UE5 represents the future of gaming graphics - but there’s still work to be done.
Let’s start with what Unreal announced in the beginning: those much-lauded Unreal Engine 5 graphical features.
How are Lumen, Nanite, and Virtual Shadow Maps on PC?
In The Talos Principle 2 for example, we see Croteam heavily leveraging all three technologies to great effect.
Lumen looks great here.
Fort Solis is a good example of the difference that hardware Lumen can make.
Desordre therefore offers scaling all the way from console-level software RT to super-high-end path tracing.
Nearly every UE5 title I tested offered DLSS, FSR2, XeSS and Unreal Engine TSR.
What about Unreal Engine’s classic bugbear: shader compilation stutter?
Here I can report both great and not-so-great things.
This works well, but isn’t perfect - nearly every title I tested still hadsomeshader compilation stutters.
Unfortunately, UE5 also exhibits the traversal stutter seen in nearly every single UE4 game.
Here, only two CPU cores are fully loaded, while the rest remain underutilised.
With the right artwork and direction, these games can look absolutely stunning.
Of these, shader compilation stutter and traversal stutter were the most common complaints.
As-is, most games tested used software Lumen only and had very basic menu options beyond that.
