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Documentation Index

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Eden targets a broad range of CPU architectures and operating systems. This page documents what is well-tested, what is experimental, and what to expect on each combination — so you can set realistic expectations before you start.

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CPU Architectures

AMD64, also known as x86_64, is the most tested and supported architecture for desktop targets. Android devices running amd64 are not supported.Performance characteristicsamd64 systems are almost always CPU-limited. For example, a Zen 5 / RX 6600 system will frequently hit 100% CPU utilization before the GPU reaches 70%, with minimal exceptions that appear only above ~200 fps. JIT compilation carries a heavy overhead on this architecture.Linux vs. WindowsMachines running Linux will almost always run Eden measurably better than an equivalent Windows machine. This is largely due to how the Linux kernel handles memory management.Intel MacsIntel Macs are believed to be supported, but no CI is provided for them. Performance will likely be poor on all but the highest-end iMac and Pro-level Mac configurations, and the MoltenVK requirement means Vulkan compatibility is reduced compared to native Vulkan platforms.
ARM64, also known as aarch64, is the only supported architecture for Android. Limited experimental support is available on Linux, Windows, and macOS.NCE (Native Code Execution)NCE is currently available on Android and, experimentally, on Linux. macOS NCE support is in progress. Windows/arm64 NCE is extremely unlikely to ever be implemented — patches welcome.When NCE is enabled, the GPU almost always becomes the bottleneck instead of the CPU. This is especially relevant on Android and on desktops without a dedicated GPU, where mobile GPU classes (Adreno, Mali, PowerVR) are significantly weaker relative to their CPUs.
If NCE is available on your platform, you should use it. JIT carries a massive performance penalty compared to NCE.
Windows/arm64Windows/arm64 is very experimental and is unlikely to work at all. Support and testing are ongoing.
RISC-V (riscv64) is sparsely tested. Developers have reported at least partial support on Milk-V’s Fedora/riscv64 Linux distribution. Performance, Vulkan compatibility, and build-system behavior are largely unknown.
  • Windows/riscv64 does not exist and is not planned.
  • Android/riscv64 may be added if RISC-V phones ever go mainstream, but arm64 will always be preferred due to NCE.
  • In theory, any riscv64 distribution with standard build tools, Qt, FFmpeg, and SDL2 should build Eden successfully. Only Fedora/riscv64 has been verified.
SPARC, MIPS, PowerPC, Loong, and all 32-bit architectures are completely unsupported — there is no JIT backend for them. Contributions welcome.IA-64 (Itanium) compatibility is unknown. Existing amd64 packages will not run on IA-64.

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Platforms

All modern Linux distributions are supported, including Fedora 40+, Ubuntu 24.04+, Debian 12+, Arch, and Gentoo. The majority of Eden development and testing happens on Arch and Gentoo. Major build-system changes are validated on Gentoo first — if a build fails on a modern distribution regardless of what you try, it is likely a bug worth reporting.GPU driversAMD with the RADV (Mesa) driver receives first-class testing and provides the most stable Eden experience available. Intel and Nvidia GPU support is more limited.WaylandWayland is not recommended. Testing has shown significantly worse performance on most Wayland compositors compared to X11, alongside mysterious bugs and rendering errors.
When running Eden on Wayland, set the environment variable QT_QPA_PLATFORM=xcb, or pass -platform xcb as a launch argument, to force X11 rendering.
Windows 10 and 11 are supported. Windows 8.x compatibility is unknown; Windows 7 support is not planned.Eden requires the Visual C++ Redistributable to run. If Eden fails to launch with no log output, installing the redistributable is the first step.Neither AMD nor Nvidia proprietary Windows drivers perform as well as Linux’s RADV driver. Overall compatibility remains similar, but performance and behavior in demanding titles may suffer compared to Linux.
Android is a first-class target. See the Android platform guide for full details on SoC support, GPU vendors, custom ROMs, NCE, and cooling requirements.
Android 16 is always recommended — it brought major Vulkan improvements and significant performance gains. Some Pixel users reported over 50% better performance after updating.
macOS is relatively stable, with only occasional crashes and bugs. Compatibility may be reduced due to the MoltenVK translation layer between Vulkan and Metal.See the macOS platform guide for setup steps, Gatekeeper bypass instructions, and Qt version requirements.
Building the GUI version with Qt higher than 6.7.3 causes mysterious bugs, Vulkan errors, crashes, and random system UI freezes. Build with Qt 6.7.3 (via aqtinstall) or earlier.
FreeBSD, OpenBSD, NetBSD, and OpenIndiana (Solaris) have first-class support, but these platforms tend to lag behind Linux in Vulkan and library compatibility.
  • OpenIndiana does not properly package Qt. The recommended method is to use eden-cli only for now. OpenGL generally works better than Vulkan on Solaris.
  • AMD GPU support on BSD/Solaris is limited or nonexistent.
HaikuOS supports Vulkan 1.3 via Mesa 24.0. Because OpenGL ES is used instead of desktop OpenGL, the Vulkan backend is actually more stable than the OpenGL backend on this platform.
OpenGL on HaikuOS is highly not recommended. It relies on out-of-tree Mesa builds that are generally unstable. Use Vulkan whenever possible.
  • System drivers for Nvidia and Intel iGPUs exist and provide a native Vulkan ICD with the Xcb interface.
  • To obtain Vulkan 1.3 support with native BView support, SwiftShader can be compiled from source (see this thread).
Eden can run in a VM, but only with the software renderer unless you configure hardware-accelerated KVM with GPU passthrough.If you want GPU passthrough without a dedicated spare card, RX 570 and RX 580 GPUs are inexpensive and powerful enough to run most commercial games at 60 fps.Some users have had success with a pure OpenGL-accelerated KVM on Linux with a Windows guest, but setup is significantly complex. Dual-booting is generally a better option.

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