ABSTRACT
The Raspberry Pi (RPi) computers are small, powerful devices concerning their size and cost. However, they are not powerful devices. Therefore running a Unity project on the RPi is not as good as running it on a laptop or desktop computer. It should be mentioned that the Unity programs can run on RPi, but some issues should be considered when we work with them, which mostly causes by the RPi's Broadcom GPU weakness ability. Also, the application may not render all graphics components. This chapter states a detailed report on running a Unity design on the RPi. The review on Unity history shows that Unity is a cross-platform game engine released initially by Unity Technologies in 2005. The focus of Unity lies in the development of both 2D and 3D games and interactive content. Unity now supports over 20 different target platforms for deploying, while its most popular platforms are the PC, Android, and iOS systems. Unity does not provide any export method for arm-based processors with Linux OS. There is a glimmer of hope as Unity does provide a way to run Unity export *.apk or Android application. Therefore, we can export an Android application from Unity, and, luckily, there are Android ports that exist on the RPi's boards. Another possible way to run Unity on RPi is through Unity's native WebGL export. WebGL applications run in browsers, so it should be relatively easy to run a Unity design on RPi. The third potential way to run Unity games on the RPi is through an emulator. It will emulate an x86 environment over the on-board arm architecture. There is a program called Box86, which is explored in this chapter in detail. Also, the method of running the project on Android is described, and, as the sample, one program is explained.
