Godot 4.6 Dev 5 released
Godot is inching closer to its much-awaited feature freeze, tentatively landing on December 3rd. This shift signifies that development will pivot from new feature additions towards refining existing code, making it tighter and more performant. In anticipation of this move, Thaddeus Crews has announced the release of Godot 4.6's fifth developer release for testing.
One important update concerns rendering by default on Windows. The engine now uses Direct3D 12 (D3D12) as its standard graphics driver after extensive work sponsored by the Godot Foundation. While Vulkan support exists and is often a better choice, it remains unstable on Windows due to issues with GPU drivers that are currently more reliably handled by D3D12 versions. The change primarily impacts new projects created using 4.6-dev5 or later versions, as it prioritizes stability before freezing. Existing Godot 4.5 users who prefer D3D12 can still opt for it manually through a setting.
Beyond rendering, delta encoding is another big addition in this release cycle. This refers to binary patching; think diffing files like you might with Git, but optimized for performance. This means that when you export an updated project, only the parts of the files that have changed since the last export or build will be sent. This functionality can dramatically shrink PCK file sizes and speed up deployment, particularly helpful for localization patches where many small text files might be involved.
However, this new capability comes with a consideration: delta encoding is currently off by default because enabling it adds a touch more load at runtime, which could matter depending on your project's needs. You'll need to explicitly activate it under the "Patching" tab in the export options dialog if you want to benefit from these smaller updates.
There's also progress regarding Android development directly on mobile devices. Developers David Snopek and Logan Lang have started work enabling Gradle builds on Godot for this platform. This means you can actually develop your game using the Godot editor on an Android device, without needing a complex setup elsewhere. To make the feature practical while keeping Godot itself small, they're also planning to release a companion application that contains everything needed for the build process, providing a user-friendly interface for managing Gradle builds.
For developers working with VR/AR headsets using OpenXR, things are smoother too. Godot has successfully upgraded its core support to OpenXR 1.1 now, automatically activating relevant features on compatible gear where possible. To aid deployment across different headset versions, they've implemented a compatibility layer to ensure a seamless transition for projects targeting both newer (1.1+) and older headsets.
The 2D renderer received a major performance boost as well. Work focused on optimizing automatic mesh generation related to batching has significantly reduced the GPU overhead associated with it. According to tests and benchmarks, this can improve game rendering speed, especially in scenarios heavily reliant on the graphics card, by factors ranging from roughly double up to seven times faster.
There are simply too many changes across the board for us to cover everything here. Some other highlights include support for rotating scene tiles within TileMapLayer functionality; an option allowing reference targets to be set via Node3D objects in BoneConstraint3D; and a change to how AnimationLibrary data is serialized away from using dictionaries.
The engine's core stability remains strong, with fixes spanning the editor, core libraries, GUI tools, various platforms, rendering subsystems, and XR integration. Right now, the Godot community is thriving, with 134 contributors submitting 323 fixes to ensure everything is optimized before the feature freeze for version 4.6-dev5.
For a detailed look at every single change packed into the engine recently, you can check out the interactive changelog yourself and explore all the details since Godot 4.6-dev4.
Dev snapshot: Godot 4.6 dev 5 – Godot Engine
A chill rises… Feature freeze is imminent
