# Compare the Soft Reference and Hard Reference in the operation

**URL:** <https://forums.unrealengine.com/t/compare-the-soft-reference-and-hard-reference-in-the-operation/666039>\
**Category:** Blueprint\
**Tags:** unreal-engine, UE5-0, question, Blueprint\
**Created:** [October 10, 2022, 5:21am UTC](https://forums.unrealengine.com/t/compare-the-soft-reference-and-hard-reference-in-the-operation/666039 "2022-10-10T05:21:35Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Showing post:** 2

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Squize](https://d1ap1mz92jnks1.cloudfront.net/user_avatar/forums.unrealengine.com/squize/32/573942_2.png) [@Squize](https://forums.unrealengine.com/u/Squize)\
**Post date:** [October 10, 2022, 5:53am UTC](https://forums.unrealengine.com/t/compare-the-soft-reference-and-hard-reference-in-the-operation/666039/2 "2022-10-10T05:53:41Z")

</div>

Resolve only works if the actor is already loaded in memory. If it’s not, then you’d need to explicitly load it before you could use it.

The topic in general has been up a few times, hopefully the links in this thread will be usefull 🙂

> [@Can someone explain soft variable references?](https://forums.unrealengine.com/t/can-someone-explain-soft-variable-references/444524/8):
>
> Thanks alot for sharing the links, I’ve already watched the stream but the article is far more interesting and clear wink

---

_[View the full topic](https://forums.unrealengine.com/t/compare-the-soft-reference-and-hard-reference-in-the-operation/666039)._