How good can you use/work with Unity on a MacBook Pro?

Hi there,
at the moment I'm using a iMac Pro 2017 8-core 3.2 GHz with 64GB 2666MHz and a Vega64 16GB.

But I'm thinking about a switch to a 13" or 16" (maybe a 15" from last year) MacBook Pro with 32GB RAM and an eGPU for 3D intensive stuff. And for sure, a big display for working at home.

I know that the latest 16" MacBook Pro has a faster single-core flow, but much badder multi-core and the SSD in the iMac Pro reaches over 5.000 read-speed. I think the MacBook Pro is around 3.000 (?)

I like the idea that I can work on any place, not only my desk. With a MacBook I could use another room or work from another house or whatever.

BTW: Yes, it has to be a Mac, because of all the other stuff I'm using,

My question is: Does anyone here work with a MacBook Pro (13"/15"/16")? How well does it work?

Thank you

 

I do my development on my PC Gaming laptop, but I also have a MacBook which I occasionally use for Unity. The main issue with a MacBook is that it basically overheats after 5-10 minutes, and throttles everything. I've never seen MacBook not behave this way when the GPU is working hard. It's pretty frustrating. If I were forced to use a MacBook for Unity dev for the long term, I would definitely buy some kind of cooling platform (if that even works) to keep the temps down. I think otherwise MacBooks should be fine. But that overheating is brutal. I'm not aware of any improvements on that issue in recent years, but who knows.

 

I switch frequently between a Windows desktop and a 13" MacBook Pro for Unity (no eGPU). The project I'm working on currently is not super graphics intensive, so I can't really comment on that aspect, and it works completely fine. The biggest issue is probably the lack of screen real estate. It can be somewhat sluggish switching back and forth between Visual Studio and Unity compared to my beefy desktop.

Visual Studio for Mac also has some quirks which I find highly annoying:

• You can't create a class with a name. The new class is always called "NewClass". You can create a class with a name from within Unity, but this often dumps it directly into the root "Assets" folder, so it then needs to be moved...
• When you rename a class, it does not automatically rename the file too. So renaming a class is always a two-step process
• It seems to have a bug where sometimes when opening a file it will not accept any input, and the file needs to be closed and opened again.
• It seems more prone than VS on Windows to lose Intellisense, which I have to restart to get back.

Despite all of this, the portability is great and lets me get a lot of work done on the couch next to the wife. I'd say about half of my Unity work is done on the MacBook and half on my Windows desktop. Occasionally I'm working on a problem that is much easier to figure out when I can see the game window and the scene window at the same time, and this is frankly pretty much impossible to do on the MacBook. When that happens I pull out the big guns. But this is rare.

 

Oh, that sounds not so cool. Can you tell me which MacBook you've got?

 

Sounds good, can you tell me something about the speed of Unity at your MacBook in comparison to your desktop PC? And would you say that if you could switch to a 15" or 16" MacBook Pro you would do it or would you say 13" is the perfect size to work on a couch?

BTW: Are you working on a 2D or 3D project?

 

My desktop is significantly faster. In the project I'm currently working on, my desktop gets around ~300 FPS vs. around ~90 FPS on the macbook. But we're talking about a GTX 1080 on the desktop vs integrated graphics on the macbook. Occasionally I will do something that tips the macbook under 60FPS and I have to go optimize it.

I'm working on a 3D project, but I don't think it's particularly demanding graphics-wise. I'm using voxel models I made and imported from MagicaVoxel, which can actually be pretty high in the vertex/triangle count (2000-5000), but I only have around 5 of them on screen at a time in the worst case. Other than that there are usually 10 or so simple polygonal shapes (cubes, icosahedrons etc) and around 100 textured quads, and a whole bunch of UI. I do make use of multiple cameras and render textures as well.

I kind of keep it as a goal for my game to run at 60+FPS on the macbook. My desktop is overpowered, and I want my game to be runnable on integrated graphics when I release it. So I kind of think of the macbook as a decent benchmark for that (although as far as integrated chips go, Iris 655 is on the higher end).

I would absolutely not want anything larger than 13" as I consider it the perfect size for working on the couch, my bed, anywhere. 15" is downright bulky. This comes down to personal preference though of course.

 

I'm using a standard config 16" MBP, mainly for any specific programming tasks that I can either do on the couch, or on commutes.

It does tend to heat- and spin up when using Unity in general, when running a game this is especially the case. Which is the main reason why I wouldn't use it as a daily driver for development, even at a desk. I can do 1 hour of programming, switching back and forth to Unity and only 10% of the battery would be spent. Coming off a bulky plastic gaming laptop that sounds like a vacuum and dies after 45 minutes of use, it's a world of difference.

I can't say much about any 3D graphical development, mainly because I use my desktop for this, since I need a mouse and 2nd monitor to be efficient. I definitely agree with the points @PraetorBlue makes about VS on Mac. I've gotten used to them, but was surprised there were so many small difference in VS between Windows and MacOS.

I was strongly considering a 13" size, but went with 16" due to increased battery capacity and power (also because there was no new 13" yet). So far, the larger size hasn't bothered me

 

The fans can be heard continuously and not too quietly. Correct?

In addition, the performance is sufficient for simple things, but for complex things the device quickly reaches its limits and you would have to switch to an eGPU, which would mean even more background noise.

Is that really summarized?

So would you rather advise me to stay with the iMac Pro instead of switching to a MacBook with an additional monitor and eGPU?