System requirements needed for unity3d to work on PC

I'm new to the unity forum. So I don't know whether its the right place to post this thread. Please forgive me if its posted in the wrong place. So I will come to the matter.

I have posted this question on Unity Answers. But I haven't got any satisfactory answer to my question. The question is whether my Laptop with current configuration supports the development of games using Unity. I want to know whether the graphics card in my system support development in Unity. My Laptop configuration is :

Processor: First Generation core i5-460M with 2.5 GHz Clock Speed.
Ram: Currently I have 3 GB (Can be upgraded if needed)
HDD: 1TB.
Graphics Card: Integrated Intel HD Graphics Card. (I didn't know the version of Intel HD Graphics)

WIll the unity3d work on my Laptop in the current system configuration? If more RAM is needed then I can upgrade it. But I have to make sure that upgrading the RAM will make Unity3d work without any problems in my Current intel HD graphics, because Graphics cannot be upgraded. So if upgrading the Ram doesnot give any improvement, then whether I should buy a new Laptop with new configurations? Thanks in advance.

 

The beauty of Unity is that they got a wonderful, free version with most of the bells and whistles Why not simply install, run and play with it to see if it meets your requirements?

Low system specifications will always limit what you can do, same way a weak car can't compete against a sports car in some races. If you want to learn how to make cutting edge games with the latest graphics... then a new computer will be needed but if you are completely new to game development then, there is a ton of things to learn before you reach that level of quality and your laptop might be sufficient for the moment until you get more advanced

The only thing I worry the most about is the integrated graphics... that might cause some pain but installing a free Unity version can answer that for you.

 

I

Currently I'm planning for unity free version only.

 

I'm working as trainee game developer. And need to study well unity using my laptop initially. After learning well, I could use my laptop for my official purposes. So for that I need to have unity able to work in my laptop without a problem.

 

Use GPU-Z to identify your integrated graphics. If it says something involving "GMA" or HD3000, you probably should look into upgrading to a newer laptop. Anything with HD4000 will be fine though (that's what my main work computer has - the R9 290 is for gaming).

If the GPU is passable, you'd be fine with 8GB RAM and a 64-bit OS.

 

You have the first in the Intel HD series (fifth generation Intel graphics). It supports DirectX 10 and OpenGL 2.1. To give you an idea of age, Intel GMA is third and fourth generation, @orb is using seventh generation (Intel HD 4xxx with early 5xxx), and we are currently up to eighth generation (remainder of 5xxx and early 6xxx).

Speed is difficult to determine as no one really bothers benchmarking Intel GPUs. Your best bet is to simply try it out and see what happens.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Intel_graphics_processing_units#Fifth_generation

 

I got an Intel HD3000 and I'm doing terrific on Unity 5 lol.
Got over 1 million polygons of interior building, all the fancy bells and whistles and I'm still in the hundreds of frames per second.

I actually think the Unity 5 is so much better than 4 with proficiency, it shames the 4X series lol.


[Edit]
my Computer is actually worse than his and I'm doing fine.

 

Your computer may have a slower processor but his graphics hardware is considerably weaker than yours. He is running the original Intel HD series (aka Intel HD 1000) and that is going to limit him far more than your processor would limit you.

If I had a choice between his computer hardware and yours, I would take yours any day. I've had to work with budget hardware (both CPU and GPU) and the graphics card almost always held me back more.

I stated earlier that no one really benchmarks Intel graphics, but the Intel Iris (aka HD 5000) series has been reviewed and found to be approximately twice as fast. If performance holds up similarly, which I doubt, then your GPU should be four times as fast as his.

http://www.anandtech.com/show/6993/intel-iris-pro-5200-graphics-review-core-i74950hq-tested/16

 

So you are saying that upgrading RAM does not solve my problem actually. Then I should buy a new laptop instead of upgrading RAM.

 

Yes, that's what they say.
I don't know if this is true for 2D games, but for 3D it is clearly true.
And you need to buy a desktop, because a laptop will always be crippled for game development.
I once did a lightmapping for a small terrain on a i7 dual core with GT635M 8GB RAM laptop and it took me 24 hours.

 

Fast laptop CPUs exist too

 

Yeah I've seen some Laptops that would smoke 90% of peoples computers lol.