Sonic Racing: CrossWorlds Team Modified Unreal Engine Code to Reduce Performance Overhead

SEGA’s programmers went into Unreal Engine’s code to cut down on unnecessary processing in Sonic Racing: CrossWorlds, according to lead programmer Shigeki Watanabe, who has shared some interesting details about the work that went into keeping the racer running smoothly.

In a new Sonic Channel staff interview, Watanabe explains that his main responsibility was supporting the game’s engine, extending its capabilities when the development team needed something the standard tools couldn’t provide. A large part of that work also involved optimizing performance across the different consoles and PCs supported by CrossWorlds.

The challenge was figuring out exactly which parts of Unreal Engine were costing each platform processing time and memory. Watanabe and the team measured the load of individual features, adjusted their settings and disabled functions they didn’t need. But some of the engine’s core systems, including physics calculations, are connected to other features and can’t simply be removed.

Worse still, certain systems could add processing overhead just by being enabled, even if the game wasn’t using them. Watanabe says he worked directly with Unreal Engine’s code to exclude as much of that unnecessary load as possible.

And it wasn’t just about getting the game to run faster. Watanabe is particularly concerned with how a game feels when you press a button, making sure the visuals, sound and controller vibration respond together without noticeable delays.

Although he wasn’t directly responsible for CrossWorlds’ character controls, he spent considerable time tracking down performance bottlenecks, improving frame rates and addressing the brief stutters known as hitches. That meant repeatedly measuring performance, identifying trouble spots and making adjustments across the game’s supported platforms.

Watanabe’s experience includes Wonderland Wars, Sonic Frontiers and Sonic X Shadow Generations, but his interest in programming goes well beyond his day job. He still experiments with different programming languages at home and enjoys motorcycle touring, having previously travelled around Japan on two wheels. His current bike is a Yamaha SR400, and he says his riding experience has sometimes helped him notice vehicle behaviour in racing games that wouldn’t make sense in real life.

You can read the full Japanese staff profile on Sonic Channel.

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