Blade Runner-inspired Cyber Streets Unreal Engine 5 tech demo shows RT versus dynamic lights

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Cyber Streets is a new Unreal Engine 5.5.3 tech demo from lighting artist Pasquale Scionti that was created to showcase a Blade Runner and Cyberpunk-inspired scene using dynamic lights. This means no Lumen (Unreal Engine 5's in-built ray-tracing), path tracing, ray-tracing, or baked lighting.

Cyber Streets Tech Demo - RTX 5080, 1440p, Unreal Engine 5 (Dynamic Lights/Nanite Version).

This version of the Cyber Streets tech demo, which you can watch above, runs on a GeForce RTX 5080 and is impressive in presenting a complex scene with many dynamic lights. It leverages Unreal Engine's Nanite system with distance field meshes and added screen space reflections to show an interactive scene that looks impressive even without any RTX or Lumen action.

This week, the creator has posted an updated version of the Cyber Streets tech demo that uses Lumen for ray-traced global illumination, with ray-traced shadows, ambient occlusion, and reflections. It turns the tech demo into a Cyberpunk 2077-style scene where you can instantly tell the difference, even though the non-Lumen and non-RT versions still look fantastic.

Cyber Streets Tech Demo - RTX 5080, Unreal Engine 5 (Lumen/RT Version)

However, without DLSS 4 support, the performance hit on the GeForce RTX 5080 is big - going from around 120 FPS in 1440p down to 60 FPS in 1080p using the 'Epic' quality settings. Pasquale Scionti notes that the 'Epic' variant of the tech demo was created for the RTX 4090, so if you've got a more down-to-earth GPU, you're better off lowering the settings down to High or lower if performance is too choppy.

You can download the ray-traced and non-ray-traced versions of the Cyber Streets tech demo over at ArtStation.