For those of you using Unreal Engine 4 on Linux, you may be interested to know about the d3d4linux project. The d3d4linux project allows developers to compile HLSL shaders on Linux using the Microsoft DirectX compiler DLL.
It uses a Wine program in the background to do the work for you, which is quite an inventive solution really.
Sam from developer Dontnod Entertainment, the creators of Life is Strange and Remember Me shared it on twitter recently. The github page for d3d4linux states they actually use it in their studio.
Hopefully some of you will find it useful if you're developing with Unreal on Linux. Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
It uses a Wine program in the background to do the work for you, which is quite an inventive solution really.
Sam from developer Dontnod Entertainment, the creators of Life is Strange and Remember Me shared it on twitter recently. The github page for d3d4linux states they actually use it in their studio.
Hopefully some of you will find it useful if you're developing with Unreal on Linux. Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
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15 comments
Raven67854 Jun 14, 2016
Seems odd to go through all of this work rather than use Unreal Engine 4's native Linux version. But hey! Could be cool for other projects like MonoGame.
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Outstanding work from an outstanding developer.Doh, fixed.
But it's DONTNOD not "DOTNOD" ...
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Kuduzkehpan Jun 14, 2016
HLSL compiling would help game porting companies to bring more games to Linux.
Cheeer!
Cheeer!
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Seems odd to go through all of this work rather than use Unreal Engine 4's native Linux version. But hey! Could be cool for other projects like MonoGame.
Maybe it's just the open source drivers, but the Linux version of UE4 needs some more love and attention. I was just trying out the latest UT Alpha and it's stuttery as hell.
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Raven67854 Jun 14, 2016
Seems odd to go through all of this work rather than use Unreal Engine 4's native Linux version. But hey! Could be cool for other projects like MonoGame.
Maybe it's just the open source drivers, but the Linux version of UE4 needs some more love and attention. I was just trying out the latest UT Alpha and it's stuttery as hell.
Might be! They have been working on the render which is all the HLSL->GLSL compiler would affect. Finally have GL4.3 as of I think version 4.9? So feature wise the OpenGL render can now support all features. No longer gimped by the Mac version.
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wintermute Jun 14, 2016
Is this the guy that used to be a Debian contributor/maintainer?
My reading of the GitHub page is that this is so that they can do their Windows builds on Linux.
Last edited by wintermute on 14 June 2016 at 3:45 pm UTC
Seems odd to go through all of this work rather than use Unreal Engine 4's native Linux version. But hey! Could be cool for other projects like MonoGame.
My reading of the GitHub page is that this is so that they can do their Windows builds on Linux.
Last edited by wintermute on 14 June 2016 at 3:45 pm UTC
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Seems odd to go through all of this work rather than use Unreal Engine 4's native Linux version. But hey! Could be cool for other projects like MonoGame.
Maybe it's just the open source drivers, but the Linux version of UE4 needs some more love and attention. I was just trying out the latest UT Alpha and it's stuttery as hell.
Try
#!/bin/bash
./Engine/Binaries/Linux/UE4-Linux-Shipping UnrealTournament -opengl3 -USEALLAVAILABLECORES -lowmemoryas a launch script
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Wow this is huge!
Would this ease up the port of Life is Strange and their other games though?
That'd be awesome! Every developer out there should know about this project!
Would this ease up the port of Life is Strange and their other games though?
That'd be awesome! Every developer out there should know about this project!
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ElectricPrism Jun 14, 2016
Unreal Tournament 4 needs a Linux Client badly so we don't have to manually update our UT4 installs from the tar.gz
If you talk to developers about their coding I think you'll find most of us do many odd things and simply enjoy the inventiveness of testing the hypothesis "Can I do.... X". Most of us never ask "Should I", or "Is this practical".
And then there scenarios where bugs become features like the . prefix in Linux indicating hidden files started out as a bug but became a feature later.
Seems odd to go through all of this work rather than use Unreal Engine 4's native Linux version. But hey! Could be cool for other projects like MonoGame.
If you talk to developers about their coding I think you'll find most of us do many odd things and simply enjoy the inventiveness of testing the hypothesis "Can I do.... X". Most of us never ask "Should I", or "Is this practical".
And then there scenarios where bugs become features like the . prefix in Linux indicating hidden files started out as a bug but became a feature later.
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Raven67854 Jun 14, 2016
Unreal Tournament 4 needs a Linux Client badly so we don't have to manually update our UT4 installs from the tar.gz
Seems odd to go through all of this work rather than use Unreal Engine 4's native Linux version. But hey! Could be cool for other projects like MonoGame.
If you talk to developers about their coding I think you'll find most of us do many odd things and simply enjoy the inventiveness of testing the hypothesis "Can I do.... X". Most of us never ask "Should I", or "Is this practical".
And then there scenarios where bugs become features like the . prefix in Linux indicating hidden files started out as a bug but became a feature later.
After thinking about it for a moment awhile ago. I realized that DontNod(what a great name) uses Unreal Engine 3 and for their new game Vampyr probably an old build of Unreal Engine 4 that didn't have Linux support. So it makes sense that they would need some middle-layer to give them help. As moving to a newer build of Unreal is a hell of a task.
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wintermute Jun 14, 2016
So it makes sense that they would need some middle-layer to give them help. As moving to a newer build of Unreal is a hell of a task.
I'm going to repeat what I said before: This tool allows them to do Windows builds on Linux, it is not something for inclusion into the Linux builds of a game.
d3d4linux ... is being successfully used at Dontnod Entertainment to package Windows versions of Unreal Engine 4 games.
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slaapliedje Jun 15, 2016
Is this the guy that used to be a Debian contributor/maintainer?
Yes.
I can't read that name as anything but Hovercar. Which of course brings to mind a song called Hover Car by Fangbaby.
https://soundcloud.com/fangbaby (explicit lyric warning from the 80s)
Enjoy this rather odd band. I found them randomly one day.
Oh, and more on topic; for the love of god UE4 is awesome, we need SteamVR support now so I can play around with the editor in VR!
Last edited by slaapliedje on 15 June 2016 at 12:29 am UTC
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We need a proper open HLSL compiler to port DX games properly. MS plan to open up their HLSL parser at least. See here: https://github.com/KhronosGroup/glslang/issues/200
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