The newest version of Epic Games’ game engine, Unreal Engine 5.8, features an optimized Lumen Lite mode, allowing it to run at 60 fps on the Nintendo Switch 2 and PC handhelds.
Epic Games has officially released Unreal Engine 5.8, introducing a range of new features aimed at improving open-world creation, animation workflows, rendering technology, and mobile development. Among the major additions is the new Lumen Lite mode, a rendering optimization that dramatically reduces the performance cost of the engine’s dynamic global illumination system while retaining much of its visual quality.
According to Epic Games, Lumen Lite is designed to deliver a similar artistic impact to the standard Lumen solution but at a fraction of the GPU workload. The company stated that the new mode uses irradiance fields with probe occlusion to achieve its performance gains, making it approximately twice as fast as Lumen High Quality.
The engine creator highlighted that the Lumen Lite mode featured in Unreal Engine 5.8 allows games using global illumination to target 60 fps on Nintendo Switch 2. It is also supported on PC platforms, including handheld devices, allowing developers to achieve higher performance on low-end systems without sacrificing modern lighting features.
Lumen Lite is part of a wider effort by Epic Games to improve Unreal Engine 5’s scalability. The newest version of the engine introduces performance enhancements for MegaLights, Epic’s dynamic lighting technology, which is now production-ready and optimized to target 60 fps on current-gen consoles. The release also adds an experimental Toon Shader for stylized visuals, a new Fog Screen Space Scattering system for more realistic atmospheric effects, and improvements to MetaHuman technology.
Furthermore, Unreal Engine 5.8 also expands its world-building capabilities with the introduction of Mesh Terrain, a new 3D terrain authoring system capable of creating overhangs, caves, tunnels, and floating islands. Developers also gain access to upgraded procedural generation tools, improved animation workflows, and enhanced virtual production features.
