I started using Unreal and thought I will give some feedback. I’m using 4.16.2 at the moment and I’m surprised how unstable the editor is. Today I’ve encountered several crashes. I quickly started saving the project after every minor change which is not optimal. Asset management is vulnerable to changes that occur at some later point in time. It seems that UE4 has some problems with updating references properly. I’m a programmer and prefer using code but blueprints gave me a positive first impression. I like how the engine is packed with features that you need to buy in Unity. It seems to me that Unreal has a better light and performance than Unity but this gap is not very big though.
Overal I would say Unity is more stable, and manages assets in a better way. Unreal has a slight advantage in graphics and performance. Once I’ll use UE4 in production I will be able to tell something more. Keep delivering awesome engine!
Unreal 4.16.2 is by far the most sophisticated and stable version i personally came across, while working with UE for 2-3 years. So let that sink in
IF something causes the editor to crash, then it is likely either a bug, or sometimes things can go wrong, especially if you are new. But without further information it is not possible to give you exact pointers, but if you look into the “log”, inside your project “Saved” folder, you might get an idea. Blueprints are nice but they are basically a direct tap into code, so if you do blueprints, sometimes those can cause issues. For instance delays on Event Tick can be tricky, or if you use For Loop nodes.
It takes several months working hard with Unreal to get around all the problems you might encounter. First destination, use google search and if you have a specific technical question, visit the AnswerHub.
I also recommend to do project backups from time to time.
We take crash bugs very seriously, and fix lots of issues like that in each release (you can see in the release notes). Please make sure to use the crash reporter pop-up to file a crash report, as that really helps us identify and resolve issues. If you have more information about ares of instability (e.g. reproduction steps that cause a crash), posting on Answer Hub is also very useful and will get escalated internally here. Thank you for the feedback!
Yes, Every time editor crashed I’ve send the report when the pop-up appeared. Unreal Engine seems to be a pretty well thought out engine. I will be able to tell something more once my level of experience with it will reach my level of experience with Unity. One thing though, is it possible to make asset management more robust? In Unity for example I can move assets around, rename folders - no problem at all.
As someone who also switched from Unity to UE4 I’ll say that Unitys asset management is far better than UE4s but that isn’t really a problem for me if I have a planned folder structure and don’t move around large amounts of assets at once. In terms of crashing in 4.16.2 I haven’t had any issues with that outside of my own mistakes (usually a bad pointer or accessing a null object) which I don’t bother sending those crash reports because I caused the issue. It just takes some time getting used to Unreal to have a feeling for what’s an engine issue or a user error. Good luck with learning UE4 and I’ll recommend watching some videos by Reuben Ward for C++ stuff and Mathew Wadstein for a crash course (2-10 minutes) on a specific item.
It’s a common crash, but not everyone experiences it. We believe it is tied to hardware and drivers, and we are working with Nvidia to identify and resolve the root cause(s). There are a few potential workarounds listed in the ticket that may provide some relief in the meantime.
