790°

That amazing UE5 tech demo was only as GPU-intensive as Fortnite

Jacob Fox of PCGamesN writes, "We recently spoke to Epic Games and learnt a little more about making Unreal Engine 5. Vice president of engineering Nick Penwarden said, “I can say that the GPU time spent rendering geometry in our UE5 demo is similar to the geometry rendering budget for Fortnite running at 60fps on consoles.” Let’s give ourselves a moment for that to sink in."

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2026d ago Replies(11)
Sonyslave32025d ago

Wait if that the case why it ran in 1440p and 24fps and not 4k and 30fps lol the demo had no ai or anything complex going on as far gameplay.

timotim2025d ago

Yeah, how bout that. Considering that XGS will heavily use this engine in the next generation...I hope its not a sign of things to come. I dont want to see Epic's vision of the future with huge expansive worlds thats visual feast for the eyes, yet has very little gameplay involved.

RazzerRedux2025d ago (Edited 2025d ago )

And yet Digital Foundry said they had to magnify the 1440p image from the demo in PhotoShop to tell the difference between it and the lossless 2160p version of the same image.

https://youtu.be/zCllBRdyEX...

Edit: And let's be clear. Pendwarden referenced "rendering geometry" specifically. This not the entirety of the GPU as the title suggests and does not account for ray tracing.

2025d ago Replies(1)
IRetrouk2025d ago (Edited 2025d ago )

Hold on, the unreal engine ran at 30fps, and it was playable, it was doing plenty, your thinking of the hellblade "in engine" video, that was what was running at 1440p and 24fps, and had absolutely no interactivity at all, funny that though, didnt see anyone that mentions this playable demos resolution and framerate or lack of features mention hellblades at all hmm🤔 wonder why🤷‍♂️

DJStotty2025d ago

Hellblade was a trailer not gameplay lmao, how can you even compare that to a playable demo?

IRetrouk2025d ago (Edited 2025d ago )

I'm not comparing the content in that way though am I? I'm pointing out the fact that this demo is trash because of being 1440p and 30fps, yet nothing at all was said about the hellblade video that was running 1440p 24fps by the same people, let's not pretend that a lot of those same people were not also
claiming the hellblade video was an actual representation of what the game looks like.... some even went as far and said gameplay, but again, no issue with it being 1440p and 24fps....but yeah, pick on the imaginary comparison of the games and not the hypocrisy I actually pointed out....

DJStotty2025d ago (Edited 2025d ago )

My point is, it was a bad example to use a pre-rendered trailer in your argument. A game trailer can be set to any resolution and is not representative of final product. Neither is the UE5 playable demo.

I did not think the UE5 demo was "trash" and i did not even realise what fps or resolution it was running at as i was too focused on looking at the actual tech.

And not once did i personally think of the Hellblade trailer as gameplay, it was even stated the trailer was in-engine. That was clear as day to anyone that watched it at the time.

People that target either a) a tech reveal of a game engine's resolution/fps, or B) a game trailer's resolution/fps are just looking for something to facilitate their fanboy ego, and reaffirm their dedication to a box of plastic with a name tag on it.

Edit :

I apologise, as you mentioned both the tech demo, and the Hellblade trailer in the same sentence, i assumed you were trying to draw up a direct comparison between the 2, whilst trying to denounce Hellblade of any "features", whilst confirming they were in the playable tech demo.

I must take care in future comments before i reply, and also proof read my work.

IRetrouk2025d ago

Thats ok dude, I would have explained myself further, text can be hard to understand sometimes, not everyone writes the same way online, it can be difficult to follow what someone means, happens🤷‍♂️

+ Show (1) more replyLast reply 2025d ago
2025d ago
L7CHAPEL2024d ago (Edited 2024d ago )

Bottom line, in all actuality:
they're tech demo didn't show Jack shit, just the [possibilities] of what [could] be done on actual hardware...
At some point in time.

sorry, it's just...
the presentation was some snake oil salesman bullshit, that's all there is to it.

Show me something:
#1. running on actual hardware.
#2. being played on actual hardware.

RazzerRedux2024d ago

It was running on a PS5. What have you seen actually running on XSX? Nothing.

+ Show (3) more repliesLast reply 2024d ago
Zodiac2025d ago

Is it appropriate to compare these two like that? One was extremely short, prepared and designed to be briefly shown off. The other is a constantly live, constantly moving game with lots of players. Can someone who knows something about the ins and outs comment of any of this is relevant? Lol.

rainslacker2025d ago

He's just talking about the geometry rendering. He's not saying that the amount of power being used as a whole is equivalent.

harmny2024d ago

God these people can't read. N4g is sad

I_am_Batman2025d ago (Edited 2025d ago )

Rendering budget means the time you have to render a frame. For 30fps games that's ~33 milliseconds or one-thirtieth of a second. Every rendered frame is a combination of different render tasks one of which is rendering the geometry (polygons). All render tasks combined have to be finished in those 33ms or the framerate will drop.

His statement is fairly vague, but it sounds to me like he is saying that the amount of time it takes the PS5 to render the geometry of the tech demo is comparable to the amount of time it takes Fortnite to render it's geometry on current gen consoles.

That would suggest that Nanite is fairly efficient, because Fortnite is running at 60fps on current gen consoles, which means that it's render budget is only half of any 30fps game (~17ms).

Zodiac2024d ago

Thank you for clearing that up!

borneFROMblood2025d ago

8 months with few people only and no optimization
you cant compare that to 3-5 years, 100-1000 teams of people and with specialists in optimizing
kinda logical.

GOULDYBOBS2025d ago

You've been promised 4k 60fps since ps4 pro and xbox whatever

bneals2025d ago

Suddenly 60fps isn't important. Seems like all of the articles are about SSDs, no loading times, and the tempest engine/audio tracing. I'm by no means saying that such things aren't exciting. I'm merely pointing out that the console makers have done a great job of moving the goal posts of what "next gen" means.

2025d ago Replies(1)
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