Normal Map Render Issues

My model isnt rendering the same as it is in max. Not sure why since im importing the normals and tangents. Any clues or help beyond more geometry for cleaner overal mesh normals

This almost seems like over-projection…but i’ve only seen something like that occur in like Substance Painter.

Did you create the map by making a high-poly model and a low-poly model, then using I think called the projection modifier?

yeah, its a projection / render to texture. The mesh is heavily beveled to keep the smoothing groups down, down side is the normals get averaged across the mesh in unfortunate ways, which gives the normal map gradients. The normal map and vertex normals should cancel out each other for that smooth proper look like you see in max. Both max and ue use mikkt normal space so the math should be the same. Which would suggest to me that the normals of the mesh arent being imported exactly the same as they are in max. I cant quite figure out a way to visualize the normals in max in a way i could compare to ue to confirm