Rendering at 500 km/h in Gear.Club Unlimited 3

Eden Games has spent 25 years building racing games, where performance is as critical as visual fidelity. Their latest release, Gear.Club Unlimited 3 (GCU 3), pushes that balance further: It’s a 60 fps arcade racer capable of streaming large environments at speeds approaching 500 km/h while targeting hardware ranging from consoles to high-end PCs with ray tracing.Released on February 19, 2026, GCU 3 is also the first title to ship with Eden Games’s fully matured custom rendering pipeline, debuting on the Nintendo Switch™ 2 before expanding to additional platforms later this year.We spoke with Nasim Bouguerra, lead graphics programmer, and Florian Falavel, senior rendering programmer, about building a GPU-driven architecture, scaling ray tracing across platforms, and maintaining stable performance under extreme streaming constraints.What were the biggest rendering challenges the team faced while building GCU 3?Nasim Bouguerra (NB): One of our main challenges was sustaining a stable 60 fps while streaming world data at speeds up to 500 km/h. At that velocity, even minor stalls, such as asset loading, synchronization points, and garbage collection, immediately break gameplay immersion. Eliminating those spikes became a primary engineering goal.GCU 3 was also our first game on the Nintendo Switch 2, so we were optimizing against new hardware under tight deadlines. In parallel, this was the first production release of our complete in-house rendering pipeline. That meant stabilizing the architecture, validating scalability across platforms, and tuning platform-specific paths simultaneously.Why did you decide to build a custom Scriptable Render Pipeline?NB: Back in 2019, we built our own Scriptable Render Pipeline to scale across very different hardware. It gave us full control over performance and features, enabled a fully GPU-driven system, and supported modern technologies like DLSS 4.5, FSR 4, XeSS 2, and path tracing. Since then, we’ve shipped four games on this pipeline, and GCU 3 represents its most significant evolution yet.How has Unity 6 influenced your rendering pipeline and low-level graphics stack?Florian Falavel (FF): Unity 6 gives us greater access and flexibility at the rendering backend, letting us leverage low-level graphics features and build optimized, tailored solutions. We also rely on Native Rendering Plugins to integrate features not yet exposed in Unity, such as NVIDIA DLSS on PC and Nintendo Switch 2, the NRD denoiser for ray tracing, and other advanced tools. This level of control is essential for high-performance streaming while maintaining stable visual quality across all our target platforms.How does GPU-driven rendering change the way you approach building environments and race tracks?FF: GPU-driven rendering removes CPU submission bottlenecks, allowing much denser environments and more complex race tracks. We pair this with a custom virtual texturing system for terrain and props, so artists can use high-resolution assets while keeping memory and performance predictable. The result is higher scene complexity without compromising 60 fps frame rate.At speeds approaching 500 km/h, streaming becomes critical. How do you handle rendering, asset streaming, and memory management to avoid stutters?NB: Streaming was one of our biggest challenges. We built a fully multithreaded streaming system, capable of saturating Nintendo Switch 2 I/O without hitches. We also spent time removing as much GC allocation as possible during gameplay, and enabled incremental garbage collection to ensure that garbage collection-related frame drops are rare in races.Our terrain and virtual texturing systems also use feedback loops to load only the data needed, exactly when it’s needed. This approach keeps streaming smooth even at extreme speeds.What rendering techniques and GPU optimizations were key to hitting 60 fps on the Nintendo Switch 2?FF: On the Nintendo Switch 2, every stage of the pipeline had to justify its cost. We tightly integrated DLSS with our dynamic resolution system to stay within GPU budgets, and we leaned heavily on asynchronous compute to overlap workloads and maximize occupancy.Our GPU-driven architecture also reduced CPU overhead, which helped maintain consistency during heavy gameplay scenarios. Extensive platform profiling guided decisions at the pass level, where we trimmed bandwidth-heavy stages, reorganized resource transitions, and eliminated synchronization stalls.Variable Refresh Rate provided an additional safety margin, smoothing rare edge cases without masking systemic issues.How does your rendering approach differ across platforms beyond the Nintendo Switch 2?NB: We begin with a feature-complete configuration, then profile each system under real gameplay conditions. From there, we selectively scale or specialize features per platform rather than maintaining entirely separate rendering paths, and iterate to find the best uses of what the platforms can offer.On PC, we give players access to the full suite of rendering features we support, including HDR, ultrawide support, DLSS, and real-time path tracing. We also provide scalability options so that even on low-power devices like the Steam Deck, players can enjoy the game with the same core visuals.The goal isn’t different pipelines. It’s controlled degradation within a single, scalable framework.What motivated your team to lean so heavily into ray tracing, and how did that decision shape both your visual goals and your technical constraints during development?NB: Ray tracing is essential for both physically accurate visuals and faster iteration for our lighting artists. We integrated it from initial development to level production and runtime, and ensured all systems, from terrain and props to lighting and materials, work as expected. It also requires high-memory GPUs for artists during production as ray tracing acceleration structure (RTAS) memory is a key bottleneck with ray tracing.Can you walk us through how you baked global illumination (GI) using a reference path tracer, and how that work informed or contrasted with the real-time path tracing solution used in the PC version?FF: Ray tracing is the backbone of our global illumination workflow. We built a reference path tracer for accuracy, which validates our baked GI system and gives artists predictable results. This speeds up iteration, letting them preview near-final lighting before triggering the full bake.On PC, we added a real-time ReSTIR-based path tracer for high-end hardware, staying close to the ground truth. Ray tracing is a long-term investment, and we collaborated closely with Unity to refine and stabilize the rendering APIs.How did the collaboration with Unity’s ray tracing team influence the final rendering pipeline?FF: Our GPU-driven pipeline required ray tracing functionality that early Unity versions did not provide. We added the ability to inject GPU-generated data into the acceleration structure, introducing APIs like RayTracingAccelerationStructure.AddInstancesIndirect, and integrated NVIDIA Shader Execution Reordering via a Native Rendering Plugin to boost path tracing performance. This collaboration shaped our final architecture, letting us extend ray tracing while staying true to our GPU-driven approach.How do modern upscaling technologies fit into your overall rendering strategy?NB: Modern upscaling is essential for balancing visual sharpness and performance. Machine learning–based solutions can even provide better anti-aliasing than traditional methods like temporal anti-aliasing (TAA). On PC, we support our own temporal upsampler, NVIDIA DLSS 4.5, AMD FSR 4, and Intel XeSS 2, giving maximum flexibility.That said, upscaling isn’t a magic fix. It works best when the underlying pipeline is already efficient, letting us balance sharpness, performance, and image quality, especially on consoles with stricter constraints.What advice would you give developers for building a rendering strategy?NB: Start by understanding what your artists and players actually need, and design your rendering systems to meet those needs efficiently. Avoid unnecessary complexity, focus on getting the most from existing systems, and keep your approach simple and scalable. Always profile on your target hardware. Optimizations can reduce performance if they are not tested where it matters.FF: I’d echo that. Identify the visual features that truly matter and build your strategy around them. Don’t feel pressured to implement every feature. Prioritize what’s important to maintain both performance and visual quality.To read more about projects made with Unity, visit the Resources page.*Nintendo Switch is a trademark of Nintendo.