Epic Games Unveils Unreal Engine 5, Coming in 2021 With Mac and iOS Support

[Populus]

What makes a game "better"?

What I meant was better optimized. We are on an Epic’s Unreal Engine piece of news, right? Well, taking Fortnite as an example, a game that heats up less the SoC, uses all its capabilities wisely, it is able to maintain the 60 frames per second with better graphics... All of this will be possible if Unreal Engine takes full advantage of Metal APIs and it is well optimized for the iOS operating system. That’s what I meant.

 

[throAU]

I haven't noticed an improvement in graphics since ~2005.

Maybe play some recent games.

Like say, The Witcher 3 - on non-potato hardware.

Either that or you must be blind.

I *do* keep up with recent games and stepping out of the castle and seeing the outside world for the first time in that game was amazing.

 

[MisterSavage]

Like say, The Witcher 3 - on non-potato hardware.

Some of the scenes in that game are so jaw dropping (not that @BlankStar would know) . When you're standing outside while the sun is setting and the wind blowing is making the trees around you sway it's just so beautiful

 

[mrkite77]

I haven't noticed an improvement in graphics since ~2005.

That seems unlikely.

2005:

2017:

 

[Solomani]

Unreal Engine has been in continuous development for years and years and years. YAWN. Not news.

Don't just tease us your newest engine. Give us a damn great new revival of Unreal Tournament (for Macs too!), you apes!

And I don't mean some crashy three-year-beta on Steam. I mean a real game that's polished for prime time release and worth paying for.

 

[naujoks]

Bah. Tech demos. Look at the previous ones. Looked absolutely amazing. And then look at the garbage that comes out in a real game. Go away and come back with a real game.

 

[justperry]

Body still moves robotic, camera/pov moves jerky, the rest is amazing.

 

[_Refurbished_]

Welp, lets see how well it looks and runs when it’s running a REAL video game. Like where there’s guns, explosions, stats, achievement tracking, AI, sprinting, jumping and the other 99 players that you’re playing online with. Along with 100+ GBs of maps, characters and engine that has to be QAed and maintained. Most video games consist of more than just pacing through a canyon. I bet in several years when Unreal 6 is released, we still won’t have any released games that look and run this well.

It looks great, but video games never end up looking as good as they do on these “first look” trailers when you actually play it on your TV in your bedroom.

This is a representation of an offline story-driven single player game....not Destiny 3. Games will be able to look this good in the peak of the next-gen lifecycle. This is the best representation of what we’re going to see from the next-gen hardware. Not a doubt in my mind. What a time to be a gamer.

 

[macduke]

You know what? If Fortnite existing means that stuff like this gets ridiculous funding then maybe I’m a Fortnite fan after all!

 

[Bobajobbob]

How can a player self-identify with a robot? IMHO they needed to do more to make the body appearance and movements more natural. Even if the scenes looked fake, if the body looked and moved naturally, it would be believable. Kind of like how a poor quality video is watchable if the audio is high quality, but a high quality video is unwatchable if the audio quality is poor.

What are you talking about? This tech demo has some of the most natural human action/movement I've ever seen.

 

[Skika]

Graphics improvements are nice and all but i want physics improvement, destructable environments, interactable stuff.

 

[ikir]

I've yet to meet the 8 gamers who play on macOS... I assume most have a console or gaming PC.

I’ve know sooooo many friends and costumers who play on macOS, me too and i have a power Radeon RX 5700XT. Average Mac is a good gaming machine compared to average PC which still have iGPU and just a crappy OS. Sure if you speak of AAA 3D games you need a powerful Mac, we get few titles due to market share, but Metal is fast, macOS is stable so by deflation macOS is a good gaming platform. Time will tell if things will get better, for sure not everyone is a die hard gamer (don’t know where most people get time to play so many hours) so Unreal Engine for macOS is a great news.

Me playing Deux EX: mankind Divided on my MacBook Pro 13”

 

[PBMB]

Like say, The Witcher 3 - on non-potato hardware.

Is there a macOS version of this game?

 

[throAU]

Is there a macOS version of this game?

Of course not, apple don't ship non-potato hardware to gamers.

 

[PBMB]

Of course not, apple don't ship non-potato hardware to gamers.

Hm, looking it up a bit I found this. Is it a source one can trust, or simply bogus?

 

[Janichsan]

I would hope that this new version will be better optimised for Metal than UE4 was/is, but I'm not really optimistic...

 

[whooleytoo]

Welp, lets see how well it looks and runs when it’s running a REAL video game. Like where there’s guns, explosions, stats, achievement tracking, AI, sprinting, jumping and the other 99 players that you’re playing online with. Along with 100+ GBs of maps, characters and engine that has to be QAed and maintained. Most video games consist of more than just pacing through a canyon. I bet in several years when Unreal 6 is released, we still won’t have any released games that look and run this well.

It looks great, but video games never end up looking as good as they do on these “first look” trailers when you actually play it on your TV in your bedroom.

And also most of these demos are showing very detailed, but relatively small enclosed spaces. Even the PS4/XB1 can show very detailed small scenes; but I'm far more interested in what a large outdoor city would look like.

The current 'achilles heel' for console gaming, IMO, is the draw distance and very noticeable LOD reduction / texture & geometry pop-in as you move about. The games look great in close, but the distant hills are just an ugly low resolution texture. Or you see ships in the distance, but when you get closer their masts and sails suddenly pop into view.

 

[darkslide29]

which eGPU do you have?

I have an Sapphire Nitro+ 5700 XT. This is an ATI card, and I went with it for its compatibility with both MacOS and Windows. For dual OS use, A 5700 XT I believe is the best bang for the buck right now. This Nitro+ version is top of the line specs for its performance, but any base 5700xt would be nice. For Windows-only gpu usage, which some would consider doing with bootcamp, I would normally consider an Nvidia card (such as a 2080 or 2080ti), but Apple and they aren’t playing nice.

For the enclosure I use a Razer Core X, but a Sonnet enclosure would work just as well. Both of those are the officially recommended enclosures in Apple’s eGpu documentation.

 

[Steve63]

So that's the PS5 hardware running it.

Here's what it runs like on the typical Mac GPU

I am laughing so hard ... my stomach aches !!
You absolutely nailed it down. Apple & state of the art graphics just don‘t match (unless you spend > 10 grand) ...

 

[BlankStar]

Some of the scenes in that game are so jaw dropping (not that @BlankStar would know) . When you're standing outside while the sun is setting and the wind blowing is making the trees around you sway it's just so beautiful

Maybe I should wait for a PS5 version then? ;-)

 

[FaustsHausUK]

I've yet to meet the 8 gamers who play on macOS... I assume most have a console or gaming PC.

I dabble from time to time. Recently sunk a lot of hours into Two Point Hospital and Disco Elysium; and The Sims must do decent numbers if they keep porting them.

 

[H2SO4]

I'm one of them! I enjoy Tomb Raider, Civ 6, Endless Legend, Diablo 3, Warcraft 3 Reforged, Starcraft 2, Borderlands 1-3, Divinity Original Sin 1 & 2, XCOM 2, and Company of Heroes 2 among others. Plenty to play on my 16" Macbook Pro

That being said, I wish Apple would actually care about Mac OS gaming. It's really a shame that they don't.

So am I but they just play better and have better support on Windows. Plus you have access to Epic games like Soul Reaver, (which isn't actually by Epic games), from way back in the day.
MacBook Pro 16" for work. OSX + Windows in parallels.
Mac Mini 6 cores for work & Home. OSX + Windows in parallels.
Mac Pro 5,1 for home. OSX + Windows natively, (huge thanks to the guys here).
Hopefully to start with they'll play noticeably better with NVidia to force Apple and NVidia to play more nicely together.

 

[Regbial]

Well, there’s like a thousand games that work on Catalina. And lots of AAA.

yet not 90% of all the good classic games on Steam... go figure...

gotta arbitrarily force all devs to 64 bit... ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ (even tho this isn’t a “thing” on windows but Apple gotta Apple...)

 

[nylonsteel]

pretty cool video
lets see what happens on actual real devices first

 

[Ursadorable]

MacBook Pro 16 inch would like a word with you.

I run bootcamp windows, and play almost every game maxed out.

With the cooling fans screaming at full speed.