Best computer for game development

Good advice.
I approve.

 

Only thing I wanttkreond to you on us the inverted mouse. It's way better, feels much more natural. Also you can change your mouse settings to be 2 button and normal scrolling. I've used a pc for 95% of my life and still use them day to day at college when we aren't in the mac rooms both are good stable work stations and I think you've just had some bad luck

 

*Buys Dell laptop, runs about the same as most Macbooks encountered, pays a bomb less*

 

I don't understand why mac is so essential for Unity3D DEVELOPMENT? Wouldn't it make sense to simply buy a cheap MAC and make the builds on that computer?

The OP also stated he required 3DS Max, which IIRC requires Windows OS. Sure you could go Bootcamp, but you have to juggle that with low support from Apple, and what I assume is low driver support. There is also the point that unless you are buying a Mac Pro (3k starting AUD) You'll have to buy an entire new computer when it is time to upgrade, which is an important part of staying up to date as a developer.

I built my computer for early last year for around $1.2K AUD, mostly with parts from MSY and PCCG (Australian), and it runs everything I need perfectly. It maxes out games like Far Cry 3 and allows me to effortlessly develop with Unity. I can't really give you any advice on what is best for 3d Modelling, as I don't do much of that myself but I am sure it would do that perfectly as well.

tl;dr, buy a basic mac for IOS Development and buy a desktop PC for development

 

kerafrym, that's what some people suggest and is a perfectly viable option. The reason Macs are suggested is mostly because Unity runs much better on a Mac than a Windows machine. It was originally only for OS X and was that way for over half of its release life. The Windows editor didn't come until 2.5.

 

Could you elaborate on that? In what way does it run much better exactly?

 

First off, it doesn't crash nearly as much.

 

It's not anything but practicality. You can get far faster, superior PC's for a fraction of the price (1/3-1/2), and spend an extra 2-3 minutes to build the iOS/OSX test versions on a $200-300 used Mac (you should be doing external backups anyway, in which case the Mac can have easy access to them either on a server or external drives depending on your situation). There are no real advantages to going for a Mac for game development with this option available, while going for a PC allows more options, a tiny cost in comparison, and better specs. It's the plain facts, but some people are very into the whole "Apple" brand name sort of like Uggs shoes.

I absolutely agree with this statement.

 

There's nothing you're missing, it's just marketing .

Sounds like an issue with your computers, because Unity does not crash on me, and I've used it with Windows 7 for years, and now Windows 8. I've only had the occasional, caused-by-me-or-a-Unity-addon, crash, which would happen regardless of OS. As far as running better, if all else is equal cost-wise, the PC is going to give you a much higher-specced machine that will offer superior performance.

 

Whilst im not exactly one of the more advanced users really pushing unity to its full potential. I'm running unity on windows, and its one of the smoothest game engine experiences Ive ever encountered. The only slightly jarring aspect of it, is how it has to load up mono develop to code.

 

Visual Studio is a compelling argument for Windows, as well . By far and away the best IDE in my opinion today, and it has been for years.

 

MonoDevelop is just as bad on a Mac . To be fair, I have not tested Unity 4 on a windows machine.

 

I haven't experienced a single crash since 3.5 (yeah, 3.4 had weird random crash troubles), unless it's been caused by something very stupid on my end (infinite loops and such).

But are there any specific things that are confirmed to be performing better on a mac?

 

Well you've never been to a Google IO or other big developer conference, where you see a river of MacBooks (Pro/Airs) because Mac are made to code out of box, comes with Terminal , SSH, Ruby, Python, Java, C, C++, Objective-C, Parl and so on and on!

When I coded on PC I had to install everything

Plus you know Google ban the PC's running Widows, Linux is OK

 

No idea. In my experience Unity just crashed a lot more in the Windows partition on my Mac's hard drive (which has since beet removed). It probably hasn't been since the earlier 3.X release cycle that I have used Windows on my machine.

 

I just googled how to set it up with visual studio. I didn't realise it actually worked that easily, I assumed to get it to work right id have to get something of the asset store or something. Thanks for that!

 

That makes no sense. With people are not subjected to money, why wouldn't you get the best looking laptop for portable coding? It is no secret that macs have amazing brand presence, and most of the time have amazing build quality.

For me, I'd rather save a few hundred dollars and spend five minutes installing some applications.
also with a PC you get the option to run Linux perfectly.

 

They're the designer handbags of the computer world.

 

why not taking ASUS N75 ultrabook? If im not mistaken its around 1000 euro... which thats something like... 700-800 dollars. it has everything you need to run it smooth + 1TB space.

Have a look at it.

 

One Australian dollar is around four fifths of a euro. That would make the Ultrabook $1267.36 AUD, not $700-800.

 

Every new PC I've used also has this 'natural' scrolling. I prefer it, but you can always disable it on either.

 

I think you can install the latest and you do so without breaking any rules.