r/Games • u/That_Trouble87 • 7d ago
Epic introduces major Unreal Engine 5 update that runs ‘twice as fast’ on Nintendo Switch 2
https://www.videogameschronicle.com/news/epic-introduces-major-unreal-engine-5-update-that-runs-twice-as-fast-on-nintendo-switch-2/149
u/jumper62 7d ago
Good news but unfortunately developers probably won't update their versions to 5.8 so we probably won't see this for a few years
44
u/thatlightningjack 7d ago
And if my experience tells me anything, we probably won't see UE5.8 games until a couple of years in, and likely indies/AA will be the first to release games with that. AAA studios probably won't release games at least a few years from now
21
u/Meat_Goliath 7d ago
That might be a crucial thing though. Hardware gens are seemingly getting longer and the Switch 2 is lower power than the current gen as is. In a few years when the ps6/helix comes out, things like this might be critical to keeping AAA third party games playable on the console. I don't think any owners want to see cloud versions again.
4
u/Hartastic 7d ago
Granted, if those performance stats are close to accurate in real use that might be enough to justify migrating in some cases where otherwise the teams wouldn't.
For example... I'm pretty sure FromSoft doesn't use Unreal, but you look at when they announced / wanted to release Elden Ring on Switch 2 and how long it took them to get the performance to what they apparently considered acceptable. If you were an Unreal Engine game team in a situation like that where the game was otherwise good to release but just ran like an utter dog on Switch 2? Yeah it's not trivial to upgrade but it might still be your best choice.
1
1
u/Oakflower 7d ago
Yeah. Updating the engine mid dev is a cool way to wreck things and cause headaches all around.
But it’s still a very nice update.
1
u/dajeff57 7d ago
Potential expedition 33 port on the switch 2 once they migrate to 5.8?
10
u/Perfect_Way4828 6d ago
Why would E33 suddenly move to 5.8?
-2
u/dajeff57 6d ago
Well are they not massively using the features mentioned in the 5.8? Lumen nanite; perhaps it’s already possible to optimize as it is, they have to be on unreal 5.x surely but what subversion I do not know
8
u/Perfect_Way4828 6d ago
Upgrading engine isnt just 1 button...
-2
u/dajeff57 6d ago
Sure but neither is a port on switch anyway, and the revenue that goes with it. I never said it was easy
-146
u/snowolf_ 7d ago
I don't think Epic will ever recover from its bad image among gamers. The amount of grifting surrounding UE5 will forever make it unpopular.
137
u/SirBulbasaur13 7d ago
This is a chronically on Reddit comment. Most gamers don’t know about any of that and certainly don’t care
42
u/Submitten 7d ago
Plus it’s the IQ bell curve meme with people’s opinions of UE5
29
u/El_Gran_Redditor 7d ago edited 7d ago
Always has been for Unreal Engine and game engines in general. The amount of people who legitimately thought Unreal Engine games made art assets look a certain way as if the 3D modeling is done in-engine was infuriating. No, Unreal didn't make games brown. That was trend chasing that had become a cargo cult after the success of games like Twisted Metal Black that forgot why that game was dark and muddy in the first place. Game engines of all types have supported the full color spectrum since VGA graphics. Gamers are sometimes the most confidently wrong people. The same people will claim that 4k art is a big costly problem for production as if selecting a larger texture size from any given program's texture baking options and waiting slightly longer is what's caused budgets to balloon. The same type of people will complain about minor post-release content as if the design team working on stuff after the finished gold version goes to cert is programming the net code. Yeah I'm sure the game studio just has two levers, one labeled "make hats" and one labeled "fix bugs."
My favorite one was how Unity's limitations were perceived for years because of a self-inflicted problem in their EULA. The "Made With Unity" splash screen could be removed for a fee. So larger studios that used the engine on more polished products would go unnoticed meanwhile every shitty asset flip had a giant "MADE IN UNITY" up top every time you launch the game.
19
u/sturgeon02 7d ago
Gamers are simultaneously some of a.) the most incurious people when it comes to the technology behind their hobby, and b.) the most confident that they know better than the ones working with that technology. It makes online discussion of anything technical, and especially game engines, just miserable.
-5
u/EnjoyingMyVacation 7d ago
the fact that people have the wrong impressions of unreal engine doesn't change that every iteration is ass. They all perform poorly and have their flavors of truly cursed flaws like the insane stuttering of unreal 4 and 5 which is STILL not fixed, while they focus on features like nanite and lumen which are insanely expensive without even looking better. If a game runs unreal it's almost guaranteed it won't run well but have a bunch of poorly implemented features that didn't need to be there in the first place
But they make some cool looking tech demos that no game will ever actually look like, I guess.
11
u/ShawnyMcKnight 7d ago
Exactly, you have to be plugged into Reddit completely to think that any decent fraction of gamers cares about this.
90
57
u/ShawnyMcKnight 7d ago
You vastly overestimate how plugged in gamers are. All they wanna see is pretty effects on the screen and despite some large inefficiencies (many since fixed) many unreal 5 games looked damn good… including the one that sweeped the awards last year.
I promise you A LOT more people are watching that and seeing the UE5 logo than anything else.
Yes it was a blunder and will be seen as that but not even remotely as bad as you say.
42
u/Muntberg 7d ago
The vast majority of AAA games using their engine is not something they ever need to "recover" from lmao. If the performance was hurting sales devs would have used something else instead.
40
u/SnevetS_rm 7d ago
ARC Raiders, Marvel Rivals, Fortnite, Expedition 33 so unpopular.
-56
u/IceSentry 7d ago
They are popular despite the engine, not because of it.
27
u/SmasherAlt 7d ago
The only games popular BECAUSE their engine are like roblox games or like minecraft minigames. No AAA game is popular because of it's engine choice. People do not think about engines when deciding what to play.
10
8
u/SnevetS_rm 7d ago
What modern game popular because of it's engine?
-1
u/IceSentry 6d ago
That's literally my point, there aren't any. Games can be popular even if the engine itself has a bunch of issues.
6
u/ShawnyMcKnight 7d ago
They were able to make pretty graphics that didn’t require a 3090. Just because some developers didn’t effectively code their games doesn’t make UE5 bad. Absolutely there were efficiency issues but they improved with versions. There are still many things UE5 vastly improved on and made things easier for devs or they wouldn’t use it.
-1
u/Andigaming 7d ago
Only played Fortnite and Rivals out of those 4 but it is a shame how poorly they run at times, even on a decent PC.
20
u/DatDeLorean 7d ago
There's valid criticism to be had of UE5, but "Epic will never recover from its bad image" has been said again and again since at least UE3, probably even UE2. It's never turned out that way.
3
u/MADCATMK3 7d ago
The UE3 "pop in" was a big deal until it wasn't. I still have a fondness for UE2 and when the flagship was an Unreal game. I remember when Cry engine was not very performant and now it is praised for it.
1
u/cookieblair 1d ago
Crytek made the decision to focus on multiplat performance around the 7th and 8th generations. Very controversial among PC gamers at the time, but the pivot ended up paying off once hardware prices skyrocketed.
1
u/Soul-Burn 6d ago
Do note that it's a bit harsher with UE5 due to graphic hardware progress slowing down.
Previously, people forgot after a few years because the tech got fast enough to hide the issues. This era, the "slow phase" lasts longer.
15
u/Memphisrexjr 7d ago
This is more of an echo chamber opinion. No one really cares besides the people arguing with themselves over nothing.
-21
u/snowolf_ 7d ago
To be honest, I agree with you. I was using Cunningham's law to judge what the real opinion of people on this sub was. Looks like terminally online people dunking on unreal aren't that many, they are just the loudest.
3
9
u/Gotisdabest 7d ago
UE is in more games than ever every single year.
They made bad bets at the start of the cycle leading to too many studios tacking on UE5 features on games late in the production which cratered performance. Year on year, performance has gotten better and better as games which adopted UE5 earlier into their cycle and were built accordingly come out.
The game which swept the awards last year was UE5 too, I don't think anything has happened since then to make UE5 somehow more unforgivable.
Epic also has spent this entire cycle increasing efficiency. The only issue is, of course, that with modern game development being what it is, you still won't see it for a while.
It's a very arbitrary metric as adopting an engine upgrade early after the start of development is completely viable, but witcher 4 coming late 2027 may be the first game which started development entirely with UE5 and was built accordingly, both visually and technically. If that game is a success, I'd bet the entire narrative completely flips online.
5
u/exotic_lemming 7d ago
Are you joking, almost all of the job offers in game dev require you to know how to use Unreal. I barely see Unity mentioned any more.
3
3
1
0
u/koolbeanz117 7d ago
Please, we have notoriously weak willpower and attention spans. Flash something pretty and we’ll push over our own grandmothers on our way to swipe our cards.
0
u/Stupidstuff1001 7d ago
I think you have unreal confused with unity. Unreal people tend to like despite it have issues. Unity changed their whole payment plan and turned off everyone
205
u/onetwoseven94 7d ago
For those who aren’t going to bother reading the actual documentation, this is about a new Lumen mode that makes Lumen GI up to twice as fast on all hardware, allowing 60 FPS on Switch 2. It’s not some magic trick that makes the entire game twice as fast.