https://videocardz.com/newz/fortnite-chapter-4-out-now-with-unreal-engine-5-1-support
 
More than 5 years since the game was released, Epic Games team has now updated their popular battle royale game to support the latest Unreal Engine. Fortnite Unreal Engine 5.1 update comes just three weeks after the new engine was officially released. This is a major graphics update for the highly popular game, but also a time when older hardware is no longer supported.
 
Unreal Engine 5.1 brings support for various technologies, such as Nanite, Lumen, Virtual Shadow Maps, and Temporal Super Resolution. All these technologies will be supported on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, PC, and cloud gaming. This update comes with a recommendation for DirectX 12 capable GPU. Fortnie’s Season 4 requires NVIDIA Maxwell or AMD GCN based GPU to meet minimum requirements to run Nanite. However, developers recommend GeForce RTX 2080 or Radeon RX 5700 GPUs to run the game with better image quality. Furthermore, the game will no longer support Windows 7 and 8 operating systems. For people with older hardware, Epic Game recommends trying cloud gaming options such as GeForce Now instead.
 
Developers have provided the following notes to the updated graphics and video settings now available in the game. While NVIDIA DLSS is temporarily disabled, gamers can still use TSR with 6 different settings.

NANITE, LUMEN, VIRTUAL SHADOW MAPS, AND TEMPORAL SUPER RESOLUTION – IN DETAIL

NANITE

• Nanite provides highly-detailed architectural geometry. Specifically, buildings are rendered from millions of polygons in real time, and each brick, stone, wood plank, and wall trim is modeled.
• Natural landscapes are highly-detailed too. Individual trees have around 300,000 polygons, and each stone, flower, and blade of grass is modeled.

LUMEN

• Lumen reflections provide high-quality ray traced reflections on glossy materials and water.
• Also, Lumen provides real-time global illumination at 60 FPS. You’ll see beautiful interior spaces with bounce lighting, plus characters reacting to the lighting of their surroundings. (For example, red rugs may bounce red light onto your Outfit.) Also, Outfits that have emissive (a.k.a. glowing) qualities will scatter light on nearby objects and surfaces.

VIRTUAL SHADOW MAPS

• Virtual Shadow Maps allow for highly detailed shadowing. Each brick, leaf, and modeled detail will cast a shadow, and character self-shadowing is extremely accurate. This means that things like hats and other small details on characters will also cast shadows.

“GRAPHICS QUALITY” SECTION OF THE VIDEO SETTINGS

“Temporal Super Resolution” Setting

• This settings has the following options:
  • Recommended (default): Selects the 3D resolution based on what works best for your display resolution.
  • Performance: Prioritizes frame rate over final image quality by rendering at a lower resolution.
  • Balanced: Balances the image quality versus performance.
  • Quality: Prioritizes final image quality over performance by rendering at a higher resolution.
  • Native: Allows you to render frames at the native display resolution at the expense of performance.
  • Custom: Allows you to customize the 3D resolution on a slider.

“Nanite Virtualized Geometry” Setting

• Only available if the rendering mode is set to DirectX 12.
• If “Nanite Virtualized Geometry” is turned on, Nanite will be enabled.
  • Note: When Nanite is enabled, the “Shadows” setting is renamed to “Virtual Shadows.”
• Defaults to on when the “Quality Presets” setting is set to High or Epic.
• Please note that this setting cannot be changed mid-match.

“Global Illumination” Setting

• Enables Lumen Global Illumination when set to High or Epic.
• When Nanite is disabled, this setting has two options: Only Off, and Ambient Occlusion. (Ambient Occlusion = Lower quality ambient lighting with darkened corners.)
• When Nanite is enabled, two more options are added: Lumen High, and Lumen Epic.
• Please note that this setting cannot be changed mid-match.

“Reflections” Setting

• Enables Lumen Reflections when set to High or Epic.
• When Nanite is disabled, this setting has two options: Only Off, and Screen Space. (Screen Space = Calculates reflections based only on what is currently shown on the screen.)
• When Nanite is enabled, two more options are added: Lumen High, and Lumen Epic.

“Hardware Ray Tracing” Setting

• “Hardware Ray Tracing” makes it so that Lumen Global Illumination and Lumen Reflections use hardware-accelerated ray tracing. (The “Hardware Ray Tracing” setting in the “Graphics Quality” section has replaced the “Ray Tracing” section.)
• Is defaulted to off.
• To turn “Hardware Ray Tracing” on:
  • Nanite must be enabled. (In other words, “Nanite Virtualized Geometry” is turned on.)
  • Either “Global Illumination” or “Reflections” must be set to Lumen High or Lumen Epic.
• Turning this setting on or off requires a game restart to take effect.

“Nanite Virtualized Geometry” Setting

• Only available if the rendering mode is set to DirectX 12.
• If “Nanite Virtualized Geometry” is turned on, Nanite will be enabled.
  • Note: When Nanite is enabled, the “Shadows” setting is renamed to “Virtual Shadows.”
• Defaults to on when the “Quality Presets” setting is set to High or Epic.
• Please note that this setting cannot be changed mid-match.

“Global Illumination” Setting

• Enables Lumen Global Illumination when set to High or Epic.
• When Nanite is disabled, this setting has two options: Only Off, and Ambient Occlusion. (Ambient Occlusion = Lower quality ambient lighting with darkened corners.)
• When Nanite is enabled, two more options are added: Lumen High, and Lumen Epic.
• Please note that this setting cannot be changed mid-match.

“Reflections” Setting

• Enables Lumen Reflections when set to High or Epic.
• When Nanite is disabled, this setting has two options: Only Off, and Screen Space. (Screen Space = Calculates reflections based only on what is currently shown on the screen.)
• When Nanite is enabled, two more options are added: Lumen High, and Lumen Epic.

“Hardware Ray Tracing” Setting

• “Hardware Ray Tracing” makes it so that Lumen Global Illumination and Lumen Reflections use hardware-accelerated ray tracing. (The “Hardware Ray Tracing” setting in the “Graphics Quality” section has replaced the “Ray Tracing” section.)
• Is defaulted to off.
• To turn “Hardware Ray Tracing” on:
  • Nanite must be enabled. (In other words, “Nanite Virtualized Geometry” is turned on.)
  • Either “Global Illumination” or “Reflections” must be set to Lumen High or Lumen Epic.
• Turning this setting on or off requires a game restart to take effect.

Fortnite is still making good money for the developer so it makes sense to keep improving the game.