Epic Games Aims to Minimize Stutters in Unreal Engine 5

At this year’s Unreal Fest in Orlando, Epic showcased upcoming features for Unreal Engine 5 through CD Projekt Red’s Witcher 4 tech demo, alongside numerous training sessions aimed at helping developers optimize their use of the software. Among the highly attended sessions were those addressing shader compilation stutters and performance hitches specific to Unreal Engine games.

A prominent developer demonstrated that the challenges with optimization are attributed more to game development practices than to the engine itself. This session was well-received, confirming the community’s strong interest in resolving these performance issues.

In response to feedback, Epic has previously outlined that earlier shader compilation methods were not optimal. For Unreal Engine 5.2 and later, using [PSO precaching] is the recommended approach, despite it not being entirely foolproof. Epic continues to work on enhancements, suggesting eventual solutions might eliminate shader stutter altogether.

Notably, a presentation from Obsidian during Unreal Fest highlighted why shader stutters and performance issues will persist for some time. The discussions emphasized that many complex shaders used in modern AAA titles feature significantly more complexity than before, leading to inevitable performance hiccups during gameplay.

The team behind Obsidian’s upcoming title Avowed transitioned its development from Unreal Engine 4 to Unreal Engine 5, aiming to optimize for various hardware platforms, particularly the Xbox Series S. However, the limited number of technical developers only added to the challenge of meeting performance expectations across multiple platforms.

Moving forward, Epic hopes that through proper integration and optimization practices, future games will run smoothly, alleviating common frustrations among developers and players alike.