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While Epic Games are currently working on the next generation with Unreal Engine 5, they're still upgrading the previous major version with Unreal Engine 4.27 out now.

Lots of improvements across the whole engine to some major parts, plus they're also now including the Oodle Compression Suite and Bink Video codec built into Unreal Engine since Epic Games now own RAD Game Tools. Plenty of XR improvements for Virtual Reality, Augmented Reality and Mixed Reality with big improvements to their OpenXR plugin like Stereo Layers, Splash Screens, querying Playspace bounds, motion controller visualization and Linux support. Plus loads more.

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Going over the full changelog here's all the Linux fixes and improvements in this release:

New:

  • Preliminary support for Linux in nDisplay and its tools ecosystem. Linux support is dependent on graphics card drivers, and some rendering features, such as ray tracing and Vulkan, are not currently supported.
  • You can now deploy pixel streaming applications with Linux server instances, which provide many advantages in efficiency, scalability, and overall ease of deployment.
  • Pixel streaming now supports the AMD Advanced Media Framework hardware encoder, making it possible for instances using AMD GPUs to use pixel streaming on both Windows and Linux.
  • Linux SDK: v18 clang-11.0.1-based (CentOS 7)
  • Media Framework: Overhauled AMF support, including support for Linux and Overhauled AVEncoder to support Linux and Windows with both NVENC and AMF.
  • Engine bundled WebRTC upgraded to Release M84 for Windows and Linux. Engine Opus version upgraded to 1.3.1-12 on Windows and Linux to match WebRTC.
  • Moved to LLVM 11.0.1
  • When dynamically loading libraries under a Unix platform, the engine now also checks the global path.
  • Android support added for Installed Builds on Linux.
  • Added support for returning the last measured CPU time on Windows and Linux platforms. UnixPlatformTime can now update the CPU time independently of the fixed 250ms threshold.
  • Forked Process - Added DEFAULT_FORK_PROCESS_MULTITHREAD definition thats sets the default multithread behavior of a forked process (the default is singlethread).
  • New: Forked Process - Added -DisablePostForkThreading cmdline option that disables MT if the default is true.
  • Virtual Production: added Linux support for Blackmagic.
  • Added Linux support to the OpenXR plugin.

Bug Fix:

  • Added the function UserHomeDir to FGenericPlatformProcess, so that TestPAL could be updated to test UserHomeDir on Linux without breaking other platforms.
  • Time moving backwards has been changed to a warning over a fatal error. This allows that time to be clamped and provides an opportunity for the system to recover.
  • This fix ensures that our ClockSource is always initialized.
  • LinuxAArch64 is now allowed to build and package CrashReportClient.
  • Fixed a crash that happened when no HOME environment variable was set.

Full changelog can be seen here and see also the release announcement.

Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
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10 comments

jordicoma Aug 21, 2021
"such as ray tracing and Vulkan, are not currently supported."
I'm not english speaker, but here I understand that they not suport vulkan on linux? I thought that it did.
Probably they mean "ray tracing on vulkan".
But well... They should start supporting it, I think it works on nvidia and AMD PRO drivers, and mesa it's on the works.
Hope they enable it on the next version.

And what about unreal engine 5? What it's the linux state there? Hope they are good.
Liam Dawe Aug 21, 2021
Quoting: jordicomaAnd what about unreal engine 5? What it's the linux state there? Hope they are good.
It already supports Linux, saw some of their team chatting on Twitter about SDL updates for it too including the possibility of some of their changes going upstream to SDL.
PublicNuisance Aug 21, 2021
Those who want to help support the Linux version of Unreal may want to look into Yaakuro who works in that area.

https://ko-fi.com/yaakuro

https://www.patreon.com/ue4linux

https://github.com/yaakuro
BielFPs Aug 21, 2021
Just reading this article took up 1gb of my disk
jens Aug 21, 2021
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Really not sure, but I could imagine that things like Stadia might be a good motivation for UE to improve on the Linux front. May be those above are already a follow up on that.
pete910 Aug 21, 2021
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Quoting: jensReally not sure, but I could imagine that things like Stadia might be a good motivation for UE to improve on the Linux front. May be those above are already a follow up on that.

If the Steam Deck sells with good numbers it might finally sway them to further push !!!
TheRiddick Aug 21, 2021
It be nice if EGS just had a Linux client and allowed developers to publish Linux versions of their games on said store. That be a good first step really!
Shmerl Aug 22, 2021
Since they own RAD, let them open source all those weird Bink codecs.
Purple Library Guy Aug 22, 2021
Quoting: ShmerlSince they own RAD, let them open source all those weird Bink codecs.
They own the Royal Academy of Dance?!
(My daughter is a qualified instructor--she says it's a racket, to maintain the qualification you have to keep doing their courses for $$$. But on the up side, it opens doors--if you have your RAD, you're in demand to teach dance anywhere in the world.)
Eike Aug 22, 2021
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Quoting: BielFPsJust reading this article took up 1gb of my disk

I hope you got a combined disc size of at least 1000 articles! ;)
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