Epic Games have rolled out the latest major upgrade to Unreal Engine 4 while work continues on Unreal Engine 5.
This latest release with Unreal Engine 4.26 surprisingly has quite a lot of Linux issues sorted, along with dropping OpenGL in favour of Vulkan on the desktop now. It's a change that's not really surprising, with Vulkan being the future along with it being needed for Stadia which is quickly expanding its list of available titles.
We’re pleased to announce that Unreal Engine 4.26 is ready for download! This release brings new tools that extend your ability to create believable real-time environments and characters for games, film & TV, visualization, and training & simulation; continued advancements to our virtual production toolset; higher-quality media output; improved design review tools; and much, much more.
Epic Games
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We've rounded up the other Linux specific fixes for you here:
- Automation - Bug Fix: Fixed Linux packaging failure resulting from Lumin key being copied locally into Gauntlet.
- Core - New: Removed unnecessary target dependencies for ShaderCompileWorker on Linux.
- UnrealBuildTool - Bug Fix: Fixed retry in Linux when linking batch files.
- Bug Fix: Resolved an issue with Linux with the SegFault in source filtering and notification manager when closing QAGame Clear Regional Lists at the pre-exit instead of during the global dtor.
- New: Building with a -gbd-index with Clang v9 or above now cuts symbol loading time by more than half (45 seconds to 17 seconds).
- New: Added the No Relative Mouse Mode command-line option to support remote VNC.
- New: Lld linker is now supported with Clang v9 and above.
- Bug Fix: Implemented GetWindowUnderCursor for Unix Platform.
- Bug Fix: Updated README.md for Linux build.
- Bug Fix: Fixed SegFault in source filtering and notification manager when closing QAGame Clear RegionalLists at pre-exit instead of during global dtor when many objects / modules have been freed. Call RemoveAll on FilterCollection->GetSourceFilters updated in PreExit instead of global dtor when many objects / modules have been shut down.
- Bug Fix: For Unix, fixed FUnixPlatformMemory::GetStats() that always returned 0 when memory was over 10.24gigs.
- Bug Fix: UE no longer hard codes c14 in LinuxToolchain as the default c standard.
- Bug Fix: Added SP_OPENGL_SM4_REMOVED to IsDeprecatedShaderPlatform(). This fixes assert when getting shader stats (called from FShaderCookerStats::Initialize).
- Bug Fix: Added error messagebox when vkGetPhysicalDeviceSurfaceSupportKHR fails (no present support).
- Bug Fix: For Linux Vulkan, fixed amdgpu mesa crash where drawinstance call is outside render pass enabling shader complexity view.
- Bug Fix: Update translucent rendering fix to use BeginRenderingTranslucency.
- Bug Fix: Honor UE4's Mono-build environment using Build.sh .
- Bug Fix: Fixed BC6H/BC7 texture formats not being available for Linux.
- Bug Fix: Fixed submenus closing causing main context to close.
- Bug Fix: Fixed focus issue where Windows with never activate policy were being set to active.
- New: Updated Linux SDL2.0.10 to SDL2-2.0.13-13784. Also we removed Epic opengl and emscriptem changes. Source snapshot for SDL 2.0 (Updated Wed Apr 29, 2020) https://www.libsdl.org/hg.php .
- New: Enabled ssse3 by default for Linux x86.
- New: Build ShaderConductor for Linux Script now uses v16 Clang 9.0.1, and works around incorrect llvm-tblgen location. This also adds declspec guid -fms-extensions for build error.
- New: Updated Linux SDL2.0.10 build files to SDL2-2.0.13-13784.
- New: Added support for multithreading in forked processes. Use -PostForkThreading when SupportsMultithreading() is false to allow multithreading in forked processes. Forked processes do not inherit threads from the master, so this keeps the master process in single thread mode but transforms the RunnableThreads into real threads on the forked version. Use FForkProcessHelper::CreateForkableThread to use this feature. ForkableThreads will behave correctly according to the environment they are called in (singlethread, multi thread, forkable). SyncEvents created in -PostForkThreading environments are real events on the master process (Win, Unix platform only).
- New: Added TaskGraph.ForkedProcessMaxWorkerThreads cvar to directly control the number of worker threads spawned on forked processes that enable multithreading.
- New: TaskGraph can now be multithreaded on a forked server with -PostForkThreading. To do this the TaskGraph needs to be shut down and recreated entirely by the forked process for the switch to occur. The functionality can be disabled via "TaskGraph.EnableForkedMultithreading 0" if needed.
- New: Linux AArch64 libs for FreeType2 v2.10.0, ICU 64.1, and HarfBuzz 2.4.0 now include BuildForLinuxAArch64.sh cross compilation scripts. This also adds LinuxAArch64 back to installed engine builds.
- New: Added bGdbIndexSection bool to LinuxToolChain.
- New: Changed default linux directory permissions to 775 from 755 to make working with them easier.
- New: You can now use msbuild in mono for Linux when using an installed copy and mono >= 5.0.
- New: Linux directory watcher optimizations and fixes for cases where we're running with "virtual" layers in the platform file (i.e. pak files).
- New: Added a skip linux UE4_DO_ROOT_PRIVILEGE_CHECK check for programs.
- New: Updated to new LLVM V17 Clang 10.0.1 toolchain.
- New: Moved to using llvm-objcopy for objcopy and strip.
- New: Installed Linux builds now assume a bundled toolchain.
- New: Added support on Mac and Linux for user-defined .unrealrc files that allow developers to specify environment variables for UBT and UAT scripts. .unrealrc files in the home and the workspace directory will be applied before the editor, UnrealBuildTool, UnrealAutomation tool, etc are run.
- New: Added support for VK_KHR_image_format_list, VK_KHR_shader_atomic_int64 and VK_KHR_driver_properties support for Linux; added gpu crash extension support on Linux for AMD and NVIDIA.
Full release notes available here.
Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
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10 comments
Good news,
let's hope the vulkan implementation will be good enough for the developers to switch to it from DX11/12!
let's hope the vulkan implementation will be good enough for the developers to switch to it from DX11/12!
7 Likes, Who?
I asked Epic's developer Niklas Smedberg at GDC (perhaps in 2015?) during the Vulkan/Khronos Q&A when they thought Vulkan would have replaced OpenGL in their products. They where unsure of it at the time (Vulkan was just gaining traction, but it was obvious that Khronos was surprised at the speed that the traction had been gained at that time), but nice to see that that day has finally come!
Last edited by AzP on 4 December 2020 at 12:40 pm UTC
Last edited by AzP on 4 December 2020 at 12:40 pm UTC
2 Likes, Who?
That's rather good. Must say I'm a bit surprised.
2 Likes, Who?
Avehicle7887 Dec 4, 2020
Proper Vulkan support on UE4 should be a big plus for better cross platform support. Here's hoping that Vulkan on Linux is now as fast as Windows, otherwise dropping OpenGL would be a step back.
0 Likes
Mountain Man Dec 6, 2020
And yet Epic still won't port their most popular game to Linux. I personally don't give a crap about Fortnite, but the fact that there's not a Linux version tells you everything you need to know about how Epic feels about us.
2 Likes, Who?
TheRiddick Dec 6, 2020
Is UE5 the one with nano polygon and baked in raytracing like lighting effects? anyone know when that will be coming out?
0 Likes
EPIC doesn't care about us at all. Actually it could be interpretted as worse than that because like most AAA devs EPIC discourages Linux use specifically because the company does not want to hire people to support it. It's cheaper for them just to to tell us to dual boot. My guess is that this was for Stadia and that Google is somehow paying for it.
2 Likes, Who?
sneakeyboard Dec 7, 2020
EPIC doesn't care about us at all. Actually it could be interpretted as worse than that because like most AAA devs EPIC discourages Linux use specifically because the company does not want to hire people to support it. It's cheaper for them just to to tell us to dual boot. My guess is that this was for Stadia and that Google is somehow paying for it.
I was hopeful until you guys reminded me who pays their bills. Stadia probably had to do with what went on behind the scenes. On the plus side, it may improve performance for those who use proton/wine/etc.
0 Likes
EPIC doesn't care about us at all. Actually it could be interpretted as worse than that because like most AAA devs EPIC discourages Linux use specifically because the company does not want to hire people to support it. It's cheaper for them just to to tell us to dual boot. My guess is that this was for Stadia and that Google is somehow paying for it.This is the kind of reason I'm interested in Stadia's existence even though I have zero interest in and some concerns about streamed gaming. It makes Google want Linux game development to be a smooth easy thing.
1 Likes, Who?
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