Looking to a buy a laptop for Unity

News & General Discussion
1

I am going to buy a new laptop (PC) for Unity Pro. I was wondering if any of you had any advice. I am going to spend between $1,000 to $2,000.

Thanks.

2

My advice would be to get a 15" mac book pro. That will let you develop for the iPhone if eventually needed and you can still run windows on virtual box or boot camp depending on your needs. May be it’s only me but running Unity 2.6 on win7 64bits proved to be very unstable with an almost all the time crash when saving a script while the app is running - on the other hand unity 2.6 works w/out any problem on my 13" mac book (2.4GHz/4GB).

Edit:more specific arch

3

Seems to work just fine for me. :slight_smile:

4

I bought this one a little over a month ago and Unity runs nicely with my 16 GB project. It even renders my Max scenes quickly, showing 8 render buckets.

5

Not to sure about the graphics cards in MacBooks. Admittedly, if you want to develope of iPhone you will need a mac, but if not, maybe a better gfx spec’d Windows based laptop may be better.

I say all this in light of future proofing for Unity3.0 and the deferred lighting. I’m guessing this will require a bit more power under the hood in the gfx department and intergrated gfx may not cut it.

Maybe someone a bit more ‘in the know’ could confirm/or not this.

I have a cheap refurbished MacBook for iPhone dev and a highish spec pc for standalone which is full of ram and a nice gfx card etc.

Regards,
Matt.

6

I haven’t had problems with unity free + windows 7

7

Macs just flat out cost more.

Though I love both platforms for different reasons.

Even if you have a lot of money to spend it isn’t justifiable to spend 3x as much for the same specs to get a mac, UNLESS, as stated, you’re developing for Iphone/Ipad.

I don’t think you can go wrong with either platform, it just depends on your purpose.

You’ll get the most for your money with a PC though.

Just saying, purely on cost.

8

http://forum.unity3d.com/viewtopic.php?t=52488&highlight=

9

Well, I run a Hp pavillion Dv6 and think it is an excelent computer. I run windows 64 bit with no problems with unity. Only one suggestion as my computer was a christmas present from my parents they got it with the intel mobile graphichs series 4 chip which is bad. I would advise upgrading that. It would indeed be on the lower side of your price range.

10

Dell = cheap

Toshiba = Long lasting

HP = media/style

Alienware = gamer/work (super fast with nice graphics)

Custom = ANYTHING YOU WANT! (its also mega cheap)

Macs = style/work

Macs cost so much because of their OS (os x). It needs less ram and therefor, runs faster.

11

No sorry, the days when custom PCs were “mega cheap” are long gone. These days, Dell, HP and others can undercut anything you could build custom.

Macs cost so much because people are willing to pay so much. It’s that simple.

Additionally, this test would seem to suggest that Vista and OSX have pretty comparable (ie: within 2%) memory footprints.

12

I’ve got 2 Dells, 1 Macbook Pro, and now an Asus gamer’s 16" notebook. From a hardware construction perspective I’ve got to say that Macbook Pro is in a class of its own. For the extra bucks you really are getting something more than what the others offer IMO. On the flip side, Dells may be cheap but their construction doesn’t seem any worse than any other notebook I have. And personally, as much as I like Alienware’s performance, I think their hardware is butt ugly. Definitely geared towards boom box, muscle machine lovin’ guys.

The memory footprint of Windows 7 and OS X 10.6 might be similar, but having both on my desktop I can tell you Windows 7 doesn’t even come close for ease of use IMO. And yes, I’ve been a Windows user since version 1.

13

That and Apple are the only ones with Osx.

14

Hi guys,

I want to buy a laptop with a powerful video card (ATI 5870 or at least ATI 5730) and MATTE screen. I have been searching for a while now without much success. Seems like the only laptops that have matte displays nowadays are the business ones like thinkpads and latitudes, but they don’t have high end video cards. Everything else with a decent video card would have a glossy, reflective screen, which I absolutely hate.
Would somebody know where I can find a reliable laptop with these features?

thanks

15

My “brand new” Asus gamers notebook started freezing a couple weeks ago so I called Asus tech support and they told me my serial number was invalid (huh? :shock: ) So I took it back to the BestBuy where I bought it and after having it for 3 days said they couldn’t find anything wrong. Then after getting back to the office, I started it up again and 5 minutes later it froze again! So much for BestBuy’s diagnotics. :roll:

So I’m looking at taking a store credit towards a higher end Asus, a slower but more expensive Sony or a comparable but more expensive Toshiba (which they don’t have in stock so I won’t be able to see it until after I’ve bought it). I’d give the Asus another try if it weren’t for the “invalid serial” issue I ran into with this first one. I had a Sony Vaio that lasted me almost 8 years, and I know Toshiba has good tech support. Anyone have anything good to say about Asus?

16

@ivkoni: The Asus PL80jt has a matte screen. I’m not that well up on laptop video so I don’t know if that matches up performance-wise with the ATI chips you mentioned.

17

This guy is looking for a good laptop(PC I might add not Mac), so I really don’t think he cares about how his laptop looks when it performs so much better than a lot, not all, but a lot of other laptops out there on the market. I really don’t think this should come into play if there’s no other good comparison.

I’m pretty sure a race car driver wouldn’t care what his ride looks like if it’s tons faster and better than most of the other cars he’s racing, don’t you think?

18

thanks guys.
I checked PL80jt and it has a NVIDIA® GeForce® 310M. I want something that supports dx11.
@bigkahuna, by the way I bought a G73JH asus (i7, ati 5870) from best buy a few months back. I was planning to hook it up to an external monitor, since like I said, I can’t stand the reflective screens.
However, it crashed 2 times on me in the first 2 hours of use so I returned it right away.

I really don’t understand why there is no market for business laptops with high end video cards, or why nobody offers matte screen for the gaming laptops…
I will keep looking…

19

The non-matte screens are easier to clean and the plastic coating lasts longer. It’s also easier on your monitor when you clean it because you don’t have to press too hard. That’s the only real reason.

20

@ivkoni - Thanks. Even the reviews on the BestBuy site for the G73 are mixed. Apparently if you get a “good one” you’re golden otherwise it’s a dud. Asus tech support got me worried though, the guy was barely understandable but he was adamant that the serial number on my newly bought Asus notebook was not “valid”. Weird.

I plan on taking a couple of my standalone players to the store today and do a side by side comparison between the two (the Sony and the Asus). If the performance difference is small I will very likely go with the Sony.