VxEngine
Performance is a design decision.
Horizon's in-house game engine. Best-in-class performance across a wide variety of hardware, a renderer built for real-time scale, and tools that get out of the way.
1.0
Production release
60 fps
1440p mid-range target
1,000+
Players per shard
0
Loading screens
The philosophy
Frames, not
promises.
VxEngine began in 2019 as an argument about frame times. Our Unturned server was doing things the engine was never designed to do — persistent vehicles, hundreds of interactive props, a city that never quite finished loading. We could keep patching around the limits, or build the thing we actually needed.
Seven years later, VxEngine is a production engine. It powers a live city and an original world. It is not a demo. It is not a benchmark slide. It is the tool our team opens every morning.
Frame time is the product
We optimize for the frame that arrives after the one you just saw. Average FPS is a vanity metric; consistency is what players feel. Every system in VxEngine has a frame budget and is measured against it.
Scale is a first-class feature
VxEngine was built for persistent online worlds from day one: server-authoritative simulation, interest management, shard handoff, and an asset pipeline that survives a live game.
The tools are the engine
A beautiful runtime is worthless if it takes a week to place a chair. Our editor, live-edit loop, and data pipeline are designed by the people who use them every day.
Benchmarks
Every frame, accounted for.
Night Dragon vertical slice, 1440p high preset unless noted. Internal builds, September 2026. These are production targets, not cherry-picked demos.
Average FPS · 1% lows
Night Dragon · Ashen Capital siege
Test bench: 32 GB DDR5, Ryzen 7 7800X3D, Windows 11, latest drivers. Frame times captured with in-engine profiling. Benchmark scenes include 40-player combat, dynamic weather, and real-time GI. Not final; performance varies by scene and content.
8.2 ms
Average frame time at the 60 fps target, with a 1% low within 15% of average.
< 12 ms
Server tick budget at 1,000 concurrent players in a single shard.
4 GB
VRAM target for the 1080p performance preset on Night Dragon.
30 fps
Locked target on integrated graphics at 1080p performance.
The stack
Built all the way down.
Every layer from the server tick to the final pixel is ours. That means we can fix the things other teams have to work around.
Frame-first renderer
A visibility and lighting architecture designed around a hard frame budget, not a best-case demo. Consistent frame times, fewer spikes, smoother play.
Real-time global illumination
Dynamic GI that reacts to destruction, weather, and time of day. Baked light is optional, not required. Night Dragon's red moon casts real shadows.
Streaming at speed
A hierarchical world streamer built for dense, seamless spaces. Traversal at full sprint with no loading screens and no visible pop-in budget.
Massive-scale networking
A server-authoritative replication layer with interest management, deterministic prediction, and shard handoff. Built for persistent worlds, not match lobbies.
Scalable by design
The same content scales from integrated graphics to high-end GPUs with quality presets that actually mean something. Performance is treated as a feature.
Tools that respect time
A native editor, live-edit loop, and data pipeline built by the people who use them. Iteration measured in seconds, not coffee breaks.
Audio without compromise
A spatial audio graph with occlusion, reverb zones, and dynamic mixing. Positional detail that survives a firefight.
Open to creators
A scripting layer, modding SDK, and documented data formats. VxEngine was born in a modding community. It remembers where it came from.
Architecture
One engine,
the whole stack.
VxEngine is a complete runtime and toolchain: renderer, world streaming, simulation, networking, audio, assets, and editor. The same architecture serves a 128-player roleplay city and a 1,000-player persistent shard.
No middleware castles. No integration tax. When something is wrong, we can open the source and fix it.
The tools
An editor built by the people who use it.
Level editing, live data tuning, material authoring, and profiling in one place. Iteration measured in seconds, not coffee breaks.
Region 03 · Viewport
Built for Project 夜龙
A world this large needed an engine this serious.
Real-time global illumination under a red moon. Seamless traversal across a 64 km² continent. A thousand players in one shard. Night Dragon is the stress test that VxEngine was built for.
Rendered on VxEngine
The world the engine is built for.
Environment stills from Project 夜龙, running through the VxEngine content pipeline. Real-time lighting, seamless traversal, and a continent that never asks you to wait.
The Ashen Capital
Dawn over the last city
The Jade Spine
The temple road
The Black Gate
Winter at the edge
Project 夜龙 environment stills · VxEngine 1.0 content pipeline
Partner program
Build on VxEngine.
We are opening a small partner program for teams building persistent online games. It is invitation-only, hands-on, and limited to a handful of studios per year. We want partners who will push the engine — and who are willing to work closely with the team that builds it.
- Persistent online worlds
- Teams of 10–100 developers
- Long-term live operations
- Willing to work closely with our engine team
Not a fit? We are always happy to talk technology, tools, or rendering. Email hello@horizonrp.net.
Start a conversation
Tell us about your team and your project. We read every message.
Roadmap
The engine roadmap.
VxEngine is a long-term project. Here is where it is going.
2026
Production release. Frame-first renderer, real-time GI, streaming, networking, editor.
2027
Night Dragon launch support. Console bring-up, expanded profiling, modding SDK.
2027
Improved destruction, large-scale crowd simulation, and audio propagation.
2028+
Next-generation lighting, virtualized geometry, and partner platform expansion.
Questions
Engine
questions.
What is VxEngine?
VxEngine is Horizon Studios' in-house game engine, built for persistent online worlds and best-in-class performance across a wide range of hardware. It powers Horizon RP and Project 夜龙, and is used by our tools, art, and live operations teams every day.
Can I license VxEngine?
We are opening a small, invitation-only partner program for teams building persistent online games. It is hands-on and limited to a handful of studios per year. Start a conversation using the form below.
Is VxEngine available to the public?
Not currently. VxEngine is a production engine for Horizon and selected partners, not a general-purpose consumer product. We publish technical deep-dives and benchmarks as part of our development communication.
What platforms does it support?
Windows and Steam Deck today, with console bring-up underway for 2027. The renderer has D3D12 and Vulkan backends, and the engine is designed around scalable quality presets rather than a single high-end target.
Does it support modding?
Yes. VxEngine was born in the Unturned modding community, and a documented modding SDK ships with the 1.1 release. We will share more about the creator pipeline closer to Night Dragon's launch.
Why build your own engine?
Because the problems we care about — persistent online worlds, frame-time consistency, seamless streaming, and a live-service content pipeline — were not being solved the way we needed. Building our own engine lets us own the whole stack, from server tick to final pixel.
Horizon Studios technology
The engine behind the next decade.
A live city, a continent, and a thousand players in one shard. VxEngine is the foundation for everything we build next.