CRYENGINE on Linux

CRYENGINE is supported on the Ubuntu 14 64bit Linux distribution. Other Linux distributions will likely work as well, however they are not actively tested and supported by development team.

Compilation prerequisites

CRYENGINE compilation on Linux requires that you have some externally provided packages installed on your system. The following table explains how to make sure you have every package required for compilation installed.

PackageHow to install (Ubuntu)Notes
Build Essentialsudo apt-get install build-essentialThis package provides the C libraries and gcc compiler
Clang (optional)sudo apt-get install clang-3.4Install if you wish to use the clang compiler instead of gcc
Python + TKsudo apt-get install python python-tkPython and Tk are used by the WAF build system to configure and setup the build
SDL2sudo apt-get install libsdl2-devInstall only for CRYENGINE 3.8.5 and older, for 3.8.6 it is automatically included
NCursessudo apt-get install libncurses5-dev libncursesw5-devInstall only for CRYENGINE 3.8.5 and older, for 3.8.6 it is automatically included

Compiling

The CRYENGINE runtime and game code can be compiled for 64-bit Linux using the WAF build system.

In order to compile you can enter the following command in a Linux terminal in the root directory:

./cry_waf.sh build_linux_x64_<compiler>_<configuration> --project-spec=<spec>

with the following replacements

<compiler>Compiler of choice. Can be either gcc or clang.
<configuration>Build configuration. Possible values are release, performance, profile and debug.
<spec>Name of the chosen project spec (for example gamesdk, gamesdk_and_tools, gamezero...).

For example, to build the CRYENGINE with the GameSDK project in Profile configuration with GCC, type:

./cry_waf.sh build_linux_x64_gcc_profile --project-spec=gamesdk

This command will produce the binaries for the project in the BinLinux64<compiler> sub-folder (in this case BinLinux64gcc).

Visit WAF Build System for more informations about WAF and more advanced options.

Running prerequisites

CRYENGINE does not support the open source graphics drivers usually enabled by default in Linux distributions as they are often not fully OpenGL compliant.

Please make sure you install the latest proprietary drivers for your graphics card.
For Ubuntu you can follow these guides to get the correct vendor drivers installed:

CRYENGINE on Linux also uses the SDL2 library runtime.
The command to install it on Ubuntu is:

sudo apt-get install libsdl2-2.0-0

Stack Traces & Core Dumps

Stack traces will be written to a file name backtrace.log in the current working directory of the executable.

To enable core dumps, please run the Launcher with the generated shell script Launch_GameSDK.sh in the bin/linux_x64_<compiler> folder.

Known issues

These are the current known limitations specific to the Linux version of CRYENGINE:

  • Hardware tessellation is not supported.
  • The CRYENGINE launcher is not supported on Linux, you must copy the engine and game data directories from a windows machine.
  • CRYENGINE requires at least an OpenGL 4.3 compliant system.
  • Some older graphics drivers are not supported. For this reason it is recommended to update your graphics driver before running CRYENGINE.