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[Nickolaidas]

Most impressive and efficient: RE Engine. It's fast and visually jaw-dropping, creates amazing realistic models and is very flexible - can handle over the shoulder shooters as well as well as 3rd person hack and slash games.

Most archaic and dated: Creation/Gamebryo engine. While easy to program for, it is lacking in gameplay and AI scripts. Needs to evolve into a new engine which will scrap the bull and have tons of new features.

What about you guys?

 

[aries_71]

I’m not fan of Unity. Most games have performance problems on it.

 

[junguler]

mgsv's engine was the best and most polished i've played on and the worst engine ever must be bethesda's rpg engine.

 

[assurdum]

I wouldn't call efficient an engine can't run 30 fps capped on console ... RE engine it's surely impressive artistically to the eyes catch but efficient? It has very raw edge in the lighting and the transparencies causing jaggies everywhere and SSR is definitely broken.

 

[nkarafo]

Best: iD7. Doom Eternal runs PERFECTLY. No microstutters/frame pacing jitters at all. Not even when it dynamically changes internal resolution to keep target frame rate. Gsync/freesync also works perfectly. I'm actually impressed by how stable this game runs frame rate wise and i'm ultra sensitive to micro stutters.

Worst: Whatever Death Stranding runs on. It's impossible for me to run this game stable enough at anything other than 30fps (and even then frame pacing isn't perfect). 60fps give me severe microstutters and frame pacing issues, no matter what i try/change. Gsync doesn't work. It lacks a dedicated full screen option. RTSS can't clear up frame pacing for it. Even worse, if you dare to lock the frame rate to anything other than 30 or 60 (my 240hz monitor can do 40fps evenly) you get all kinds of weird behavior, like the camera movement having faster frame rate than the 3D model animations. It's pretty bad and i bet Horizon Zero Down is just as bad.

 

[K.S v2.0]

Decima.

Granted we have few examples of it, but what there is, especially Death Stranding, is amazing.

 

[sigmaZ]

I find insomniac's engine for Spiderman to be quite impressive. Not only do cutscenes and models look amazing but the geometry of the buildings as well. As far as crappy engines go, hmm... Bethesda's stuff maybe?

 

[RyRy93]

I wouldn't call efficient an engine can't run 30 fps capped on console ... RE engine it's surely impressive artistically but efficient? Doubt about it. Furthermore has very raw edge in the lighting and the transparencies, very low buffer and SSR is definitely awful and broken. Doesn't seems particularly "elastic" to handle even in the fps front.

RE2 looked gorgeous while running at 60fps and 1600p on a PS4 Pro...

 

[ABnormal]

I would say Fox Engine, capable to smoothly render 1080p/60 fps open worlds with dynamic lighting on ps4, and capable to render also photorealistic small spaced environments, especially on lighting. Really too bad that Konami shelved it. Silent Hills would have been one of the most graphically advanced games of the generation, for sure.

The worst have been for many years the bethesda engine, because at least Activision created a new painted one recently.

 

[nkarafo]

Decima.

Granted we have few examples of it, but what there is, especially Death Stranding, is amazing.

I assume you are talking about consoles only?

 

[The Cockatrice]

I wouldn't call efficient an engine can't run 30 fps capped on console ... RE engine it's surely impressive artistically but efficient? Doubt about it. Doesn't seems particularly "elastic" to handle in the fps front.

yeah besides the character models which lets be honest, any engine can probably make them look incredible, it does not do anything out of the ordinary. Quite the opposite, the interior/environmental details in DMC5/RE games have been below average tho it runs good and scales well with hardware. I remember even to this day the memes about shooting the glass is basically shooting cardboard in re2.

id tech 7 is the best in recent memory at least in proper hands. Doom Eternal can probably run a fucking potato and still have decent framerates and still look good.

 

[assurdum]

RE2 looked gorgeous while running at 60fps and 1600p on a PS4 Pro...

1600p CBR . Keep in mind is very scripted. Not to say is not impressive but it has evident compromise to reach it. When they try to use their engine in more open environment, it shows its limits

 

[ABnormal]

Decima.

Granted we have few examples of it, but what there is, especially Death Stranding, is amazing.

It's impressive for many things, but not in shadowing and dynamic lighting. It still has the limits from its deferred nature heritage.

 

[Magog.]

Impressive: From a graphical standpoint I would have to say Decima. There is just something so crisp about it. From a gameplay perspective probably TLOU2's engine. The AI in that game are simply next level and the graphics are no slouch either.
Dated? Fallout 4 and 76 come to mind. Looks about 10 years old even on the latest hardware.

 

[Jmatt110]

Snowdrop engine is amazing. Gamebryo is utter garbage.

 

[GHG]

The best ones out there from a performance/visuals ratio standpoint:

• id Tech 7
• Frostbite
• Madness Engine
• Fox Engine

 

[assurdum]

I would say UE4 because probably any engine can't handle the same quantity of graphic features in the same time as on it at the same costs. It's not cheap for sure on console, but hardly a multiplat engine can't offer anything of better.
Well gamesbryo of Bethesda or whatever is called wins hand down as the worst. It's a tragedy graphically without contest. Even updating it, characters and environment seems to come to the ps360 era. Honestly don't know what's wrong with it.

 

[Magog.]

Snowdrop engine is amazing. Gamebryo is utter garbage.

I thought the Division 1 looked great but the Division 2 somehow didn't impress and looked a lot worse. The snow added a lot of atmosphere to the game which the sequel obviously lacked.

 

[cireza]

My vote goes to Team Ninja. They have great engines, thinking of Razor Edge and Dead or Alive 5/6. Haven't played Nioh, but I am sure it is well made.

Then I would add Hedgehog Engine from Sonic Team (from Unleashed to Forces) and Luminous Engine from Square-Enix (FF XV).

 

[K.S v2.0]

I assume you are talking about consoles only?

Both console and PC. Console for its scalability and how it can still produce visuals of HZD's quality on a literal potatoaster, and PC for how well it scales up (Death Stranding).

It's impressive for many things, but not in shadowing and dynamic lighting. It still has the limits from its deferred nature heritage.

True, but I would be surprised if the engine wasn't upgradable for the RTX generation.

My vote goes to Team Ninja. They have great engines, thinking of Razor Edge and Dead or Alive 5/6. Haven't played Nioh, but I am sure it is well made.

Then I would add Hedgehog Engine from Sonic Team (from Unleashed to Forces) and Luminous Engine from Square-Enix (FF XV).

Agreed here on Team Ninja, whatever engine it is they use or used to use. IIRC it IS literally the 'dead or alive engine' probably v3 or v4 by now. I remember an old AF Ninja Gaiden interview where they said the game is running on the DoA engine, just with some modifications.

Tho last I checked Team Ninja have also shifted to UE4...

 

[Mister Wolf]

I'm a fan of RE Engine.

 

[ShigeruMiyamoto]

I would say UE4 because probably any engine can't handle the same quantity of graphic features in the same time as on it at the same costs. It's not cheap for sure on console, but hardly a multiplat engine can't offer anything of better.
Well gamesbryo of Bethesda or whatever is called wins hand down as the worst. It's a tragedy graphically without contest. Even updating it, characters and environment seems to come to the ps360 era. Honestly don't know what's wrong with it.

They really need to just set Gamebyro and the Creation Engine on fire and start with something else entirely. If Avowed ends up looking like it does in the trailer, Bethesda is still going to be like a decade behind it in graphics with its old creaky engines in tow.

 

[Sean Mirrsen]

An "impressive engine I found recently" would be Unigine 2. Some seriously impressive world-creation capabilities, good rendering quality and varied physics features (including ocean and oceangoing vessel physics), and decent scalability. It's almost 15 years in development, widely used for benchmarks and professional simulators/"serious games", but only recently available for free, so development of community-facing features is still ongoing, and the number of games that use it is quite low. But increasing! Dual Universe is made with it, and MicroProse recently partnered with it for something, which will hopefully be something impressive.

 

[Kuranghi]

When people write "<X res> CBR" to describe a PS4 Pro title, are you meaning its that res natively/internally and then is checkerboarded to 2160p, or do you mean we don't know the internal res and <X res> is what you get after the CBR pass, which is then generally upscaled to 2160p in the same way a TV would handle non-native input res?

For example, I see people saying its a "1440p CBR" game, which I always took to mean it checkerboards the output from 1440p native to 2160p, but sometimes people reply and say the 1440p is not the native res and that its the result of the CBR pass.

Whats the deal?

 

[x@3f*oo_e!]

When people write "<X res> CBR" to describe a PS4 Pro title, are you meaning its that res natively/internally and then is checkerboarded to 2160p, or do you mean we don't know the internal res and <X res> is what you get after the CBR pass, which is then generally upscaled to 2160p in the same way a TV would handle non-native input res?

For example, I see people saying its a "1440p CBR" game, which I always took to mean it checkerboards the output from 1440p native to 2160p, but sometimes people reply and say the 1440p is not the native res and that its the result of the CBR pass.

Whats the deal?

Thing will output at 2160p - PS4 Pro can't even (out did used to) be able to output 1440p.

So game is rendered at 1440p checkboarded, then upscaled

..but it's morelikely either full 1440p upscaled to 4k, or, 4k (or a little lower) checkboarded , depending on the game ... 1440p+checkerboarding is a very low bar, unless they trying for 60fps or something

 

[Kuranghi]

Thing will output at 2160p - PS4 Pro can't even (out did used to) be able to output 1440p.

So game is rendered at 1440p checkboarded, then upscaled

..but it's morelikely either full 1440p upscaled to 4k, or, 4k (or a little lower) checkboarded , depending on the game ... 1440p+checkerboarding is a very low bar, unless they trying for 60fps or something

The 1440p figure was for Uncharted 4 specifically, I think they said you they use some MSAA as well, so it being graphically intensive explains the lower starting res, but CBR and the AA makes it look more like native 1800p, when you see the final output.

Kinda helps but its not exactly crystal clear, I think I'll go do some reading on this.

 

[x@3f*oo_e!]

The 1440p figure was for Uncharted 4 specifically, I think they said you they use some MSAA as well, so it being graphically intensive explains the lower starting res, but CBR and the AA makes it look more like native 1800p, when you see the final output.

Kinda helps but its not exactly crystal clear, I think I'll go do some reading on this.

Uncharted is definately that low. 1440p is the same number of pixels (2x 1080p overall) as 4k checkboarded .. so I suppose it's design choice. iirc checkboarding often uses or make heavy use of 'temporal antialiasing' (HZD for istance does) - maybe they did't like that tech or weren't familiar with it .. it does add some artifacts compared to a straight upscale ..

But I haven't even played U4 so dunno ..

 

[The Hamburglar]

I’m not fan of Unity. Most games have performance problems on it.

I hate it. How can a game like battle tech perform so badly, run like shit and just generally be clunky. Unity.

 

[RoboFu]

What ever was used in Mario kart 8. Those graphics on Wii U!?

but really people blame engines too much for dev issues. You see a lot of bad performing Unity games because it’s easier for amateur devs to get into.

A engine is only as good as the people using it.

 

[MadchesterManc]

The 1440p figure was for Uncharted 4 specifically, I think they said you they use some MSAA as well, so it being graphically intensive explains the lower starting res, but CBR and the AA makes it look more like native 1800p, when you see the final output.

Kinda helps but its not exactly crystal clear, I think I'll go do some reading on this.

As far as I'm aware Uncharted 4 doesn't use checkerboarding. None of the ND games this gen do and are 1440p upscaled, aside from TLOU Remastered that goes up to native 4K/30.

 

[Keihart]

I'm didn't make a game and neither used any of the engines that most companies use, so who knows? Certainly not me.

 

[lestar]

REngine, very good graphics for this gen and very good performance even on potato PCs

 

[Kamill]

Easy- Rage and UE 4/5

 

[Hudo]

Impressed: MT Framework (even though it's slowly been transitioned out, it still went out with a bang with MHW), RE Engine, The engine Nintendo EPD are using that powered Odyssey and Breath of the Wild, id Tech, Source Engine.

Not impressed/cumbersome or shitty to work with: Unity, Unreal Engine and Frostbite (haven't worked directly with the latter but you hear horror stories from everywhere outside of DICE)

 

[Jack Videogames]

Also a fan of the RE Engine here. Managed some very impressive 1728p 60fps graphics on my old 1080GTX with Resident Evil 2 and DMC5. I think it's really scalable and still produces great looking results.

On the other side, I do not remember having any qualms with any particular engine lately - but I still have nightmares with Gamebryo games on PS3...

 

[Komatsu]

I am mildly biased against homegrown engines since they tend to run like absolute crap when used by external development outfits. Even Source, which was specifically designed as a pre-built package of libraries, etc., to be purchased by other studios, was absolutely awful when Troika touched it and they were the first non-Valve devs to do so.

We've had a handful of impressive homegrown engines put through the works in the last few years:

SEGA has both the Hedgehog 2 and the Dragon engines;
CD Projekt Red used their RED Engine 4 on Cyberpunk 2077;
Rockstar has further perfected RAGE (GTA V, RDR2)
Konami retained use of the KojiPro-developed FOX engine.

But when it comes to stability, modularity and portability there's really only one game in town: Unreal.

 

[horkrux]

Frictional Games' engine seems hopelessly outdated. It was fine for Soma, but I could no longer play Amnesia Rebirth without being appalled by its technology

 

[PropellerEar]

We need input from fake game and engine devs...
Gavin Stevens & Kirby0Louise what do you think?

 

[Plantoid]

Whatever engine doom eternal runs on impressed me,

Outer worlds engine is trash

 

[GrayChild]

Best from a technical perspective:

- Decima - Horizon: Zero Dawn and Death Stranding still look stunning, while being open-world.
- Red Engine 4 - Some minor quibbles aside, it's the first true next-gen showcase.

Best performance/scalability ratio:

- Fox Engine - The sole fact that MGSV runs at 1080/60FPS on a base PS4 is a damn miracle.
- idTech 7

Outdated AF:

- HPL Engine - Even in its latest iteration it looks, feels and plays like something from 10 years ago.
- Creation/Gamebryo - Pretty obvious

 

[Kuranghi]

As far as I'm aware Uncharted 4 doesn't use checkerboarding. None of the ND games this gen do and are 1440p upscaled, aside from TLOU Remastered that goes up to native 4K/30.

Cheers, I am probably confusing things.

I heard about the MSAA part from a Digital Foundry video where they said they talked to the the devs, will have to go back and give it another watch as I must be confusing the CBR part.

 

[StateofMajora]

Re engine is pretty much the best in terms of framerates and detail combined, but unreal 4 has been great as well in terms of flexibility - it's better than RE - even producing good results on switch, at 60fps.

 

[Guilty_AI]

In terms of flexibility, would be probably Unreal and Unity.

Thing is, different engines can do different types of games better, so most engines will only be as impressive as how well the game being developed with them capitalizes on their strengths and avoids its weakness (Naturally theres also the matter of the developers skill).

The Apex A.O.W. Engine for example was used to develop Mad Max, a game that not only looks stunningly beautiful but also runs like a dream. It was also used to develop Just Cause 3, a game that looks beautiful too but runs like shit.

 

[MightySquirrel]

The most impressive overall to me is RAGE, even with the lack of hdr, mainly because of its integrated Euphoria physics.

FROSTBITE still has the crown, if we look at visual/performance ratio.

 

[Iceternal]

Ubisoft's Anvil next is a piece of shit. Game are unoptimized messes that don't even look as good as the standard.

 

[Elginer]

Bethesda’s engine is hot shit

 

[Hudo]

Whatever engine doom eternal runs on impressed me,

Outer worlds engine is trash

Outer Worlds runs on Unreal Engine, afaik.

 

[Rikkori]

This question has to be asked to dev studios, not random gamers who've heard the names and then decide what engine is or isn't good depending on if it runs on their 6 year old cheeze-its.

 

[x@3f*oo_e!]

I think it's Outer Worlds assets and lighting that are the problem not the engine

 

[harmny]

People like to say Bethesda's engine is shit but what you need to understand is that they keep their games the way they are because they are prioritising mod support. It's not that bethesda's can't hire talented engineers.
You may hate it but the engine is also a reason why skyrim is still top 50 in concurrent players on steam after 10 years
They supposedly changed it a lot for starfield. Let's see.