cybereality
I can actually see Godot continuing to get bits of version 4 all the way into version 3.9 (to the point where the main things you get from switching is the Vulkan renderer and some of the major GDscript changes). The current plan is for Godot 3.6 to wrap up the stable branch until 4, but it is common for plans to change in FOSS.

At the least, the fact the backporting team performs as good as they are is probably buying the main devs. a lot of time. The continued 3.x releases with version 4 features allow for continued growth of the engine and the userbase in the meantime.

    Yeah, most of the improvements (aside from the graphics) have been getting back-ported, so there is not a huge need to move to 4.0 right now. I mean, it will be great when it's stable but it's not worth the mental health pain of dealing with crashing software.

    Megalomaniak

    Thanks, will do.
    Here you write that only Open GL 2 will be supported by Godot 4 (4.1 if I understand your more recent post), not OpenGL 3 ?
    Is that still true ?
    So I should choose to create my project with Open GL 2 then I guess ?

        Things have changed, @LienRag . Godot 4.0 (currently) is using Vulkan only. The old OpenGL code is mostly removed/disabled. The developers decided to update to OpenGL 3.3 (but restricted to the OpenGL ES 3.0 feature set). This also means HTML5 will only be supported on WebGL 2.0. This will be similar to the current GLES 3.0 features of Godot 3.x. Some things will be better, but I believe some things will be missing, at least at first. You would have to have a really old desktop GPU to not have OpenGL 3.3 support. Anything made in probably the last 10 years or so will be fine. Vulkan is better, and will have more features, but you will need a better and/or newer GPU to use it.

        If you are working on a project now, I would recommend sticking with Godot 3.x for the time being. Godot 4.0 is in alpha and is very unstable and unfinished. I did make some small projects with it, it works okay, but it crashes a lot and some things don't work. So I would not recommend releasing a serious commercial game with it now. The stable release is likely going to be next year. So your best bet is to stick with Godot 3.x for now, and just test the alphas to provide feedback, but don't port your project until later next year. You can also stick with Godot 3.x and use the GLES 2.0 renderer, if you need to support low spec or old laptops and stuff. Because Godot 4.x will have higher requirements.

        That said, I'm building my game in Godot 4.0, because I think it will take around 1 - 2 years to finish, so it's a long term investment for me. If your game is smaller in scope, you don't want to risk using 4.0 (for example, if it's a 6 month project). But if you think you will be working on something for several years, maybe it would be worth learning Godot 4.x now. It depends on what you are doing.

        LienRag Here you write that only Open GL 2 will be supported by Godot 4 (4.1 if I understand your more recent post), not OpenGL 3 ?

        GLES 2 =/= OpenGL 2
        GLES 1 ~= OpenGL 2
        GLES 2 ~= OpenGL 3

          6 days later

          [deleted] Is current Godot version 4 Alpha "feature frozen"?

          It is still an alpha, so no, not yet. Last info on the blog was that beta is to be released "at the beginning of September", and that it will be feature 🥶

            Merged 3 posts from othr posts.

            Everything still is in flux. We may know more in the coming months.

            4 days later

            GoDot 4 Alpha 14 does not load "visibly" as does GoDot 3.5 on the Windows 7 operating system running on an i7 Processor with 32 GB RAM and approximately 100 GB SSD free space.  The attached screen shots depict the issue.

              Ambassador GoDot 4 Alpha 14 does not load "visibly" as does GoDot 3.5 on the Windows 7 operating system running on an i7 Processor with 32 GB RAM and approximately 100 GB SSD free space

              Godot_v4.0-alpha14, absolutely works on Win 7.

              But it takes quite a long time to load. White screen like on the picture, I had it for quite a long time while the engine was booting. What kind of processor do you have?

                  so it seems all prefab scenes are broken in alpha 15 because of 'octahedral normal/tangent compression'

                  DJM And if you re-import the scene/objects — would the same problem arise?

                  I'll wait for the next version…

                    From the alpha 15 page it says:

                    Rendering: Octahedral normal/tangent compression (GH-60309).
                    Warning: This has the potential to break meshes imported in earlier alphas, we are still working on improving the compatibility code.

                    So it sounds like the issue is the older alphas and alpha 15 expects meshes already in a project to have been imported in a certain way that the older alphas didn't do. I'd guess a reimport should fix them, but I haven't tested (pure speculation here).

                    DJM interesting side note: The reflection on the barrel is also different.

                      deleting the .godot folder and reimporting everything doesn't fix the issue.
                      ill need to rebuild all saved scenes from scratch which is a real pain in the ass tbh.
                      if i open up my meshes and reassign materials they appear correct again.
                      it will probably take me a whole day to fix this, i hope this doesn't happen again in future builds.