UE5: Terrible performance and visual crutches

[DragonInABox]

Testing in Harju using the training mode (no actual match activity making it the best case scenario for performance), running at native 1080p (no AA) with all settings on low, I'm averaging 40-50 FPS. We were promised better performance, but so far this is significantly worse than UE4, where I easily get well above 60 FPS in Harju on training mode, even with higher settings.

Besides the horrible baseline performance, without any AA the shadows are a distracting grainy mess, so really I'm forced to use one of the performance-heavy scalers to do native AA, which shaves off another 10-15% of my FPS. (I realize this is sort of mentioned in the news post, but I figure it's worth bringing attention to due to just how bad it is). Tthe only way I can achieve an actually acceptable framerate is by using a ridiculous amount of upscaling instead of running at native resolution, which results in an awful-looking image full of constantly moving artifacts.

Now yes, my GPU is a nearly 9 year old GTX 1080, which isn't exactly what most people would consider up to date. But it has served me well in basically every game I play, and I've been able to run Squad on it for years without issue, so to see such awful performance on the same hardware is extremely disappointing.

If performance is expected to drastically improve (and I mean by at least 3x) before release, then great! But if this is about what we can expect when the UE5 update is complete, then I doubt I'll be able to continue to play, since getting a new GPU is difficult and expensive these days. I love the game and respect the work you guys do, but I'd be lying if I said this first playtest hasn't hit a sore spot.

[rock 🇹🇼]

Yeah UE5 is known to do that.

[DragonInABox]

Originally posted by rock 🇹🇼:

Yeah UE5 is known to do that.

Yeah... UE5 as a whole isn't a bad engine, but it has some features that are bad and destroy performance. Nanite is definitely one of them, and I wonder if it's what's causing most of the issues here.

[ScubaSteve29]

dude your playing on a PS2.. its 2025

[DragonInABox]

Originally posted by ScubaSteve29:

dude your playing on a PS2.. its 2025

You're missing the point. The current (UE4) version of the game runs far better! I don't consider it okay for a game I already play to suddenly require better hardware.

[Misfit600]

Originally posted by DragonInABox:

Originally posted by ScubaSteve29:

dude your playing on a PS2.. its 2025

You're missing the point. The current (UE4) version of the game runs far better! I don't consider it okay for a game I already play to suddenly require better hardware.

so idea find another game that runs on UE5 and see if u have FPS issues on it as well to get a idea if its squad or just the UE5 engine in general

[DragonInABox]

Originally posted by Misfit600:

Originally posted by DragonInABox:

You're missing the point. The current (UE4) version of the game runs far better! I don't consider it okay for a game I already play to suddenly require better hardware.

so idea find another game that runs on UE5 and see if u have FPS issues on it as well to get a idea if its squad or just the UE5 engine in general

Yeah. I never explicitly stated it was a broad UE5 issue. It's obviously that the devs have utilized certain features that are bad for performance. My point is simply that an update shouldn't make performance worse.

[rock 🇹🇼]

Originally posted by ScubaSteve29:

dude your playing on a PS2.. its 2025

There's no reason for him to upgrade to play something he already bought and could play until now, a ten year old game shouldn't become unplayable on a developer's whim.

[smir_Nik]

Originally posted by rock 🇹🇼:

Originally posted by ScubaSteve29:

dude your playing on a PS2.. its 2025

There's no reason for him to upgrade to play something he already bought and could play until now, a ten year old game shouldn't become unplayable on a developer's whim.

The whole idea of switching to UA5 is that Squad no longer looks like a 10-year-old game.

You were essentially given a Squad 2, without having to pay again.

So please, if you complain about performance, at least refer to more or less relevant hardware.

[DragonInABox]

Originally posted by smir_Nik:

Originally posted by rock 🇹🇼:

There's no reason for him to upgrade to play something he already bought and could play until now, a ten year old game shouldn't become unplayable on a developer's whim.

The whole idea of switching to UA5 is that Squad no longer looks like a 10-year-old game.

You were essentially given a Squad 2, without having to pay again.

So please, if you complain about performance, at least refer to more or less relevant hardware.

Honestly though, I think the graphics on UE5 look much worse. Notably, small foliage isn't casting shadows or AO, which is resulting in very flat visuals that look more like a game from 2005. Maybe this is just an issue with the playtest, or I missed a setting, I dunno,

[Káposzta]

when the game was released the performance was fine, even in early access, its very sad how the devs are dealing with this game. If they fixed it, the community would grow significantly, so many ppl could play with it

[Holden]

rofl, today 1st time i clicked uninstall and really this is too much for me

i tried, fps is - 40 fps for me. cannot use AA without up scaling - this is their method for this nanite crap. i knew this will happen with ue5.

Looking at each playtest i was part of - i know where this is going.

♥♥♥♥ Squad. good luck.

[Togo]

We dont want UE5

[dongobongo]

Originally posted by Togo:

We dont want UE5

Who cares, OWI just needs a fresh, cheap students to develop their mobile gaming solutions into Squad.
With UE4 it was hard for fire and hire someone, with UE5 you can fire whole dev team and hire a bunch of new ones just in less then one month. Its over, Tencent is the only winner there.

[Togo]

Originally posted by dongobongo:

Originally posted by Togo:

We dont want UE5

Who cares, OWI just needs a fresh, cheap students to develop their mobile gaming solutions into Squad.
With UE4 it was hard for fire and hire someone, with UE5 you can fire whole dev team and hire a bunch of new ones just in less then one month. Its over, Tencent is the only winner there.

Rip Squad

[paul]

Originally posted by smir_Nik:

Originally posted by rock 🇹🇼:

There's no reason for him to upgrade to play something he already bought and could play until now, a ten year old game shouldn't become unplayable on a developer's whim.

The whole idea of switching to UA5 is that Squad no longer looks like a 10-year-old game.

You were essentially given a Squad 2, without having to pay again.

So please, if you complain about performance, at least refer to more or less relevant hardware.

I'd rather buy Squad 2, so I can go back to play Squad (1) whenever I want.

This whole "GaaS" concept of supporting one game forever is just as bad as the opposite trend of releasing a new game every year.