Sorry I wasn’t clearer. I meant simultaneous clients in the context of a server based game. One client could be using a forward rendering and the other could be deferred. It would be nice to be able to switch between them without restarting/compiling different builds though. Sounds like that might not be good enough either, since other settings are not universally compatible between the two. Though honestly, I kind of hope one or the other becomes obsolete in the future, because otherwise it’s like waiting for console tech to catch up.
I still remember being excited about the old GDC Kite demo and DFGI, and now that tech is in unfinished state sitting in the backlog. During GDC this year one of my favorite parts when when mentioned that “Thanks to implementing this much requested feature in-between projects, we can now do all of this!” Just left with this feeling that the engine is being focused(officially) on supporting specific games that depend on static worlds that can be largely precomputed. Nevermind dynamic AO and GI, How about shadow performance from a single directional light?