Unreal Engine 5 has captivated gamers with its groundbreaking Lumen and Nanite technologies, but its demanding system requirements and notorious performance challenges have posed significant hurdles. Despite these obstacles, Epic continues to refine the engine, making strides with the release of Unreal Engine 5.7.
Enhancements in Unreal Engine 5.7
The latest update aims to tackle some of the persistent performance issues. MxBenchmarkPC’s comparison video demonstrates these improvements by contrasting Unreal Engine 5.4 with version 5.7 using the Photorealistic Venice Tech Demo created by Scans Factory. Performance enhancements are notably visible on an RTX 5080 GPU, with up to a 25% increase, while better GPU resource utilization is achieved, resulting in higher power draw. On the CPU side, users with an Intel Core i7-14700F can expect a substantial 35% boost, facilitating more stable frametimes and reducing the frequency of hitches across various scenes. This advancement is crucial as it addresses the unstable frametimes that have plagued many Unreal Engine 5 games, leading to an improved gaming experience.
Image Quality and Future Prospects
Unreal Engine 5.7 also enhances image quality, as MxBenchmarkPC highlights in their analysis. The update brings more stable and precise Lumen lighting, coupled with superior Lumen reflections that offer both improved performance and quality. However, while Lumen denoising sees minor enhancements, technologies like NVIDIA DLSS Ray Reconstruction continue to outperform the engine’s native solutions. It may be some time before we witness games fully utilizing these enhancements, but Epic’s commitment to addressing the engine’s critical issues is a positive sign for the future. There is optimism that Unreal Engine 5 games will soon deliver smooth performance, even on mid-range PC hardware.