Have a search for OS user market share. You’ll find mixed % depending on context (Steam for example shows 7% still on Windows 7, whereas general usage finds 25-35%), so it all depends on your target audience. My experience seems to differ from yours dev-wise. Most Win 7 game devs I know are small single-man indie devs, though.
The whole point of using another game engine is supposed to be to remove the hassle of having to integrate changelists and fixes, recompile engines and editors, etc.
I would understand your point if maybe
a) Compiling the source was nice and simple (it’s not),
b) Integrating a required fix was nice and simple (it’s not) and
c) It was just obscure weird bugs that exist in UE4,
but it’s not. There are huge, glaring, critical bugs existing in basic core systems (AI, Texture rendering, Landscapes, Importing, etc.)
Windows 7 is just way too old and if one still insist on supporting users running windows 7, then probably stick to ue4 version that still support it. Using latest game engine on old operating system is a bit too much, I would say.
Maybe off topic but with all that talk going on about buggy new versions and some people here speculating about a 4.26 version, has it occurred to any of you that Epic may be already phasing out UE 4 mentally? I mean they are working on a (supposedly) major rewrite with version 5. Presumably every new version they release so far required all of Epic’s UE staff to create the new version. Now they are working on version 5 which will probably require their whole staff as well. Do you really think they will put significant developer resource in a 4.26 version that would become obsolete half a year after it’s release?
I work with the presumption that 4.25 is the last release for version 4 and reading this post here about all the new bugs, I am glad I am still with 4.24. It seems to work for what I need and I hope I don’t run into any of it’s bugs. But maybe you should all consider this and adjust your development accordingly.
If true, it’s sad. 4.25.x is buggy as hell. 4.26 was suppose to be stabilizing release (with DXR Lightmass !), which might not happen (if it happens by some miracle, I don’t have hope for its stability ).
I was going by a few bug reports that have UE4.26 as their fix target in the bug database, rather than speculating.
I’m not 100% sure but I also believe this thread has some info that states UE5 isn’t shipping till latter half of 2021, but not sure how much speculation/fact that is.
Luckily I’m in the same boat and also sticking on 4.24.3 for now. The only real major annoyance I run into is the importer having some quirky bugs (collision box matrices and ignoring-texture-search-options). I’m also a bit worried about what happens once I start implementing landscape stuff (there’s a bug to do with physics materials, though not sure how much it will affect me).
Check out fix:4.25 and fix:4.25.1 in the issue tracker and you’ll see unresolved issues. A ton of VR related issues get pushed over from release to release… I wouldn’t fold issue tracker as an indicator of 4.26 release.
We switched to 4.25 last week. It seems that all of our UMG in-world stuff (using widget components) is a lot brighter. The default gray UMG buttons are now white - you can’t read the white text on them, Anyone know what changed with that?
Also - our Android packages are rejected from the store upload for not being signed. Is the APK signing changed somehow? I’m able to sign manually using ‘apksigner.bat’ in the Android tools, but UE4 is supposed to do it with the info in the Project Settings … ?
What’s the count for us is how many gamers (especially our “target gamers”) are using a given system.
It’s only approx. 6% of Steam users (who agreed on the survey) are still using Windows 7. https://store.steampowered.com/hwsurvey/
Not all of them are necessarily a target for a visual-heavy 3D game. Actually it would be nice to have data combing given OS and hardware, i.e. how many users with modern GPUs use Windows 7. Or if people on old systems actually actively buy games - most of the Steam users buy only 1-5 games.
Less important if someone’s game is a simple 3D game.
Obviously, it just arguing on numbers. And doesn’t matter much, dropping support for Windows 7 should be properly announced ahead of release, so the developer could decide if it’s OK for him to consider an upgrade.
Windows 7 support could be sustained until the end of UE4, dropped by UE5 at the end of 2021. Most likely most of the active games would switch to Windows 10 for DirectX 12 gains. And still would be almost 2 years after dropping support by Microsoft itself. (that’s just my thoughts, though)
Not sure If someone will be able to shed some light. I have updated the project from 4.21 all the way to 4.24 without any issue. Comes 4.25 and basically it all opens fine, no errors of Compile in BP and I can build. However attempt to play PIE, in viewport or from build gives me instant crash with this message below:
Log does not seem to give anything of substance in order to debug, any idea what this could be?
i’m no guru by any means, but it is important to get up to 4.25+ because they will be the only versions that will upgrade to ue5… you may have to rebuild things and it might be a pain, but, in my eyes, it has to be done… i hope you find your answer (smile)…
add: shared pointer… i wonder if that is a bug or if you have the pointer confused as to who to follow… glad i’m not a coder, i would be up all night looking for it (chuckle)…
Does it say anywhere that 4.25 will be the “only version” that will upgrade to UE5?
Because for all intensive purposes, you could have a 4.20 scene, and then open that scene in 4.24. It’s not like 4.24 can only handle a previous 4.23 scene, you know?
Are you just really recommending getting up to speed with the latest version before the transition to UE5, because just the way you are saying it it almost sounds like there is some actual technical requirement, as in you know UE5 is coming after 4.25.
well, I do remember Sweeney saying that moving from 4.25 to UE 5 would be “painless” … But yeah, The project has not had any issue updating to 4.22,4.23,4.24 now 4.25.1 is just giving me that error with no log to hang on to, I don`t really know how to debug this without any bread crumb to hang on to
yeah, i just remember ‘hearing it’ somewhere, don’t remember where… it might be an extrapolation on my part, but it would be a ‘good to know’ thing if someone here does know for sure to share…
Assuming that your project has to be 4.25 to update to 5 there’s nothing that’s keeping you from continuing to use 4.24 until 5 is available, then upgrade to 4.25 and then straight to 5, thus bypassing all the runtime problems that 4.25 provides, no?
It was never mentioned in UE4 doc/blog that one has to be in 4.25 in order to upgrade to UE5. It only says that you can always upgrade to UE5 - so do not wait, download the latest version and start developing.
Right, Thats the idea. I don t think I would be able to debug this without breaking the project into testable chunk which would take a lot of time. So hoping that the issue goes away in UE 5 is the way to go.
When will next Hotfix be released? Why is it taking so long? Hotfixes are supposed to be fast, with major bug fixes, crashes fixes and other stuff. Last one released more than a month ago.
