Epic Games has released Unreal Engine 5.2, which comes packed with many exciting features and improvements. The new engine boasts an updated anti-freeze system, new lighting features, and the Nanite geometry virtualization system, among other improvements.
One major upgrade in Unreal Engine 5.2 is the experimental PSO pre-cache system that reduces freezes in DirectX 12 games. The system has been enhanced to improve performance and stability and now supports skipping the rendering of objects. Epic has also improved the Nanite geometry virtualization system, enabling support for custom depth and stencils, lighting channels, and a global clipping plane.
Another significant feature of Unreal Engine 5.2 is Lumen, which improves global illumination and occlusions for subtle geometry. The engine now supports high-quality translucency reflections for material roughness and uses asynchronous calculations for consoles by default. Hardware ray tracing is also enhanced to support two-sided foliage and approximate secondary bounces for better reflections.
Unreal Engine 5.2 has also introduced new tools, such as the Procedural Content Generation (PCG) framework, which will be useful for quickly populating large areas or even entire worlds after defining rules and parameters. Substrate, an experimental tool, is another exciting feature that allows developers to control the appearance of elements in real time.
Perhaps most notably, the new version of the Unreal Engine now natively supports Apple M1 and M2 chips, eliminating the need for a code converter called Rosetta that was previously required. With full compatibility with Apple ARM chips, developers can now leverage the full power of these processors without losing performance-to-code conversion.
The update also includes new tools for creating virtual content, and the full list of changes can be found on the official Unreal Engine website. Despite the delay in implementing native support for Apple’s chips, Epic Games has finally resolved the issue and delivered a robust update to their flagship engine. Overall, Unreal Engine 5.2 is set to revolutionize the gaming industry with its exciting new features and enhanced capabilities.
