One of the new features introduced in Unreal Engine 5.5, MegaLights, promises to be a game changer in terms of both performance and image quality over Lumen, as highlighted by a new tech demo now available online.
A new video shared on YouTube this week by MxBenchmarkPC, which can be watched below, compares Quixel's Unreal Engine 5.5 Dark Ruins tech demo running on an RTX 4080 with software Lumen, hardware Lumen only, and hardware Lumen with MegaLights, highlighting how the new tech introduced in the latest version of the game engine by Epic not only brings a considerable performance improvement of up to 50% but also improves image quality at 4K, 1440p and 1080p resolutions.
MegaLights, an experimental new feature dubbed the Nanite of lights, which enables developers to add hundreds of dynamic shadow-casting lights without constraints, isn't the only thing that Unreal Engine 5.5 brings. The latest version of the engine brings significant improvements to Sequencer, the engine's nonlinear animation editor, MetaHuman Animator, which now allows developers to generate high-quality facial animations just from audio performances, a Mutable character customization system that can be used to generate dynamic skeletal meshes, materials, and textures for characters, animals, props, weapons, and more with optimized memory usage that keeps shader cost low and more. More information on all the new features and improvements featured in the new version of the engine can be found on its official website.
About the author: Francesco De Meo has been covering video games and technology since 2012, starting his career at small outlets like Gamersyndrome and GeekSnack. After joining Wccftech gaming section in 2015, he quickly expanded his video gaming coverage with in-depth reporting, interviews with iconic industry figures such as Grasshopper Manufacture founder and No More Heroes creator Goichi "Suda51" Suda, Resident Evil series creator Shinji Mikami, Team NINJA's president and Nioh series director Fumihiko Yasuda, and Silent Hill creator Keiichiro Toyama, reviews and on-the-ground coverage of major industry events such as Gamescom and E3. When he's not reporting or reviewing, Francesco can be found playing the genres he loves most, spending time with his six cats, reading, writing music, playing guitar and drumming for his progressive rock band.
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