Today marks the beginning of Chapter 4 in Fortnite, as Epic Games delivers many new features and improvements to the game. Aside from all cosmetics and gameplay updates, Epic Games also delivers a significant visual improvement to Fortnite as the game moves to Unreal Engine 5.1.
As the developer reveals, the new chapter of Fortnite will enable Nanite, Lumen, Virtual Shadow Maps, and Temporal Super Resolution. If your PC is powerful enough, you will be able to enjoy high-quality visuals in Fortnite as of today, however, if you prefer the older way of rendering, make sure to check your Settings options for Video and Display as there are new adjustments available.
According to Epic Games, the Nanite technology helps with rendering the geometry objects such as buildings, stones, grass, trees, and all the things you see on Fortnite’s island. These objects will all be modeled individually (every brick of a building). Also, the number of polygons used in rendering the objects have been increased significantly.
Lumen, on the other hand, is a technology that tweaks reflections and helps to bring much more realistic ray-tracing effects on water and glossy materials. This will improve the lighting and reflections in indoor areas. The characters will also reflect light based on their outfits.
Going over Virtual Shadow Maps, this tech will improve the shadows overall. Everything that is modeled in the game will now cast shadows, including the character outfits such as hats and back bling.
Last but not least, the Temporal Super Resolution is an upgrade over Temporal Anti-Aliasing for players who own powerful PCs. Turning this feature on will allow you to get high-quality renders at higher frame rates.
Keep in mind that if you want to benefit from the technologies above in consoles (PS5 or Xbox Series X|S), you should turn off the 120 FPS Mode in the Graphics tab of the game settings menu. Of course, you will experience lower FPS on consoles if you want the highest possible quality. If you are not playing competitive matches, or you don’t have a 120Hz monitor, you probably wouldn’t mind sacrificing your frame rate for quality.