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iOS 64-bit and Metal update

April 17, 2015 in Technology | 3 min. read
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Welcome to round two of our weekly blog update covering progress with stabilization and optimization of iOS 64-bit support in Unity 4.6 and 5.0! One of the most visible changes this week is that 5.0.1p1 includes the build size reductions that previously shipped in 4.6.4p2. You’ll also find further fixes to generics and WebRequest, amongst many others. We still highly recommend that all production teams working toward releasing iOS 64-bit titles adopt every patch release as it ships.

Remember:  All patch releases for 4.6 and 5.0 can be found at https://unity3d.com/unity/qa/patch-releases.

And all monthly maintenance releases for 4.6 and 5.0 can be found at http://unity3d.com/get-unity/download/archive

And now for this week’s updates:

Status of 64-bit/Metal support in Unity 5.0.x

  • 5.0.1p1 shipped Wednesday, April 15.  The weekly 5.0.x patch release schedule resumed this week and and will continue going forward.  The build includes new fixes in addition to those introduced in 4.6.4p1 and 4.6.4p2.
  • Download and view the latest release notes for Unity 5.0.1p1 at https://unity3d.com/unity/qa/patch-releases/5.0.1p1

Status of 64-bit/Metal support in Unity 4.6

  • Unity 4.6.4p3 shipped today, April 17th.  In addition to a long list of il2cpp fixes, it contains new WebRequest fixes and first set of build size improvements.
  • Download and view the latest release notes for Unity 4.6.4p3 at https://unity3d.com/unity/qa/patch-releases/4.6.4p3

Our current release plan

  • 5.0 patch releases are scheduled to be released each week on Wednesdays.
  • 4.6 patch releases are scheduled to be released each week on Fridays.

Some important info to remember

  • It is necessary to update your projects to 4.6 at the very least to enjoy 64-bit support on iOS. 64-bit will only ship in 4.6.x and 5.x releases.
  • Apple has announced that they will require all apps on the store to include 64-bit support with any updates as of June 1, 2015.
  • We are doing weekly releases with all bugfixes. We can’t fix bugs if they’re not reported, so please report any issues with il2cpp builds the moment you discover them.
  • Internally, our developers collaborate on a single version of IL2CPP which is ported to 4.6 and 5.0 -based patch release branches at the last possible moment in order to release as many fixes and improvements as possible in each release. The cutoff date for fixes in each weekly patch release is several days before the release, to give us time to test and approve each release.

About the binary size increase issue

We’re still working hard behind the scenes to address increased runtime executable file sizes when using il2cpp.  Further improvements were addressed in 5.0.1p1 and 4.6.4p3 with more improvements underway.

For reference and more context about what is going on with iOS 64-bit and Apple’s requirements, please check out the blog post on iOS & ARM64 here, and our in-depth strategic plan for IL2CPP here.

Our plan is to update these posts on a weekly basis so make sure to check back next week to get a heads up on the latest progress with 64-bit iOS support and il2cpp!

April 17, 2015 in Technology | 3 min. read

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