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Tom Looman

New Article: Unreal Engine 5.8 Performance Highlights

Published 2 months ago • 1 min read

New Article: Unreal Engine 5.8 Performance Highlights​

It is possibly the last Performance Highlights overview for Unreal Engine 5. The release of UE 5.8 marks the final release before Epic Games is moving development efforts to Unreal Engine 6. That brings the focus of 5.8 to stabilize and optimize existing features (Although plenty of experimental features were added).

A couple of major performance oriented improvements include MegaLights becoming production-ready and Lumen receiving a new Lite-mode for better scalability across devices.

Some other optimization trends you see include overall image quality and stability (Lumen, VSM, MegaLights), and reduced shader permutations across a variety of render passes (Volumetric fog, VSM, Substrate, MegaLights, Lumen, etc.). These are mostly automatic wins for your project, sometimes with new CVARs to control behavior or exclusions. There are many other smaller yet valuable improvements buried deep in the full release notes...

I have included my own insights, remarks and clarify the changes where necessary.

Teaser: Epic Games Optimization Livestream

I will be live with Epic Games next week (13th of August) talking about optimization for Far Far West! More on this soon...!

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Tom Looman

UE5 C++ Developer, Game Optimization Enthusiast & Educator

Learn the Unreal Engine techniques used by AAA studios and experienced indie developers. Join 8000+ developers receiving my latest articles, optimization tips, and course updates.

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