Thinking of downgrading to UE3, but I have some questions

Since I’m mostly going for a retro look anyway (early 3D is all I can pull off), I probably shouldn’t use an engine that compiles to a format only high-end computer users can use. I assume UE3 has everything I want on it anyway.

But some questions…
1.) Does the UE4 license apply to UE3? I want to exchange donations for cheat codes to be used in my games
2.) Are there any tutorials and APIs archived anywhere?
3.) When I make my first real game, is it still okay to share it on this forum?

I’m probably not the best person to speak on this as I’ve never really used UE3. However, it is more than likely now being less supported than UE4, and UE4 will probably give a lot more possibilites going forward? All the documentation and resources are on the forums and answer Hub here as easy access to any issues you come across.

Also, while UE4 does have some amazing graphics and can really push high end systems, you are able to drop your settings right down for your game for them to run on the lower spec machines.

That is not true at all. UE4 games run well on older PCs but it always depends on your project. One of my UE4 2D projects runs on a 7year old setup.

So theres no real reason to downgrade to UE3!

UE4 is definitely scales better to lower end hardware than UE3 ever did. Here’s a UE4 game running on a Intel GPU at 60 FPS.

It’s a bit dated as a guide since it was back when UE4 only had a deferred render for the desktop. There’s still a lot of mobile and very performant example content like Zen Garden if you want to test out UE4 more.

First off–if you want to use UE3 you would have to get special licensing from Epic, it uses several third-party technologies in it (which is why UE4 was created so they could remove those) and it has a much higher licensing cost due to things like that.
That being said, it’s probably not available for licensing anymore, I don’t know of any new licenses for UE3 for quite some time now, there’s some developers still using it but it’s a case where they were using it before UE4 was available and it would take too much time for them to switch, and usually they’ve implemented many of the improvements that UE4 has into their projects. (like Injustice 2 or Batman Arkham Knight)
In any case, most gaming hardware can run UE4, so you shouldn’t be concerned about people with low-end hardware not being able to play your game.

@franktech: I think I’ll try UDK. It’s possible I’ll switch back to UE4, but we’ll see.

One big difference though is Kismet vs. Blueprints–you can’t code C++ in UDK and Kismet isn’t as flexible as Blueprints.

Imo downgrade to ue3 is bad idea, its like downgrade win10 to win2000…
If you plan to release only 1 game then ok, but if you looking forward for gamedev career, theres no reason to develop with ue3…

This game was made with UE4 https://youtu.be/NrcW0Cl_vAQ

You can easily make retro style graphics and increase performance. The only thing really lacking is a proper level editor. With plugins like Hammuer though you can always map with Quake based editors and import them into ue4

Without plugins, what can I do to increase performance? I tried UDK and an hour into it, I couldn’t shake the thought that I’m wasting my time. Even IF I get it to work, I eventually want to build to Gear VR and I’m tired of Unity for 3D games. My sister gave me her old samsung phone exactly for that purpose.
Until I get there, what I’d like to target is computers that WERE great in 2009, but suck now. This is an issue I’d like to know the answer to right away. And as soon as I find a stable version that has a C++ Gear VR template, gonna stick to that one for a while. Most things I can figure out by experimentation, but this I’d like to hear from the experts.

Mostly all I can think of is using Direct X 10 instead of 11 (no idea what to use as far as open) and compile to 32-bit.
EDIT: Also, wouldn’t the built-in UE4 level editor still work for retro games as long as I keep it low-poly and don’t use complex materials with stuff like normal maps?