Unity 5.0 pre-order beta now available

Hey there! If you are a pre-order customer or Unity Pro subscriber, you can now download the Unity 5.0 pre-order beta.

Head over to the blog for more information: http://blogs.unity3d.com/2014/10/27/unity-5-0-pre-order-beta-now-available

On the Learn site you'll find tutorials for using the Unity 5.0 beta:
http://unity3d.com/learn/tutorials/modules/beginner/5-pre-order-beta

Don't forget to report bugs: http://unity3d.com/BugReportingFAQ

 

Excellent stuff, plenty to get my teeth into today then, cheers

 

Sent my first bug report before even starting to use it

Fortunately it was just the store, which never seems to work quite right. Everything else I've seen so far is very nice. Pressing play now actually plays almost immediately! I've had amazingly long waits before a scene starts even in small projects before.

 

Awesome. Like probably a few more people I am already using it since someone found the working page yesterday. And so far I love it.

Now that the new learning site is live as well I also know what I'll be doing today

Thanks a lot, Unity. I'm really looking forward to working with this.

Will there be a Unity5 Beta forum for all the preorderers now as well?
Also will you release a Unity5 Sample Assets pack in the near future?

 

Awesome
I'm going to try to contain myself and hold on until next patch or so, so that the most important initial bugs that people find will be fixed by then.
Right now i don't really need Unity 5, so i can wait a bit.

After that i'll be all over Unity 5 Beta
Congrats on release

 

Oh just wanted to ask about the match between close and pre order beta number , does the pre-order beta will match also the one released from close beta ?

 

What are the plans for betas now? Will you try to release them weekly, or will they all go through QA first and take whatever time it takes?

 

Awesome!

Can I install the Unity 5 beta side-by-side with 4.5.5, or will I have to uninstall 5 and reinstall 4.5.5 if I happen to encounter problems on my current project?

 

You can always install as many Unity versions as you want. Just search the forums for the numerous threads explaining the process

 

I'm fairly blown away. I just copied a version of my massive project for the beta, and I was expecting a lot more stuff to break. All of my game logic and most of my editor extensions are working fine. Pretty much everything I made in shader forge is broken but I expected that. The new shadow filtering is amazing. AMAZING. I can finally say goodbye to shadow softener. There's so much stuff here that you guys didn't even mention. My game seems to run about 20 fps better now (though I should note that some of that is because many of my shaders are broken). And a full set of highly polished video tutorials on first day is appreciated and highly praiseworthy. Its a beta release for Pete's sake! You guys are on the ball.

 

As Will mentions, pre-order is beta 9, which gave it some time to publish and assess stability. In general, closed beta should regularly be ahead of pre-order access to address these tasks.

 

so when do beta10 made public??

 

I'm confused....there is a 4.6 beta and now a 5 beta? Are they both active? How long before 5 goes live, I'm still trying to learn with version 4.5.5 so not sure which i should download?

 

The 5.0 beta is for pre-order customers and Unity Pro subscribers, so if you fall under one of those categories you can go ahead and download the 5.0 beta

 

I was wondering why the Lighting tutorial had a tab I couldn't find in my copy. Hope we get the next beta version soon.

 

Correct. 4.6 adds the anticipated UI system to the 4.x line of Unity. 5.0 is everything else that's been discussed (and of course UI) and a much bigger set of changes and features.

If you're learning Unity, the general fundamentals should remain the same regardless of version, and we are always striving to making things easier to use. So, your learning should transfer well. It would be the new features of 5.0 you'd be missing in staying with 4.5.5. However, as with any beta there is always the risk of stability issues as it's still a work in progress.

As projects go, 4.5.5 projects should shift to 4.6 easily. 4.5.5 to 5.0 may require some extra work to get properly running, but we trying our best to minimize that pain for you.

 

Thanks to your public Unity 5 Pre-order Beta!
I'm trying to make some assets/projects in Unity 5 Pre-order Beta, and there are a few questions.
- Can I upload about any Unity 5 Pre-order Beta screen-shot in public? (SNS, Blog, and other.)
- Can I upload asset(.unitypackage) for Unity 5 Pre-order Beta in public? (Github, Website, and other.)
- Can I upload executable build use by Unity 5 Pre-order Beta in public?
Regards,

 

I had a problem with msvcr110.dll (I use Windows 8.1 64 bit) and Unity 5.0 didn't want to start. However, I installed Microsoft Visual C++ Redistributable and now Unity 5.0 runs well.

 

Scratch that. Shader Forge shaders work fine except SSAO in deferred mode seems to be showing even on culled objects.

I'm curious, will 4.6 b21 changes be merged into 5.0 b10? I'm missing some new UI components from 4.6 b21.

 

Really cool! Thanks guys. I downloaded it yesterday and the graphics improvement is immediately noticeable. My textures and terrain look more crisp and less "pixelated" than previous versions of Unity.

Keep up the good work Unity team! And keep on trying to make Unity the best engine out there

 

Since its only an issue with Shader Forge shaders who are in deferred prepass mode I'd wager the issue is not with Unity, but rather SF not yet complying with the new deferred mode (yet its curious switching to legacy mode doesn't fix it)

 

Very excited! One question: Will new Unity Pro customers also get access to the pre-order beta? My Pro trial expires in a few days. Thanks!

 

You can pre-order Unity 5 or subscribe today to get access to the pre-order beta. The pre-order discount for Unity 5 ends Thursday, November 13, 2014, 13:00 CET.

 

Great! Thank you for the quick answer!

 

Thanks for the Beta. One question at first: Are there already changes in terms of streaming? I am still facing performance problems and stops when a new scene is loaded.

 

Sad is not public beta. But i see some few positive preview from users testing the beta., not counting the bugs

 

Is there an up to date feature list for the what the current beta contains vs all features listed for 5.0 somewhere? I'm thinking of the new networking specifically...

 

So no access for 4.xx Pro non-subscribers? I'm planning on upgrading all my licenses to 5 but I'd hoped to try 5 out with my current projects.

 

http://unity3d.com/unity/faq
When can I get a trial of 5.0?
After Unity 5.0 is officially release you will be able to download the free version with the 30 day Unity Pro 5.0 trial, even if you have already had a free trial of Unity Pro 4.x.

 

Only problem is if I wait for the 30-day trial I lose my $600 per license pre-order upgrade price. I have Pro, iOS Pro, and Android Pro, not cheap.

 

There is nothing concerning WebGL in:
http://unity3d.com/learn/tutorials/modules/beginner/5-pre-order-beta

?

 

Hi
Unity 5 seems really awesome!
I just would like to know if there´s any sample scenes coming. Will they be available later?
It would be nice to learn more!

 

Looks like the shader compiler changes (custompack0 stuff) break Sunshine for me, and probably Shadow Softener too. @Aras, are there any plans to ever expose Shadowmaps/matrices so that shadow packages like mine can stop being so hackishly difficult for users to integrate?

It would be so wonderful if we could hook into the existing shadowmaps for volumetric lighting or tweaking the filtering without having to shoehorn an entirely external shadowmaps system.

Edit: OoOo! I just noticed the "Shadow-ScreenBlur.shader" and "Shadow-ScreenBlurRotated.shader" included with the built-in shaders... If we're allowed to replace these in a project, that kinda solves 1/2 of my issues! *experiments*... screen-space is very limiting in terms of shadow filtering, but this is a step in the right direction.

 

Is there a list of known bugs?

 

Sunshine is just my asset for adding volumetric lighting, but it has an entirely separate shadowmap system since it can't read built-in data. It's not a bug, Sunshine just relies on predictable naming by shaderlab ".cust_whatever"... The new packing seems like a smart move, it just means I'll have to come up with new hacks.

Argh.

 

I don't have a unity 5 beta key on my Account page - Just my 3&4 pro license keys. Is there somewhere else I can get this?

 

if you purchased 5, the same key should just work afaik since unity is account locked backward compatible. So buying 5 allows you to use 4 and 3 etc... therefore you would not get a new key.

ie. download 5, install it, try it out.

 

I saw the "Unity 4 pro subscribers", and didn't realize that it didn't mean me (because I bought a license outright instead of subscribing). Solved it by buying the preorder.

 

Subscribers are pre-order category as well for Unity 5. Glad you solved it. I assume you mean upgrade/preorder of course and not a totally new license as it should be around half the price AFAIK.

 

I can't find anything about the hardware requirements.

Registering worked fine but Unity 5 always crashes on my machine when it tries to create an empty project.
Mac mini 2011, 16GB RAM, Radeon HD 6630M, OS X 10.9.5 - I guess that it should work on this system?

 

I'll pass your case on - seems odd, it should work. Meanwhile contact support please / file a bug if the requester pops up at all.

 

I'm on an iMAC 27" with OS X 10.10 and Unity 5 can't import or load any data into projects. Think something terribly wrong with accessing the file system on OS X 10.10

 

OK please report these issues. It really should be working with OS X 10