I don’t know where to ask this so I posted here on General Discussions. As the title states my question is for development what would be the ideal PC specifications if you are going to be developing a 3D open world game like BotW, Super Mario Odyssey, Monster Hunter or the Lego games?
As a hobby developer I’m currently just using my laptop and not going overboard in developing a full scale 3D game and just sticking with as low poly as possible but I want to start a long project which would involved creating a small scale open world map/level and just testing out the Lego and FPS micro games series has shown me that my laptop would not be able to handle it.
Its really what you can afford, but i might also add, i have a 32 core gen 2 threadripper, and nothing about the Unity API makes use of so many threads. A 6 core processor, 8gb ram and 4gb VRAM will be enough to get you going, but you are talking about MASSIVE open world games so the more RAM/VRAM the better. Personally, i wouldn’t be attempting a project like your suggesting on ANY laptop ( not even a premium alienware laptop).
The other thing is, testing in the unity editor is always a lot slower than building the game and testing the build (i.e an apk on android or the exe for a windows build). It won’t be instant but it will make full use of whichever specs you decide on.
Though ultimately, with open world games you need to learn to make your open world in blocks, so you can load and unload areas your using or not using, they will be loaded into ram but only loaded into vram when they are active. Maybe watch some youtube tutorials about making open world terrains/population specifically, it might influence what you buy.
If you have the skills to build your own pc, AMD make very affordable, good quality parts (I truly believe they have even surpassed intel with processors, GPU i still go for nvidia). Build your own, find the best price for each part, save heaps.
It depends what kind of games you are making. We (3 dev’s same setup) uses nvidia 3090 for GPU Lightmapping, 16 core 5950x nice for multi core stuff like project accustic test baking (fine bake needs thousands of cores) etc. We just upgraded to gen4 NVMe some minor inprovemt when rebuilding library for example. I wouldnt buy Gen3 today but if I have a gen3 it’s not really worth upgrading.
3800 MHz memory to fully take advantage of Zen. 32 gigs or more.
Again it all depends hat you are doing, but this setup works well for our studio.
I’ve decided to save up for now to get a PC with a good specs for development. Thanks for the suggestions. For now I’ll start developing the game with what I have which is my laptop keeping in mind that I will be getting a PC so I don’t need to limit what I’m developing to what my laptop can handle. It’s better to start on it.
Questions about what is ideal or best are always impossible for other people to answer, because they require information that only you have. What is ideal for one person, can be too expensive or otherwise not a good fit for another person.
As far as a good low-mid range desktop computer for Unity that should be under $1000 USD, I’d start from here though:
AMD Ryzen 3600 6 core CPU
16GB RAM 3200MHz
1TB SSD
NVidia 1650 Super GPU
GPU prices are outrageous right now though (that GPU should be under $200). Not a great time to build a PC. Might have better luck with a new laptop. My Ryzen 4800H is freaking awesome for a laptop, and the 5000 series is supposed to be 15%+ faster and should be shipping in the next few months.
You missed my point (though to be fair I wasn’t exactly putting effort into it). I’m pointing out that laptops are being used for mining and may suffer in both availability and affordability if the value of cryptocurrency continues to rise.
Speaking of bills though you would have to be spending a fortune on electricity to make it unprofitable. Hitting an RTX 3080’s break even would require you to pay almost two dollars per kilowatt. Denmark and Germany have the highest cost of power according to Wikipedia (2018 statistics) and they would still be making almost $9/day.
Doesn’t sound that efficient as far as an initial investment. Laptop GPU’s are significantly lower performing than a desktop GPU, and when you factor in buying the entire laptop you’re paying more for the same amount of performance compared to an equivalent desktop GPU.
Though since laptops are generally designed for low power efficiency, maybe it ends up more efficient from a power consumption standpoint?
Last time cryptocurrency caused a shortage of hardware Bitcoin had hit a record high of just under $20,000. Today Bitcoin is sitting around $45,000. Mobile RTX 2070 is roughly equivalent to a desktop RTX 2060 in performance and assuming no power cost an RTX 2060 makes $3.57 per day.
Average power consumption of a desktop RTX 2060 is 158 W (3.79kW per day).
Yeah I concur, I’m using a 4800H right now, 16GB RAM, SSD - and I don’t feel limited at all. Granted, as mentioned, the more you can afford the better (either in cost and/or in patience looking for a good deal)… because while you’re developing, waiting even a touch less for thousands of times adds up, and each fraction of a second ticking by while you wait distances you further from your train of thought. System performance greatly influences productivity. If I could grab a powerful desktop right now in addition to my laptop I would, but this will be perfectly fine for developing my current game and whatever else for the next few years. That said, I’m not creating content-heavy scenes with high-poly models and terrain that require high-end systems to play. The suggestion for a desktop is sound advice for anyone that doesn’t need portability - you’ll get way more bang for your buck. It’s a pretty safe bet that a $2000 desktop will have vastly superior performance to a $2000 laptop.
@Ryiah anyone wanting using average consumer GPUs for mining, would need to be part of big shared cloud. I am not sure, if individual can do that for him / her self these days. There is continuous mining difficulty rising and halving involved. Which increase demand on power demand, to the same job. Having arrays of 100+ gaming laptops may makes sense. They will be cheaper than dedicated mining cards. The price will drop soon. It always does after such pick. So it is only worth, for long few years run ahead.
But I agree, that this can affect pricing on gaming hardware, if that what is happening. Question is, how wide the issue is spread.
Btw, I had popup news on GPU hardware matter recently.
I see, that target mining currencies may be other than the top one.
GeForce Is Made for Gaming, CMP Is Made to Mine
We’re limiting the hash rate of GeForce RTX 3060 GPUs so they’re less desirable to miners and launching NVIDIA CMP for professional mining.
I looked for official source
Basically they want to cut performance by halve of gaming GPU, which is abused not for gaining.
Wonder, if that will affect other future GPUs too.
Correct, but it’s trivial to join a mining pool with a service like NiceHash. NiceHash benchmarks the various cryptocurrencies on your system multiple times per day choosing the best for you and anything you make is converted directly into BitCoin sans their cut which is 2%. From there you simply transfer it into a wallet like CoinBase and send it to your bank.
I wouldn’t be recommending this if it weren’t a viable and legit method to help pay for your hardware. If you’re a professional game developer you don’t even have to mine the full value of your card. You simply mine what’s left after deducting the value from your taxes. For me deductions cover at least half the cost.
For my area the cost of solar energy is $0.09 per kilowatt (50 kilowatt blocks sold at $4.50 each). My new RTX 3070 can make nearly $8 per day. Two months of full time mining could cover the difference for me but I’m only mining during periods of time I’m actively using my machine so realistically it’ll likely be several months.
I saw that yesterday, apparently it only affects etherium and not the rest of algorithms.
The situation makes me think about return of PPUs and ASICs.
One thing about the whole mining situation is that I’m certain that with my epic luck the moment I try to invest into crypto or mining hardware, it is going to crash and take tesla with it.
Thus why I’m recommending this to people who want to or have already bought a new GPU. I didn’t buy my RTX 3070 because I wanted to mine. I bought it because my GTX 1080 was no longer sufficient and I wanted to play around with the new technologies (esp now that UE4 has DLSS).
I’m somewhat unhappy with my 1060 3GB GPU, but my inner hamster is strong and strongly objects to buying anything at modern prices.
Also, last time I fired up nicehash, it killed my PSU. Same thing probably won’t happen with the new one, but still apparently computer repair services got greedy so it was cheaper to replace it rather than fixing it.
