Question Building for Linux ARM

Hello!

Is it possible to do Unity build for ARM? The specific processor I have in mind is:

ARM v8.2 64-bit NVIDIA Carmel CPU

It resides in Nvidia Jetson AGX Xavier: https://developer.nvidia.com/embedded/jetson-agx-xavier-developer-kit

If no, what kind of work should be done / is required to make it support?

 

well, i guess it's not impossible at all, since Godot 3 is available to armel, armhf and arm64, from Debian's repository? https://packages.debian.org/search?keywords=godot&searchon=names&suite=stable&section=all - and better, since Unity actually supports arm-based hardware?

 

We.. we.. can build Unity ourselves with custom parameters? What, since when?

Isn't Unity like closed source thing?

 

what i could understand is that part of Unity is open-source because it uses Mono, and it's always great that is using it (but not software-libre, since it's using Mono, and Mono is not software-libre because the license used ) - the other part, i just have no idea at all, since i'm mostly software-libre user... - considering this, i guess Unity for GNU/Linux could be available to architectures like Sparc, Mips, PowerPC, Arm, etc., as "easily" as those actually supported i386 and amd64

 

Hello @Schubkraft
I just saw your answer concerning the ARM support. Is it in your scope ?
Or at least is it possible to manage it ourself by using the lib etc... with a specific makefile (I don't think it's possible but I try the question..)

 

And there is no ETA or plan from your side ? (I know the answer is not but I try again)

 

No worry !
Thanks again for your reactivity. We will evaluate other possibilities from our side.

 

Hello @Schubkraft
If you don't mind me asking, why exactly is Linux Arm64 (aka AArch64) not part of the current plans? Is there a place where I could put a kind feature request on that?

I am a software dev in a private company as well as an NGO, and both have to work around this limitation of Unity by doing projects in Unreal Engine, when possible, or rethinking the possibilities, like @aurelien-morel-ubiant

Obviously the editor is too much work, and doesn't make sense to have the unity editor running on arm-64, but a unity standalone build? That should be fairly straight forward for you guys.

Yes, the different embedded boards might be slightly different, and you might have to focus on one hardware, like the jetson board, like requested in this forum post, but even that would be already a good start.

Unreal did that in their current version because the community wanted that (I'm happy to say I was part of that). Hope Unity won't fall behind in terms of flexibility, because that's to me the ultimate advantage of unity. There is market for embedded and IOT, and linux arm-64 is a pretty nice platform to develop for.

Even raspberry pi is now arm-64. How amazing it would be for education to have Unity building for Raspberry PI!!! My Non profit would surely be using that functionality from day 1.

 

WHEN WILL UNITY SUPPORT..LINUX + ARM ????

 

Unity now supports Magic Leap which I believe uses an ARM processor running a Linux based system called Lumin OS. Has anyone tried to publish to Lumin OS and run the app on Linux?

 

interesting thread.
i am going to try this on my jetson nano (ubuntu 18)
https://www.fosslinux.com/13176/how-to-install-and-run-android-apps-on-ubuntu-using-anbox.htm

ill post here if i get it working.

 

The important thing to note in this conversation is that Nintendo Switch is supported as a Unity build target and uses ARM linux. Nintendo likely has no interest in seeing competition in their market.

 

Super interesting topic, definitely +1 for Linux ARM build support.

With the high prices of GPU Cloud Clusters and Nvidia's Jetson around... the need for this will scale from Pi hobbyists to cloud compute corporate stuff (ML/Simulations/...)

The political conflicts here are obvious (hi Google Cloud), but as Unity stands for democratisation and all platforms deployment...

 

crogersarvr, please let us know if anbox works. I'd really like to be able to use Unity for my nvidia jetson boards.

 

Now that Unity (in 2020.2) will add support for Apple Silicon ARM / MacOS targets, perhaps adding support for ARM / Linux is doable as well? I bet the bulk of the work of the port is done with the support for Apple Silicon ARM / MacOS...

 

Can at least an Linux ARM exporter can be done? Have you seen Librem 5 and Pinephone Smartphones?
They work with wayland, and there is some documentations and tests working with vulkan+mir/wayland. A little bit dusty, but it might be a good market. Who knows!
https://ubports.com/

 

Support for building Linux (or even windows embedded) stand alone for ARM targets would be awesome. I'm personally interested in developing for Raspberry Pi but the Jetson would be a cool target as well. It would open up a lot of possibilities. I don't see much need to run the editor on either of those though. Thanks for the great product and keeping us informed.

 

Hurryup guys! Before Unreal do it!

 

Not a big fan of Windows . . .actually Microsoft's product asks to have for free your work when you accept their EULA. They can claim your work as yours anytime they want, it's in the EULA. Even Windows have a problem with resources with bugs and unnecessary software . . Who uses windows mail?!!

Do you want that your work belongs to you even before to register it? Don't use windows. When I see people intersted in install windows and android on a Raspberry Pi, it makes me feel sick.

 

+1 on request for ARM64 support for linux builds. This would allow publishing games for smartphones which don't run Android as well as Raspberry Pi 4 and many similar boards.

 

Supporting Linux for arm would be a good move from Unity, concerning that they are moving towards ML and AI, and more and more sbc have embedded NPU (huawei and some rockchips , and obviously nvidia) also because Raspberry PI, the most popular single board computer on the market is meant for educational use, it would be great to show off project Tiny on toy-sized sbc just to prove its performance.

 

We're interested in switching our clustered rendering solution (Currently running on NVIDIA Jetson Nano - ARM Linux aarch64) to a Unity - based solution. But there would need to be a player that could run on ARM Linux. So that's another +1 for ARM64 Linux from my company, please.

 

100% agree that unity needs arm 64 support. I mean arm 64 linux devices will be everywhere in 5 years. Using a pinephone now and would love to make a native app for it with Unity. Will have to find another solution. Maybe Godot?

 

Coming here almost one year after my prev post to just give a
+1 on request for ARM64 support for linux builds
@andrews_unity

 

^ Give us the option to host Unity servers on Raspberry pi.

 

Just wanted to give a headsup, as AWS hosting allows their best CPU's with ARM architecture only, it is a big downer for any Unity based server.

 

I'll try to compile mono on my pi4. If someone has a jetson at hand, please try that too, and let us know of any hurdles. No promises, as I'm quite busy with other stuff.

I read recently that broadcom (graphics chip of raspberry pi) was working on integrating vulkan support. https://www.raspberrypi.org/blog/vulkan-update-now-with-added-source-code/
If I can make hello world mono project that draws a quad in raspberry pi, I guess that would help, right?

 

Exciting thread.. If Unity supports ARM64 builds on a Jetson Id be happy to buy one just to train AI models for days instead of using my laptop...

 

Still no support for this ?

 

Im waiting and watching this thread...

 

Please understand that embedded processors like jetson are optimised to run inference from pretrained models. If you want to train models, I recommend looking into discrete graphics cards. Buying embedded boards for ML training doesn't sound right to me...

 

Vote for adding ARM Linux support to Unity!

 

And it's not just performance, it provides cost savings. Switching to ARM64 machines with the same amount memory and vCPU is cheaper, for pretty much the same performance (even better performance if you trust AWS numbers).
Linux ARM64 build support would be appreciated for hosting servers or any workload where high machine counts are needed.

https://aws.amazon.com/ec2/pricing/on-demand/
Instance types ending with a "g" before the dot are ARM instances

 

There's an benchmark of AWS machines, it clearly shows that ARM64 is the only way to use the most of the performance:
https://www.richardneililagan.com/posts/aws-graviton2-benchmark

 

Incorrect, false, discouraging, in accurate! I did my entire masters project on AI on L4T. Discrete graphics cards categorically perform worse than L4T running on NVidia SoCs of similar core spec, Furthermore, graphics cards of similar price range still categorically under perform compared to NVidia SoCs. So for the same price range and for the same spec you are better off with an nvidia SoC and it comes at the benefit of portability and not requiring a whole rig. So You please understand, your recommendation is damaging to AI field, please don't go around making statements like this!

 

Would be a great thing if we could build on ARM, from me there is clearly a +1 for the idea

 

+1 ARM LINUX support, our company is currently considering switching to Unreal Engine for using the Xavier platform in one of our upcoming projects.

 

I am very interested in this as well it would be awesome to be able to export to raspberry pi 4, have a micro Console for my kids and friends.

 

Hurry up guys! Before it's too late c:

 

+1 to get a ARM/Linux target for non-Nintendo folks.

But obviously, from this thread its clear Unity has another view on this.

 

+1 ARM32/64.

I have an ARM Cortex-A15 that I want to build Unity projects for.
The A57 in the switch isn't too different from the A15 other than implementing a 64 bit architecture.

 

Pleaseee, +1 unity for rpi4