Hi, I am new to Unreal engine. I downloaded the “Automotive Materials” from the marketplace(From:Free->Materials), and stored it as a project in C:/Users/Documents/Unreal Projects. When I tried to open it in unreal editor, the computer crashed when the loading process reached 94%. I couldn’t even open the task manager. After rebooting the computer, I opened the project again and discovered that the ram was close to totally occupied when the computer crashed again.
Is there a way, other than upgrading the ram, to solve this problem? Actually I just want to use the materials inside it. Could anyone help me? I would appreciate it very much.
(Windows 7
Intel i5-3470s 2.90GHz
Ram: 8GB)
In UE4, the materials are stored as .uasset files. You can literally copy and paste these .uasset files in the file explorer to other UE4 projects, and this should work. Just make sure UE4 is closed when doing this.
In the case of your crashing. I need some more information to help you out. Is UE4 crashing when loading? Or is the whole computer just freezing up? Do you get a UE4 crash screen? Do you get any error messages? Your 8GB of RAM should be good enough, as I have no issues on my laptop using 8GB of ram. What kind of GPU do you have? If this is a laptop, is your laptop plugged in and power settings at high performance? Are you able to run other Unreal Engine projects?
Thank you for answering.
I have tried copying and pasting the uasset to another project(inside its Folder/Content/Material)I created earlier when UE4 editor was closed. But when I tried to use it in the engine, it turned transparent and did nothing. I doubled-clicked it to open the material editor to closely check it and it was still the same. Did I forget to do something?
As to that crashing issue, yes the computer freezed up, even the clock crashed a little bit (freezed->resume->freezed again). No error message. I am using a desktop computer with AMD Radeon HD 7400 Series. The power setting is already at high performance. I have checked this before and it still crashed even so.
I have downloaded all the free content made by EP. Most of them runs fine at around 7 fps (not a powerful computer 
) when the engine scalability is set to High (Project like: Elemental Demo, Soul City & Cave, Epic Zen Garden, Composure Framework, Particle Effect, Matinee etc). I can even open the paragon map without major crashes(the clock works fine) in the loading process, though it took me around 30 minutes. So I am guessing projects like the one I mentioned above just have too much quality detail for my computer to even open it. Maybe If I let it run for a whole day, those projects can finally be opened. But is there a faster way, other than upgrading the hardware, to do so? and, could you thoroughly explain how to transfer and use the content in another project without having to open the one the content is in?
I’m afraid that your GPU is likely the culprit here. Unreal Engine is very demanding and puts a heavy load on your hardware. You’re issues are most likely hardware related and you’d need to upgrade your GPU. I’m going to go as far as saying that the materials in that pack aren’t loading in properly (or quickly enough) because of your hardware. 7 FPS is not running fine, that’s terribly slow.
If you change your scale-ability settings to low, you might have more success but I’m not certain if it will help when the project is loading.
As far as transferring the uassets, you go to the content folder and find where the assets are in file explorer. You copy the ones you want, then paste them into the content folder of the new project. When copying to a new project through explorer, sometimes the assets can lose references. But in the case of these materials, there shouldn’t be any references. The recommended way to move assets into another project is by using the migration tool in engine. See the link below:
Of course you need the project open however. Long story short, you need to upgrade your GPU to get better performance. However I think you may be able to open the project eventually if you left it on for a while after it “freezes”. Sometimes loading will freeze your computer for a while but it’s still running.
Thx again. I think I have a clearer picture of the problem now. Guess I need to upgrade the gpu after all. Just one more question, I checked my windows experience index, which are:
Processor: 7.5
Memory(RAM): 7.7
Graphics: 4.6
Gaming graphics: 6.2
Primary hard disk: 5.9
Base score: 4.6
I am not very familiar with this kind of things, as I just started using UE4 recently. After reading your answer, I figure this is the right place to check(or is it though?). If I change the GPU to a better one, would it suffice to run high quality content in UE4? Excuse my probably stupid question, but what score is needed(or how high the quality should the hardware have) to achieve running smoothly in UE4? What should one using game engine and 3D modeling software care the most about their hardware? What graphic card should I buy? What other hardware I can invest on to improve game development performance? and I know there isn’t a simple answer to this, but could you give me some practical advice? As I have little to no experience, I am afraid I would bought something I don’t need.
Much appreciated! 
Ok. I will read through those pages and start the searching and learning. The links and your advice reall helps. I am now much more confident in what I am doing, which saved me a lot of time.
Thanks again!
So this is quite a big question, but I’ll try and answer it in a way that allows you to further educate yourself. I wouldn’t say the the Windows Experience score is going to give you a good idea of what’s happening. If you’re not experienced with PC parts, I would be very careful because a part you buy may not be compatible with your other parts, namely your motherboard. The website below can help with that, and has a dedicated forum if you need help.
In terms of picking a GPU, I would at least pick Mid-Range market cards, but you can get away with some lower tier cards, but it’ll be hit and miss with UE4 depending on the card. This Reddit post below explains GPU hierarchy well and will educate you on GPUs. Feel free to ask questions there as well:
Also for reference staff have noted in the past some high end equipment seen below:
They recommend 32 GB of RAM…that’s probably excessive, you can get away with 8 GB but I’d recommend 12-16 GB for a better experience. Also that same build isn’t quite as expensive as it used to be.
Hopefully this all puts you on the right track!