Unreal Engine 5.5, 5.6, and 5.7 compared – Boosted performance with quality concerns

Developer uncovers performance increases and image quality concerns with Unreal Engine 5.6 and 5.7

On the Open Games and Dev YouTube channel, the developer B4rr3l Rid3r has been documenting the performance impact of every new Unreal Engine 5 version. With Unreal Engine 5.5, the developer showcased a near 20% performance gain over Unreal Engine 5.4. Now, the developer has tested Unreal Engine 5.6 and Unreal Engine 5.7, and their opinions are mixed.

When using the same graphical settings, Unreal Engine 5.6 reportedly delivers more performance and “a lot of image quality degradation“. In the benchmark video below, upgrading from UE 5.5.4 to UE 5.6.1 increased the average framerate from 72 FPS to 82 FPS. However, these gains were offset by some visual downsides (such as increased noise and scintillation).

Unreal Engine 5.7 delivers additional framerate gains. Upgrading from UE 5.5.4 to 5.7.0 increases the average framerate from 72 FPS to 88 FPS. That’s a 14.2% performance boost. Furthermore, this change enhances image quality compared to Unreal Engine 5.6.4. However, this does not fix all of the reported image quality issues that came after Unreal Engine 5.5.4.

Big performance improvement, quality still worse than in 5.5.4, but better than 5.6.1.

– B4rr3l Rid3r on Unreal Engine 5.7

With Unreal Engine 5, Epic Games created an engine featuring capabilities that are arguably too advanced for today’s GPU hardware to handle. Every new version of Unreal Engine 5 promises optimised performance compared to prior versions. B4rr3l Rid3r’s reports make it clear that Epic Games is having trouble maintaining image quality while delivering faster engine performance.

The image quality regressions for Unreal Engine 5’s newer versions are hard to spot. An untrained eye can easily miss them. Regardless, Epic Games’ focus on performance is beneficial for the gaming industry. After all, many games utilise Unreal Engine 5, and faster performance at the engine level will lead to smoother-running games in the future.

You can join the discussion on UE5’s performance increases and quality concerns on the OC3D Forums.