Unreal Engine 5.6 Makes Its Debut with New Footage from the Witcher IV Tech Demo, Showcasing Improved 60 FPS Ray Traced Global Illumination

[MadMummy76]

Game developer's take on the Unreal game engine issues: https://www.overclock.net/posts/29547806/

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That's a really poor take. The computational cost of UE features is not corporate greed, unless you consider using UE as part of corporate greed.

The issue is complacency, And no, it's not corporate heads who are complacent about optimisation, because they know F all about it. It is the devs who have no passion these days. Games are made by hundreds if not thousands of devs so nobody really thinks of it as their own. It's kind of like socialism used to be. The thing that is owned by everyone is really owned by nobody. So why would they care how cost effective their effect is? They don't take pride in their work, if it flops they'll blame gamers anyway. No accountability. They might get laid off, but they almost always fail up popping up at another studio to repeat the same mistakes, or you might even call it agenda. Because some of the devs ruining games are not merely incompetent, they are malicious.

I'm sick and tired of the people who throw themselves in front of any and all criticism levied against UE. Well not even themselves, they throw others in front of the bullets, or blaming some vague boogeyman like corporate culture.

I have a suspicion this person is not even a developer. Because they talk about optimization as if it is completely isolated phase of development. You have to take it into account from the get go. It's not a completely detatched phase that happens after the game is complete. By then it's too late, you can't optimize much after the fact without re-doing stuff which is a waste of time. No, you have to do it right the first time.

Literally all UE games are poorly optimised and suffer from stuttering issues. That's more than correlation. The games that are UE but not run like *** are doing so because they don't use the OOB features as is.

 

[Grimlakin]

That's a really poor take. The computational cost of UE features is not corporate greed, unless you consider using UE as part of corporate greed.

The issue is complacency, And no, it's not corporate heads who are complacent about optimisation, because they know F all about it. It is the devs who have no passion these days. Games are made by hundreds if not thousands of devs so nobody really thinks of it as their own. It's kind of like socialism used to be. The thing that is owned by everyone is really owned by nobody. So why would they care how cost effective their effect is? They don't take pride in their work, if it flops they'll blame gamers anyway. No accountability. They might get laid off, but they almost always fail up popping up at another studio to repeat the same mistakes, or you might even call it agenda. Because some of the devs ruining games are not merely incompetent, they are malicious.

I'm sick and tired of the people who throw themselves in front of any and all criticism levied against UE. Well not even themselves, they throw others in front of the bullets, or blaming some vague boogeyman like corporate culture.

I have a suspicion this person is not even a developer. Because they talk about optimization as if it is completely isolated phase of development. You have to take it into account from the get go. It's not a completely detatched phase that happens after the game is complete. By then it's too late, you can't optimize much after the fact without re-doing stuff which is a waste of time. No, you have to do it right the first time.

Literally all UE games are poorly optimised and suffer from stuttering issues. That's more than correlation. The games that are UE but not run like *** are doing so because they don't use the OOB features as is.

The same applies to a lot of industries. The company I work for buys a solution. Then we learn the solution and apply it in a way that best fits our org even changing pieces to work better as we see fit.

Its like an OS. You install it... are you done? No... it needs to be tweaked and configured and optimized for your use case. Just applying it as an OOB solution is BS.

I tend to agree here. Either this person's level of development is supported fully by asking AI how to do x... or they are just a bad dev.

 

[Peter_Brosdahl]

Yes but I don't believe any of us can track how many studios have had their teams slashed and left to carry the work for meeting deadlines nor the stories about unrealistic work conditions laid upon said workers (I was not happy to hear some of the stories about CDPR after CP20777 and we've heard things about Rockstar as well). We all know its been a s show in this industry for over a decade now. I'm not saying that some either don't put in the effort or are under trained but I do believe pulling out the un-optimized flag every time a game doesn't perform as desired isn't 100% due to UE. We can't give those in charge a free ride while laying blame to the grunts without knowing all the details. It works both ways.

I've played many games released in the last decade which used other engines, from RedEngine to Cryengine, Rage to Frostbite and Snowdrop, to whatever was used for the Metro games, and more, which had issues as launch and some still needed the biggest hammer to overcome rather then being "optimized" at a later date. Meanwhile I recently read of a studio who decided to abandon UE and is now working on making their own engine for a game that's already in development so once again it goes to show, it works both ways.

 

[Brian_B]

It is the devs who have no passion these days

In their defense... very very few developers get to work on projects that are actually their idea. Even/Especially If you get successful, then your ideas get co-opted by board rooms who are investing money. Sure, it may have started as your vision, but there are strings attached to that investment money.

Most developers are just shoved into a code monkey role. And treated poorly for it.

 

[Grimlakin]

Yes but I don't believe any of us can track how many studios have had their teams slashed and left to carry the work for meeting deadlines nor the stories about unrealistic work conditions laid upon said workers (I was not happy to hear some of the stories about CDPR after CP20777 and we've heard things about Rockstar as well). We all know its been a s show in this industry for over a decade now. I'm not saying that some either don't put in the effort or are under trained but I do believe pulling out the un-optimized flag every time a game doesn't perform as desired isn't 100% due to UE. We can't give those in charge a free ride while laying blame to the grunts without knowing all the details. It works both ways.

I've played many games released in the last decade which used other engines, from RedEngine to Cryengine, Rage to Frostbite and Snowdrop, to whatever was used for the Metro games, and more, which had issues as launch and some still needed the biggest hammer to overcome rather then being "optimized" at a later date. Meanwhile I recently read of a studio who decided to abandon UE and is now working on making their own engine for a game that's already in development so once again it goes to show, it works both ways.

I mean I'm sure Star citizen is going to switch engines again here in a minute... after all they have to find a way to create more work for more crowd funding.

 

[MadMummy76]

Yes but I don't believe any of us can track how many studios have had their teams slashed and left to carry the work for meeting deadlines

Teams typically only get slashed after their product is out and failed, firewalk studios didn't loose a single person until after concord was out. They enjoyed the full backing of Sony.

nor the stories about unrealistic work conditions laid upon said workers (I was not happy to hear some of the stories about CDPR after CP20777 and we've heard things about Rockstar as well).

Which is mostly the word of disgruntled and lazy workers amplified by hacks like Jason Schreier.

We all know its been a s show in this industry for over a decade now.

Everything I've heard about the industry's unbearable working conditions I've experienced in my own industry before, so it is not unique to gaming like the Schreiers of the world make it out to be. Like it or not it is part of every competitive industry where corporations try to do the same job the fastest and the cheapest.

I'm not saying that some either don't put in the effort or are under trained but I do believe pulling out the un-optimized flag every time a game doesn't perform as desired isn't 100% due to UE. We can't give those in charge a free ride while laying blame to the grunts without knowing all the details. It works both ways.

I think the blame is split evenly between all three:

1. Passionless employees who don't take pride in their work, who often don't even like gamers
2. Corporate that doesn't care about quality and unique ideas just monetization and chasing trends
3. UE not being conducive to good practices.

I've played many games released in the last decade which used other engines, from RedEngine to Cryengine, Rage to Frostbite and Snowdrop, to whatever was used for the Metro games, and more, which had issues as launch and some still needed the biggest hammer to overcome rather then being "optimized" at a later date. Meanwhile I recently read of a studio who decided to abandon UE and is now working on making their own engine for a game that's already in development so once again it goes to show, it works both ways.

I think UE is selling a lie, a pipe dream. When you look at the tech demos on how it is supposed to look, and look at UE games how they look there is a huge gap. And they run poorly even on top end hardware.

I used to be a big fan of UE, but I've been disillusioned.

In their defense... very very few developers get to work on projects that are actually their idea. Even/Especially If you get successful, then your ideas get co-opted by board rooms who are investing money. Sure, it may have started as your vision, but there are strings attached to that investment money.

Most developers are just shoved into a code monkey role. And treated poorly for it.

People can't start out in development as lead designers, that's not how it works. You have to start at ground level and work your way up. But why would you get promoted if you are only doing the bare minimum as a "code monkey"? You have to have passion and show initiative.

 

[Peter_Brosdahl]

You keep bringing up Schreier as if he single handedly somehow represents an industry with tens of thousands spread across the globe. I don't deny there are lazy folk, but I adamantly disagree that they all are. I also disagree that somehow its rainbows and daisies for all and that none are treated like sweatshop bead counters. As far as UE selling a pipe dream, perhaps, but again, it doesn't discount issues seen with other engines, and I stand by the examples I mentioned and there are more than just those. I don't care what engine anyone uses as long as it serves it purpose and works and bottom line it doesn't matter which is used because at some point there's a release using one which doesn't meet the expectations of gamers.

Humans are the same regardless of what job or service they perform, and I think its unrealistic to put all the blame on developers while giving a free pass to the higher ups as if they're some kind of heavenly gift to the world. Like I said before, it works both ways.