Unity 5 Announced at GDC 2014: 64-Bit Engine, Nvidia PhysX 3.3 Support and More

Unity Technologies have overhauled their trademark engine in many ways.

Unity Technologies has revealed their next engine iteration at GDC 2014 with Unity 5. It is currently available to pre-order and permits access to existing updates and Unity 4.

Some of the new features include the Enlighten lighting system, physically based shaders, a unified shader architecture, in-editor real-time lightmap previews, a new Audio mixer and much more. It is also a 64-bit engine for the first time and include support for Nvidia PhysX 3.3 and integration with SpeedTree.

David Helgason, CEO of Unity Technologies, stated that, “Every time we ship a new version of Unity, we’re looking to empower developers with technology that’s more powerful and easier to apply than ever before. With the huge additions of physically-based shading, lighting workflows, a new platform, and a new built-in method for user acquisition, we’re improving Unity dramatically from both a creative and business perspective.”

The release of Unity 5.0 will also see the introduction of Unity Cloud for cross-promotion of mobile games to add developers. Check out some of the newer features in the screenshots below.

64-bitGDC 2014mobilesUnity 5Unity CloudUnity Technologies