So I have an extremely slow dual core mac with 8gb ram, it is not up to the task of running the ue4 editor at all. Currently I have remote build setup and I use it just for compiling and nothing else and this is working for me currently since I only have ~70 cpp files and the compile times are only a few minutes. My current workflow is basically:
- Make changes in windows
- Remote compile on my mac which copies the built app back to my phone connected to my windows dev machine
- Test my changes
unfortunately I recently ran into a crash where the app just crashes shortly after startup, I really want to use xcodes great debugging & profiling tools to find out if this crash is memory related as I suspect it is. This brings me to my question.
Is there a way to build the app on windows, i.e. compile all shaders and do all packaging, and get it out to output an xcode project that I could launch on my mac for further debugging on the device?
basically I don’t want top have to open the editor on my mac at all, I want to build the project entirely on my PC and just open the built xcode project on my mac and then run it on my device.
Is this a possible workflow? Or do you have any suggestions for me other than buy a new mac? I just spent a ton on my PC and I don’t really want to shell out even more for a mac that is unreal editor worthy.
Thanks in advance!
I do all my debugging from the Unreal Engine output log. I haven’t had a case where anything more then that was needed. Have you tried running on android and watching the log as it plays from the editor that way? See if you can fix your issue there then move to iOS. I don’t see how you could get the xcode log while running from windows unless you remote build from an apple server you are renting like https://www.macincloud.com/. When I tried that though it came with more hassle then it’s worth.
The unreal output log doesn’t include nearly as much information as the xcode logs/instrumentation and since theres no debugger attached you can’t find out why the app crashed a lot of the time.
Anyways I figured out a partial workflow that allows me to debug my app on xcode without having to open the ue4 editor and launch on my mac:
- Launch the app on the device from the windows host machine
- After this process finishes your project files will have been copied to the remote mac and the ipa will have been installed on your device
- On the remote mac browse to /Users/[you]/UE4/Builds/[windows machine name]/C/[project name]
- Right click on the uproject there and select “Generate xcode project”
This gives you an xcode project that you can open but building the “DebugGame” build configuration targeting iOS fails due to signing issues… I’m not sure what the deal is there since the DebugGame config builds totally fine when invoked as part of the launch process. For some reason the xcworkspace must be using the wrong certs. I may try to figure this out later but for now I can launch the app on the device and then use the attach to process feature of the xcode debugger to debug the game.
Turns out it was a memory problem! See screenshot:
