I’m thinking of purchasing an iMac as soon as Unity 2.0 is released, but being a Windows person, I may have a little trouble trying to choose something that would suit.
I don’t need anything top-of-the-line as the only thing I would use my new mac is for Unity. (I REALLY doubt I would start using email, browsing etc.) I was looking at the iMac 17" models, but I also seem to hear rumors that the new iMacs will be coming out soon.
Seeing as all you guys are Mac users (and probably Mac fanatics) can anyone give me an idea if there is going to be a new iMac line-up? It would be a real shame if I bought and new iMac only to have Apple release a new version a month later
So, any advise? Like I said, I just want to make casual games using Unity 2.0, but do all the testing on my Windows PC.
Why not just get Unity 1.6 and an iMac now, that way you’ll be up to speed and running by the time 2.0 gets released? FWIW, your upgrade to 2.0 will be free if you purchase 1.6 now.
That’s what I thought when I got Unity last year. Now I’m using my 17" iMac for 99% of what I do and I got a Macbook Pro for on the road. I’m a long time Windows user also (since its first release), but only boot up the Windoze machine to test builds now a days.
Not -everybody- here is a Mac fanatic (at least I don’t consider myself one), but they are nicely built machines and the OS has been pretty productive/easy to use.
Yup, I’ve done this more times than I can count. Guess that’s just my luck…
Buy Unity now so you can get up to speed by the time 2.0 rolls out.
Get an iMac 20" if you can afford it. My 17" works fine, but I find I tend to hunch over the screen a bit while doing detail work. A 20" would probably allow me to sit back more.
Don’t be surprised if you end up using your Mac for more than just Unity.
bigkahuna: The reason I’m not getting Unity 1.6 now is beacuse I’m the type to usually wait and see what people will say about new software. For example, When Unity 2.0 comes out, I would usually wait about a month and keep on reading what people are saying about it. I do not mean any offense to any of the OTEE devs, but I’ve been duped by a lot of marketing hype on many 3D engine websites before and I’ve been cautious eversince. I’m pretty sure that the new Unity will be all what the devs are saying, but on the 0.005% chance that Unity is NOT suited to my needs, I would have spent a lot of cash on a machine I’ll hardly use and a piece of software that I would never run.
Again, I’m not being offensive, but moving to a new machine/OS/culture all of the sudden in one day might be a little overwhelming I’ll just take a back-seat approach and see how things fan out.
louis: Thanks for the link! I think I’ll wait till Apple announces something. I’ve still got time to decide on a mac once OTEE releases Unity 2.0, so I’m in no rush
Get a 3 button + scroll wheel USB Pc mouse when you buy your mac - (the Apple supplied mice
are a learning curve all of their own) - you’ll find the mac much closer to windows
than you thought (especially a conventional 3 button controller).
I had never used a mac until 3 months ago. I bought one SPECIFICALLY for Unity. I thought I would only use it for Unity as well, until I realized that my 24’ iMac was better than any windows machine I had owned, and the OS was also way better. I also bought Vista and downloaded “Boot Camp” so I can run “Windows” only programs which I already owned, but using Vista now is a chore and I only do it when necessary.
With my all mac pipeline now Unity>Maya>Photoshop>BodyPaint3d (getting Zbrush this week) , I find myself hardly using Vista. With that being said, I think Boot Camp, Vista, and a good external hard drive are still necessary because of testing purposes and because no software should be off limits to you.
I hear ya, but then there’s Visual Studio I have yet to see a better IDE.
Honestly, I think I will end up getting an iMac and Unity anyway, but I would still like to wait and see what the response on Unity 2.0 is going to be like. Specifically, I posted a question about the networking component of Unity2 as this is EXTREMELY important to my work. I haven’t received a reply yet, so I think I’ll wait a little longer.
Thanks for the responses though, and I’ll follow DaveyJJ’s advise and wait.
And YES, I will definitely get a 3 button mouse. I couldn’t STAND using the one on the demo Mac in the shop
Agree, I use it in my mac with parallels. You can write plugins with it with autocomplete and all ide things adding unity dll in the references. You can’t debug unity calls but you can separe logical code from graphic code and then debug most scripts with the ide.
Unity calls can be debugged with Debug.Log calls in the unity ide.
As far as getting a 3 button mouse goes… I got a Mac Mighty Mouse with my system and was going replace it with a 3 button mouse until I discovered that you can configure the mighty mouse to behave like a three button mouse using the “Keyboard and Mouse” option under “System Preferences”.
Regarding the mighty mouse, my new review is that they are utter crap. The one on my school intel imac only scrolls one way for some stupid reason, and since I bumped the option(or control or whatever) key that enables zoom in, and since it only goes one way, Im stuck in superzoom mode. So its stop, save everything, close everything, log out, put mouse in faraway cupboard so no one else has to deal with this, apply genius pc mouse…log in reopen programmes reconnect to server reopen files and continue…Yeah you go mighty mouse…
The even worse by product is for some reason all this also corrupted photoshop, and now it needs fixing too.
I swear I will never use a mighty mouse ever. Be warned…
AC
Yeah, I’ve heard enough bad things about the mighty mouse, so I figured I’d get a regular PC mouse instead.
Anyway, I think I’m going to go for the new 24" iMac once it comes our here in the UAE. The thing that completely sold me on the idea (besides Unity) is the fact that I can dual boot Windows on it! I was meaning to get a new PC anyways, so this way I can kill 2 birds with one stone
The only problem is the ATI video card It like as if Apple is TYRING to make the machine suck I’m an nVidia fanboy, so this is the only thing that’s making me sad
Someone at ATI must have pictures of Steve Jobs in bed with Bill Gates, or something like that. There’s no other explanation for Apple’s curious devotion to ATI in the face of nVidia’s offerings.
Speaking of mices, I prefer to use a Trackball, specifcially the Kensington Expert Mouse, when working in 3D (i.e. Max, Maya, Unity). It’s way better in 3D space IMHO than a conventional mouse, it works pretty well on the desktop as well, and it’s a great way to rid yourself of another $100 after your new computer purchase!
Nah, just par for the course…they put those lousy nVidia 5200FXs in the first-gen iMac G5s when ATI had substantially better low/mid-range cards (namely the 9600) at the time.
I’ll just take a back-seat approach and see how things fan out.
, I find myself hardly using Vista. With that being said, I think Boot Camp, Vista, and a good external hard drive are still necessary because of testing purposes and because no software should be off limits to you.
It like as if Apple is TYRING to make the machine suck