A short guide to compile UE4 on OSX 10.8.5

Just return from a client who asked help on compiling UE4 on OSX 10.8.5, and to my surprise, it’s actually quite easy to make UE4 fully compiled on 10.8. So here’s a short how-to:

1. Mono
The pre-bundled mono (Engine/Binaries/ThirdParty/Mono/Mac) not compatible with 10.8, you need to link/replace to your own mono install ( you could download mono 3.x from Redirecting… )

e.g.


cd Engine/Binaries/ThirdParty/Mono/
mv Mac Mac.old
ln -s YOUR_OWN_MONO Mac

2. ICU
The pre-compiled ICU library not compatible with 10.8, you need to compile a copy yourself.


cd Engine/Source/ThirdParty/ICU/icu4c-51_2/source
./runConfigureICU MacOSX –enable-static –disable-shared 
gnumake
cd ..
mv Mac Mac.old
ln -s source Mac

3. .cs

Find .cs under Engine/Source/Programs/UnrealBuildTool/Mac, change all text “10.9” to “10.8”

4. MacApplication.cpp and MacWindow.cpp

Find those 2 cpp file under Engine/Source/Runtime/Core/Private/Mac, change line:


    bScreensHaveSeparateSpaces = [NSScreen screensHaveSeparateSpaces]; 


to:


if ([NSScreen respondsToSelector:@selector(screensHaveSeparateSpaces)]) { 
    bScreensHaveSeparateSpaces = [NSScreen performSelector:@selector(screensHaveSeparateSpaces)]; 
}


5. kCGLRendererATIRadeonX4000ID (only needed if you’re comping 4.2+ branch)

Find CGLRenderers.h on Mac OSX 10.8 sdk ( depends on your system setup, usually under /Applications/Xcode.app/Contents/Developer/Platforms/MacOSX.platform/Developer/SDKs/MacOSX10.8.sdk/System/Library/Frameworks/OpenGL.framework/Versions/A/Headers/ )

add a line:


#define kCGLRendererATIRadeonX4000ID         0x00021C00 // Radeon HD 7xxx

That’s it. Hopefully I’ve not miss any steps (wrote from memory and almost unrecognizable note).

Please note that if you try and run on 10.8.5 you are unsupported!
There are significant driver updates between 10.8.5 and 10.9.2 that are required for UE4 to run all the SM4 graphical effects correctly on a substantial proportion of Macs. There is code in 4.2 that is intended to aid the older GL 3.3 level GPUs to run the Editor that may help alleviate most of those problems on 10.8.5, but any graphical bugs you encounter on that OS will not be fixed.