nDisplay

Powering Massively Scaled Real-Time Graphics

nDisplay is a core technology within Epic Games’ Unreal Engine that is designed to solve the problem of rendering a single, cohesive image at an enormous scale and resolution. A single computer, no matter how powerful, cannot render a photorealistic 3D environment across a massive LED Volume (which can be comprised of tens of millions of pixels) in real-time. nDisplay is the system that makes this possible.

A Cluster of Render Nodes

The nDisplay system works by creating a cluster of networked computers, often called render nodes. The rendering workload is then distributed among these nodes:

• Master Node: One computer acts as the master, running the main instance of the Unreal Engine project and coordinating the entire system.
• Render Nodes: Each of the other computers in the cluster is assigned a specific portion of the overall image to render. For example, in an LED Volume, each node might be responsible for rendering the image for a specific section of the wall.
• Synchronization: nDisplay ensures that every single node in the cluster is perfectly synchronized. They share camera tracking data, game-state information, and are genlocked together, so that they all render their portion of the scene for the exact same frame at the exact same time.

The final result is a single, massive, and seamless image displayed across the entire LED wall or projection surface, with all the component parts from the different computers stitched together perfectly. It is the fundamental technology that enables Unreal Engine to be used for large-scale In-Camera VFX.