Potential issues with ray-tracing performance in Unreal Engine 4's RDNA 4 may not be exclusive to AMD hardware.
In the gaming world, two popular titles, The Ascent and Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice, have been experiencing performance issues when ray tracing is enabled. A closer look reveals that these problems are primarily linked to the proprietary Nvidia version of Unreal Engine 4, which incorporates Nvidia-specific ray-tracing technologies.
These games, developed using a custom Unreal Engine 4 version built by Nvidia, feature ray-tracing libraries and optimizations designed specifically for Nvidia GPUs. This Nvidia RTX branch, however, is not equally optimized for AMD or Intel GPUs, leading to significant performance and stuttering problems on those cards when ray tracing is enabled.
The cross-vendor stuttering experienced by AMD's RX 9000 series GPUs and Intel's Arc B580 GPUs indicates that the problem lies in the engine’s Nvidia-centric implementation rather than driver faults on AMD's or Intel's side. For instance, in The Ascent, FPS dips to near 0 intermittently on the RX 9070, causing large performance drops despite the GPU having enough power to run the game in theory. Intel Arc GPUs show similar issues.
Features like DLSS on Nvidia GPUs can mitigate some visual artifacts or performance drops, highlighting how the ray-tracing implementation tightly couples with Nvidia’s ecosystem, exacerbating issues on other vendors' hardware.
Analyses from sources like Tech Yes City and Tom’s Hardware confirm that the root cause is Nvidia’s proprietary UE4 RTX implementation rather than AMD or Intel hardware deficiency. This calls for broader engine support and optimization beyond Nvidia GPUs.
It's worth noting that Nvidia GPUs also suffer from problems in The Ascent. For example, the RTX 5070 experiences black bars at the top of the screen when running the game at native resolution, a behavior that only occurs when ray tracing is enabled.
Interestingly, the Arc B580, a weaker GPU in a lower price class, is able to maintain similar average frame rates to the RX 9070 due to the severe performance drop-off when ray tracing is turned on in both games.
In summary, the stuttering issues in The Ascent and Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice are due to the games relying on Nvidia's proprietary ray-tracing implementation in Unreal Engine 4, which is not equally optimized for AMD or Intel GPUs, resulting in severe performance degradation and stuttering under ray tracing on those platforms.
- The issues encountered by gamers in titles like The Ascent and Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice, when using ray tracing, are primarily linked to the Nvidia-specific AI and technology within the proprietary Unreal Engine 4 version, causing performance problems on non-Nvidia GPUs.
- The incorporation of Nvidia's artificial-intelligence and technology within the ray-tracing libraries and optimizations in The Ascent and Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice is designed specifically for Nvidia GPUs, but this Nvidia RTX branch is not optimized for AMD or Intel GPUs, leading to performance and stuttering problems.
