This feels pretty unreal to see for ourselves, but we did and it is incredible. Richard Leadbetter of Digital Foundry, a well-known group that focuses on the tech used in and for games, decided to test Unreal Engine 5 on the Steam Deck. This wasn't meant to be a definitive answer of how it can run, but was designed to see if it could. And the answer is yes, it can, but it has some caveats.

Unreal Engine 5
Image comes from Digital Foundry and their testing of UE5.

The pros of using Unreal Engine 5 come in 2 different improvements: Software-based ray-tracing called Lumen and Nanite micro-geometry. Lumen is a groundbreaking way to get a faster performance with significantly better lighting through ray-tracing and Nanite is used to create highly detailed 3D models that even with so many polygons, can still perform well. And both of these technologies turned on, with virtual shadows, can run on the Deck's limited hardware.

While testing, Richard noted a couple interesting tidbits. They first tested The Valley of the Ancients and Matrix Demo, which both performed very poorly on the Deck, but Fortnite surprisingly ran better. While testing this on Windows OS, they found that it was able to get close to 30 FPS with everything enabled, except software-based Lumen was not working when turned on. To make it work, they had to use hardware-based RT Lumen, which took its toll on the performance. Richard also states that he believes this is a glitch and if software-based Lumen was working, performance would be better with similar visuals.

For more details, you can check Richard's article on Eurogamer or Digital Foundry's YouTube video on the matter. It is an interesting watch and we highly recommend. Regardless, this is incredibly exciting and proves how well Unreal Engine is optimized!

If you enjoyed this article, be sure to check out the rest of the content on SteamDeckHQ! We have a wide variety game reviews and news that are sure to help your gaming experience. Whether you're looking for news, tips and tutorials, game settings and reviews, or just want to stay up-to-date on the latest trends, we've got your back

Noah Kupetsky
A lover of gaming since 4, Noah has grown up with a love and passion for the industry. From there, he started to travel a lot and develop a joy for handheld and PC gaming. When the Steam Deck released, it just all clicked.
Steam Profile