Epic Games’ latest engine, Unreal Engine 5.1, released last November, has finally been officially applied to Fortnite.
Epic Games said today (4th), with the start of Fortnite Battle Royale Chapter 4, that various latest features using Unreal Engine 5.1 will be available in the Fortnite game, and a level of detail never seen before in the game world. He expressed his ambition to open the horizon of visual fidelity by realizing it.
Newly applied to Fortnite Battle Royale are Nanite, Lumen, Virtual Shadow Map, and Temporal Super Resolution, which are representative features of Unreal Engine 5. First, Nanite is a feature that provides highly sophisticated architectural geometry. Millions of polygons are rendered in real time on a building, and each brick, stone, board, and wall finish is modeled. Through this, the player can experience the natural scenery at a very detailed level in the game.
The second function, ‘Lumen’, is a function that expresses high-quality ray tracing reflections in glossy materials and water. In addition, real-time global illumination can be implemented at 60 FPS, and you can see beautiful indoor spaces decorated with bounce lighting, and characters will react to the ambient light. This means that you can see a more realistic light expression.
‘Virtual Shadow Map’ is a function that can express extremely precise shadows. Shadow expression is applied to everything from bricks to leaves to modeled details, and the shadow applied to the character itself is also displayed very accurately. Lastly, ‘Temporal Super Resolution’ is an upgraded version of Fortnite Temporal Anti-Aliasing, and is a function that helps display high-quality visual effects at a high frame rate.
Along with the addition of new features in Unreal Engine 5.1, a FAQ was released to answer some of the questions that users might be curious regarding. The main contents of the FAQ introduced through the notice on the homepage are as follows.
Q. Will Nanites, Lumens, Virtual Shadow Maps, and Temporal Super Resolution apply to Save the World’s Creator Island?
= Nanite, Lumen, and Virtual Shadow maps are not currently applied to Creator Island in Save the World. Temporal super resolution is applied.
Q. What are the minimum PC requirements to use Nanite?
※ Minimum requirements
GPU: NVIDIA: Maxwell generation cards or newer; AMD: GCN generation cards or newer; latest graphics drivers
Operating system: Windows 10 version 1909.1350 or higher, DirectX 12 Agility SDK support, Windows 11
DirectX version: DirectX 12
※ Recommended specifications
GPU: NVIDIA: GeForce RTX 2080 or better, AMD: Radeon RX 5700 or better, latest graphics driver
Operating system: Latest 10 version, support DirectX 12 Agility SDK, latest Windows 11 version
DirectX version: DirectX 12
Q. How do I get access to Nanites, Lumens, Virtual Shadow Maps, and Temporal Super Resolution when playing Fortnite on PS5 or Xbox Series X|S?
= Turn off the ‘120 FPS Mode’ setting in the ‘Graphics’ section of the video settings.
Finally, an introduction to changes in legacy operating system support followed. Windows 10 or later is required to play Fortnite in the officially supported way starting with the newly applied Battle Royale Chapter 4 Season 2. Fortnite will no longer be officially supported on Windows 7 and 8.
Epic Games said that as Fortnite continues to evolve, changes in support are essential to grow the technology and expand the game to shape and realize the future of Fortnite. In the case of older operating systems, security threats are large, and modern technology essential for games is missing, so you need to invest more development time, so less time to invest in the game itself. For those who inevitably cannot upgrade the operating system, a bypass method was added, saying, ‘You can use NVIDIA GeForce NOW on a Windows 7 or Windows 8 PC.’
The new features of next-generation Unreal Engine 5.1 are available in Fortnite Battle Royale for PS5, Xbox Series X|S, PC and NVIDIA GeForce NOW.
