Epic had to rewrite parts of Unreal Engine 5 due to the PS5 SSD

Last month Gamereactor reported, how great games will look when running on Sony's PlayStation 5 when they are using Epic Games' latest and greatest Unreal Engine 5. Later, Epic Games' CEO Tim Sweeney stated that games using Unreal Engine 5 will look great on all platforms.

The big thing in Sony's marketing for the PlayStation 5 has been its SSD, which is said to basically eliminate loading times (among other things). Now VG24/7 reports, that parts of the Unreal Engine 5 had to go through a rewriting process to fully use the new SSD technology. This was revealed by Epic Games' VP of engineering, Nick Penwarden.

"The ability to stream in content at extreme speeds enables developers to create denser and more detailed environments, changing how we think about streaming content. It's so impactful that we've rewritten our core I/O subsystems for Unreal Engine with the PlayStation 5 in mind.

Later Tim Sweeney clarified on Twitter, that the work done for Playstation 5 will benefit all platforms.

"There has been a massive effort to upgrade Unreal Engine loading and streaming to ensure CPU doesn't become the bottleneck. PS5 has provided much of the impetus, but the work will benefit all platforms."