Unreal Engine Rework to Keep Up With PlayStation 5

Merlyn Soon

In a recent interview with Epic Games VP of engineering, it was revealed that the company had to rewrite parts of Unreal Engine 5 to keep up with the SSD of the PlayStation 5.

The debut of Unreal Engine 5 goes hand in hand with the unveiling of the PlayStation 5. The company chose to demo their new engine using real time PS5 footage, and the results are beautiful.

“The PlayStation 5 provides a huge leap in both computing and graphics performance, but its storage architecture is also truly special.”

In an earlier interview with CEO Tim Sweeney, he stated that “the world of loading screens is over.” In reference to the PS5’s powerful SSD, which will significantly increase load times for all operations that the PS5 will handle.

“The ability to stream in content at extreme speeds enables developers to create denser and more detailed environments, changing how we think about streaming content. It’s so impactful that we’ve rewritten our core I/O subsystems for Unreal Engine with the PlayStation 5 in mind.”

While both the Xbox Series X and the PlayStation 5 has NVMe SSDs, it is said that the PS5 has implemented much faster transfer speeds. Regardless, fans can look forward to Unreal Engine 5 appearing on both Xbox Series X and the PS5.

“A number of features in Unreal Engine 5 have been designed to reduce the complexity of building games. Nanite, for example, allows artists to directly import their high-poly models and let the engine handle the technical details, adding more creativity to the art pipeline. Similarly, Lumen allows for realistic global illumination without having to author lightmap UVs or wait for a long, offline baking process to complete.”

Below lists the full specs that have been released for the PS5: