An innovative new tech demo powered by Unreal Engine 5.5.3 has been released, offering players a captivating walkthrough of a futuristic cyberpunk city. Developed by the talented artist Sciontidesign, this project draws inspiration from the iconic Samaritan UE3 demo, the atmospheric Blade Runner franchise, and the visually striking aesthetics of Cyberpunk 2077. The demo was showcased on high-end hardware, featuring an NVIDIA RTX 5090 GPU, an AMD Ryzen 9 7950X3D CPU, and 32GB of DDR5 RAM running at 6000MHz.
This technical demonstration is a testament to the power of dynamic lighting, highlighting the capabilities of Unreal Engine 5's Nanite technology, combined with Distance Field Meshes and Ambient Occlusion, and enhanced by Screen Space Reflections. Notably, the demo forgoes advanced features such as Lumen, Path Tracing, RTX, DLSS, or baked lighting, emphasizing what UE5 can achieve even without its most sophisticated tools.
While the rain effect may appear somewhat artificial, the rendering of wet surfaces is exceptionally detailed, adding a layer of realism and depth to the urban environment. However, the experience is marred by frequent invisible walls, which can detract from the overall immersion. Despite the visually stunning experiences consistently delivered by Unreal Engine 5 tech demos, games built on this engine often face performance challenges when applied in real-world scenarios.