Epic Games has published its roadmap for Unreal Engine 5.1, and among the list of new features is a more scalable version of Lumen, with the aim that current-gen consoles will be able to target 60fps in games that take advantage of the tech.
According to the Unreal Engine 5.1 roadmap, PS5 and Xbox Series X/S will have an easier time targeting 60fps in games running on the engine that take advantage of Lumen. In addition, the roadmap outlines a potential fix for PSO-related stutters in Unreal Engine games on PC.
Lumen Improvements In Unreal Engine 5.1
According to the roadmap shared by Epic Games, the following improvements are being made to Unreal Engine 5’s lighting tech:
- Improved performance optimizations in High scalability mode with the goal of achieving 60 fps on consoles
- Improved support for foliage
- Reflections on Single Layer Water
- Support for high-quality mirror reflections on translucent surfaces
- Support for nDisplay (SWRT and HWRT)
- Initial support for split-screen (SWRT only); performance characteristics still TBD
- Experimental: Hardware Ray Tracing (HWRT) in Vulkan – Surface cache lighting only, no support yet for Hit Lighting
- Many stability, quality, and bug fixes
Nanite Improvements In Unreal Engine 5.1
Based on the roadmap, the virtualized micropolygon geometry system introduced in Unreal Engine 5 is getting the following improvements:
- Addition of a programmable rasterization framework
- Masked materials
- Two-sided foliage
- Pixel depth offset
- World position offset
- Nanite material switch in the Material Editor
- Additional diagnostic and debug modes
- Many quality and performance improvements
Note: the exact feature list and expected stability and performance characteristics have yet to be confirmed.
Path Tracing Improvements In Unreal Engine 5.1
Unreal Engine 5.1’s Path Tracer will continue to receive support for additional features, including:
- Exponential Height Fog and Sky Atmosphere Fog
- Decals
- Single Layer Water
- Per-instance custom data
- Light functions
- Multi-GPU rendering
Automated PSO Gathering
The roadmap for Unreal Engine 5.1 mentions a new feature that is set to reduce PSO-related stutters in PC games running on the engine. Automated PSO Gathering will:
- Replace the manual work required to collect all possible PSO combinations for a project
- Keep the number of PSOs as small as possible
