Digital Foundry has published an in-depth technical breakdown of the PC version of ARC Raiders, the cooperative shooter from Embark Studios (the team behind The Finals). Their report highlights an unusually smooth and steady performance for a title built on Unreal Engine 5, avoiding the shader stutters and abrupt drops in performance that often plague UE5 projects.
The key to this stability is the deliberate omission of three major UE5 systems: Lumen (dynamic global illumination), Nanite (automatic triangle density and detail streaming), and Virtual Shadow Maps (high-precision shadowing). By forgoing these systems, the developers achieved a more consistent frame-rate and significantly reduced hitches tied to shader compilation.
Digital Foundry observes that brief slowdowns can still occur when new areas load, but these are mitigated by enabling a frame-rate cap. The absence of certain UE5 features does introduce some minor imperfections in lighting and shadow fidelity, yet the overall visual presentation remains coherent and sharp — a crucial factor for a competitive online experience.
ARC Raiders also demonstrates strong scalability. Analysts suggest dropping Dynamic RTXGI and GI Resolution from Ultra to High, which can boost frame-rates by up to about 24% with little noticeable impact on visual quality.
Source: iXBT.games