O3DE 24.09 Released / News / October 10, 2024 / LumberyardThe O3DE game engine, previously Lumberyard which itself was a fork of CryEngine, just released O3DE 24.09. This release is a massive step forward in making O3DE usable to the masses. O3DE is a completely free and open source game engine sponsored by Amazon and several other large companies and this release takes large strides towards making O3DE easier to get up and running, previously a major pain point of the engine.Highlights of O3DE 24.09 include:Quick-Start Script Only Projects Can build projects using Script Canvas and Lua, without needing a C++ compiler, using the O3DE installer version.Many optimizations for memory usage on mobile and AR/VR devicesMobile performance up to 400% improvement across iOS, Android and AR/VR/XR devicesSplit PhysX 4 and 5 into separate gems, enabling users to switch between the PhysX versions easily, even when using installer builds.Added a Project Export UI along wth full export support for iOS, Android, Linux, and Windows. Users are no longer required to use a command line.Added options to reduce size of headless server up to 90%, dependent on assets used.Added a mobile specific rendering pipeline, allowing users to easily enable/disable features as needed.Added ability to control quality settings per device. There is a default of 3 performance levels (low, medium, high) based on device specifications for CPU, GPU, and memory.Added shader variants. When setup, this allows the renderer to automatically utilize the most performant shader for a given rendering need.Added Entity Silhouette FeatureAdded framework allowing users to interface with the LLM (AI model) of their choice.Network heartbeat packets are sent during high CPU usage; avoids network disconnection due to timeout.There are several other improvements details in the full release notes linked below.Key LinksO3DE HomepageO3DE 24.09 Release NotesO3DE DiscordYou can learn more about O3DE 24.09 and the massive strides forward they have made with this release in the video below.