Godot 4.1
- Edited
I don't like it when people experiment on me… very often the country I live in has experimented globally on its citizens. But there are too many changes in the new version of Godot, and it seems that some of them are very important to me. Looks like I'll have to switch to 4.1.
Continuing on our planned schedule for Godot 4.1, we’re advancing through the beta phase and getting ready for a stable release in early July.
An important part of the new release schedule for Godot is the change in mentality. Instead of working towards “the one true” release, such as has been the case with Godot 4.0, we aim to bring incremental changes to the engine at regular intervals. Godot 4.1 builds on top of the foundation created by the previous release, and we are getting confident in its current state.
This means that 4.1 beta 3 is likely to be the final beta release of this cycle, and the first release candidate is soon to follow. Please make sure to give these builds a good test. If you find an issue that affects your work, please give one of the previous releases a try as well, and Godot 4.0.3 too for good measure. Engine contributors are after regressions at this point, so testing your case with multiple releases ensures that what you’re experiencing is new and thus critical. Don’t hesitate to open bug reports in any case, every bit helps!
Only problem is that because they release new versions so quick, it makes some of the tutorial projects on the website outdated, as they're only supported on version 3 and half.
Yes, the documentation always lags behind the newest releases. But testing older projects, e.g. testing a 4.0.3 project in 4.1, can still be helpful in finding and reporting bugs.
This release contains a number of improvements compared to Godot 4.0 published earlier this year. Some systems have also been reworked, which means projects that rely on those need to be updated. However, for most games and apps made with 4.0 it should be safe to migrate to 4.1. Don’t forget to always make backups when moving versions, even minor. Better yet, prefer using a version control system, such as Git, and commit a version of your project before the migration.
Godot 4.1 is shaping up to be ready right on schedule. Over the course of the beta testing phase, and with our first Release Candidate a few days ago, we identified and fixed a number of regressions, i.e. recently introduced bugs that would worsen the experience compared to Godot 4.0. Now we’re fairly confident that we’ve handled most of those, and the remaining issues we’re tracking will likely be deferred to a fix in future 4.1.x maintenance releases.
That is to say, this RC 2 should be the one – if no major regression is identified in coming days, we’ll go ahead and release 4.1 stable, and reopen the development cycle for 4.2, which is scheduled for a release in November 2023. Please keep reporting issues that you encounter with the RC, even if you don’t think they’re critical – while triaging them, we might prioritize them for early on in the 4.2 development cycle, and backport the fixes to 4.1.x.
DaveTheCoder as always they go too fast !!! How can we follow . (Still there is so little chance to test the whole set of demos every time, that's quite too bad).
JusTiCe8 Yep! I'm finally ready to test 4.1 today now that I've finished my last demo on 4.0.3... and unless something I use is obviously broken, I'm too late to help at all. I guess the lesson is start testing in beta - on a throwaway copy of your game in case it really messes things up.
No point in doing new versions so quick when the official tutorials on the website only go up to version 3.52 at the most.
Some of the tutorials claim to be up to date for Godot 4.0.
If you are the kind of user who still needs to follow tutorials to get anything at all done then perhaps testing in development versions of the engine is a bit too much of an ask of you.
Megalomaniak I would mostly agree with you, except 1. even the official stable releases are going faster than tutorial makers can keep up with right now and 2. there's always something someone doesn't know, no matter how skilled they are.
it'll even out eventually, nobody can keep up this kind of development speed forever and when they finally hit a lull the rest of us can catch up!
The documentation is mostly up to date. Some stuff is undocumented, though, and you might have to look at the source, but I would say at least 90% has some explanation. There are also various tutorials on the official docs that are current up to 4.0, though many have not been updated. However, it's not that difficult to look at an old tutorial and compare it to the new class documentation and make some small edits to function names, etc. If you need a tutorial to hand-hold you and you're just copy-pasting, then sure, you might have a hard time.
cybereality Meh, I have a learning disability (and no, I am NOT retarded) so I find learning difficult.
Well, I didn't say it was easy. But the docs are mostly up to date.
Our contributors managed to fix a few more critical regressions during the testing phase of RC 2, which justified making a third release candidate to validate those changes. If all goes well, we should be on track for a 4.1 release in a few days. Please keep reporting issues that you encounter with the RC, even if you don’t think they’re critical – while triaging them, we might prioritize them for early on in the 4.2 development cycle, and backport the fixes to 4.1.x.
- Edited
For most games and apps made with 4.0 it should be relatively safe to migrate to 4.1. We are preparing a migration guide that outlines everything you need to pay attention to when migrating your project. Some incompatibilities are expected for C# and GDExtension users specifically, however we are working on making sure to avoid that in future releases. Don’t forget to always make backups when moving versions, even minor. Better yet, prefer using a version control system, such as Git, and commit a version of your project before the migration.