ScienceDiscoverer said:
I think that the “core” or “soul” of the game is its Engine

Most zoomers will not spend 5 minutes to learn how to write a few for cycles to render the models and the geometry of them, when they can use this 5 minutes to watch tiktok videos.

Some type of existing engines are very useful (such as an RTS maker to make an rts, lets call these genre-specific makers). But these unity-unreal-cry type of engines, which have one sole purpose, to make up a cover for the fullblown incompetence and lack of real passion of the so called “developers”.

And ironically the end result usually takes far more time to create, than what would it took if they would have spent a few weeks to learn the basics… because for example instead of understanding what a 2d array is and making their game map level overnight, they start singing and lament around some camp fire for 10 years, crying how a “proper level design system” and the people to operate them will require another 100 person. Digging a much deeper hole than what they would be otherwise in, vomiting and grunting in front a mirror for years, conviencing themself about how impossible is to write a game engine (aka for cycles with gldrawarrays and fread) and then they vomiting their sorrow on others, infecting them with their zombie bite.

To also reflect on your personal problem.

ScienceDiscoverer said:
I tried it myself, you know. Some years ago I tried to implement some primitive 2D engine, but it turned out to be TOO primitive. This year I tried to challenge myself to create DX12 engine from complete scratch. The ultimate goal was an FPS game. I managed to setup the pipeline, write some simple shaders, generate some primitives and even add some controls but I got cut down by the super complex math of collision detection system, and because of this had to freeze the project for the indeterminate time…

Stop overcomplicating the problem you are facing. You could have used opengl instead of directshit12 and would have achieved your goal 99% faster.

Techbro-ism (austistic fixation of cutting edge technology) is just as bad as the incompetence of the unity boys, its just the opposite extremism.

You should learn how to choose the efficient solutions to your problems, what should be in front of your eyes is how to solve that problem in an efficient, reliable, compatible way as fast as possible, and this is not just true for game engines, its true overall to the entire it. Like for example your office coworkers will not like you, if you built the network from centralized servers and switch devices in total of 40 k usd - when you could have just used old 6 tplink routers bought for 5 dollars each.

When i did my first renderers, i also fell into this trap, listening to techbros who randomly selected a new feature which they read on some gamer bloodstephen site about “how it will be the new future” and trying to implement some of them… Dont do that.

Geri said:
incompetence and lack of real passion of the so called “developers”.

Just call them ‘content creators’ like i do. Avoids the insult. \:D/

Geri said:
Stop overcomplicating the problem you are facing. You could have used opengl instead of directshit12 and would have achieved your goal 99% faster.

Yes, i can second this. I mean, i really heave to use Vulkan, because it runs my compute stuff twice as fast.
But the day i switched from GL to VK so far was the last day i did some actual gfx on GPU.
Drawing a single triangle with VK is more code than a whole software rasterizer, so i really postpone the tedious gfx work as far as i can. I don't want to check 10 tutorials and specs that read like patents, just to draw some stuff.

GL was so much easier to use. And i miss it as much as i hate it.
However - sadly there is no raytracing for GL or DX11. Maybe you don't need that anyway, but this also means the industry has decided that the old and easy high level APIs are dead.
Intel already only emulates those old APIs.
As devs, we can contribute to a sane and efficient industry by not using deprecated APIs anymore, so GPU vendors can focus on making drivers for fewer APIs, but those well. That's faster and cheaper GPUs for us.

Thus, you should not attempt to stop low level people, i think.
Low level is the future. It's harder, but if you do anything interesting on GPU, it's totally worth it.

Geri said:
Techbro-ism (austistic fixation of cutting edge technology) is just as bad as the incompetence of the unity boys, its just the opposite extremism.

Yes. Those guys have images of Jensen under their bed instead a Playboy magazine. And they already prepare to put their 4090 on ebay to get a 5090 on day one. And they believe that restir is an ‘optimization’. Haha, how foolish. /:D

But that's not why people use low level APIs. It's just about getting better performance for more work. That's all. And it's a good thing, not a bad one. ; )

JoeJ said:
Yes. Those guys have images of Jensen under their bed instead a Playboy magazine. And they already prepare to put their 4090 on ebay to get a 5090 on day one. And they believe that restir is an ‘optimization’. Haha, how foolish. /:D

I have seriously laughed for past 10 minutes.

The problem of techbro-ism is that they are overly fixated on some tech, while considering everything else vastly inferior. Honestly I'd love to see their explanation of it … as theory behind such things is non-trivial and contains many pitfalls and possible problems.

Last time I laughed this hard was a statement from game studio, which used Unity before, with note: We are switching to UE5 for our next game because it has superior graphics to Unity.

Vilem Otte said:
Last time I laughed this hard was a statement from game studio, which used Unity before, with note: We are switching to UE5 for our next game because it has superior graphics to Unity.

But why is this funny? UE has high detail geometry and dynamic GI. Unity has neither?

JoeJ said:
But why is this funny? UE has high detail geometry and dynamic GI. Unity has neither?

I will object that with simple:

• Unity does have GI solution (for years) that are built-in (Enlighten one since 2019 already), additionally there are additional user-made solutions with various methods like VXGI (and more). They were progressively updated the HDRP one - and it is competitive to Lumen.
• Geometry-wise - if you're talking about standard geometry, they are pretty much equivalent
• When you're talking about virtual geometry - Chinese version of Unity does have that (I'm not sure why Unity didn't implement that for non-Chinese version so far - maybe there were some licensing/patent problems outside of China?). Additionally user-made solutions are available for some time - but they do vary in quality

Also we're not talking AAA studio, but an indie one.

…

The main thing in terms of quality are assets, the difference lumen/nanite makes is really tiny difference as long as you have great design, nice assets and high resolution textures (plus the moment you precompute lighting - that surpasses any dynamic GI computation that currently exists in terms of quality, as long as you have high enough resolution).

For this I'd recommend looking at de_prime map in old CS:GO (I'll attach a video). The main point is, this one is still done on somewhat old Source engine, but due to heavily precomputed lighting, good assets and textures, etc. … it can still visually hold very decently in comparison to different engines.

Vilem Otte said:
and it is competitive to Lumen.

Can it do reflections as good as UEs SDF tracing? I have never seen such thing in a Unity game.
I guess Unity also lacks VSM and recent advantages on soft shadows, but idk.

Vilem Otte said:
When you're talking about virtual geometry - Chinese version of Unity does have that

Yeah, they work on it, but afaik that's a fork which has nothing to do with Unity. And i have not yet seen that either in shipped a game.

Vilem Otte said:
For this I'd recommend looking at de_prime map in old CS:GO (I'll attach a video). The main point is, this one is still done on somewhat old Source engine, but due to heavily precomputed lighting, good assets and textures, etc. … it can still visually hold very decently in comparison to different engines.

Nah. This is still dominated by SSAO, no complex materials just flat diffuse everywhere for most. Like a game from the 2000s but with hi res textures.
They fail to take profit from baked lighting. There would be better examples, but i can't come up with one quickly.

Now, i have played quite a few UE5 games already. And to me it's a noticeable generational leap visually. It's more than what we've got with the PS4 generation back then.
Though, i never noticed any dynamic GI in any game. Never i can open a door and see how the light floods the whole room. I know it works, but only from demos on YT, not games.
I guess the level designers just miss the opportunity so far, and have not yet learned to take advantage.
Or maybe they need to exclude doors from GI, similar as with characters and most dynamic objects.
That's something i really wonder about. But otherwise i'm impressed and also happy with perf. on my old HW.
(Sadly i'm not impressed from the games themselves til yet, but that's another rant.)

Personally i do not wonder if some devs switch from Unity to UE for better visuals.
I wonder much more why Unity buys a offline VFX company, but refuses to bring their gfx up to date. It took them a decade only to get their TAA right.
There are impressive Unity games too, e.g. this:

I'm impressed from all those simulations going on. But the lighting feels average and can't compete UE, imo.