How Game Engine Updates Impact FPS (Unreal, Unity)

FPS and Its Importance in Modern Games

FPS stands for the frames per second. It is a characteristics of a gaming computer. It is basically the measures of the frames per second a GPU can render and then sends it to the display unit which is monitor or LCD. Then according to its refresh rate it shows the information on the screen and like this the process is further going on. FPS is the main metric in gaming. 90% of the performance depend on this matrix. There are many ways to measure FPS.

The easiest and the coolest one is that, on the website you are reading this blog in the header section you will see a word home. When you click on this word home it will open a home page and there you will have a FPS calculator. You can simply click the start test and go through different apps and softwares, after some time click the stop test then the average duration, maximum, minimum values etc will be shown on your screen.

But if you wanted to see the FPS all the time on home screen then you can go for MSI afterburner. FPS is basically the critical thing and main performance characteristic in gaming, and it is somehow noticed by the drop in smoothness, unresponsive games and screen tearing and taking more time to load etc. Higher FPS results in smooth animations, faster input and easily pixels changing. Overall better experience, unique colors and reaction will be on time especially in competitive or fast paced game this matters the most.

Engine Version	Rendering Changes	Performance Impact	Typical FPS Result
Unreal 4.26	Traditional lighting	Stable performance	Consistent FPS
Unreal 5.0	Lumen, Nanite	Higher GPU usage	FPS drop on low-end
Unity 2020	Built-in pipeline	Balanced	Stable FPS
Unity 2021	URP improvements	Optimized CPU	Slight FPS boost
Unity 2022	Rendering updates	Mixed impact	Depends on settings
Unreal 5.2	Engine optimizations	Improved scaling	Better FPS on new GPUs

Different game engines like Unreal and Unity handle renderings, AI movements, colors, assets, streaming all of these are influenced by the FPS. When these receive updates from their back-end few few changings are made in the system depending upon the capability of the system. Sometimes they improve the gameplay and give better performance but sometimes they reduce the performance depending upon the conditions and situations. Developers and gamers alike closely monitor the FPS on their screen to ensure the game stills perform well across different hardware devices

Unreal Engine Updates and Their FPS Impact

Unreal engines especially focus on the visuals. They wish to develop cutting-edge graphics technology and add more maximum values to the Nanite, Lumen, and Advanced Ray-tracing. We should understand that if you are having a high-spec, full-end gaming PC then the performance as well as visuals as well as low power consumption these all things can be done at once. But if you are using a low-spec mid-range gaming system then these all cannot be proceed simultaneously because strong hardware is required for better visual graphics

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If we are not having that high-end and we are going for the better visuals it will require more power. Due to the consumption of more power the system will heat up. Sometimes due to the overload, the IC chips crashed and causing many other problems like screen lagging, screen tearing, taking longer time to load images, graphics, pixels. So these all things must be considered. And one of the major reason why this problem occurs is the incompatibility of the hardware as well as software to such extent that using low-quality data cables and extension can cause such problems.

These features like cutting-edge visual qualities can extremely improve the visual graphics. But if they are not configured correctly in a compatible manner they will also affect the system’s frames per second. Sometimes engine updates thoroughly change the scalability settings, lighting calculations, asset handling which will affect both the system’s CPU as well as GPU. And if the GPU is affected it will have a bad impact on all the system all the input-output devices.

Some of the updates improve multitasking. Some of them improve memory usage. Some are for the security purpose and some are for the performance purpose. These updates are good for the system but if they are not compatible with our system and we are using low hardware devices then these can cause problems. Testing and profiling after each update is crucial to identify performance and bottlenecks and then ensure a good gaming performance.

Common FPS Issues After Updating Game Engines

• Increased draw calls due to changed rendering defaults

• Higher memory usage affecting frame stability

• Deprecated features causing performance warnings

• Shader recompilation leading to temporary FPS drops

• Physics calculation changes increasing CPU load

• Lighting and shadow settings resetting to higher quality

• Plugin incompatibility impacting performance

• Asset reimport issues causing inefficient rendering

Unity Engine Updates and FPS Performance Changes

Unity Engine, like their name, prefer to make changes and increase the performance of all the sub-factors with Unity, like they usually emphasize broader platform support like scripting improvements, performance optimization tools, visual graphics management efficiently, low power consumption mode, and introducing new features at once.

Somehow, there are some problems with these updates too, but mainly they are more efficient than the others. Changes to the scriptable render pipeline URP and HDRP, physics calculations, and garbage collection. These are the main things which Unity focuses and these helps greatly to increase the frames per second rate. Some updates reduce CPU overhead, GPU overload, which leads to the most stable and consistent frame rates, which is more good than the ups and downs like fluctuating FPS graph, especially on mobiles and low-end systems. A consistent frame rate is very beneficial. On the other hand,sometimes Unity updates majorly alter the default settings, which unintentionally drops the system’s FPS and results in screen tearing and screen lagging.

Conclusions

At last, I would say that game engines are usually researching for the updates to bring innovation in the gaming field, and it is not a consistent process. Many updates are like we enjoy them, and many are like a headache we wait for the next update to get rid of this. These are sometimes the bug fixes, they give long-term benefits, but sometimes they also reduce the system’s FPS. So be cautious in solving out these problems and take help from an expert to do this.