Choosing UE installation by feature compatibility
Updated: Jan 23, 2025
Use the following comparisons to help you choose the version of Unreal Engine that best matches to your app development needs and processes. There are several methods of obtaining versions of Unreal Engine tooling that can build Meta Quest apps, but they do not have feature parity, and the differences between them are not immediately obvious.
For app development with Unreal Engine 5, you can:
You download the public UE 5 build from Epic and then install the Meta XR Plugin into it from the Meta XR plugin downloads page. You will miss out on VR-related bug fixes and performance optimizations that Epic has yet to add to their public UE 5.x build. This option is only available if you install the most recent Meta-supported version of UE 5.x from Epic.
You download the UE 5.x source code version of your choice from the Oculus-VR fork on Github and then compile a bespoke version of UE 5.x that contains the Meta XR plugin and all of Meta’s VR optimizations and bug fixes up to the version you install. This also lets you further modify UE 5.x with your own custom code.
For app development with Unreal Engine 4.x, you can:
You download the UE 4.x source code from the Oculus-VR fork on Github, and then compile a bespoke version of UE 4.x that contains all of the Oculus VR plugin, as well as all of Meta’s VR optimizations and bug fixes up to the version you install. This also lets you further modify UE 4.x with your own custom code. This is the only way to install a version of 4.x with the plugin.
Compare the features and fixes between these Meta XR development options to determine which best suits your needs and style.
Feature | UE 4 | UE 5 Oculus-VR Fork | UE 5 Epic Version + Meta XR Plugin |
| ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| - | ✓ | Limited |
| Limited | ✓ | ✓ |
| Limited | ✓ | ✓ |
| ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
Feature | UE 4 | UE 5 Oculus-VR Fork | UE 5 Epic Version + Meta XR Plugin |
| ✓ | ✓ | - |
| ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| ✓ | ✓ | - |
| ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| ✓ | ✓ | - |
| ✓ | ✓(v63+) | - |
| Limited | ✓ | - |
Mobile compositor layer depth testing | - | ✓ | - |
| ✓ | ✓ | ✓ |
| ✓ | ✓ | - |
Software Occlusion Culling | ✓ | - | - |
| ✓ | ✓ | - |
VR MobileHDR | - | ✓(v62+) | - |
| - | ✓(v72+) | - |
| - | ✓(v65+) | - |
| - | ✓(v65,v67+) | - |
| - | ✓(v65+) | - |
| - | ✓ | ✓(v68+) |
The Oculus-VR GitHub fork contains the latest features and bug fixes that are not available in the standard Epic source distribution, including:
- PSO Cache
- Fastbuild
- Many Vulkan renderer updates
Note: To access the Oculus-VR fork of the source code, you need a verified Meta Developer Account, as well as Epic Games and GitHub accounts that are linked. For more information, see
Prerequisites for installing Unreal Engine.
Samples can be found in the public Oculus-Samples GitHub repository:
GitHub tag naming convention
Note: The GitHub tag naming convention also includes the OVRPlugin and SDK version.
This GitHub tags link contains a list of the Source Code Distributions we released. The tags are formatted as “oculus-(UnrealEngineVersion)-(OVRPluginVersion)-(OculusSdkVersion)”, e.g. “oculus-5.1.1-release-1.82.0-v50.4”.
