Onboarding Guide for Games Licensees

This page covers the hardware and software requirements for Unreal Engine 5. It also describes what is installed by the pre-requisites installer included in the Unreal Engine installer.

Recommended Hardware

Operating System	Windows 10 64-bit version 1909 revision .1350 or higher, or versions 2004 and 20H2 revision .789 or higher.
Processor	Quad-core Intel or AMD, 2.5 GHz or faster
Memory	8 GB RAM
Graphics Card	DirectX 11 or 12 compatible graphics card
RHI Version	DirectX 11: Latest drivers DirectX 12: Latest drivers Vulkan: AMD (21.11.3+) and NVIDIA (496.76+)

Operating System	Latest MacOS Monterey
Processor	Quad-core Intel, 2.5 GHz or faster
Memory	8 GB RAM
Video Card	Metal 1.2 Compatible Graphics Card

Operating System	Ubuntu 22.04
Processor	Quad-core Intel or AMD, 2.5 GHz or faster
Memory	32 GB RAM
Video Card	NVIDIA GeForce 960 GTX or Higher with latest NVIDIA binary drivers
Video RAM	8 GB or more
RHI Version	Vulkan: AMD (21.11.3+) and NVIDIA (515.48+)

To get the most out of rendering features of Unreal Engine 5 such Nanite and Lumen, see the Requirements for UE5 Rendering Features section of this page.

Minimum Software Requirements

Minimum requirements for running the engine or editor are listed below.

Running the Engine
Operating System	Windows 10
DirectX Runtime	DirectX End-User Runtimes (June 2010)

Running the Engine
Operating System	macOS latest Monterey

Running the Engine
Operating System	Any reasonable new Linux distro from CentOS 7.x and up
Linux Kernel Version	kernel 3.x or newer
Additional Dependencies	glibc 2.17 or newer

The requirements for programmers developing with the engine are listed below.

Developing with the Engine
All 'Running the Engine' requirements (automatically installed)
Visual Studio Version	Visual Studio 2019 v16.11.5 or later (recommended) Visual Studio 2022
iOS App Development
iTunes Version	iTunes 12 or higher

Developing with the Engine
Xcode Version	12.4

Developing with the Engine
Operating System	Ubuntu 20.04
Compiler	clang 11.0.1
Optional
IDE	Visual Studio Code, CLion, QtCreator

Software Installed by the Prerequisite Installer

The Unreal Engine includes a prerequisite installer that installs everything needed to run the editor and engine, including several DirectX components and Visual C++ redistributables. When you install Unreal Engine through the Epic Games Launcher, the Launcher automatically installs these prerequisites for you. However, you may need to run the prerequisite installer yourself if you build Unreal Engine from source, or if you need to prepare a computer with all the Unreal Engine prerequisites for a specific purpose—for example, if you are setting up a fresh computer to act as a Swarm Agent.

You can find the installer in the Engine/Extras/Redist/en-us folder under your Unreal Engine installation location.

Support for 32-bit platforms has been removed in Unreal Engine 5.

If you use Perforce to get the Unreal Engine source code, you'll also find precompiled binaries in the same Engine/Extras/Redist/en-us folder of the Perforce repository. The source for the installer is under Engine/Source/Programs/PrereqInstaller.

The following table lists the software that is installed by the prerequisite installer.

DirectX Components	Visual C++ Redists
XInput 1.3 (April 2007)	Visual C++ 2010 CRT
X3DAudio 1.7 (February 2010)	Visual C++ 2010 OpenMP library
XAudio 2.7 (June 2010)	Visual C++ 2012 CRT
D3D Compiler 4.3 (June 2010)	Visual C++ 2013 CRT
D3DCSX 4.3 (June 2010)	Visual C++ 2015 CRT
D3DX9 4.3 (June 2010)	Visual Studio 2019 redistributable
D3DX10 4.3 (June 2010)
D3DX11 4.3 (June 2010)

The most important DirectX components from that list are the XInput, X3DAudio, and XAudio dependencies. These aren't included in standard installations of DirectX (and aren't distributed with Windows by default), so they have to be installed manually or distributed with the application.

Some features of Unreal Engine that require DirectX 12, require at minimum Windows 10 version 1703 (Window Creator Update). For the best experience that supports features like Nanite, Virtual Shadow Maps, and Lumen when using Hardware Ray Tracing, we recommend using Windows 10 version 2004 or 20H2.

Graphics Card Drivers

We currently recommend using the latest stable releases from each card manufacturer:

• Download NVIDIA drivers here

• Download AMD drivers here

Performance Notes

This list represents a typical system used at Epic, providing a reasonable guideline for developing games with Unreal Engine 5:

• Windows 10 64-bit (Version 20H2)

• 64 GB RAM

• 256 GB SSD (OS Drive)

• 2 TB SSD (Data Drive)

• NVIDIA GeForce RTX 2080 SUPER

• Xoreax Incredibuild (Dev Tools Package)

• Six-Core Xeon E5-2643 @ 3.4GHz

If you don't have access to Xoreax Incredibuild (Dev Tools Package), we recommend compiling with a machine having 12 to 16 cores.

Requirements for UE5 Rendering Features

Some rendering features of Unreal Engine 5 have different requirements than the minimum specifications.

UE5 Feature	System Requirements
Lumen Global Illumination and Reflections	Software Ray Tracing: Video cards using DirectX 11 with support for Shader Model 5 Hardware Ray Tracing: Windows 10 with DirectX 12 support Video cards must be NVIDIA RTX-2000 series and higher, or AMD RX-6000 series and higher
Nanite Virtualized Geometry	All newer version of Windows 10 (newer than version 1909.1350) and Windows 11 with support for DirectX 12 Agility SDK are supported. Windows 10 version 1909 — The revision number should exceed or be equal to .1350. Windows 10 version 2004 and 20H2 — The revision number should exceed or be equal to .789. DirectX 12 (with Shader Model 6.6 atomics), or Vulkan (VK_KHR_shader_atomic_int64) Latest Graphics Drivers
Virtual Shadow Maps	All newer version of Windows 10 (newer than version 1909.1350) and Windows 11 with support for DirectX 12 Agility SDK are supported. Windows 10 version 1909 — The revision number should exceed or be equal to .1350. Windows 10 version 2004 and 20H2 — The revision number should exceed or be equal to .789. DirectX 12 (with Shader Model 6.6 atomics), or Vulkan (VK_KHR_shader_atomic_int64) Latest Graphics Drivers
Temporal Super Resolution	Runs on any video card that supports Shader Model 5, but the limit of 8UAVs per shader has performance implications. Temporal Super Resolution shaders compile with 16bit types enabled on D3D12 that supports Shader Model 6.

Source Code Branches

You'll notice that we've published UE's source code in several branches.

Branches whose names contain dev, staging, and test are typically for internal Epic processes, and are rarely useful for end-users Other short-lived branches may appear from time to time as we stabilize new releases or hotfixes.

Release Branch

The Release branch always reflects the current official release. These are extensively tested by our QA team, so they make a great starting point for learning Unreal Engine and for making your own projects. We work hard to make releases stable and reliable, and aim to publish a new release every few months.

Main Branch

Most active development on UE happens in the ue5-main branch. This branch reflects the latest release of the engine and may be buggy or it may not compile. We make it available for developers who are eager to test new features or work in lock-step development with us.

If you choose to work in this branch, be aware that it is likely to be ahead of the branches for the current official release and the next upcoming release. Therefore, content and code that you create to work with the ue5-main branch may not be compatible with public releases until we create a new branch directly from ue5-main for a future official release.

Setting up a Perforce Server on your Local Machine

To avoid potential integration issues with our tools, such as UnrealGameSync, we recommend running a case-insensitive Perforce server.

There are two ways of running the Perforce server, P4D and P4S. P4D runs while an instance of the command line is running, so it is usually only used for spot-maintenance tasks. P4S is the service-based equivalent of P4D as it allows you to run the server in the background. The service is usually installed and started when you install the Perforce server tools.

Sometimes the service does not get run automatically. To turn the service on in Windows, first go into the Control Panel -> Administrative Tools ->Services applet. Then find the Perforce service in the list and start it:

Once the service is running, you can connect to your server using P4Admin. If this is the first connection to your server, then you can make a new user in the initial connection dialog:

Fill in the connection information for your Perforce server and press okay. Once you have connected to the server in P4Admin, you can make new depots, users, and groups pretty easily. Use P4V and the Unreal Editor to connect to the server with the credentials you supplied in the initial connection dialog.

Check out the P4Admin Documentation for more in-depth information on the ins and outs of Perforce.

P4 Typemap

Before you start adding files to your depot, you should set up your P4 Typemap so Perforce knows how to treat Unreal file types. Setting the typemap will affect how files get set to read only or writable inside of Perforce. However to do this, you will need to open a new command prompt and set up some p4 environment variables.

	p4 set P4USER=your.username
	p4 set P4PORT=localhost:1666
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p4 set P4USER=your.username p4 set P4PORT=localhost:1666

Replace the values above with your respective username and connection address. Open the typemap by entering the following in the command prompt.

	p4 -P YourPassword typemap
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p4 -P YourPassword typemap

You will then see a text window open; this is your server's typemap. The typemap below is an example that we have used in the past:

	# Perforce File Type Mapping Specifications.
	#
	# TypeMap: a list of filetype mappings; one per line.
	# Each line has two elements:
	#
	# Filetype: The filetype to use on 'p4 add'.
	#
	# Path: File pattern which will use this filetype.
	#
	# See 'p4 help typemap' for more information.

	TypeMap:
					binary+w //depot/....exe
					binary+w //depot/....dll
					binary+w //depot/....lib
					binary+w //depot/....app
					binary+w //depot/....dylib
					binary+w //depot/....stub
					binary+w //depot/....ipa
					binary //depot/....bmp
					text //depot/....ini
					text //depot/....config
					text //depot/....cpp
					text //depot/....h
					text //depot/....c
					text //depot/....cs
					text //depot/....m
					text //depot/....mm
					text //depot/....py
					binary+l //depot/....uasset
					binary+l //depot/....umap
					binary+l //depot/....upk
					binary+l //depot/....udk
					binary+l //depot/....ubulk
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# Perforce File Type Mapping Specifications. # # TypeMap: a list of filetype mappings; one per line. # Each line has two elements: # # Filetype: The filetype to use on 'p4 add'. # # Path: File pattern which will use this filetype. # # See 'p4 help typemap' for more information. TypeMap: binary+w //depot/....exe binary+w //depot/....dll binary+w //depot/....lib binary+w //depot/....app binary+w //depot/....dylib binary+w //depot/....stub binary+w //depot/....ipa binary //depot/....bmp text //depot/....ini text //depot/....config text //depot/....cpp text //depot/....h text //depot/....c text //depot/....cs text //depot/....m text //depot/....mm text //depot/....py binary+l //depot/....uasset binary+l //depot/....umap binary+l //depot/....upk binary+l //depot/....udk binary+l //depot/....ubulk

Once edited, save the file by pressing Ctrl+S on your keyboard and then exit. The command prompt should then show Typemap saved.

Server on your Local Network

You can set up a server on your local network for people to use to collaborate with one another. To do this, follow the steps above on the server and connect using the server's name or IP from your clients.

Cloud Provider

There are various cloud providers that allow you to host Perforce servers off-site and to collaborate remotely. A quick search online for Perforce Hosting should turn up a few results. Each hosting provider is different, but all should end up with a set of credentials that you can use to connect. See also Connecting from Unreal Editor below for a note about connecting to Perforce cloud providers.

Setting up a Local Workspace

To work with files that are under Perforce control, you will need to set up a Workspace so that the files can be managed on your local machine. You can do this via P4V by opening up the Workspaces tab in the View dropdown:

To create a new workspace, right-click in the Workspace window and select the New Workspace option. Then enter a name for your workspace and a location where you want the files to be on your local machine, the Workspace Root.

Once you have a server and a workspace, you will want to start adding files to it. For the moment, this needs to be done initially outside the Editor via P4V. If you already have a workspace that someone else has set up with some files already, you can skip ahead. When you create a new project, you can choose whether it incorporates C++ code and Blueprint elements. If you are using C++ code in your project, you will see a Source/ directory as well. You should initially add only the following directories of your project:

Folders and files highlighted in Green should be added to your depot. The Binaries folder in Yellow is optional, depending on how your team wants to work together. It is not required if every team member is going to compile their editor/game themselves, but should be included in the initial add if any team members will just be grabbing a version from the depot to create content. Note that the server typemap setup above should mean that coders can compile their binaries without them being set to be Read-Only by Perforce.

Adding Files to Perforce

Adding files to Perforce is something that can be accomplished in the few following steps.

1. To add files/folders to Perforce, first select the files/folders in P4V and then right-click and select the Mark For Add option.

   

2. This will add the files to your default change list. All files that you add can be seen in the Pending change lists tab:

   

3. To submit something, first right-click on the change list and then select Submit. Then enter a change list description and click the Submit button.

   

If you want to start work on a project that someone else has already started, you will need to get the latest revision from Perforce using P4V. To do this, find the project in the Depot View in P4V and then Right-click on the project you want to get and select Get Latest Revision. This will download all the files to the location you specified for your Workspace Root above.

Connecting from Unreal Editor

You can connect to your Perforce server right from the Editor by clicking on the Source Control icon on the Toolbar:

Once open, choose Perforce as the provider from the Source Control Login dialog and enter your login credentials. If you have a workspace already set up (that the current project is inside of), your login credentials should be populated automatically.

When using some servers, including many cloud providers - you may need to enter the Host and Password to access your depot from the Editor. You can do this by opening the advanced field at the bottom of the Perforce login dialog:

Read about Hardware and Software Specifications, and make sure that Microsoft Visual Studio is installed prior to building Unreal Engine (UE) from source. Also, depending on your system's specifications, it may take between 10 and 40 minutes to compile the Engine.

1. Inside the root directory, where you downloaded and adjusted the UE Source Code run GenerateProjectFiles.bat to set-up your project files.

   

   All project files are intermediate ([UERoot]\Engine\Intermediate\ProjectFiles). You must generate project files each time you sync a new build to ensure they are up to date. If you delete your Intermediate folder, you must regenerate project files using the GenerateProjectFiles batch file.

2. Load the project into Visual Studio by double-clicking UE5.sln.

   

3. Set your solution configuration to Development Editor.

   

4. Set your solution platform to Win64.

   

5. Right-click the UE5 target and select Build.

   

Connect to Epic's Perforce Server

Connecting to the Epic Games Perforce server requires using the SSL feature, and you must be running a 2017.2 or later version of a Perforce client (P4V, p4, or API). You can take advantage of latency based routing to automatically connect to the closest Perforce regional proxy by using the global DNS name. Alternatively, you can connect directly to a regional proxy to ensure you always connect to the closest one.

If you are running a local proxy, you must connect through a broker instead of using the region proxy servers. You can connect to the global broker using the address below:

ssl:p4-licensee.epicgames.com:1666

1. Install the P4V Perforce client for Windows. The client can be downloaded from the Perforce Downloads page.

2. In the Open Connection dialog, enter the following connection info:

   • Server: ssl:p4-licensee.epicgames.com:1666

     The address above should automatically direct you to a regional proxy with the best latency based on your geographic location. If, for some reason, you need to connect to a specific regional proxy, you can connect to them using the addresses below: United States East (Virginia): ssl:p4-licensee-east.us.epicgames.com:1666 United States West (Oregon): ssl:p4-licensee-west.us.epicgames.com:1666 Asia Pacific Northeast (Tokyo): ssl:p4-licensee-northeast.ap.epicgames.com:1666 Europe Central (Frankfurt): ssl:p4-licensee-central.eu.epicgames.com:1666

   • User: Perforce username provided by Epic Games.
   • Password: Perforce password provided by Epic Games.

3. Click OK to connect to the Perforce Server.

   Click the image for full size.

4. When connecting to an endpoint for the first time, you must explicitly trust that endpoint.

   • The Epic SSL fingerprint is 45:0D:78:E2:0E:9E:E4:82:45:80:16:36:29:5E:54:4D:66:31:6C:43.
   • P4V will prompt you to trust the new endpoint.
   • Command line p4 uses the p4 trust command: $ p4 trust -y.

5. In P4V, choose Connection > New Workspace to create a new workspace for the engine. Enter the information below and click OK to create the workspace:

   • Workspace name: Give your new workspace a name.
   • Stream: Click Browse and select //UE5/Release-Latest from the list of available streams.
   

6. In the Depot pane, expand the Filter Depot menu and select Tree Restricted to Workspace View.

   

Download Unreal Engine

Epic Games distributes Unreal Engine to licensees via the //UE5/Release-Latest stream in the Perforce depot. This contains the entire engine along with several additional projects in the form of example games, samples, and demos. You have the option of downloading everything or picking and choosing only the parts you want or need.

To get set up as quickly as possible, we recommend you only download the bare minimum to start with and then download other parts on an as-needed basis. This can dramatically reduce idle time spent waiting for the download to finish. We also provide a //UE5/Release-Latest-Minimal stream to help with this.

Because there are a large number of files in the //UE5/Release-Latest stream and the total download size is many gigabytes, the download can take a long time when syncing the entire branch.

1. Right-click on the stream you want to download and choose Get Latest Revision.

   

2. The latest version of all files will be downloaded.

The process of running the editor requires passing the name of the project to run as an argument to the executable.

You can add the -debug switch to force the executable to load the debug version of the modules for your project, which contain all of the debugging symbols. This is necessary even when debugging through Xcode with the configuration set to Debug because the main executable is always compiled using the Development configuration. Of course, you must first compile your modules using the Debug configuration so they exist for the executable to load.

The process of running the editor requires passing the name of the project to run as an argument to the executable.

You can add the -debug switch to force the executable to load the debug version of the modules for your project, which contain all of the debugging symbols. This is necessary even when debugging through Visual Studio with the configuration set to Debug because the main executable is always compiled using the Development configuration. Of course, you must first compile your modules using the Debug configuration so they exist for the executable to load.

Running the Editor from the Command Line

1. From a command prompt, navigate to your [LauncherInstall]/[VersionNumber]/Engine/Binaries/Mac directory.

2. Run the UEEditor.app passing it the path to your project:

                open UEEditor.app --args "[ProjectPath]/[ProjectName].uproject"
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   open UEEditor.app --args "[ProjectPath]/[ProjectName].uproject"

1. From a command prompt, navigate to your [LauncherInstall][VersionNumber]\Engine\Binaries\Win64 directory.

2. Run the UEEditor.exe, passing it the path to your project.

                UEEditor.exe "[ProjectPath][ProjectName].uproject"
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   UEEditor.exe "[ProjectPath][ProjectName].uproject"

Running the Editor from the Executable

1. Navigate to your [LauncherInstall][VersionNumber]\Engine\Binaries\Win64 directory.

2. Right-click on the UEEditor.exe executable and choose Create shortcut.

3. Rename the shortcut to something like MyProject - Editor.exe as this reflect that this shortcut runs the MyProject game editor. 

4. Right-click on the newly created shortcut and choose Properties.

5. Add the name of the game to run as an argument at the end of the Target property:

                [LauncherInstall][VersionNumber]\Engine\Binaries\Win64\UEEditor.exe "[ProjectPath][ProjectName].uproject"
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   [LauncherInstall][VersionNumber]\Engine\Binaries\Win64\UEEditor.exe "[ProjectPath][ProjectName].uproject"

6. Press OK to save the changes.

7. Double-click the shortcut to launch the editor.

The editor must be run from the command prompt to load a specific project directly or with no arguments to access the Project Browser.

Running the Editor with No Arguments (Stand-alone)

If the editor is not set to open the most recent project at startup, running the editor executable without any arguments will launch the Project Browser. From here, you can create a new project , open your existing projects , or open content examples and sample games .

When you launch Unreal Engine, the Unreal Project Browser opens automatically. This is where you can:

• Create a new project.

• Open an existing project.

• Manage existing projects.

The diagram below illustrates the steps to create a new project in Unreal Engine.

Creating a new project in Unreal Engine from the Project Browser window.

To create a new project, follow these steps:

1. Select the development category (1) that best matches your industry and project goals.

   You can select from the following categories:

   • Games
   • Film, Television, and Live Events
   • Architecture, Engineering, and Construction (AEC)
   • Automotive, Product Design, and Manufacturing (APM)

2. Select a template (2) for your project. The templates you can choose from are based on the category you selected in step 1.

   Unreal Engine contains a number of project templates you can use as a starting point for your own projects. To learn more about the different project templates available, refer to the Templates Reference page.

3. Configure the Project Defaults (3). In this section, you can select your target platform (that is, the hardware where your game or application will run, like a computer or a mobile device), configure quality and ray tracing settings, and more.

   Some of the settings below may not be available for certain templates. For example, the Handheld AR template can only use Blueprint implementation.

   You can configure the following settings:

   Setting	Description
   Implementation	Select how you want to implement your project's logic, such as character movement, level transitions, and so on. You can choose from the following options: Blueprint, if you want to build your project in the Unreal Editor, and use the Blueprint Visual Scripting system to create interactions and behavior. C++, if you want to build your project by programming with C++ in Visual Studio. For more information about these implementation methods, refer to the following pages: Blueprint Visual Scripting Programming with C++
   Target Platform	Select the kind of platform your project is intended for: Desktop Mobile
   Quality Preset	Select the maximum quality level, based on which platform your project targets. We recommend that you choose: Maximum, if you are developing your project for a computer or game console. Scalable, if you are developing your project for mobile devices.
   Starter Content	Select whether you want your new project to include starter content. Starter content includes some simple Static Meshes with basic textures and Materials. It is useful if you want to start learning and experimenting straight away, without worrying about sourcing and importing custom content.
   Ray Tracing	Select whether to enable or disable ray tracing for your project. For more information about ray tracing in Unreal Engine, refer to the Hardware Ray Tracing and Path Tracing Features page.

4. Select where you want to store your project, and give your project a name (4).

5. Click Create (5) to finish creating your new project.

Result

Unreal Engine creates a new project with the settings you configured, and then automatically opens the project.

Unreal Engine (UE) uses a custom building method using the UnrealBuildTool (UBT) which handles all the complex aspects of compiling the project and linking it with the engine. This process occurs transparently allowing you to simply build the project through the standard Visual Studio build workflow.

UnrealBuildTool uses the *.build.cs and *.target.cs files to build the game project. These are automatically generated when a project is created using a C++ template, or when the CPP Class Wizard is used to add code to a project created from a Blueprints Only template.

Build Configuration

Unreal projects have multiple targets, including Editor, Client, Game, and Server, described by *.target.cs files. Furthermore, each of these can be built to different configurations. In Visual Studio, this manifests as a Visual Studio *.vcxproj file with different configurations for each target. The solution configurations are named as [Configuration][Target Type] (for example, "DevelopmentEditor" for the default editor target, and "Development" for the default standalone game target). The configuration you use will be determined by the purposes of the build you want to create.