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Laptop to use for Unity Development

Discussion in 'General Discussion' started by yeokianhwee, Dec 24, 2018.

  1. yeokianhwee

    yeokianhwee

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    I learnt about Unity about 2 weeks ago from a friend. Currently going through the 2D Game kit on my company laptop with the following spec.
    upload_2018-12-24_20-6-56.png

    upload_2018-12-24_20-7-18.png


    I have a mid 2011 Macbook Air, almost 7 years old which I might getting a new one soon. Like to ask you guy for opinion what are the spec I should be look out for when buying the new laptop for Unity(or any game development) ? upload_2018-12-24_20-6-56.png upload_2018-12-24_20-7-18.png upload_2018-12-24_20-6-56.png upload_2018-12-24_20-7-18.png
     
  2. yeokianhwee

    yeokianhwee

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    Sorry for the multiple image, I only attached once, not sure why it appear so many time.
     
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  4. Ryiah

    Ryiah

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    System requirements, at least beyond the minimum required to start Unity, are very much dependent on what you want to create and we're not talking about a small range of devices here. It's entirely possible for a simple game to be made on a several year old laptop while another game requires the best hardware available.

    My recommendation, since you haven't told us what you want to make, is to just try making your game with your current laptop and if you run into performance problems trying to make it upgrade your hardware then.
     
    angrypenguin and Kiwasi like this.
  5. yeokianhwee

    yeokianhwee

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    Thanks for all the suggestion. I will try 2D game for now and monitor from there.
     
  6. BlankDeedxxAldenHilcrest

    BlankDeedxxAldenHilcrest

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    Just get a good one? I've been using the same Asus for 7 years and it will still dominate your PC.
     
    yeokianhwee likes this.
  7. voltage

    voltage

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    If you're sticking to mac, I'd highly advise you to nab 16gb ram bare minimum. Not that 2d dev necessarily needs it, more so the soldering issues that occur on their motherboards. Eventually you may want to try your hand at 3d modeling and 8gb ram is too sluggish for this imo.
     
  8. yeokianhwee

    yeokianhwee

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    I am having some dilemma on this too. I would prefer to purchase another Mac, but the recent release of Mac(Macbook/Macbook Air/Macbook Pro) does not seems like good quality laptop that provide stability.

    I can accept paying premium for laptop but cannot accept laptop that is likely not workable because the time needed to fix a non-working laptop is a big waste of time.
     
  9. hippocoder

    hippocoder

    Digital Ape

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    Get a red one or something.
     
    voltage, xVergilx and Lurking-Ninja like this.
  10. yeokianhwee

    yeokianhwee

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    What do you means by red one? Red Macbook?
     
  11. I told at my workplace that I want a pink macbook, I'm confident in my manhood. They gave me a boring grey one. :(

    BTW, if you're a coder, do not buy new MacBook Pro. :( The keyboard is an abomination. It's so bad that I can't even describe. It's mushy and shaky and it's a light-year worse than the old MacBook Pro keyboard. Not to mention that my "o" key gone wrong after 6 months (that's why I'm getting a replacement).
     
  12. yeokianhwee

    yeokianhwee

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    If there is a choice, I like my laptop in yellow.
     
  13. yoonitee

    yoonitee

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    Well they are better spec than the laptop I work on (Core i3 7th Gen). So you can use that. Maybe not for making triple-A games though. See what games will run on your laptop.
     
  14. voltage

    voltage

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    The new Macs do seem like S***e quality control/port wise. That's why Im typing to you on my new Macbook Pro 2015 off ebay. 700 USD for 16 gig ram, 256 ssd and a 188 battery cycle count. The deals are not so bad if you hunt for them.
     
    Last edited: Dec 28, 2018
  15. yeokianhwee

    yeokianhwee

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    Let's hope the next release won't be so disappointing...
     
  16. yoonitee

    yoonitee

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    I mean the obvious answer to this is: "Don't use a laptop get a desktop".
    Not sure if it is still the case today, but you get more bang for your buck with a desktop.
     
  17. Ryiah

    Ryiah

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    That said commuting with a desktop is a great deal harder than it is with a laptop.
     
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  18. Murgilod

    Murgilod

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    Also desktops have a considerably higher physical footprint than laptops
     
    angrypenguin likes this.
  19. angrypenguin

    angrypenguin

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    Yeah... "get a desktop" was perfectly good gaming / game dev advice a decade ago, but not really today. Even back then, for the programming part a laptop was still highly useful if you had reason to work on the go.

    Very much this. We don't know what you're making past "2D", so any recommendation we made would be based on guesses, and you don't want that. Being 2D it's entirely possible that your current hardware will be fine. And, as with anything you do in an attempt to increase performance, you really ought to figure out where the problems are before you spend resources attempting to improve things.

    If you find that working on your game isn't as smooth as you'd like on your hardware, before you buy something make a new thread about the specific issue and see what people say. While a general upgrade will improve many things, there are also some things that it will make little or no practical difference to, which might need to be improved in some other way, or which you need to address with a specific upgrade.
     
    MadeFromPolygons likes this.
  20. afianydina

    afianydina

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    best specifications for game development
     
  21. Zyche

    Zyche

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    Hey Community,

    I am currently looking for a laptop on which I can work with the following programs: Unity 2018 (2D&3D game develoment), Blender, Visual Studio, maybe Premiere and Photoshop and for some rounds of LoL.

    I searched in 3 price ranges; up to 500, 750 and 1000€ and i found this:
    https://geizhals.de/?cmp=1839996&cmp=1831335&cmp=1920406

    Which of them can you recommend me? (i know there is no OS in it)
     
  22. MadeFromPolygons

    MadeFromPolygons

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    If you get an ETX form factor case, its so big you can strap it to your back and use it as a home away from home like a human hermit crab.

    In that case, you're never really commuting as your always at home.

    I think we can all agree this is the best option for OP.

    (joking, also on point; the laptop doesnt really matter as unity can be run well on tons of stuff. I used to use it on a 1.3ghz 3 in 1 asus tablet/mini laptop and it ran perfectly fine for most tasks).
     
    Ryiah likes this.