Stalker 2 has made me look back and realize that maybe it was a mistake to make Epic Games' Unreal Engine 5 become an industry standard for the next decade.
I’ve seen a lot of talented devs explain that UE5 does give devs the tools to pre-cache shaders but since AAA studios rush everything, it ends up being low priority compared to maximizing the graphics. It’s not hard to believe considering games are pushed out the door with game-breaking bugs nowadays.
But it does beg the question of why the engine doesn’t do that itself. UE4 games ran like a dream, but this generation has felt like nothing but stuttering and 20 minutes of compiling shaders every time you open a game for the first time…
I’ve seen a lot of talented devs explain that UE5 does give devs the tools to pre-cache shaders but since AAA studios rush everything, it ends up being low priority compared to maximizing the graphics. It’s not hard to believe considering games are pushed out the door with game-breaking bugs nowadays.
But it does beg the question of why the engine doesn’t do that itself. UE4 games ran like a dream, but this generation has felt like nothing but stuttering and 20 minutes of compiling shaders every time you open a game for the first time…
Shiiit, Stalker 2 be compiling shaders every time I launch it!
A lot of UE4 games had big issues with shader compilation stutter. This is nothing new.