An exciting new tech demo powered by Unreal Engine 5.5.3 has been unveiled, providing players with an immersive exploration of a futuristic cyberpunk city. Crafted by the talented artist Sciontidesign, this project takes its cues from the iconic Samaritan UE3 demo, the visually striking Blade Runner franchise, and the expansive Cyberpunk 2077 aesthetic. The demo was demonstrated on high-end hardware, utilizing an NVIDIA RTX 5090 GPU, AMD Ryzen 9 7950X3D CPU, and 32GB of DDR5 RAM running at 6000MHz.
This technical showcase is powered exclusively by dynamic lighting, highlighting the prowess of Nanite with Distance Field Meshes and Ambient Occlusion, enhanced by Screen Space Reflections. Notably, the demo forgoes advanced features like Lumen, Path Tracing, RTX, DLSS, or baked lighting, demonstrating the impressive capabilities of UE5 even without its most cutting-edge tools.
Although the rain effect may appear slightly artificial, the depiction of wet surfaces is remarkably detailed, adding a layer of realism to the urban environment. However, the experience is marred by frequent invisible walls that hinder the sense of immersion. While Unreal Engine 5 tech demos consistently deliver breathtaking visuals, games developed using the engine often face performance challenges when applied in real-world scenarios.
