Game Engine Support & Deprecation Policy

In order to maintain a sustainable balance between long-term support, and support for the latest capabilities, we need to deprecate support for older game engine versions as new versions are made available.  From our experience supporting many versions of Unreal and Unity over the years, we’ve found that backwards compatibility for the platform is far easier than for the SDK.  This is because platform compatibility is primarily focused on a binary level compatibility at the runtime environment.  Whereas the SDK is dependent on code level compatibility in things like Epic’s Pixel Streaming, or Unity’s WebRTC framework.

In the platform, if a new incompatibility is introduced, it usually means a new runtime dependency is required.  These dependencies are almost always additive, rare and highly compatible (ex. Installing the latest VC++ Redistributable).  By contrast, SDK changes are often mutually exclusive (ex. the latest Pixel Streaming protocol is not backwards compatible with previous versions).  This is particularly true for Unity, where supported library versions are not pinned to engine versions, meaning that compatibility for the engine, WebRTC framework, and input system can all be different.

Due to these complexities, we think of engine support within PureWeb Reality as having two components, platform support, and SDK/Plugin support.  Version support in the broadest sense describes which engine versions we will guarantee compatibility with, for all PureWeb features, and where bug fixes will be targeted.

Platform Support

Platform support ensures that if you upload a supported version of a model, using the corresponding version of the SDK/Plugin, that you will be able to get a working stream.  If Unreal or Unity introduced a new dependency in a point version of their engine, we would work to ensure PureWeb platform compatibility for that point version.

Using an Unreal or Unity version that is not platform supported has no guarantee of working.  We will be unable to provide customer support of any kind for issues stemming from engine versions that are not platform supported.

SDK/Plugin Support

SDK support ensures continued features and bug fixes within our SDK for a particular minor engine version.  Engine versions with PureWeb SDK support will receive all the latest features and bug fixes.  Engine versions that are not supported in our SDK will not receive new features and bug fixes, but they may still work with an older version of the SDK, per the platform support for that version (above).

Example: If a version is platform supported but not SDK/Plugin supported, that means streaming will work for game projects that have been built and published using that version of Unreal or Unity, and includes the matching version of our plugin and SDK.  However, we will not be publishing new SDK and plugin versions targeting that engine version.

Support Window

Because Unreal and Unity version their engines differently, with different rates of change, the support matrix differs for each.  For both engines support is only guaranteed within the latest point release of a given major/minor combination

Unreal

  • Platform & SDK/Plugin support for the most recent major/minor release
  • Platform & SDK/Plugin support for the last major/minor release
  • Platform support for the most recent major, and previous minor release

Unity

  • Platform & SDK/Plugin support for the most recent major/minor release
  • Platform & SDK/Plugin support for the most recent LTS release
  • Platform support for the most recent previous LTS release
  • Note: due to volatility within the Render Streaming framework, exact version support of the WebRTC framework and Input system libraries are not guaranteed.  The currently known working versions are described on our engine compatibility page.

So What’s Currently Supported?

Please see the list of currently supported versions for each game engine by following the appropriate link below: