How to Optimize Minecraft-Style Chunk Loading in UE?

Development Programming & Scripting C++
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Hey everyone,

I’m experimenting with recreating some Minecraft-style mechanics inside Unreal Engine, mainly as a learning project. I’ve got basic block placement and destruction working, but I’m running into issues with performance once I generate larger areas. Even with Instanced Static Meshes, things start to slow down pretty quickly. I’m curious how others handle chunk loading or world streaming when dealing with thousands of repeating blocks.

I visited discussion in Unity that touches on similar challenges: Minecraft like game - slow chunk loading - Unity Engine - Unity Discussions

Another thing I’m trying to figure out is the best approach for terrain generation. I’ve played around with noise functions, but my results look pretty bland compared to Minecraft. If anyone has tips on structuring biome rules, blending them smoothly, or even just optimizing the generation workflow, I’d love to hear your experiences.

Thanks in advance!

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Hey there @barry_332! Welcome to the community! Voxel performance handling is a complex topic, that will likely require tons of iteration. HISMs help, but don’t handle chunking on their own though they do handle some of the task of occlusion at least.

While I have never delved too deeply into the specifics besides some simple octree + marching cubes, you could take a look at how Voxel Plugin classic (Github) handles it. I believe they have occlusion, multi-threading, and chunking handled already, and you could also try the demo or classic plugin to get a better understanding.

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