Wednesday, June 4th 2025
Unreal Engine 5.6 Brings 60 FPS Ray Tracing to Current-Generation Hardware
Epic Games yesterday introduced Unreal Engine 5.6, a significant update designed to ensure that high-fidelity open-world projects maintain a smooth 60 frames-per-second experience on current-generation consoles, high-end PCs, and capable mobile devices by optimizing key rendering and streaming systems, Unreal Engine 5.6 addresses longstanding performance challenges. A central improvement focuses on hardware-accelerated ray tracing for global illumination. The enhanced system shifts critical processing tasks from the CPU to modern GPUs, allowing developers to create more complex lighting scenarios while preserving a locked 60 FPS frame rate. Combined with streamlined Lumen routines, environments gain richer visual detail without sacrificing performance. Content streaming also receives substantial attention. The new Fast Geometry Streaming plugin, currently in experimental mode, enables the loading of large volumes of static geometry on demand without stuttering.
At runtime, asynchronous physics state creation further smooths transitions, ensuring that expansive levels no longer cause unexpected frame drops. Unreal Engine 5.6 also introduces updated device profiles tailored for current consoles and desktop hardware. These profiles automatically adjust graphics settings to meet performance targets, thereby reducing manual configuration and enabling teams to deliver high-quality visuals at stable frame rates. Unreal Engine 5.6 powers the upcoming The Witcher 4 game, which has been demonstrated on the PlayStation 5 console, running at 60 FPS out of the box, with ray tracing. This signals that game optimizations will finally become the norm again, with more powerful hardware delivering higher FPS at higher resolutions in a beautiful, ray-traced open world.
Source:
Unreal Engine
At runtime, asynchronous physics state creation further smooths transitions, ensuring that expansive levels no longer cause unexpected frame drops. Unreal Engine 5.6 also introduces updated device profiles tailored for current consoles and desktop hardware. These profiles automatically adjust graphics settings to meet performance targets, thereby reducing manual configuration and enabling teams to deliver high-quality visuals at stable frame rates. Unreal Engine 5.6 powers the upcoming The Witcher 4 game, which has been demonstrated on the PlayStation 5 console, running at 60 FPS out of the box, with ray tracing. This signals that game optimizations will finally become the norm again, with more powerful hardware delivering higher FPS at higher resolutions in a beautiful, ray-traced open world.
Beyond performance enhancements, this release expands editor workflows. Redesigned motion trails and a revamped curve editor accelerate keyframe adjustments, while MetaHuman Creator integration allows artists to build digital humans directly within the engine. Procedural worldbuilding, cinematic pipelines, and virtual production toolsets receive refinements that speed iteration. The editor's user interface benefits from a reorganized Content Browser and a streamlined toolbar that reduces the number of clicks needed to access essential tools. Features like incremental cooking and Zen Streaming help teams test changes on target devices more quickly.
53 Comments on Unreal Engine 5.6 Brings 60 FPS Ray Tracing to Current-Generation Hardware
EDIT: yeah ok there are from the vid which looks like crap
The extreme blur especially during movements comes from the native render resolution being 900p, then getting upscaled with TSR to 1440p and finally getting upscaled again to the 4K output resolution. It sometimes looks like they set the motion blur value to integer overflow.
No, no, what has been demonstrated is that a bespoke streamlined and uber-optimized demo that potentially doesn’t even have most of the game logic running can achieve 60 FPS. We’ve seen such demonstrations before. The actual games do not run and/or look anything like that when they get released.
Even that being said, the level of blur that this has going on truly looks like absolute ass. So even a purpose-built demo has to be temporarily reconstructed from bottom barrel resolution to even run. Amazing.
Just downloaded 5.6 - can't wait to check out the new features.
The preview had a pretty big uplift in framerate.
I assume when the new nanite foliage system is released in a month or so, the improvement will be even better.
I think it looks solid. Needs a bit further progress and refinement, but if this is what is on offer currently, they have something good going.
CDPR have an overhyping illness. Wish they just silently did their thing and made their games speak for themselves instead of forever embarrassing themselves with inadequate promises and tech demos having little to no in common with the actual game.
Yup, they did. Looks more natural now, IMO, for a woman that spends her time roughing it out and fighting monsters for a living.
I understand it's hard to see if your not looking at the details or don't know what to look for but if you'd shown both images to me without any context I'd have said they're very closely related but not the same person. YMMV
Another thing, the camera setting used for that 2024 cinematic also looks different. I'm seeing more lens distortion compared to the Unreal tech demo. And lens distortion can change the proportion of a face.