Full notes
Full Hiraeth update
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What changed
- Performance
- Events
- Gameplay
The new year dawns over Ahra Prime as well, wanderer — carrying strength reborn, skies washed clean, and horizons waiting to be claimed...
🌌 A transmission from the ☵ HIRAETH development front — this time important for the entire gaming universe!
🚀 Double FPS at No Extra Charge
The latest HIRAETH update delivers a massive performance leap across all systems — with no visual compromises. Players on mid‑range hardware are now reporting up to 2× higher FPS, and even older GPUs are running smoother than ever. As you can see, the once‑mythical stable 60 FPS is now achievable even on an RTX 2060 with DLSS set to EPIC — or the AMD equivalent.
Why not on my top rig on Windows 11?
Many Windows 11 users may be surprised to see much lower performance on their systems. I explain the issue — along with the full solution — in the next section, and the good news is that everything can be fixed. The problem is not related to HIRAETH or Unreal Engine, and as you’ll see, it affects many other games as well, from small indie titles to major AAA releases.
I encourage you to take a look. Windows 10 players can safely skip this part, but for Windows 11 users it’s essential — and it will also help improve performance in other games you play.
Road to Double fps for free
You can find a short summary in the update announcement below, but here’s the full story behind the performance breakthrough. [dynamiclink href="https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/2646160/view/523111043238463872"]This upgrade comes from deep engine‑level optimizations. No tricks. No hidden settings. Just pure efficiency. If your framerate suddenly jumped — yes, that’s intentional.
🔎 Along the way, I performed detailed bottleneck testing across every major system in HIRAETH. Here’s what I found:
🟩 My Game Code — All Green
No bottlenecks here. Everything runs smoothly, even with a large number of systems constantly monitoring player state, items, world time, and environmental conditions.
🟦 Character Animation — Heavier Than the Entire Game Code
Character animation costs more than all gameplay logic combined — but that’s completely normal. It’s well within expected limits and does not cause any performance issues.
🟪 Rendering — Excellent, With Plenty of Headroom
Rendering performance is fantastic. Even on my vintage RTX 2060, HIGH and EPIC settings run smoothly, and stronger GPUs have a lot of room for future visual upgrades. Ahra Prime will continue to grow more beautiful.
🟨 World Loading (World Partition) — Fully Stable
HIRAETH uses Unreal Engine’s World Partition system — something many developers fear. Here, it works exactly as planned: stable, predictable, and efficient.
🟧 AI & Actor Ticks — No Issues
General AI logic and actor ticks are clean and lightweight. No unexpected spikes or hidden CPU drains.
🟥 Navigation — Still a Known Unreal Engine Challenge
Navigation remains the one problematic area. Even after many fixes introduced in Unreal Engine 5.6.1 for open‑world projects, several issues remain unresolved on the engine side.
The good news:
the old crashes are gone,
but heavy CPU spikes can still occur, which can severely impact FPS.
For now, I’ve temporarily disabled AI navigation while I work on a custom workaround. AI will return in the coming days — without the performance penalties.
🟫 Physics — Engine Bugs, Now Under Control
Physics bugs in the engine were causing unnecessary CPU load. I identified and removed several problematic objects and edge cases, and since the last update everything has been stable.
🪐 Other
Source
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