I’m looking to expand the development of my project to include Android devices.
In the past hour or so I’ve learned about the limited amount of devices that are currently supported and unfortunately the days of getting a Nexus 5 on contract seem to be over, so I was wondering which devices people here would recommend using instead. I’ve seen the Rivals demo on a Tegra K1, but I don’t know how close that hardware is to the released Shield tablet, nor do I know how up to date Epic’s comparability list is.
I’m not planning on releasing a project for another 6-9 months so I’m hoping that over this time, Android support will blossom and performance increase…
last time i tried it wouldn’t do non code projects (4.5 maybe) might have changed now.
i recently got a 2013 nexus 7 second hand, it seems to run ok with the starter templates, haven’t tried anything more advanced yet.
yeah i hope for that too, although the progress is steady to say the least. if only they would ask the people from unity how to do it lol.
Thanks Tegleg, I am starting to worry that Epic is trying to support too many things at once, and mobile support is lacking as a result, which in turn is affecting projects aiming to use it.
What kind of Code work is involved to get a project running on Android?
It all works fine on Nvidia Shield, but for some reason does not on Samsung phone. However i think its my fault, my project may have wrong texture formats in settings.
As for devices, you kind of need at least 2. One top hardware and another around bottom you will ever support.
For top i got Nvidia shield, for bottom we had nexus phone of my friend, but it had that accident with snow, and now refuses to work.
So i kind of cannot check why my project does not work on older hardware.
Anyway my case clearly shows why you should have more than single device.
Ps. My project is pure bluyeprints for now, and until snow accident it worked on Samsung phone, we tried another phone and it does not start.
Soon I will investigate this more.
Was it a Nexus 4 or higher? I’ve got a 4 that I tried (unsuccessfully - with a FPS Blueprints project and the Suntemple example) to deploy to this morning before researching compatible devices and the Shield in more detail.
I’m also using 4.7 Preview 3 and aware that there’s a push for Android comparability going on at the moment (according to the Roadmap at least).
I am using 4.6, pure bp project worked fine in 4.5 also. I do not remember what phone model has my friend, it got bit unstable after getting some snow.
His wife phone does not run our project, but we will investigate reason for this today or tomorrow (if he gets his wife phone that’s it).
Ah you doing it wrong you are trying to deploy big projects that are made by Epic. First try something tiny and yours, make new project, follow tutorial deploy it to androind.
You kind of cannot say that unreal has bad support for androind when you try to deploy sun temple or FPs game. Sun temple should work, but that FPS game i doubt it will out of the box.
If you change texture compression settings some devices may not support yours and will not run project. Sun temple was meant as showcase it pushes the limits. And FPS game was not made for androind devices. Both should work however, you just need to tweak few things.
Sorry, to be clear, not the full FPS project with AI, but an empty project with some FPS controls (using virtual thumbsticks) I added in Blueprints and some BSP walls.
I’ve been through various tutorials, looked at compression settings and pretty identifying & dealing with problems, but hit a wall with deploying after getting a rather ambiguous “Unknown Error” error in red and my deployment fials. The Shield arrives tomorrow so I’ve got plenty more things to prod and tweak until then to see if things improve before then.
I had a bit messy shield install, It required separate android SDK (for drivers). Not sure if 4.6 or 4.7 still have it messy.
That error may be lack of free space on device. I kind of created my project and without problems i am adding new features.
There’s about 8gig free on the phone, so I’m not worried about space. I’ve got the NVidia Android SDK pack that comes with UE4, I assume that covers everything driver related.
Ok, so the Shield has arrived, and after spending some time trying to set it up (I’ve upgraded it to Lollipop etc) I’m stuck at the point where my PC won’t recongise it as an ADB Device.
I’ve installed the TADP V2.08 that came with UE4 (why isn’t this a more recent version Epic? I currently have to wait for approval from NVidia before I can download V3…). I’ve installed the SDK for Lollipop and have the latest Google USB Driver installed.
I’ve got ‘USB Debugging’ ticked on the ‘Developer Options’ menu on the Shield.
I’ve updated the Shield to use the latest Drivers found on NVidia’s site
I don’t know if the Shield is currently set to PTP or MTP mode or how to change it.
Does anyone have any suggestions as to what to try next?
Had same problem, installing new TADP from nvidia Shield development page solved this problem. It was bit messy because i installed next tadp over unreals one.
Not sure if i have that binary or url to download it. And Epic cannot include all those custom made tadps, from every manufacturer, this is kind of our burden.
PS. too much skyrim time to get an arrow in to the knee.
Gah, more hair pulling. I have the Shield and Shield Tablet drivers from NVidia and the generic USB drivers from Google, but at any point I try to install them for the Shield Tablet via the Device Manager I get the error “the folder doesn’t contain compatible drivers”. The inf files they’re talking about do include references to the Shield.
The only other thing that I know is different from all the step by steps that I read is that the tabelt is listed under ‘Portable Device’ or ‘Android Device’ in the ‘Device Manager’, rather than ‘Other Device’. I’ve got ADB & Fastboot installed.
Ok, finally, my PC recognizes the tablet and I’ve been able to install drivers for it. It’s only detected by the ADB when ‘Tethered’, as well as having ‘USB Debugging’ switched on.
My only remaining problem is that UE4 doesn’t register the device. UE4 is starting the ADB program correctly, and running ADB Devices from CMD
I’ve tried this with NVidia Shield Drivers, NVidia Shield Tablet Drivers, Naked Drivers 0.72 and Naked Drivers 0.73. I’ve also tried TADP 2.8 & 3.4, and now downloading 3.3.
I’ve used 4.7 Previews 3&4 as well.
Can anyone think of any stages I’m missing here or anything else I can try? I’m going by the assumption that it’s possible to deploy onto a tablet using the Launcher version of UE4 and not using Visual Studio to rebuild it, which is confirmed as possible in this thread and Epic’s Android guide.
Not sure why you have problems, maybe i was just lucky.
I installed Nvidia sdk then unreal’s android sdk over it. I thought that nvidia will work with unreal, turned out i need to install unreal package also.
I always deploy game from unreal editor.
Android devices register the USB interface with different ID depending on the mode its in.
ADB and Fastboot (Bootloader) interfaces show up under Android Device.
Regular PTP/MTP (storage/media device) (showing up in Windows Explorer) show up under Portables Devices.
The device can be shown under ‘ADB devices’, but still not be an authorized PC on the device, if i remember correctly. ( FYI: %USERPROFILE%.android\adb* has the keys on PC side. )
Setting->Storage->“USB Computer connection”(triple dot) is where you change MTP<->PTP in stock Android.
Hi gents, @Jimmy_Jazz: first download tegra android development pack 30r4, then uninstall any android dev. packs that you have on your system and restart PC. Then install 30r4, and rebuild the engine. When installing dev. pack, pick full installation, the express one does not have lollipop as default. After that it should work.
