Well, so I wanted to delve into Unreal to prospect if I should use it on a real project, and so far, i got a LOT of promises and a living hell for an experience. Here is what i found:
- As for the promises:
- The engine offers an awesome loads of features, modern graphics, wonderful systems like Lumen and Nanite, amazing workflow with blueprints, etc.
But then, when you try to put those features in use, your nightmares comes true:
I spent quad the time solving engine issues than game issues:
- Editor crashes a lot. And I mean, A LOT!!!
. Crashes with empty projects
. Crashes with full projects
. Crashes saving blueprints
. Crashes compiling blueprints
. Crashing building maps
. Crashing with lights
. Crashing with meshes
. Crashing with C++ compilers
And speaking of C++:
- Setting up the C++ environment is not so straightforward. Many steps involved, many necessary reloads.
- Unreal Build Tools auto corrupts itself… loses the DLL, needs to run repair often. Waste about 2-3 hours each time.
- Unreal 5.3 comes with built-in automation script bugs - won’t run. You have to go to the forums to find out why (manually had to edit CheckForHacks.cs and BgScriptReader.cs.
- Can’t use live code. It breaks my blueprints. I try to compile solution outside editor (Visual Studio IDE), closes editor, the build does not affect the editor.
- I close the editor and when I reopen, all my blueprints are totally BROKEN and useless. Have to rebuild nodes, reassing variables, remake code, etc. More wasted hours for nothing, because when I close the editor… all over again.
- Speaking of broken blueprints. Also, the Visual Studio project also breaks often, have to right click the uproject, select remake visual studio project.
I tried enabling Live Coding, disabling live coding, building from IDE, building from editor. It works when it WANTS to. Nothing else.
The editor also has its problems:
- Usually overloads your system even on empty maps.
- If you use dynamic lighting, your GPU memory is swallowed in no time. I frequently got messages of “memory budget” and “dramatically lost of performance”, even in small maps. I tryed enabling Ray Tracing, disabling, use Lumen, don’t use Lumen…
I read the requirements for the engine, I don’t think I got the BEST hardware, but I got:
- 12th gen Intel chipset with 12 logical cores.
- RTX 2060 - 6GB integrated laptop GPU
- 32GB of RAM
- 2TB NMVe SSD Storage.
Latest Visual Studio 2022 Community build, Windows 11 with latest patches, and latest NVIDIA drivers.
So, I want to ask you, the community, how is your experience with this engine? Is it REALLY worth it?
Because up to now, I don’t think (at least 5.3) is ready to production. Shouldn’t be a stable release.
And I also ask if these problems are me (I just need L2Code, L2Use, L2Setup, needs a better computer, etc). Or are those REAL issues? And if these ARE issues: are there ANY stable release with Lumen and Nanite enabled? Because certainly, many titles shipped with Unreal engine, so it MUST work someway. Only not works for me, or the dev teams are spending a HUGE time only dealing with engine problems, rather than develop a game.
Sorry for the long post, needed to vent this.
But anyway, any insights on those issues? How are your experiences with the engine so far? 1 month into unreal and I am thinking of giving up and switching back to Unity or Godot or something else.
Thanks.