Should a noob upgrade to 4.22

Community Community & Industry Discussion
1

After the UE4 bug bit me last month, I’ve been studying and trying things for like 100 hours. My biggest problem is assets that haven’t been updated and need a blueprint tweaking. Currently, I have to be fed information like a toddler, one node at a time, without knowing what I’m really doing. At the same time, I wonder if I wasn’t better off starting from the ground on the latest version and take the hard route with creating assets, or investing in brand new more expensive stuff instead?
Or maybe keep working and studying in 4.21 and experiment in 4.22 until assets are updated?
Cheers!

2

Unless you are working on a large project, I’d suggest always updating to the latest version. I would avoid migrating projects to the latest version, unless you NEED a feature from the newer version of the engine. Or at least avoid migrating often.

3

You should always upgrade unless you have a clear reason not to. Don’t blindly adopt the requirements of large production studios.

A 100 hours in is nothing. UE4 is likely release many future versions before you have something remotely playable. Going from 4.21 to 4.22 would be easy. Upgrading to a later version will be much more difficult.

4

Thank you. I didn’t even know you could download all these older versions. Some assets don’t even match with 4.21, so I might install the old ones and try and update fx. Mixamo to 4.22, gotta to be changes in some commandsets or something. I might have a playable demo inside a small warehouse building in 1.000 hours time, using almost only premade assets, and with focus on mastering the gameplay mechanics before Christmas. That’s the goal.

5

Are there any best practices for migrating from 4.21 to 4.22? Are there some posted steps somewhere to follow? I really want to migrate my project to the latest version for the raytracing functionality since it appears all the new consoles will support RT soon. Any tips?

6

Hello. When you go to “add to project,” you make sure it shows all projects, and not just the ones that have the same engine version. Then you choose your 4.22 project and then you select an engine version of what you want to add. Sometimes it works, sometimes it’s as if things get left behind.

7

Thanks for the heads up. I didn’t have any trouble with my all BP project. My steps were as follows:

  1. Installed the newest engine.
  2. open the newest engine
  3. from the launcher click open on the project you want to update
  4. select open a copy.
  5. let the engine do its magic compiling all the shaders
  6. get everything set back up to you liking.
  7. good to go. compile and save.

I was worried for nothing. I didn’t have any content issues with the stuff I’ve gotten from the marketplace as well. Pretty seamless transition.

8

If someone is at learning stage:

I would recommend do the upgrade to the newest release. The impact is almost insignificant and the process is quite something you will need to deal in the future, so the earlier you get used, the better. There are some considerations thou:

  • if you are purchasing content from the marketplace and mainly C++ plugins wait for those to be updated before moving with the newest release
  • you will want the newest release if the new content reflects something you need to use (something new) or an updated technology (RT RT) or the most important: bug fixes, which will lead to the next
  • always get to know important bugs that might affect your work and follow them up for when those will be fixed, usually meaning a hotfix inside same release or only in the next release.

If someone is about to start a project:

  • check with the community which is the most stable release
  • know the major bugs that might affect your work
  • test them, understand them, and use the knowledge to decide whenever to adopt the release or not

If someone is already into an advanced stage of development:

  • definitely do not upgrade yet
  • check if the later releases have an impacting bug fixed
  • ask for help or pay an expert to help implement the bug fixes for you, which will mean you will start to use your own engine source variation (branch). You will be required to test all plugins and see if the changes didn’t affect any.
  • you will need someone to check from time to time if the project will work in its entirely on a new release, meaning you can do the upgrade, but not before being aware of any new bugs introduced that might impact or invalidate your work, or that at least it is a release with few hot fixes already sent.