Unreal Engine 5.1 update is here: fixes awful stuttering issues

Epic Games has published a gigantic Unreal Engine 5.1 roadmap, which has a laundry list of improvements that are coming to developers.

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One of the major issues is the stuttering issues that caused headaches for developers using Unreal Engine 4+ for their games, with Unreal Engine 5.1 receiving an Automated PSO Gathering feature that will solve the issue once and for all.

Epic Games explained: "With the increasing emphasis in UE5 on DX12 and Vulkan, we're focusing attention on solving the problem of runtime hitches caused by Pipeline State Object creation, which is inherent to those RHIs. The previous solution required a PSO pre-caching process, which could be burdensome for large projects and still leave gaps in the cache leading to hitches".

Unreal Engine 5.1 roadmap improvements:

Rendering

• Lumen Improvements
• Nanite Improvements
• Path Tracing Improvements
• GPU Lightmass Improvements
• ODSC - On-Demand Shader Compilation
• Automated PSO Gathering
• Strata Materials (Experimental)
• Niagara Improvements

World Building

• Game Feature Plugin Support for World Partition
• Data Layers Assets
• HLOD Improvements
• Large World Coordinates Support for World Partition (Beta)
• Bookmark System (Beta)
• Actor Editor Context
• Source Control Integration Improvements

Developer Iteration

• Virtual Assets (Beta)
• Memory Insights Updates

Characters & Animation

• Refined Workflows for Animation Authoring
• Procedural Control Rig Creation
• Animation Retargeting for Virtual Production
• Character Deformation Improvements
• Debugging Tools for Gameplay
• Motion Matching (Experimental)
• Pose Warping

Audio

• Audio Paramater Modulation
• Audio Gameplay Volumes
• WaveEditor Tool
• Additional Audio Notes
• Node Connection Visual Feedback
• Multichannel Audio Output
• Underscore - Plug & Play Interactive Music System
• Soundscape - Plug & Play State-Based Ambient Sounds

Platform

• Unreal Editor Native Support on Apple Silicon
• Mobile Deferred Renderer Improvements (Beta)

Geometry Tools

• Modeling Mode Improvements (Beta)
• UV Editor Improvements (Beta)
• Geometry Scripting Improvements (Beta)

Pipeline

• USD Integration Improvements
• Datasmith Exporter Plugin for 3ds Max Improvements
• Production-Ready Datasmith Exporter for Solidworks
• Datasmith Exporter for Revit Imporvements
• Datasmith SDK
• Interchange Import Pipeline
• Lidar Improvements
• Datasmith Exporter for SketchUp Improvements
• CAD Kernel (Beta)
• MaterialX File Import (Experimental)

Chaos Physics

• Chaos Cloth Improvements
• Chaos Character Physics Docs and Tutorials

Cinematic & Virtual Production

• Enhanced DMX Support
• nDisplay Clustered Rendering Enhancements
• Video & EXR Playback Improvements
• VP Stage Operator UX & Workflows
• ICVFX iOS Stage App
• Virtual Camera Enhancements
• Virtual Scouting Enhancements
• Lumen for In-Camera VFX
• Sequencer Enhancements
• Movie Render Queue Enhancements
• Take Recorder Enhancements
• Live Link Face Importer

Framework

• Blueprint Improvements
• Production-Ready Smart Objects
• Production-Ready MassEntity
• Production-Ready StateTree
• Iris Replication (Experimental)
• Gameplay Framework Updates
• Replication Performance Improvements

Editor & UI Systems

• Reference Viewer: Navigation Improvemetnts
• Outliner: Quality-of-Life Improvements
• Content Browser: Searching and Filtering Improvements
• Python Type Hinting
• UMG Extending Widget Using Named Slots
• UMG Viewmodel (Beta)
• Localization Pipeline Automation Improvements
• Light Mixer Panel (Beta)

Ari explained in his tweet: "We just published our roadmap for @UnrealEngine 5.1: 60fps Lumen, Nanite WPO, On-demand shader compilation, Automated PSO gathering, Niagara GPU ribbons, Virtual assets, Gameplay Debugging, Unreal Editor on Apple Silicon, BP namespaces, and more!"

Lumen

• Improved performance optimizations in High scalability mode with the goal of achieving 60 fps on consoles
• Improved support for foliage
• Reflections on Single Layer Water
• Support for high-quality mirror reflections on translucent surfaces
• Support for nDisplay (SWRT and HWRT)
• Initial support for split-screen (SWRT only); performance characteristics still TBD
• Experimental: Hardware Ray Tracing (HWRT) in Vulkan - Surface cache lighting only, no support yet for Hit Lighting
• Many stability, quality, and bug fixes