Unreal Engine 5.4 brings significant CPU and GPU improvements over the engine’s first release, a new comparison video highlights.
The comparison, put together by MxBenchmarkPC, puts The Matrix Awakens tech demo running in the 5.44 and 5.0 versions side by side, highlighting how, without any custom optimization, CPU performance has been improved up to 40% depending on the scenario, which is quite an improvement. GPU performance hasn’t been improved as much, by up to 20%, although, as the YouTuber noted, a proper comparison is made impossible by the many new features added in 5.4 which were absent in the engine’s first version, such as proper support for Virtual Shadow Maps, Hit Lighting feature for Hardware Lumen and others.
Regarding shader compilation, which is still among the most critical aspects of the engine that impacts performance the most, Unreal Engine 5.4 featuring a short shader-pre compilation step means that any game won’t stutter crazily at the beginning, but there are performance drops caused by shader compilation happening during gameplay.
You can check out how The Matrix Awakens Unreal Engine 5.4 runs on your system by downloading the tech demo here.
Unreal Engine 5.4 is the latest public version of the engine, but the next, 5.5, is already in the works and its first preview version was released earlier this month. The most notable new feature is MegaLights, which enables developers to have a massive number of movable, dynamic lights, all with realistic area shadows and the ability to light volumetric fog. You can learn more about this version of the engine here.
