Hi there,
I’m planning on getting myself a new laptop for developing 3D games primarily for Android devices. I have my eyes on this laptop, and I was wondering what you guys thought of it. Thanks!
Should be more than fine for Unity. Like BoredMormon said, the performance will be tied to the game you are making, but for android / mobile games it’s more than adequate. You might see performance lacking when using other commonly used tools like 3DS Max, Photoshop, etc, especially if everything is open at the same time. If you don’t need the mobility, a desktop will net you better performance for the same budget.
I agree with these guys…that PC will work great, especially for Android development. I don’t think you want to use it for high end PC games though, especially if you are using the PBR shaders, and the main reason is the midrange graphics card. You would find it quite snappy for things that aren’t graphics intensive though with that SSD.
Thank you all for your responses, I appreciate them a lot.
I have decided to buy the laptop, and (taking xjjon’s answer into account) I plan to use services such as Cameyo to run more intensive apps such as Photoshop, as I have found their service to be fast.
I was just wondering, since this is a 2 in 1, perhaps I could use the Yoga’s tablet mode for testing, or would it be better to test it on my Android?
Thanks,
ICT
I recommend if you can…you try your intensive apps on there. It may very well be able to handle it, depending on what you do. Photoshop runs on slow systems, but you won’t be able to have higher-rez images working, much less multiple of them, or work with any sort of speed comparetively speaking. Other software is similar.
For example, I have an Acer laptop, 1stGen i7, 4GB RAM, integrated graphics. I’ve ran Photoshop on it just fine(albeit like I said above, no huge images, and slower loading and operations). But then it wouldn’t even run Substance Painter at all, it loaded but wouldn’t load an actual model, even one of only a few thousand tris. So I’d guess it depends on your software and exactly what you are doing with it.
About testing on your tablet mode…it will somewhat work, but only for gameplay and controls testing. It could provide a compareble to test how your game plays, if your touch controls work, and debug stuff. But…the performance of the computer will be much different from that of your average or even high end Android device. Depending on your game, you might not notice a difference in processor speed(just because the Android may keep up if it isn’t too intensive), but the graphics systems are different beasts. For example, I have it understood that fill rate on mobile graphics chips is for whatever reason much lower than desktop. There are other things too, so depending on exactly what your game does, you may encounter differences between the two devices.
Putting performance questions aside, make sure that you’re getting decent peripherals. You’re going to be doing a lot of work on this thing, so its usability experience is important.
Make sure that the screen is of decent resolution and is large enough to work comfortably on. If you plan to work outdoors then make sure it’s bright. Make sure the keyboard layout is one you’re ok with. Make sure the trackpad isn’t terrible. Check out the physical size and weight and make sure you’re happy with them, keeping in mind that this is a thing you’re going to be carrying around.
Closely related, if you’re going to be working away from wall sockets then check out the battery life. Keep in mind, though, most battery life tests don’t consider 3D performance (probably because 3D stuff and battery life aren’t really on talking terms!).
That depends on specifically what you’re testing. Overall, though, you need to do a significant amount of testing on your target device, so you won’t be able to do all testing on the tablet PC.
Upgradeable memory too! You can insert another 4GB of memory bringing it up to 12GB. On the other hand the battery life is way worse (5 hours versus 8.5) but that’s to be expected of a more traditional laptop compared to a 2-in-1 unit.
I would still think about holding off buying any new PC’s until AMD’s Zen hits the market early next year. It should shake up things a bit and you will probably get a better deal once Intel starts dropping its prices in response.
My experience has always been the next big thing is never really that big. At some point you should just run with what suits your needs now. You can postpone life indefinitely with too much waiting.
That, and also a computer than you can use now is much more productive than one that you can’t do anything with for months. I don’t care if it’s 20% faster when it gets here, it’s 100% slower until it does. You don’t get any work done with a thing you don’t have.
Waiting for new tech before upgrading is cool if your computer is a luxury item for you, but if it’s a tool then just upgrade to whatever best suits you at the point when your current tool no longer does.
Chips, it’s all about the die size. The size of the die in nm is a guide to the level of technology used, the power efficiency and the number of transistors that can be packed into a chip.
If it’s just a variation of current CPU’s on the same die size, it can be bit more efficient and a bit faster with tweaks and changes to the layout.
It it’s a step down in die size in nm, in this case Zen is 14nm and most current chips are about 20nm or more. So expect more from this than a re-tweaking of an existing CPU.
All Zen has to do is be cheaper and about as fast as existing Intel CPU’s and we will see a price war and a renewal of the good for us competition to produces faster cheaper desktop CPU’s.
Think a bit about the industry and how it works, you get a small chunk of etched silicon with a pin array and heatsink and it can cost anywhere from dollars to thousands of dollars. Why the massive difference in price range for a chunk of silicon, and if it’s x86 should we pay more for a brand.
Hopefully in the future we will be able to 3D print or grow our own chips.
