Usually I use UE4 via Windows and it works out pretty well. However, via a similarly spec’d Mac targeting iOS I’m having unending troubles. Maybe someone has an idea how to reduce one of my pain points below?
When compiling, mono takes 30+ seconds figuring out what tasks to do (often just compiling one file with trivial changes)
Hotloading doesn’t work, so I have to restart the editor every time I change C++ classes.
Launching to an iOS device takes 4+ minutes every time, even with nothing to compile
Packaging takes 10+ minutes every time, even with nothing to compile or package
Is the only viable workflow for deploying to iOS to really develop in Windows and then only use Mac to launch iOS? Has someone had good experiences using a Mac-only workflow and my setup is just bunk somehow?
I tried for years with an iMac, recently picked a pc (alienware. i7, 1080 etc) from dell outlet for a 1/3 of the price of the imac, its night and day, workflow on the mac is slower and harder, then when you look at cost, you’ll have to be pretty dedicated to carry on with UE4 on OSX.
Thanks for the confirmation, Guyver. I’ve shifted to PC-centric workflow for all content – some programming still requires close-to-the-metal iterations, though, so there’s still some amount of pain required.
I use a PC to do everything including deploying to iOS, check out the unreal engine iOS quick start guide, but you can compile and deploy directly to iOS from a PC with iTunes installed. You don’t need to use a Mac for anything.
Edit: Sorry I didn’t read your post closely enough last night, it seems you are using a C++ project which you have to build with xcode
I’m doing iOS dev with UE4 and never owned any of the MacBooks. Company has some Mac boxes which I use to run the builds. Unreal has an option to build remotely with any Mac machine with Xcode installed in your local network or with VPN. In your case you wouldn’t need to buy expensive MacBook Pro’s just to develop comfortably, simple Mac Book Air would do to run the builds with your PC/Laptop.
Thanks for all the replies. In my case, I’m using a modified engine based on 4.20. Perhaps something got broken in the 4.20 build I’ve got since the build tools for remote building iOS seem very wrong – they’re trying to push Windows paths onto the remote Mac for compiling/linking. After a lot of debugging and hacking around the pathing issues, I ran out of time to pursue it further – but I did get it all the way to the linking step.
So is that a good idea to own a iMacPro+UE4 to work for a iOS project ?
It’s a shock to know that UE4 running on mac is slower and harder…WHY? Is that the problem about GPU or just Engine itself…we can plug in a Vega64 egpu now…
I think the consensus is that you should use a PC for as much development as you can and only use a mac to do remote builds. It’s slower because it isn’t the target platform and hasn’t been optimized and it is running all this .net code through this translation layer thing called mono
In the past few years, I need a PC just for Some Great Games. But since mac support eGPU last year, I think finally I could put my noisy PC away and focus on my elegant mac only.
But now…I get a bad news that I should keep a PC because of the Unreal Engine.
Unhappy
I hope Unreal Engine could have a perfect MacOS version. Just like final cut pro.It is amazing. And I know that many ppl love MacOS far…far more than Windows.Every thing in the MacOS is great and elegant eg.swift language, Metal , data control , network , security , icloud … and the new dark Mode coming soon. It’s just a hope. May be UE5 could be better
The build system is C#/Mono, hence MyModule.build.cs.
I should add: mono isn’t slower than .NET. It’s not a “translation layer”. Both .NET and Mono run the same bytecode in the same way. If your Mac is running slower, it’s because your Mac is slower. But it’s still doing something that only a Mac can do: but iOS or Mac apps.
Wow, I’m just getting into UE4 on a Mac, and this is disappointing to read. I was just trying to follow this tutorial to play live video, but neither the built-in camera nor an attached USB camera are available as capture devices in the Media Player. Is this a Mac-specific issue, or am I perhaps overlooking something?
Check that UE has permission to access the Camera. Go into the Engine source and trace back what UE actually does to access the camera and verify that it can do the same thing on Mac.
Thanks for the reply. I think you’re onto something there. I know that the latest version of macOS, Catalina, has some beefed up security measures. When I check camera access in the Privacy and Security section of the Preferences, UE4 is not listed there (but Parallels is, which might explain why the camera is accessible from UE under Windows). Unfortunately, there appears to be no way to manually add an app to the permitted list. Usually, when an app attempts to use a privileged device, macOS automatically displays a dialog to grant access. That never happened with UE, so I’ll have to figure out how to grant it permission.
You’ve pointed me in the right direction, so thanks!
Catalina has been the source of many woes for me as well. I greatly regret upgrading.
I’d suggest that the fastest solution will be to work out how Mac developers initially get access to the camera and make a call to do that from your project. If that works, make a pull request and add it to the engine.
The performance of ue4 of macos version is low, even if I connect egpu (amd vii), the old computer of win platform 9 years ago runs faster than mac pro, which annoys me
Hi!
I have an iMac 2019, 27 tum, OS 10.15.5, and Xcode installed. I have UE 4.25 and 4.26. I can’t bake the light. When I change the sky to “Stationary” the environment gets dark. Any ideas? Thank you!
I was just trying to follow