Unreal Engine 4 to be much more advanced than Samaritan demo

"If Samaritan looked like a piece of ****, that's what Unreal Engine 4 would look like," Rein told us.

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Shacknews had the opportunity to sit down on a private, invite-only press conference with Epic Games. At one point during the presentation, the Unreal Engine 4 logo appeared on the screen. (It's blue now, FYI.) Epic Games' Mark Rein told us that the company was showing off its next-generation engine at Game Developers Conference--but only to developers. The public reveal will happen later this year, Rein reconfirmed.

But what is Unreal Engine 4? And how does it compare to Samaritan, the high-powered Unreal Engine 3 demo that's been shown off for years? "If Samaritan looked like a piece of crap, that's what Unreal Engine 4 would look like," Rein told us.

So what is Samaritan? "Our goal with Samaritan was to show you the future," Rein said. "It came a lot sooner than we expected."

He proceeded to show us a real-time demonstration of the Samaritan demo running on a single unannounced graphics card coming from NVIDIA. Codenamed "Kepler," the new graphics card runs on a standard power supply and is able to render a demo that originally took three GeForce GTX 580s to process.

"We didn't expect this to come out so soon," Rein told us. "If they can do this this year on a single video card, maybe next year on a laptop."

With PC tech progressing even more rapidly than Epic Games had anticipated, it's likely Unreal Engine 4, ready "around 2014" will be far more demanding. And with Unreal Engine 4 aiming for next generation consoles, it wouldn't be too unrealistic to expect the next Xbox to offer more than 10 times the power of the current system.

Andrew Yoon was previously a games journalist creating content at Shacknews.

From The Chatty
  • reply
    March 12, 2012 12:30 PM

    Andrew Yoon posted a new article, Unreal Engine 4 to be much more advanced than Samaritan demo.

    "If Samaritan looked like a piece of ****, that's what Unreal Engine 4 would look like," Rein told us.

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      March 12, 2012 12:34 PM

      [deleted]

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        March 12, 2012 12:59 PM

        Good, I'm not the only one.

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        March 12, 2012 2:10 PM

        Agreed. So if Samaritan looked like crap then Unreal Engine 4 looks like crap? as compared to what? Unreal Engine 5? lol

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        March 12, 2012 4:29 PM

        I think it was a roundabout way of saying "Samaritan looks like crap compared to the Unreal 4 engine" Without saying the words "Samaritan looks like crap".

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          March 12, 2012 9:09 PM

          Correctamundo. He is telling us how much better UE4 is than Samaritan, by using the well-understood data points of "what you saw in the Samaritan demo" and "piece of shit".

          Let me clean it up a bit: "If Samaritan were to look like a piece of shit, then what you saw in that demo is what what Unreal Engine 4 would look like."

          That's Mark Rein for ya.

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        March 12, 2012 5:23 PM

        He's saying Samaritan >> Unreal Enging 4 >> Unreal Engine 3. So, if they took Samaritan, and made it look like shit, it would look about as good as UE4.

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        March 12, 2012 5:43 PM

        The way I understand it, he's saying UE4 is a piece of shit?

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          March 12, 2012 9:05 PM

          Seems like it. Or maybe UE4 is just a very accurate rendition of shit? I mean, we never had that rendered realistically in a game before... lol

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        March 12, 2012 5:53 PM

        [deleted]

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        March 12, 2012 5:53 PM

        yeah, me too

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        March 12, 2012 9:07 PM

        i think he meant "UE4 makes Samaritan look like a piece of shit" but that's not what he said.

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          March 13, 2012 12:43 AM

          ^^^ I think this is what he meant. It's the only option that makes any sense.

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        March 13, 2012 1:29 AM

        "I eat pieces of shit like you for breakfast."

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        March 13, 2012 7:53 AM

        Maybe he just means you can only make brown looking games with it.

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      March 12, 2012 12:35 PM

      if its so good, why not show us?

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      March 12, 2012 12:36 PM

      Mark Rein, the verbal diarrhea machine.

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      March 12, 2012 12:36 PM

      The lack of context makes this quote much funnier than it should be.

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      March 12, 2012 12:37 PM

      [deleted]

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      March 12, 2012 12:44 PM

      that quote is confusing as ****

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      March 12, 2012 12:46 PM

      What is this, fucking Mad-Libs?

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      March 12, 2012 12:51 PM

      Right now, everyone at Epic that isn't Mark Rein is cringing and wondering why, exactly, he decided to say that.

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        March 12, 2012 12:55 PM

        The statement's odd to parse, but he's saying Samaritan (the "next gen tech demo" they created) looks like shit compared to what's possible in UE4.

        Nothing about it is cringe worthy.

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          March 12, 2012 1:08 PM

          [deleted]

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            March 12, 2012 1:15 PM

            really, I get what he was trying to say, but what he actually said cannot be interpreted in any way other than 'UE4 looks like shit'.

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          March 13, 2012 12:06 AM

          Oh, I know exactly what he was saying. What I'm saying is that the Samaritan demo looks pretty damn good and now he's putting his team on the hook for making it look like crap in comparison. If the first UE4 shots don't look fucking amazing compared to that demo, then he's made it look like his company is over promising and under delivering. Not exactly what you want from a PR guy, imo. He shouldn't have said it the way he said it.

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        March 12, 2012 1:06 PM

        Personally I'm wondering why a journalist would take a direct quote that makes absolutely no sense when taken out of context when he could have just paraphrased.

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      March 12, 2012 1:04 PM

      Why are they talking up an engine that's still 2 years from release?

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      March 12, 2012 2:20 PM

      [deleted]

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      March 12, 2012 5:19 PM

      More "Shit Mark Rein Says":

      http://www.computerandvideogames.com/339078/epic-if-next-gen-consoles-arent-bleeding-edge-apple-will-beat-them/

      "Don't worry. We are absolutely every day [pushing platform holders]," Rein told CVG. "This is why we did Samaritan and why we're doing a really high-end demo in the room here. We really are pushing these guys, because if they don't, Apple will go right past them."

      http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2012-03-12-epic-vp-id-be-shocked-if-wii-u-doesnt-do-well

      "It's a great brand that a lot of parents really trust and they're probably ready to buy their kids an HD Wii that does that much more than just being an HD Wii. I'd love it if they'd done it last year, but I'm excited for them to do it this year. I'd be shocked if it doesn't do well."

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      March 12, 2012 8:09 PM

      He's trying to say that UE4 will make the Samaritan demo look like a POS right?

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      March 12, 2012 8:12 PM

      what he meant I'm sure is, a piece of shit in unreal engine 4 would look as good as the samaritan

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