Nvidia, Epic Bring Unreal Engine 3 to Windows RT

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By Kevin Parrish
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Epic has ported Unreal Engine 3 to the Windows 8 and Windows RT environment. Was there any doubt it would eventually happen?

On Wednesday during IFA 2012 at an Asus press conference, Epic Games and Nvidia demonstrated Unreal Engine 3 running in the Windows 8 and Windows RT environment. It was done using the Epic Citadel app -- which was previously released for iOS and Flash platforms -- installed on the Tegra 3-powered Asus Vivo Tab RT (formerly known as the Tablet 600).

"The Unreal Engine 3-powered ‘Epic Citadel’ demonstration for Windows RT tablets implements our full DirectX 9 pipeline, with shaders and materials, all running beautifully on Tegra 3," said Mark Rein, vice president of Epic Games. "By porting the full engine as opposed to a modified mobile version, Nvidia and Epic have made it easy for UE3 developers around the world to bring their best content to Windows RT, Windows 8, and Nvidia’s Tegra 3 processor.  Windows RT code is available to licensees from Epic now and we’re excited to see the great games they develop with it."

"This is a big leap forward for the Windows ecosystem as not only is one of the top game engines now available for developers to begin working with, it is also the full PC implementation," Nvidia added on its blog on Wednesday. "This gives developers unprecedented support for porting PC and Xbox games to a mobile platform, and vice versa."

Epic already has Unreal Engine 3 up and running on Nvidia's Tegra chips within the Android environment, used in games like Dungeon Defenders, Dark Meadow: The Pact, Renaissance Blood THD, Monster Madness: Grave Danger, and Gameloft's upcoming Wild Blood. That said, bringing the engine to the Tegra-charged Windows RT platform seemingly rather quickly only makes sense.

As seen in the video below, Epic reports that it has the full PC implementation of Unreal Engine 3 running on a Tegra 3 Soc at roughly 35 to 40 frames per second. For developers who already have games on Windows PC and Xbox 360, that means it's easy for them to port their titles over to Windows RT and have them up and running in no time... and looking great.

Epic said that Unreal Engine 3 licensees can now access Windows RT code at the Unreal Developer Network (UDN). Meanwhile, Epic’s senior technical artist and level designer, Alan Willard, will showcase the Unreal Engine 4 (UE4) "Elemental" real-time demonstration this Saturday, September 1, at Nvidia’s PAX Prime booth (#3747) from 12:30 to 1:30 p.m. PDT.

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Kevin Parrish
17 Comments Comment from the forums
  • DjEaZy
    ... this is the same infiniti blade demo, that was presented when iPhone 4 was presented...
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V_rR8ZEQztM
    ... so what's new?
    Reply
  • mcd023
    This really cool. Already available for easy porting. woot
    Reply
  • ikefu
    DirectX implementation. Previously the Unreal Engine running on ARM CPUs had a reduced toolset and required editing code to eliminate calls to unavailable functions.

    Unreal on Windows RT has the full PC implementation, DirectX and all. I would think it would be way faster to port games over to tablets since there will be less code tweaking.
    Reply
  • newbie_mcnoob
    Woohoo! DirectX 9! Party like it's 2002!
    Reply
  • NuclearShadow
    So basically tablets are now able to give console equivalent graphics and performance. We can try to excuse this because of the long life span of the current console gen but certainly the constant hardware advancements and constant release of new tablets play a large role too.

    With the recent trend of handhelds suffering due to tablet, I am going to go a step further and say that tablets will someday be a threat to consoles. Consoles will have the graphical advantages at first but with the quicker evolving tablets the gap would just close and by the time the new consoles come out the tablets will be superior.

    Imagine a tablet that simple docks and keeps a constant charge and streams to your TV in full HD quality, with bluetooth controllers for gaming. Everyone from the casual to the hardcore gamer could be satisfied. If Android or Windows based (although unlikely Windows as this would be a direct competitor to Microsoft's consoles) completely open to developers with no content control or large fees and profit %'s like the consoles have. Also with the luxury of being a tablet it is portable and
    and can do anything from work to play.
    Reply
  • super d spamalot
    Must be a hoax. Everybody has been saying how developers were going to abandon Windows 8 because of how difficult it's going to make things for them, and the internet always knows best.
    Reply
  • booyaah
    I don't think MS would really care if WinRT tablets competed with XBox since they don't really make much money off the hardware. The XBox team could still continue to develop the XBox live software and ecosystem but you would just be throwing it on a tablet instead. It would be cool to be able to just plug in (or wireless even better) an external dvd player to run your games.

    Now port UE4 and get me 100 fps then I'll be impressed :)
    Reply
  • Bah, gonna fill 5 yrs up with GW2, so no time for Mobile gaming for me on RT!
    Reply
  • math1337
    Eww. WinRT. I've got the desktop.

    Anyways, probably foll of marketing BS. I doubt it's any better then UE for iOS/Android.
    Reply
  • pharoahhalfdead
    95%+ doesn't know what UE3 is, or DX9, so why would they not take advantage of it? Mobile gaming has never really been about grapics, so this actually makes sense from a financial, and convenience standpoint.
    Reply