Jaw dropping. This is the first demonstration of the power of PlayStation 5

Epic Games presented the first clip presenting the new features of the incredibly popular Unreal Engine. But this is not the most interesting here, but the fact that the demo is rendered on the PlayStation 5 console.

The first presentation of games for new generation consoles - more specifically, on the Xbox Series X - was basically a failure . The games are shown, some even promise to be very good, but we didn't see any material rendered directly on the console. Nothing to know the true capabilities of next-generation equipment. Fortunately, where Microsoft disappointed, it delivers ... no, not Sony, and Epic Games.

The presentation of new products in Unreal Engine 5 took place on PlayStation 5.

It cannot be hidden that the material, written colloquially, causes jaw drop. Even though this is only a technological demo - and so the material is processed under very controlled conditions, the image is created without additional load in the form of network code, SI opponents or other elements - it's hard not to be impressed.

Unreal Engine 5 - presentation on PlayStation 5

At a later date, we will attempt a more detailed analysis of the above technological demo - which unfortunately takes time. But now it is worth paying attention to the graphic density of elements of each scene. High-quality textures are combined with geometric complexity on a scale previously unattainable for consoles - but also for a typical gaming PC from those at a reasonable price shelf.

It is also worth paying attention to the LOD (Level of Detail) parameter, which in games describes when the game engine is to replace high accuracy objects with simplified ones. The further the object is, the less sense it is rendered with full accuracy. Insufficient computing power of the current generation consoles, however, means that the player can very often observe the moment of substitution, which significantly spoils the so-called immersion. Here, this phenomenon does not occur at all - or rather it was not possible to notice it after several careful reproductions of the material.

What rendering precision are we talking about exactly? Epic, fortunately, provides relevant information. The statue visible at the beginning is built of 33 million triangles and covered with textures with 8K resolution. This alone is impressive, but in the next shot we see these figures ... 485. All rendered with maximum precision, which means 16 billion live triangles processed. And yet the statues themselves are not the entire rendered scene.

Games for Unreal Engine 5 will be built only from next year

One of the key new features of Unreal Engine 5 is to be intelligent bypassing invisible pixels for the observer in the rendering process (REYES: Render Everything Your Eye Sees). This means that the game rendering processors do not actually render as many objects as mentioned in the paragraph above. That is why we do not see image errors caused by the low LOD parameter, because the engine does not use models with lower accuracy at all - it looks for savings by throwing out objects or polygons smaller than one pixel from the process, the processing of which does not make much sense.

Unreal Engine 5 is to be made available to game developers at the beginning of next year, and the first game that will change to its new version is to be the flagship Epic Games title, which is Fortnite - which is interesting, because one of the sources of this game's success is simplified, slightly stylized on comic graphics. The engine will also be used invariably to create games for less efficient devices - including cell phones and Nintendo consoles. The demo presented on PS5 was rendered in dynamic resolution, most of the material the console managed to draw with an accuracy of 1440p.

We will certainly come back to the subject with a cooler and more substantive analysis. However, if the PS5 and Xbox Series X games are to look like this - then the motivation to replace the equipment with a new one has just increased. Repeatedly.

Jaw dropping. This is the first demonstration of the power of PlayStation 5