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For those of you using Unreal Engine 4 on Linux, you may be interested to know about the d3d4linux project. The d3d4linux project allows developers to compile HLSL shaders on Linux using the Microsoft DirectX compiler DLL.

It uses a Wine program in the background to do the work for you, which is quite an inventive solution really.

Sam from developer Dontnod Entertainment, the creators of Life is Strange and Remember Me shared it on twitter recently. The github page for d3d4linux states they actually use it in their studio.

Hopefully some of you will find it useful if you're developing with Unreal on Linux. Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
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I am the owner of GamingOnLinux. After discovering Linux back in the days of Mandrake in 2003, I constantly came back to check on the progress of Linux until Ubuntu appeared on the scene and it helped me to really love it. You can reach me easily by emailing GamingOnLinux directly. Find me on Mastodon.
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15 comments
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Raven67854 Jun 14, 2016
Seems odd to go through all of this work rather than use Unreal Engine 4's native Linux version. But hey! Could be cool for other projects like MonoGame.
Liam Dawe Jun 14, 2016
Quoting: GuestOutstanding work from an outstanding developer.

But it's DONTNOD not "DOTNOD" ...
Doh, fixed.
Kuduzkehpan Jun 14, 2016
HLSL compiling would help game porting companies to bring more games to Linux.
Cheeer!
lejimster Jun 14, 2016
Quoting: Raven67854Seems odd to go through all of this work rather than use Unreal Engine 4's native Linux version. But hey! Could be cool for other projects like MonoGame.

Maybe it's just the open source drivers, but the Linux version of UE4 needs some more love and attention. I was just trying out the latest UT Alpha and it's stuttery as hell.
Raven67854 Jun 14, 2016
Quoting: lejimster
Quoting: Raven67854Seems odd to go through all of this work rather than use Unreal Engine 4's native Linux version. But hey! Could be cool for other projects like MonoGame.

Maybe it's just the open source drivers, but the Linux version of UE4 needs some more love and attention. I was just trying out the latest UT Alpha and it's stuttery as hell.

Might be! They have been working on the render which is all the HLSL->GLSL compiler would affect. Finally have GL4.3 as of I think version 4.9? So feature wise the OpenGL render can now support all features. No longer gimped by the Mac version.
wintermute Jun 14, 2016
Is this the guy that used to be a Debian contributor/maintainer?

Quoting: Raven67854Seems odd to go through all of this work rather than use Unreal Engine 4's native Linux version. But hey! Could be cool for other projects like MonoGame.

My reading of the GitHub page is that this is so that they can do their Windows builds on Linux.


Last edited by wintermute on 14 June 2016 at 3:45 pm UTC
nocri Jun 14, 2016
Quoting: lejimster
Quoting: Raven67854Seems odd to go through all of this work rather than use Unreal Engine 4's native Linux version. But hey! Could be cool for other projects like MonoGame.

Maybe it's just the open source drivers, but the Linux version of UE4 needs some more love and attention. I was just trying out the latest UT Alpha and it's stuttery as hell.

Try

#!/bin/bash
./Engine/Binaries/Linux/UE4-Linux-Shipping UnrealTournament -opengl3 -USEALLAVAILABLECORES -lowmemory


as a launch script
thykr Jun 14, 2016
Wow this is huge!
Would this ease up the port of Life is Strange and their other games though?
That'd be awesome! Every developer out there should know about this project!
ElectricPrism Jun 14, 2016
Unreal Tournament 4 needs a Linux Client badly so we don't have to manually update our UT4 installs from the tar.gz

Quoting: Raven67854Seems odd to go through all of this work rather than use Unreal Engine 4's native Linux version. But hey! Could be cool for other projects like MonoGame.

If you talk to developers about their coding I think you'll find most of us do many odd things and simply enjoy the inventiveness of testing the hypothesis "Can I do.... X". Most of us never ask "Should I", or "Is this practical".

And then there scenarios where bugs become features like the . prefix in Linux indicating hidden files started out as a bug but became a feature later.
Raven67854 Jun 14, 2016
Quoting: ElectricPrismUnreal Tournament 4 needs a Linux Client badly so we don't have to manually update our UT4 installs from the tar.gz

Quoting: Raven67854Seems odd to go through all of this work rather than use Unreal Engine 4's native Linux version. But hey! Could be cool for other projects like MonoGame.

If you talk to developers about their coding I think you'll find most of us do many odd things and simply enjoy the inventiveness of testing the hypothesis "Can I do.... X". Most of us never ask "Should I", or "Is this practical".

And then there scenarios where bugs become features like the . prefix in Linux indicating hidden files started out as a bug but became a feature later.

After thinking about it for a moment awhile ago. I realized that DontNod(what a great name) uses Unreal Engine 3 and for their new game Vampyr probably an old build of Unreal Engine 4 that didn't have Linux support. So it makes sense that they would need some middle-layer to give them help. As moving to a newer build of Unreal is a hell of a task.
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