvements in the new Unreal rendering engine, allowing real-time ray tracing with multiple light sources without dropping the fps by too much.

Yep, very cool.


JSmith

 

[JeffS7444]

That's remarkable.

But I'm a casual gamer, and hardware-wise, I'd want to be right around the fat part of the audience bell curve, figuring that's where games really need to work. Don't want to spend big $$ only to discover that aside from some tantalizing demos, the future that I bought into doesn't quite exist yet. And by the time it does, there will be newer generations of hardware! Maybe a Steam Deck would be plenty for my purposes.

 

[ZolaIII]

That's remarkable.

But I'm a casual gamer, and hardware-wise, I'd want to be right around the fat part of the audience bell curve, figuring that's where games really need to work. Don't want to spend big $$ only to discover that aside from some tantalizing demos, the future that I bought into doesn't quite exist yet. And by the time it does, there will be newer generations of hardware! Maybe a Steam Deck would be plenty for my purposes.

The engine you could really call your own all do still young and not that grown up as Unreal or even Unity but seeing much love from people in fast growing community is GODOT.

Godot Engine - Free and open source 2D and 3D game engine

Godot provides a huge set of common tools, so you can just focus on making your game without reinventing the wheel.

godotengine.org

And as it is you will find surprising variety of titles for free or cheap as after all people make games not the engine it self. It's educational value and documentation is to be high prized.

Bouncing Logo by Miguel Byte Creations

A game where you control a media logo in a TV to bounce exactly in the corner.

miguel-bc.itch.io

 

[Digital_Thor]

Been playing a ton of games through the years.
Must say, that the story, gameplay, smoothness and overall design of the game, surely trump any graphic gimmick.
I tried to look up graphic engines, and found that there are so many, that it was hard to even use that as a layman argument for glorifying one engine over another.
Death stranding ran so smooth on my 9700K and 2080 at 1440P - that I forgot all about graphics and engines. I guess optimization is way more important in many aspects.
I then upgraded to 13600K and 4070 at 1440P, to play all the slightly older top titles at full graphics, like the last 3 Tomb Raider games, Metro games, Witcher 3 (updated ray tracing version), Control, Prey, A tale Requiem and Red dead redemption 2.
And what mostly sprung into my eyes, is how all foliage, grass and leaves in games like A tale Requiem, is flat, so when you pan around the character, the camera puts your view behind a totally flat and 2-dimensional leave on a flower or bush. That is not pretty graphics - well, everything else is in the game - and is fully sorted in the Shadow of the Tomb Raider, where everything is super nice to look at, no matter the viewing angle.
What I hope, is that the Unreal Engine pushes for better graphics, where it matters - meaning - where we actually notice it. A bit like audio, where we actually chase the things we can hear, and not something that is 140dB down.

 

[GM3]

The engine you could really call your own all do still young and not that grown up as Unreal or even Unity but seeing much love from people in fast growing community is GODOT.
And as it is you will find surprising variety of titles for free or cheap as after all people make games not the engine it self. It's educational value and documentation is to be high prized.

Yeah I've been using Godot for a while, definitely one of the better if not the best engine for indie games. Android support too, 2D & 3D. But technologically, it's not remotely close to what's in those new UE Demos. So great as a free engine, but not in the race in terms of capabilities.

Still, most games put the energy in the wrong place. Few example
- FPS; if you're not getting ~100+ fps, not a smooth experience, so entirely worthless for any sort of dynamic game
- Gameplay ...... Most games are more about eye candy than actual gameplay, which is a shame. For example, the Forza racing franchise, after I don't know how many billion of $$$ and a dozen iterations, still can't provide a realistic (not cheating) racing AI opponents. They have like 1 Wing that you can add to cars, but plenty of diversity and inclusivity BS that has nothing to do with racing. It's become so pervasive in gaming these days, it really has hurt western AAA gaming companies and games. Godot had its kerfuffle on X and discord, but as long as it's not pervasive in the engine itself, no big deal, hopefully it won't self-destruct...

But technologically, UE tech is pretty crazy, 2 minute papers made a clip about it which explains it in more detail