Windows Swap Compilers

Development Programming & Scripting C++
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1

Since I am limited on space in my C Drive, I am attempting to replace the Visual Studio IDE requirement with mingw and Sublime Text. However, I am unable to switch the compilers that the UnrealBuildTool wants. Whenever I run
"D:\UnrealFour\UE_5.2\Engine\Build\BatchFiles\Build.bat" -project="{PROJECT_PATH}" -CMakefile it simply states that is is unable to enumerate Visual Studio installations.
It does not generate the expected CMake files either.

How would I accomplish swapping the compilers?

2

The only Unreal Engine’s supported compiler for Windows is MSVC. (Clang for Linux and Mac)

3

My Windows machine does not have that space on the C Drive, nor will the Windows System allow me to install it on another drive. However, because it’s still C++, I believe I can replace it with something such as mingw. But the UE5BuildTools.exe is a mystery to me.

Do you know of any resources where I can learn to somehow hook or trick the Build Tools into using the compiler?

4

You cannot use another compiler, it’s no possible, it must be MSVC on Windows or Clang

5

That is not the case. There a plenty of articles such as Use Clang 16 on Windows with Unreal | Unreal engine Code Snippet describing how to use clang on Windows for example

6

Thanks Boss, I was looking for some resources that would allow me to do so, but I was finding nothing. I’ll apply this to my machine in a bit.

7

Hey Boss, I’ve tried doing this but have run aground when Unreal simply defaults to trying to use Visual Studio to compile C++ classes. What else do I need to do?