C++ is used to program and create video games on different platforms.

What This Guide Covers

Whether you’re a complete beginner or transitioning from another engine, this comprehensive guide answers the most common questions about C++ and Unreal Engine development. You’ll learn when C++ is necessary, what alternatives exist, and how to make the best choice for your project goals.

The Short Answer: Blueprints vs C++

You can absolutely create games in Unreal Engine without knowing C++. Unreal’s Blueprint visual scripting system allows you to build complete games using a node-based visual interface instead of traditional code. Many successful indie games have been built entirely with Blueprints.

However, C++ becomes valuable when you need:

• Maximum performance optimization
• Complex gameplay mechanics
• Custom engine modifications
• Integration with third-party libraries
• Advanced AI systems

However to get the most out of UE and improve at the fundamentals, you should not be using blueprints or C++ exclusively. Ideally, you should learn how to use both. If you want to learn more about C++ vs Blueprints , we’ve discussed in another article about when to use Blueprints or C++ when developing games.

Is Unreal Engine good for beginners?

Unreal Engine is a great game engine for beginners as it provides access to a lot of templates and assets completely for free (unless your game earns >$1M gross annually) . However, it is also expansive and powerful enough for experienced developers as well. If you are familiar with other platforms, such as Unity or previous Unreal Engine versions, you will be able to jump right in and start creating video games using Unreal Engine C++. A virtual game and graphic studio that specializes in Unreal Engine C++ development can also be a great resource for learning the language and developing your skills.

The process of developing a game with Unreal Engine is not difficult to understand, but it does require a lot of time and practice, knowledge of the language, and commitment. And one of the very first questions is: where do I begin?

Do you need to know how to code for Unreal Engine?

Creating entire games with Unreal Engine can be a daunting task, but with the right knowledge and skills, you can make amazing programs. Some basic knowledge of coding—and C++ to an extent—is required, but it is not necessary to be an expert. The Unreal Engine is not just intended for developers but also for creators; and a game programmer is not limited to working with Unreal Engine.

It is even possible to create full-fledged games without any coding background. Popular gaming engines like Unity or Unreal Engine offer visual scripting tools or no-code solutions for managing game assets. Unreal has its Blueprint scripting process wherein you can use nodes to replace normal programming logic.

But if you want to dive into the nitty gritty, learning about the fundamental language of which the engine is based on a surefire way to greatly increase both your options and your efficiency. Additionally, many other game development platforms, such as Unity and GameMaker, use similar coding languages. Knowing how to code for these platforms will help you get started in the game development industry.

Learning Path Recommendations for Complete Beginners

1. Start with Blueprint Fundamentals
   • Complete Epic’s Blueprint tutorials
   • Build simple games (Pong, basic platformer)
   • Understand Unreal’s component system
2. Learn Basic C++ Outside Unreal
   • Master fundamental programming concepts
   • Practice with simple console applications
   • Understand object-oriented programming principles
3. Transition to Unreal C++
   • Start with simple C++ components
   • Gradually replace Blueprint functionality with code
   • Learn Unreal-specific C++ conventions and macros

READ MORE: Install and set up Unreal Engine with Visual Studio.

When is C++ essential then?

C++ coding becomes essential when you’re dealing with specific use cases and the blueprints system is not sufficient anymore.

• Performance-Critical Applications

C++ provides direct memory management and system-level control that Blueprint scripting cannot match. For AAA games, VR experiences, or applications requiring 60+ FPS with complex systems, C++ often becomes necessary.

• Advanced Game Systems

While Blueprints excel at prototyping and standard gameplay, certain advanced features require C++ implementation:

• Custom rendering pipelines
• Specialized physics calculations
• Multi-threaded operations
• Platform-specific optimizations

• Professional Development

Most professional game studios expect C++ knowledge for Unreal Engine positions. Understanding both Blueprint and C++ makes you more versatile and employable in the game development industry.

• Custom Gameplay Mechanics

With C++, you can implement complex gameplay logic that goes beyond what is possible with Blueprints. This includes creating custom character controllers, AI behaviors, and game rules.

• Creating components and 3D environments

Components are the basic building blocks of Unreal Engine. Components can be used to create 3D environments, menus, and other user interface elements. These components can be exported to other platforms.

• Advanced AI Systems

Create sophisticated AI systems using C++ for behavior and decision-making processes for non-player characters (NPCs) and other game elements such as custom pathfinding algorithms, decision-making systems, and behavior trees.

• Create logic and integrate with scripts

Logic is the code that controls how players interact with each component. Scripts are a special type of code that is more visual. Using both C++ and scripting for Unreal  allows for seamless development in their games.

• Test and debug games

Testing and debugging games is an important part of the game development process. When you work with mechanics created using C++, verifying that component will most likely require C++ knowledge as well. Problems that can be debugged include crashes, missing textures, and incorrect game logic.

Blueprint vs C++ Performance Reality

When Performance Differences Matter

The performance gap between Blueprint and C++ varies significantly by use case:

• UI and Menu Systems: Minimal difference
• Simple Gameplay Logic: Negligible impact for most games
• Heavy Calculations: C++ shows clear advantages
• Frame-Critical Systems: C++ often necessary for consistent performance

Hybrid Approach Benefits

Most successful Unreal projects use both systems strategically. Learn more here.

• Blueprints for: UI, game flow, designer-friendly tweaking
• C++ for: Core systems, performance-critical code, complex algorithms

Highly Recommended for Unreal C++ 

If you do decide to code using C++ for Unreal Engine, you will most likely download Visual Studio, the official IDE of choice for developing C++ games in Unreal Engine. It provides an extensive list of navigations, refactoring, auto-suggestions and syntax highlighting for C++ development.

However, Visual Studio also caters to C/C# and unfortunately, the support and tooling for C++ may seem relatively weaker at first glance. Furthermore, Unreal Engine has bespoke coding elements and syntax. This may lead to frustrations when developing Unreal C++ games in the IDE because some basic navigations and features such as syntax highlighting may be unresponsive, or may be unavailable completely.

For these cases, it is highly recommended to install a supplementary plugin like Visual Assist which improves the overall IDE experience and replaces the frustrating elements with tailored features made for C++ Unreal Engine development. It makes the IDE features responsive and adds “understanding” so that basic features such as code highlighting, search, and auto-suggestions work properly.

The post Do I Need To Know C++ For Unreal Engine? The Updated 2025 Guide first appeared on Tomato Soup.

What Is Visual Studio?

Visual Studio 2022 is one of the most powerful and popular IDEs (Integrated Development Environments) among .Net and C++ developers. It can be used for the development of various types of software, including websites, web services, mobile, desktop, web apps, games, and so on.

Visual Studio provides many features that speed up and simplify the process of writing and testing code, including a code editor with IntelliSense and code refactoring, an integrated debugger that can work as a source-level and machine-level debugger, tools for creating the user interface, a code profiler, etc.

You can download the Visual Studio installer from the official website.

How To Use Visual Studio For C++?

C++ is a popular low-level, high-performance programming language that can be used to create many different types of applications. Visual Studio has all the tools you need to easily write C++ applications.

Visual Studio supports various versions of the standard for the C++ programming language and allows you to use all its modern features. With Visual Studio C++, you can perform classic Microsoft Windows desktop development or universal Windows applications for HoloLens, Surface Hub, PC, and Xbox development.

In addition, you can use Microsoft Visual C++ for Linux development, mobile, and game development.

What Are The Most Common Visual Studio C++ Pain Points?

Although Visual Studio offers many useful tools and is a great solution for C++ development, there are pain points that developers who use it occasionally run into.

Poor performance

While it is designed for C++, these projects can sometimes be extra complex and Visual Studio may struggle performance-wise. It would require more resources such as disk space and operating system memory. This is especially noticeable when working with large projects.

Long build time and slow compilation

The process of building projects takes a lot of time. The compilation is slow, which greatly complicates and slows down the process of finding and correcting bugs in the source code.

Stutters and freezes during coding

Sometimes there are cases where the machine freezes during coding, which leads to the need to reboot it. In this case, the programmers need to start over the unfinished work should they be unlucky enough to have forgotten to save.

Chaotic file organization

When working with C++ files in Visual Studio, you need to first create folders and files on the computer disk. Then you need to create a project in Visual Studio and add the already created files and folders to it. The project only lists the names and paths of files and folders that should already exist on your drive. This is different from how Visual Studio works with other programming languages and is awkward and confusing, especially on collaborative projects or complex solutions.

Understanding Complex C++ Language

C++ is a complex programming language that supports higher-order types, a standard library for CPU cache line sizing, dimensional analysis, and other functional paradigms. Even experienced C++ developers have to learn hidden features and discover new ways to optimize their development.

So, it’s time to solve the most common Visual Studio pain points.

What Are The Visual Studio Extensions Available In The Market?

Visual Studio Marketplace [1] provides a wide range of extensions to enhance the capabilities of Visual Studio. GitHub Extension for Visual Studio, CodeMaid, and Visual Assist are very popular among the developer community.

By making it simple to connect to and collaborate with your repositories on GitHub and GitHub Enterprise, GitHub Extension improves Visual Studio 2015 and Visual Studio 2017. It creates new repositories or clones existing ones to get working together.

Our C#, C++, F#, VB, PHP, PowerShell, R, JSON, XAML, XML, ASP, HTML, CSS, LESS, SCSS, JavaScript, and TypeScript coding may be cleaned up and made simpler with the help of the open source CodeMaid Visual Studio extension.

More extensions are available in the marketplace to enhance the capabilities of Visual Studio and improve productivity. However, Visual Assist provides solutions for most Visual Studio C++ pain points mentioned earlier. The following section will discuss it in detail.

The Pain Killer You Need – Visual Assist

Visual Assist is a productivity extension for Visual Studio that has many features for refactoring, quick navigation, code generation, and much more. It provides tools for the automatic detection and correction of errors in the code, automatic understanding, and completion of the code, syntax highlighting, and improved debugging functions. Using Visual Assist greatly simplifies the process of coding in Visual Studio C++ and increases development productivity.

Advantages of Using Whole Tomato –  Visual Assist

Let’s list the main benefits of using Whole Tomato Visual Assist.

Increase Your Productivity

Visual Assist offers advanced navigation features that let you quickly go to any file, method, reference, or code symbol in your projects or solutions. You can also automate code refactoring activities. Advanced features of automatic code generation make the process of writing code as fast as possible, which significantly increases development productivity.

Fast & Responsive Tooling

All Visual Assist commands and tools are responsive and work quickly, which allows you to use them even when working with large and complex projects.

Helps Optimize Workflows

With Visual Assist tools that make code generation and debugging easier, you can optimize and streamline your project workflows.

Adds Support (Fills Gaps)

If you have any problems with Visual Assist, you can use our knowledge base or search for a solution to your problem in the forum. In addition, there is technical support where you can get answers to all questions about working with the Visual Assist extension.

Everything Becomes Customizable

You can fully customize Visual Assist to your liking. This includes customizing colors and shortcuts.

Final Verdict

Visual Assist is the best extension for Visual Studio C++ development, which has numerous advantages and makes the coding process quick and easy. Give Whole Tomato a spin. Sign up for free.

FAQ

Which Visual Studio is Best for C++?

Visual Studio is a widely used IDE that is excellent for development in C++ and supports various standards of this programming language. Another popular Microsoft product used for C++ coding is Visual Studio Code. It is an open-source, cross-platform code editor that offers “Microsoft C/C++” extensions for C++ programming.

How do I Find Build Errors in Visual Studio?

To find build errors in Visual Studio you should choose View -> Error list or use the shortcut Ctrl+\, E. In addition to errors, you can also view a list of warnings and other messages.

How do I Resolve to Build Errors in Visual Studio?

Select the error message in Visual Studio and press F1. Visual Studio will open the documentation page for this error, where you can find workarounds.

[1] https://marketplace.visualstudio.com/

The post Solving The Most Common Visual Studio C++ Pain Points first appeared on Tomato Soup.

Games can suffer from technical issues, poor performance, and negative player experiences without proper QA testing. This can lead to a loss of player engagement and damage the game’s reputation. QA testing helps identify improvement areas and ensure that the game meets industry standards and player expectations. Let’s check out what is QA testing phase in game development.

What Is QA Testing Process?

QA (Quality Assurance) testing is a process that involves evaluating the software product or application to identify defects, bugs, and other issues. This helps us resolve application functionality, performance, and user experience issues. The game software testing process typically consists of the following steps:

Test Planning

This involves defining the scope of testing, identifying the types of tests to be performed, and creating a detailed test plan.

Test Design

This involves writing test cases, creating test data, and setting up the test environment.

Note that QA testing is integral to the software development life cycle.

Test Execution

This involves running the tests and collecting test results.

Defect Reporting

This involves identifying any defects, bugs, or issues found during testing and reporting them to the development team for resolution.

Defect Resolution

This involves fixing the defects and retesting to ensure that the problem has been resolved.

Test Closure

This involves documenting the test results of software quality and finalizing the testing process.

QA testing can be iterative, with several rounds of testing, defect reporting, and resolution until the product meets the requirements. The process also involves continuous monitoring and reporting to ensure that the project is on track and that any issues are addressed promptly.

Some most common types of QA testing are:

• unit testing
• usability testing
• regression testing
• load testing
• white box testing

What Is The Difference Between A QA Tester & A Developer?

A QA (Quality Assurance) tester and a developer are critical software development team members, but they have different roles and responsibilities.

A QA tester is responsible for evaluating the software product or application to identify defects impacting its performance. The QA tester writes test cases, executes tests, and reports defects to the development team. Their goal is to ensure that the final product meets the required standards for quality and reliability.

On the other hand, a developer is responsible for writing the code that creates the software product or application. The developer works closely with the design team to understand the requirements and implement the necessary features and functions. The developer also works with the QA team to resolve any defects or bugs that are found during testing.

Example: What Would An Unreal Game Development Project Look Like Without QA Testing?

Unreal game development in Visual Studio can use C++ or other programming languages to create games using the Unreal Engine. We can divide the process of developing a game with Unreal Engine in Visual Studio into several stages, including planning, design, implementation, and deployment. Let’s check out what it would look like with and without QA testing.

Scenario Without QA Testing

The development team creates the game using Unreal Engine and Visual Studio based on the design specifications and requirements.

Once the game is complete, the team moves straight to deployment without thoroughly testing it for defects and bugs.

As a result, the game may contain critical flaws that can negatively impact its functionality, performance, and user experience.

We can discover these issues once the game is released to users, leading to frustrated customers and wasted resources

Scenario With QA Testing

With QA testing, the Unreal game development process in Visual Studio would look like this:

The development team creates the game using the Unreal Engine and Visual Studio, following a thorough and detailed test plan

The game is then subjected to various types of QA tests, such as functional testing, performance testing, and security testing

The QA team identifies and reports any defects or bugs they find, and the development team works to fix them

We repeat the process until the game meets the required standards for quality and reliability

Then, we deploy the final game to users with confidence that it will perform as expected and provide a positive user experience.

Choosing QA Tools: Visual Assist For Game Development

Visual Assist is a popular Visual Studio extension for game development, known for its code generation and productivity features.

Here are some reasons why you may choose Visual Assist for game development:

1. It quickly generates and maintains code, reducing the time and effort required to develop games.
2. Visual Assist provides enhanced code navigation features that make it easier for developers to find and understand code.
3. It provides code analysis features that help developers identify and resolve errors and warnings in their code.
4. Visual Assist increases developer productivity by automating repetitive tasks, reducing the time and effort required to complete tasks.
5. It is compatible with a wide range of game development tools and platforms, making it an ideal choice for game developers who work with different technologies.

Best Tools For QA Testing

There are other tools that QA professionals prefer for QA testing & quality control. Some of them are:

• TestRail
• Selenium
• Jira
• Postman

However, QA testers mostly prefer TestRail for QA testing procedures. Let’s check this tool.

TestRail

TestRail is one of the best testing tools due to its features and user-friendly interface. Some reasons for this test automation tool’s popularity include the following:

Test case management

TestRail provides a centralized repository for storing and organizing test cases in the software testing life cycle. This feature makes it easier for teams to manage and track their testing efforts.

Collaboration

TestRail allows teams to collaborate and communicate effectively by providing tools for discussion, assigning tasks, and tracking progress.

Reporting and tracking

TestRail provides detailed reports and graphs that give teams insight into the progress of their testing efforts. It can help us identify areas for improvement.

Customization

TestRail is highly customizable, allowing teams to tailor the tool to their specific needs and processes.

Integration

TestRail integrates with other tools, such as Jira, Jenkins, and Selenium, making it easier for teams to manage their testing activities.

TestRail is a comprehensive tool that helps teams streamline their testing processes and improve their QA testing efforts.

Final Thoughts

We must realize the importance of QA testing for our game development. The reason is that it can give us high-quality games for our users. Moreover, we must use reliable tools for development and testing processes. For example, Visual Studio and TestRail are the most popular these days. These tools can help us achieve the desired game without affecting the quality.

FAQs

What Benefits Does QA Testing Provide?

It helps us ensure that our software gives the highest possible quality to the users—saving costs on expensive fixes down the road.

Is Being A QA Tester A Viable Profession?

Yes. As it is an industry with growing demand, it is a good and well-paying job.

Is QA Testing Easy To Learn?

QA testing is an interesting and easy process when you do it with the right mindset and with the right tools.

What Is QA vs. Qc vs. Testing?

QA testing refers to the process that ensures the achievement of the quality requested. While QC refers to fulfilling the quality requested.

Sign Up for free to test your game development process and release high-quality games.

The post Why Is QA Testing Essential? first appeared on Tomato Soup.

In this article, we will talk about the main problems that programmers and managers face during the software development process and how Visual Assist and TFS Tool – TestRail Integration can help solve these problems.

What are Common Visual Studio C++ Pain Points?

Visual Studio is one of the most popular IDEs (Integrated Development Environments) used by C++ developers. It provides many powerful and useful features for efficient development. However, there are certain challenges faced by programmers using Visual Studio.

• Slow operation and high volume of requested resources when using Intellisense in large projects.
• Difficult to navigate, especially for beginners.
• Complex debugging process.
• The process of finding errors can be quite complex.
• The code snippet feature is poor, it needs to be updated and improved.
• There is a need for additional functions for automatic code generation.

What are the Difficulties in Project Management?

In addition to good development tools, it is also important to manage and test team projects effectively. Let’s list the difficulties that arise in the project management process.

• Unclear business goals and lack of detail in scenarios result in a lot of responsibility for testers to define requirements.
• The need for automation of the testing process.
• The need to reduce the quality control time of new releases.
• Performing testing in a shorter period of time.
• The need to reduce errors in production.
• Tracking the test execution process.
• Increasing the efficiency of the team.
• The need for a clear division of roles and tasks in the team.
• Improvement of cooperation in the middle of the team.
• Increasing deployment frequency.

What is Visual Assist for Visual Studio?

Visual Assist is a productivity extension for Visual Studio development work. It provides a set of intelligent refactoring, navigation, code highlighting, automatic code generation, corrections, and understanding features for C, C++, and C# development. With its highly-efficient memory management and minimal UI, Visual Assist gives developers uninterrupted access to advanced features without slowing down the IDE.

Visual Assist is one of the definitive plugins that conceptualized and shaped most of the current features you see now in Visual Studio. And to this day it continues to develop a user-centric design for maximum productivity and usability.

What are the Benefits of Using Visual Assist?

• A very lightweight solution – minimal UI and intuitive but sparse pop-up menus only when you need them.
• Fully customizable – syntax highlighting, keyboard/mouse shortcuts,
• Advanced navigation features.
• Easy to use. A lot of our users work with very large source codes (and C++ syntax is inherently verbose). Visual Assist decreases the number of steps to perform different actions (open files, find files, find related symbols, classes, etc).
• High-performance coding assistant – Visual Assist’s performance is very fast compared to competitors (eg. parsing and loading time on large code bases).
• Smart – VA is updated to be aware of the most modern coding standards (LLVM/Clang) so users don’t have to study new practices/standards themselves as much.

What is TFS Tool & TestRail Integration?

Microsoft TFS is a popular project management software that includes a lot of tools to simplify the development and testing process and collaboration between team members. Among them are an issue-tracking system, a centralized version control system, a build server, a team portal, and so on. You should sign in via your Microsoft account to start using TFS.

TestRail is a modern centralized test management system, which allows you to combine information about automatic and manual testing in one place. In addition, it provides many features including:

• Ability to create test plans and track progress in their execution.
• Monitor test coverage and traceability.
• Ability to create test cases.
• Running automatic tests and viewing the results of their execution.
• Creating reports.
• And much more.

TestRail provides the ability to integrate with dozens of third-party software, including TFS. Using TFS Tool – TestRail Integration you can easily manage all test cases and test plans in your team project, run tests, add bug reports to TFS and link issue IDs, and track test results, activity, and progress.

TestRail is great for any team project, regardless of the workflow, development method you use, and team size.

Conclusion

In this article, we talked about the main problems faced by programmers, testers, and managers in the software development process. Also, we talked about modern tools that make it easy to solve these problems. The popular and powerful extension Visual Assist for Visual Studio provides many useful features that greatly simplify and speed up the process of writing, testing, and debugging code in Visual Studio. TFS provides tools for project management, and the integration of TFS & TestRail allows you to conveniently view and manage all the tests that are in the project.

Looking for the best test management solution for your project? Try a free 14-day TestRail trial and make sure it’s the best choice.

FAQ

What is the TFS tool?

TFS (Team Foundation Server) is an ALM (Application Lifecycle Management) tool that allows you to manage the complete life cycle of software development, including requirements gathering, development, and testing.

What is TFS and Jira?

TFS is a project management tool that provides many useful functions such as issue tracking, source control, automatic builds, build server, team portal, and so on. Jira is a simple issue-tracking tool that can integrate with other tools to expand functionality.

Is TFS a DevOps tool?

TFS has been renamed to Azure DevOps Server. It provides project management, source code management, build management, reporting, testing, and release management capabilities.

What is TFS server used for?

TFS server is used as a team foundation version control system that allows you to manage all source files and maintain different versions of the source code. In addition, it provides you the ability to track work items, save documents on a special project portal, and do many other actions related to software management, development, and testing.

Is TFS the same as Git?

TFS has a built-in GIT server that can perform almost all the functions that standard Git has.

The post Solving Common Visual Studio C++ Problems With Visual Assist, TFS Tool & TestRail Integration first appeared on Tomato Soup.