Despite launching in early access in 2013, RimWorld's developer, Ludeon Studios has started switching from Unity to its in-house Waylith engine with update 1.7. The developer claims performance improvements of "2-4×" with identical gameplay. In-house testing showed gains in load time, startup time, world and map generation, and tick-per-second performance.
A stress test with a "late game colony" saw a 2.2× improvement. Load times for a mod pack with 1,500 mods dropped from 14 minutes to 6 minutes. Performance gains depend on PC specs, but scaling could yield up to 400% boosts.
The Waylith Engine is available for testing in the RimWorld 1.7 beta branch. Save games from 1.6 load without problems, and "the vast majority of mods" will work unchanged. The engine adds C# features for mod developers and eases complex mod creation without performance impact.
Older PCs may not support the new engine, but Ludeon encourages users to contact Discord for assistance. This move contrasts with industry trends favoring Unity and Unreal over custom engines.
Source: TechPowerUp News · Summarized by HeadlinesBriefing