News Epic Games CEO lays blame on developers for poor performance of Unreal Engine based games

[marees]

Epic's CEO Tim Sweeney wades in on the UE performance debate: 'The primary reason Unreal Engine 5-based games don't run smoothly on certain PCs or GPUs is the development process'​

News
By Nick Evanson published 22 hours ago
Put simply, he's saying that devs need to aim low first, then target higher-tier hardware later on.


In the world of PCs and PC gaming, debates are usually quite evenly distributed. AMD vs Intel. AMD vs Nvidia. WASD vs arrow keys. Cats vs dogs. You'll find arguments for either side most of the time. However, when it comes to Unreal Engine 5, comments from PC gamers are mostly on the side of "it just runs really badly." Epic Games has tried to counter such claims many times before, but with the debate still running, CEO Tim Sweeney has stepped in to say that the main reason why UE5 games don't run well is how they're developed in the first place.

He said this at the recent Unreal Fest event in Seoul, as reported by Korean site This is Game (via RedGamingTech).

He suggested that one particular problem is the choice of PC platform used in the formative stages of a game's creation. "Many developers begin by developing games for high-end hardware, then optimize and test on lower-spec devices in the final stages."

https://www.pcgamer.com/hardware/ep...rtain-pcs-or-gpus-is-the-development-process/

 

[Quintessa]

Put simply, he's saying that devs need to aim low first, then target higher-tier hardware later on.

That's literally how PC dev has worked for decades. Build for a mid-tier baseline, scale up with options. Pretending that's some brand-new wisdom feels like Epic trying to dodge blame for UE5's bloat.

He suggested that one particular problem is the choice of PC platform used in the formative stages of a game's creation.

That's fair up to a point, but it's a half-truth. Starting on a 4090 rig means you'll miss bottlenecks that a 3060 will choke on. Still, Epic could make tooling and profiling better for low/mid hardware rather than just shifting the blame downstream.

 

[marees]

A point to note:

Eye candy is what sells games

& that is how Epic promoted UE5 — easy to create eye candy on an industrial scale

You really don't want to create demo versions of eye candy on a 4060 8gb

 

[Quintessa]

Eye candy is what sells games

& that is how Epic promoted UE5 — easy to create eye candy on an industrial scale

Exactly. Epic marketed UE5 as a visual showcase first, optimization second. If you sell Nanite and Lumen as "just works" tech, devs will push visuals hard and assume the engine handles scaling. The reality is different.

You really don't want to create demo versions of eye candy on a 4060 8gb

But if a midrange card chokes on the baseline, adoption tanks. Engines need to scale down gracefully. Blaming devs for chasing the same eye candy Epic used to promote UE5 feels like passing the buck.