Gaijin Entertainment is pleased to release the full code for one of its multiplayer frameworks, the Dagor Engine, under a permissive license, along with art assets from a sample multiplayer game. The company has also released a set of two demos showing how the same map, created for one of Gaijin’s unannounced games, runs on the Dagor Engine and Unreal Engine 5, a platform known for its cutting-edge graphics and features.
The initiative follows the company’s decision last year to release Dagor Engine as free and open source software (FOSS).
First, they asked their partners at Hooks Creative Studio to create a map for a first-person shooter inspired by iconic maps of the past. They built the location from scratch using Megascans and modern photogrammetric assets on Unreal Engine 5. The team at Gaijin Entertainment then ported the map to Dagor Engine for their unannounced new game. Since there was already a version for UE, the developers were able to use it for comparison and as an internal evaluation of their own technology. They decided to share both versions with game development enthusiasts.
They did not use any additional manual processing (such as “mirror probes”, “occluders”, “portals”, etc.) to optimize performance or improve visuals – with such methods, performance can be improved even further. They intentionally used mostly automated export, with the exception of the terrain, which is implemented so differently in the engines that they had to re-create it, and some decals or object placement, which were adjusted purely by subjective preference.
The results show that Dagor renders the map faster, while providing equal or perhaps (purely subjectively) higher quality graphics. This is also due to the use of modern technologies such as real-time global illumination and advanced anti-aliasing. No GPU-specific “performance boosting” techniques such as DLSS, XeSS or FSR (all of which Dagor also supports) are used, and the Dagor demo (unlike UE) runs at native resolution on most configurations to assess the pure power and efficiency of the engine, independent of the specific hardware.
It is clear that this is not a completely fair «apples to apples» comparison, since the Unreal Engine version can probably be further optimized by experienced developers. However, it is hoped that this public release of both demos will inspire the community to explore the capabilities and potential of the Dagor Engine. The developers are committed to continuing to provide the community with more and more tools for creativity and innovation.
Video comparing the two versions: