What's the most stable version of unity 5.3 and Unity 5.4?

Target Platforms Mobile
1

I need help leaving Unity 5.2.2

Last week i started my new Unity subscription plan (I like it), but i admit i am getting a bit desperate. i dont even like writing posts like this, because i feel like i am complaining, but it dont know how much longer i can stay on unity 5.2.2. I also am doing well with my game BrightRidge (100,000+ downloads last week) and would like to move forward with new platforms.

I’ve been trying to upgrade from unity 5.2.2 for a couple of years. It has great mobile performance, but I am now reaching the point where it is holding back development. One of the main issues is it cannot work with most newer Asset store packages (this is becoming a big problem for those of us on older, stable releases). The other is i can’t deploy to apple tv.

Every few months i try again. So far Ive tried:

  • Unity 5.3 (regressed mobile performance)

  • Unity 5.3.6 patch6 (regressed mobile performance and editor asks for firewall permission every time)

  • Unity 5.3.7 patch 4 (regressed mobile performance and editor asks for firewall permission every time)

  • Unity 5.4.1 (regressed mobile performance)

  • Unity 5.4.1 patch 5 (regressed mobile performance + crash)

and yesterday Unity 5.4.4 patch 3 (great on 2gb devices, device crash memory pressure on everything else)

(Please note i only include “regressed performance” not as an insult, but just as a round up of my own experience with my game while i try to narrow down viable upgrade path)

Each install and conversion takes up to 5+ hours (plus testing and code refactoring), so at this point i am just trying to find a stable version of Unity after 5.3 that doesnt ask for permission every time (the 5.3 patches ive downloaded have all done that) and that doesnt severely hamper the performance of my app.

Does anyone know if Unity asks for firewall permission everytime you start the editor this means it’s an unsigned version of the editor? i could start there because 5.2 and 5.4 do not ask this, so i know it’s not a local setting.

Before i start downloading each version from 5.3, does anyone know which ones are codesigned or don;t have this issue? Has anyone had this issue on 5.3?

What’s the most stable, simple, solid version of unity 5.3 and Unity 5.4 for IOS?

Thank you:)

2

Well, as someone in a similar position, that’s very discouraging. What about 5.5?

1 Like
3

I just installed:

Unity 5.3.7f1

There is no asking for permission to accept incoming connections, which is good.

So i am guessing that happens when a particular version of Unity is not code signed?

Next step is to try my 5.2.2 project in Unity 5.3.7f1

4

I’m scared to try it:) In my experience you need a few point releases to get stable. But i will give it a try once i wrangle the 5.3 and 5.4 tests.

I spent almost 20 hours tracking and testing the last couple of days.

I tried 5.3.7fi - no patch. it has slower performance, but the app isnt crashing, and it looks like i can get o par with 5.2.2 with some work.

The big problem is upgrading a project and having it crash unchanged.

After a lot of tracking down, i found that in my 5.2.2 file i changed the resoltuion on Start without trouble. But on 5.3+ it caused a memory error. So a big part of upgrading is to try and track down what has changed.

That’s my only difficulty with Unity. The pace is so fast and i get that. At the same time we’re adding in so many new features that mobile is struggling to keep up.

So for now i will keep working in 5.2.2 as long as possible. Concurrently I’m testing 5.3.7 which i am settling on. And i am going to try 5.4.4 without the patch.

5

Yikes. I’ve got to upgrade a project from 4.7 and I assumed that mobile performance would improve over the 5.x cycle. What do you think is degrading it?

6

I dont have numbers but in my experience yes.

BrightRidge is a complex open world game. there’s more that can go wrong with each upgrade, and it’s easier to gauge the performance since its so cpu intensive. 5.2 worked. 5.3 works but with a couple of days of tweaks and testing, but lags just a BIT more. 5.4 crashes even with the tweaks i made for the 5.3 version, which means more tweaking and optimizing, which is good to learn, but it also means that each newer version seems to be less efficient in the mobile area. Little things like all objects now in deferred get per pixel reflection probes, motion vectors on by default etc… I dont know if these add overhead but there is so much new that i find myself on mobile spending a lot of time learning how to turn stuff off:)

That said, i did it and you’ll d o it too. And if your game is not as complex it will probably be easier (mine needs all the juice because it works back to an a7 chip) . i do wish there was just a bit more focus on not leaving mobile behind in the efficiency as new things are added.