One thing I've seen often, that was mentioned above, is having multiple updates per frame(of course only on objects that need it). This assumes your engine can save performance by not calling non-existent functions. You have a pre-update, normal update, and post-update event available for your objects. Anything you do most often goes in the normal update, but if you have some object that needs to do something specific either before or after that point, you put it in the pre/post event/function. This won't fix every single case possible, but I'd say it takes care of a great majority of things. Even the GameMaker: Studio software has this event system, as does Unity, and probably UE4(never used that one).