Engine version numbering system doesn't make sense

Community Community & Industry Discussion
1

I don’t know if it’s just me or if there’s something seriously off with how Epic is numbering their engine versions. So, I’ve seen that they’ll make references (for example) to Unreal 4.8.1, but they JUST released 4.2.1. How does that make sense? Do they mean 4.08.1 when they say 4.8.1? Because, if so, those 2 numbered values couldn’t be further away from the same. I don’t get it, am I missing something here or do a bunch of computer scientists just not know how to count because it’s confusing the hell outta me! What’s going to happen when they release 4.5.0? Is it going to be 4.5.0 or 4.05.0? It doesn’t make sense…

If I’m missing something please just let me know so I can follow the format and not be confused. Thanks!

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2

The current engine version is 4.21.1

The main version is 21, not 2.1

3

The dot isn’t being used as a traditional decimal.

4

They use the Major.Minor.Patch numbering.

4.21.1

4 is Major, 21 is Minor, and 1 is patch.

This is the History of Major, Minor versions.

  • 4.5
  • 4.6
  • 4.7
  • 4.8
  • 4.9
  • 4.10
  • 4.11
  • 4.12
  • 4.13
  • 4.14
  • 4.15
  • 4.16
  • 4.17
  • 4.18
  • 4.19
  • 4.20
  • 4.21
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5

as everyone else has said it’s major-minor. think of it like this, unreal engine 4 will always be unreal engine 4, they won’t ever update ue4 to ue5, ue5 (if it is ever a thing) will be separate like ue3 and udk is from ue4. so we can drop the “4” part of the version number because it won’t ever change, and all “major” changes happen in the second digit. That leaves us with x.8.1 vs x.21.1 or 8.1 vs 21.1, that’s 13 “major” updates ahead.

6

Just because the major 4 is not going to change anytime soon doesn’t mean you can just omit it, it would be like suddenly calling months for years in a date. Look up the version files in the source code and it is written as 4 being major.

7

So, as per my example in the original post, when Epic gets to say version 30, it’ll be 4.30.1 thus differing it from 4.3.1 and so on. I get it now, still confusing to someone use to seeing traditional decimal usage/values.

Either way, thanks for clarifying that for me everyone! I appreciate it.

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8

And don’t forget that the first build of a new release is always .0 (for example: 4.30.0). The .1 only comes about with the first hotfix.

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