Hardware for Unity (for developing)

Unity Engine
1

Hi,
I’ve decided to embark on “Unity” journey. I want to upgrade my PC and have a couple of questions.
My rig, on which I’ll be doing all the work, as it stands now:
i7 860 2.8GHz
G.SKILL 4GB DDR3 1600 (PC3 12800)
EVGA 012-P3-1472-AR GeForce GTX 470 (Fermi) SuperClocked 1280MB

I’m thinking of getting 2 more monitors for tri-setup, 2nd EVGA card (neweeg does not have it anymore, but I found it on amazon marketplace) and more memory.
Questions:

  1. How much more memory should I get? Will +4GB (8GB total) be enough for smooth work, or should I get 16?
  2. Will Unity work ok on win 64? I still haven’t tried 64 yet, ever, so sorry for stupid questions…
  3. Are there any problems or quirks running Unity on multi-monitor setup?
  4. Are there any concerns about this setup overall, that I should be aware off?
    I just want to be aware of any problems or hiccups/annoyances if any, so I wouldn’t spend the money on the hardware, if it won’t make my life easier. As I am totally new to design and game development in general, I figure I will most definitely be running Unity/other soft in 1 monitor, browser in the 2nd, and video tutorials (gnomon/dt/etc) in the 3rd all the time.
    PS. I’ll be buying/using Unity Pro.

Thank You in advance.

2

Is the editor still 32 bit? Regardless, excluding a long workflow of programs 6gigs should be enough.

Yup, I’m using unity indie on a win7 64bit.

Not that I know of as a double-screen user.

Honestly I always laugh a bit when I see topics like this. Get a pc that is great for gaming and you’ll have one that is great for unity.

3

yes the editor is still 32bit, its max is ~3.xgb on win 64 if you have 6GB+ of RAM installed

what I would recommend against is the tri screen, you won’t find many gpus that drive that with reasonable hw support and sli isn’t gonna help you that much as unity isn’t sli opted (there were cases where sli / cf ran worse than single gpu)

4

The unity editor is 32bit but if you calculate the whole system RAM like this:

3ds max opened with a big scene: 1gb RAM or +
Unity opened with a big scene: 1.5gb RAM or +
Phostoshop garbage with mutiple psds: 2gb RAM or +
Beast baking a lightmap for a big scene: You can max the 3gb RAM easily with GI enabled
System required RAM 1gb in some cases
A few more apps 0.5gb

Grand total: 9gb

I’m on a workstation with 8gigs and I do max it out, and Unity really doesn’t like it (out of memory crashes). Using Win7 64bit btw.
I know upping to 16gb isn’t really going to fix all my problems but memory management isn’t the strong point of Unity and I intend to keep my workstations for more than 2 years so I will upgrade my workstation to 12gb on triple-channel.

Also, in terms of workflow and waiting times… invest heavily on a good CPU. Unity doesn’t have everything multi threaded however a huge amount of your work depends on the CPU (asset importing, lightmap baking, profiler code testing, copy/paste/move objects in the hiearchy). The GPU IMHO is secondary. Most DirectX11, 1gb GDRR5 video cards can do the job. Skimming 100$ off one to invest in the CPU is a good move.

It’s my advice from experience.

5

Thank you for such a detailed answer.

My current CPU: Intel Core i7 860 Processor 2.80 GHz 8 MB LGA1156. Should I upgrade? Methinks, I’ll try it out for a couple of weeks.

I figure I’ll buy another 4GB of same ram I’ve now for starters (just $45), instead of buying a new set of 16GB for ~$180. Test it for a couple of weeks (same as CPU). If I see I’m getting bogged down, I’ll think about upgrading the whole thing: cpu, mb and ram.
The problem is, I’m on a budget :slight_smile: And Unity licenses + subscriptions to learning sites will set me back quite a bit…

The best kind, period. Thank you so much, again.

6

@windexglow, @dreamora, thank you for the answers.

I’ve decided against sli, because it’s too expensive for me to upgrade to “proper gaming capable sli” with 2x3GB cards, as 2 of my 470s won’t have enough ram to power demanding games full detail anyways. And I’m not a big gamer anyways, I’ve been always interested in making them, not playing them. :slight_smile: So I decided to get a 430 just for the 3rd monitor support. I want triple setup for productivity reasons and I’m fed up with lack of desktop real estate.
Though, could you please elaborate: Unity has problems with sli setups, or multi-monitor setups in general (it shouldn’t, should it?).

7

unity is smooth on my old crap macbook, it’s not a modelling package and you can hide many layers… I’m not sure you need a big rig for it.