Unreal Engine 5.6 Havok Balloons Tech Demo Released
by John Papadopoulos · DSOGamingHavok has released a free Unreal Engine 5.6 tech demo on Steam called Havok Balloons. Anyone can download it. PC players can try it out and see how developers can use Havok’s destruction system in their games.
As Havok said, this demo showcases the power of Havok Physics running in the Unreal Engine 5. To be more precise, the tech demo uses the Unreal Engine 5.6 version. Thus, it has all the performance optimization that Epic added to that version.
Havok has also shared some PC requirements for this tech demo. PC gamers will at least need an Intel Core i9-7920X with 32GB of RAM and an NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2070. The demo uses the DX12 API, and it requires 1GB of free disk space.
Havok recommends using an Intel Core i9-13950HX with 64GB of RAM and an NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090.
I’ve tried this tech demo on my main PC gaming system. This PC is equipped with an AMD Ryzen 9 7950X3D, 32GB of DDR5 at 6000Mhz, and an NVIDIA RTX 5090. I also used Windows 10 64-bit, and the GeForce 581.80 driver.
For whatever reason, the demo was locked at 1440p. I tried forcing a 4K resolution via the config files, but the game was constantly reverting back to 1440p. I don’t know what’s going on here. In case you’re wondering, no. There is no in-game setting to adjust your resolution. So, this is kind of a bummer.
Anyway, at 1440p/Max Settings, I was getting over 100FPS at all times on my NVIDIA RTX 5090. I didn’t see any upscaling setting so I assume that’s Native 1440p.
Those interested can go ahead and download the demo from this link.
Speaking of Unreal Engine 5, I recommend trying out these other free fan-made demos. You can grab a Superman UE5 Demo, a Halo 3: ODST Remake, and a Spider-Man UE5 Demo. There’s also a fan-made version of STALKER in Unreal Engine 5. If you love old-school FPS games, you should check out this remake of the classic FPS Blood in Epic’s engine. For Mario fans, we have this cool Super Mario Galaxy Tech Demo in Unreal Engine 5.
And that’s not all. There is a cool remake of Halo: Combat Evolved’s Halo level in UE5 that you can download. Or how about this free Attack on Titan game? Then we have the fan remakes for Dino Crisis 2 and MediEvil 2. Plus, there is an amazing fan remake of Sonic Adventure 2, called Sonic Adventure 2 Redux. Zelda fans can get this fan remake of Ocarina of Time. Oh, and let’s not forget the amazing ports of Skyrim and Oblivion.
Owners of high-end GPUs can also try these three tech demos. The first one features a Witcher-like environment. The second shows off a Rome Italian Town. The third is the Venice Tech Demo we shared a few days ago. We also have a demo of King’s Field 2 in UE5, as well as a remake of Konami’s canceled PT. Finally, we have The Lord of the Rings: Conquest Reimagined in Unreal Engine 5, a remake of Flappy Bird, a demo for Need for Speed: Underground 2, and a Diablo 2 Remake Demo. They all look awesome, so be sure to give them a try.
Have fun!
John is the founder and Editor in Chief at DSOGaming. He is a PC gaming fan and highly supports the modding and indie communities. Before creating DSOGaming, John worked on numerous gaming websites. While he is a die-hard PC gamer, his gaming roots can be found on consoles. John loved – and still does – the 16-bit consoles, and considers SNES to be one of the best consoles. Still, the PC platform won him over consoles. That was mainly due to 3DFX and its iconic dedicated 3D accelerator graphics card, Voodoo 2. John has also written a higher degree thesis on the “The Evolution of PC graphics cards.”
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