Unreal Engine is a term that is no longer strange to game creators. This software builds and designs the ultimate video game for programmers to create spectacular game scenes and smooth motion. Besides, it also handles sound effects, physical collision effects, and control. Especially, character control by artificial intelligence. Like other software, Unreal Engine has minimum system requirements to run smoothly, especially, when Unreal Engine 5 has recently been released and many artists have been looking for a suitable computer for their demands.

If your computer configuration is too weak, you may not be able to render with Unreal Engine. In this post, let iRender explore the best computer to run Unreal Engine 5.

Unreal Engine has been used to create many impressive games over the years. Unreal Engine 5 allows game developers to take their projects to the next level. Since its introduction, Unreal Engine 5 has been expected to create a breakthrough in many fields such as movies, and online games. Two outstanding and latest features of Unreal Engine 5 are Nanite and Lumen. First, Nanite is a tool capable of rendering virtual polygonal geometries, automatically creating many geometric details invisible to the naked eye. Meanwhile, Lumen can be considered an intelligent overall lighting tool. In real-time, it can calculate light changes between movements to produce the smoothest, most vivid images. For example, it can calculate the torch’s light on the wall or the light from above.

2.1. Minimum requirements

Unreal Engine 5’s minimum requirements are separated into two categories: requirements for running the engine and requirements for editing the engine.

• • • For running the engine, the minimal operating system necessary to run the engine is Windows 10. Additionally, DirectX End-User Runtimes (June 2010) are the DirectX Runtimes that are recommended.
    • For editing the engine, you must install the engine’s needs as well as Visual Studio 2019 v16.11.5 or later (recommended) or Visual Studio 2022 to create the engine. Also, you need to install iTunes 12 or higher if you’re working on iOS.

Be careful with your rendering process even if you meet these minimum requirements. The minimum system requirements for Unreal Engine 5 and the suggested specifications for video game development differ. If you want to get the most out of features like Lumen and Nanite, the configuration shown in the following section is what Epic Games Teams recommends on the official website.

2.2. Recommended requirements according to Epic Games

• • • Operating system: Windows 10 64-bit (Version 20H2)
    • Processor: Six-Core Xeon E5-2643 @ 3.4GHz
    • Memory: 64GB RAM
    • Internal storage: 256GB SSD
    • External storage: 2T SSD
    • Graphics card: NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2080 SUPER
    • External tools: Xoreax Incredibuild (Dev Tools Package)

3.1. CPU (Processor)

The processor is the brain of your computer and determines how powerful it is. The CPU does most of the heavy processing work during the development stage. The processor determines how quickly your computer can process data and commands. A strong processor is necessary to keep up with the demands of Unreal Engine, a program that is extremely demanding. When developing your scenes, a powerful CPU will give you the smooth playback and interaction you need to create realistic graphics at their best. When navigating and creating your scenes and levels, the higher clock speed will enable smoother playback at a higher FPS. However, having more cores is going to pay off when it’s time to start rending your sequence. 

Image Source: Puget System

Interestingly, if we look at CPUs with the same core count, AMD comes out ahead in every instance.  Fortunately, all of our servers at iRender have AMD Ryzen™ Threadripper™ PRO 3955WX @ 3.9 – 4.2GHz 16 cores, which supports boosting your render faster.

3.2 Graphics card (GPU)

Image Source: NVIDIA

When creating a PC for Unreal Engine, the graphics card is definitely the most important component. It is also necessary when using UE5. An Nvidia RTX 2080 or higher is recommended since it will give you smooth playback for interactive real-time rendering and enough horsepower for UE5’s ray-tracing features.

When choosing your graphics card, you also consider raytracing. You should make sure your GPU supports the most recent ray tracing technologies, such as DXR (DirectX Raytracing), as Unreal Engine 5 makes extensive use of ray tracing. Fortunately, all iRender’s servers are powered with RTX 4090 which is the latest 24GB VRAM RTX GPU of NVIDIA.

3.3. Memory (RAM)

Epic Games Team suggest 32GB of RAM as the minimum for Unreal Engine 5 to work smoothly and at its best. However, you should consider a 64GB of RAM or more because you’ll probably employ film-quality (huge) textures and photo-real lighting setups. 128GB is a good baseline for running UE5.

For demanding workflows and heavy scenes, 256GB or more may be necessary. And especially, all iRender’s servers have 256GB RAM which is highly recommended for Unreal Engine, you can refer to here:

Overall, building a computer for Unreal Engine 5 is not much difficult. It’s important to consider all of these factors when building a system for this powerful 3D software in order to get the most out of it. The build will generally depend on the complexity of your project. With careful consideration and planning, you can build an amazing computer capable of delivering incredible performance with Unreal Engine 5.
However, if your budget is not enough for building a powerful PC to render Unreal Engine, you can consider iRender farm. Read the following section to understand what we have for Unreal Engine 5.

iRender is proud to be a professional GPU Accelerated Cloud Rendering Service provider for 3D Render, CGI, and VFX tasks with more than 30,000 clients.

In particular, we provide high-configuration dedicated servers (physical computers/machines) specifically optimized for GPU rendering. Using our service, you will have complete control over the server(s) you rent through the Remote Desktop application. You can customize your creative working environment as you wish. As we know, Unreal Engine utilizes the video card primarily to display the graphics on the screen. Thus, a faster video card will give you a higher FPS in the viewport or in a stand-alone game. At iRender, we have a single RTX 4090 server package that is the most suitable for Unreal Engine rendering. Its detailed configuration is as shown in the following images.

Besides, we allow users to use many servers at the same time in one account. This is very useful when you have a large project and a tight deadline. The installation is also simple: Just set up Unreal Engine on one server (machine) and clone it to many other machines.

Let’s check out the rendering performance in Unreal Engine files on iRender’s server 3S (1xRTX4090):

Create ACCOUNT now to try our RTX 4090 server for your Unreal Engine projects! For further information, please do not hesitate to reach us at [email protected] or Whatsapp: +(84) 916017116. 

iRender – Happy Rendering!

Reference source: unrealengine, puget system, catnet games, NVIDIA