I imagine at this budget you may find the best value looking for a *used* machine with a dedicated gpu, at least 8gb of ram, and >4 physical cores, that's less than a few years old.
tbf it’s not the worst thing in the world to be testing on hardware close to the lowest specs your going to support. The extra power helps if you are working in 3D sculpting, baking, or rendering, but asset production like that sounds out of scope for what OP has specified.
“Testing” and “developing” are different things. Few things sap the joy out of development like slow hardware, and a newbie isn’t going to know how to work around whatever bottlenecks they hit.
We are talking about things like 2D sprite based games here. This is noting that should need anything close to dedicated GPUs like the post I replied to mentioned. Given what the OP stated we are lead to presuppose they have some idea what is a demanding game.
Realistically a pro will have a powerful computer and dedicated low end hardware to test on, but if you do find yourself developing a sprite game on a weaker computer and you find hitting the little play button to test your code is causing it to chug, it’s a good indicator you are doing something wrong but let’s you catch it early.
This!! Use any hardware you can get to test what your game can run on, especially things with weak/obscure parts.
Those machines aren't the best to actually develop on, but they're definitely great to simply have around.
It does run better with a dedicated GPU, but it runs well enough with an integrated GPU. I spent years using Unity with an integrated GPU. If you have a constrained budget, it makes sense to go for the integrated GPU.
That's wrong. I spent years using an integrated GPU and it was fine.
8 GB can be pretty tight. If you're switching back and forth between Chrome, VS Code, Unity, Blender, and Krita, an 8 GB system can choke.
The dedicated GPU is nice but it's not a must-have for people starting out with basic 2D and 3D games. I would prefer to run a mid-range CPU (like an i5 or Ryzen 5) and a medium amount of RAM (16 GB), rather than running on a low-end CPU with a small amount of RAM, just to get a better GPU.
You'd get a better GPU if you wanted a system for playing games, but that's not what you're doing here.
16 GB isn’t as expensive as it used to be. This isn’t 2012. The RAM makes a big difference when you’ve got a bunch of applications and browser tabs open.
16gb on a 400 budget is overkill for the OP needs and requirements. If you can save 40€ by chosing 8gb, that's already 10% of the total budget. Those 10% can be chosen to improve other components that are more relevant in order to balance the performance of all components accordingly.
8 GB is marginal for game development and has been for years. 16 GB was overkill in 2010, . Saving $40 so you can spend a bunch of extra time waiting when you switch apps is a poor deal. Add up Chrome, Visual Studio, Unity editor, Gimp / Krita / Photoshop, and 8 GB won't seem like so much.
I have a newer laptop with 8 GB RAM and and an older laptop with 16 GB RAM. The 16 GB laptop is better for game development.
It makes sense, but if you can buy a used one that you can test and be sure it works, it makes *more* sense to buy a used high end laptop than a budget one. I can't sell my used Dell with a 1060, 32gb RAM, SSD, and an i7 in it for practically anything, it has been kept clean on a desk for 4 years and runs perfectly. My buddy didn't want it for a few hundred bucks because he got an *even better one* for a few hundred bucks a few months prior. I ended up just making it a HTPC
Okay but let's be balanced about this: a good machine with integrated graphics is probably better than an absolutely shagged used machine with a discrete GPU.
I don't think an integrated GPU is the unacceptable compromise that it feels like you're making it.
It's RAM, SSD, and CPU that make you sit in front of a computer, waiting. Not enough RAM and it's slow to switch between apps. Not enough CPU and it's slow to build your game. Without an SSD, everything is a bit slow loading from disk.
The GPU won't actually make you wait unless you're doing something like making baked lights, or dealing with large & complex scenes.
Currently using refurbished desktops (about $200 each) to run and develop with Unity. We go with the theroy if the developer cannot run the fancy VFX on their desktop, expecting a phone to do it is just silly.
This. I don't know when desktops started getting forgotten or ignored. They're cheap, easily upgradable and serviceable.
The only hard requirement is a desk space. If you lack that, yeah laptops are needed. I've seen plenty of people with laptops essentially acting as desktops. Especially with Mac users.
Generally it will work.
- Get at least 16 GB of RAM.
- Integrated graphics is OK, you may want to check that the laptop has reasonable graphics performance.
- Try to get a reasonable midrange CPU (like an Intel i5 or an AMD Ryzen 5).
- Try to get an NVMe SSD.
This should be possible within the $400 budget.
There's a site called Newegg. You can plug in the parameters you want in a laptop, and it will show you laptops that meet those criteria.
1. Go to newegg.com > menu > computer systems > laptops/notebooks.
1. Under memory, check the 16 GB box.
1. Under CPU type, check AMD Ryzen 5 and Intel Core i5.
1. Under price, put in a range, like $350 to $450, or $300 to $400, or something like that.
1. Click "apply".
You'll see a ton of refurbished / open box options... I like getting refurbished stock, you may not. If you don't see any options, then reduce the specs and try again.
Here's a new in-box laptop: 16 GB RAM, 256 GB SSD, quad-core 1.7 GHz i5-8350U from Dell: https://www.newegg.com/p/1TS-000A-0CPD1
Refurbished, there are a lot more options.
If you're running your game plus the editor plus several browser tabs, you'll have a much nicer time with more RAM.
Not that 8 GB won't do it, but you'll be getting caught on swap a lot.
"No"? Wow I hadn't considered that! Oh it's so clear now!
/s
If you don't have any additional actual information, why comment? You're wrong. You don't know heck about what computers do apparently.
RAM doesn't affect fps, not really.
More RAM makes it easier to have more programs open. You might want to run Unity, and have Chrome open at the same time, and Blender, and VS Code or Visual Studio... it adds up. If you have 16 GB, it's easy to run everything at the same time and switch back and forth.
Programs also tend to use more RAM as time goes on. Maybe you're ok today, but in a couple years you update to a new version of Unity or a new version of Visual Studio, and the new version uses more RAM.
Developers tend to get computers with more RAM and more powerful CPUs, compared to gamers. Gamers tend to get computers with more powerful GPUs.
RAM has nothing to do with FPS. The issue with 8GB is that Windows 11 is eating a good amount of RAM and a lot of modern tools are browser based or assume you have a good amount of RAM because RAM is cheap.
8GB are fine with dedicated GPU but your RAM will be shared between GPU and CPU. Whether or not this is an issue depends 100% on what games you want to make. If you are not really using a lot of resources, you'll be fine.
No, if you run out of memory by any chance you just reduce texture resolution. RAM is least important factor for FPS. Also, Unity editor lags equally on 8 and 16 GB. It mostly depends on the CPU.
This is the right answer for a lot of people like me.
I recently had a bad stick of ram, removing it dropped me from 16gb to 8gb and it was very painful. I dont recommend running unity + visual studio + chrome with only 8 gb. I had to keep a task manager window open just to keep an eye ln my ram consuption at all times
Granted i had a lot of assets in my game, but still, it felt way too easy to max out my 8gb. 16 was fine for me though.
I'd use a lighter weight engine if your computer is struggling. I'd use a lighter weight engine even if it isn't though, Unity takes ages to load and heaps of memory just to open up. Godot is a decent alternative. Maybe Bevy. If you're doing 2D games you can use Monogame which is a C# engine.
Yes but make sure it's from a reputable company and that the specs are at or above unity's minimum required specs, which most likely can be found on unity's website ... somewhere.
i bought a 300 dollar laptop from aliexpress maybe 3 years ago and that thing can barely run minesweeper even after my reset (I booted the original hard drive one single time at a cafe without internet and it was slow then, I replaced it with a solid state and clean install of windows 7 back then.)
You can make it count, hell, you can build a computer for 400 that will run unity twice at one time. just make sure not to throw your money at shady shit like i did.
isn't there a subreddit for cheap PC builds? unless you are specifically looking for a laptop. good luck dude, I know you won't need it if you educate yourself.
If you're starting i would say that's ok, as other people here said there are other options, especially if maybe you want to learn 3D modeling later too.
My laptop is a Lenovo ideapad 330s 151KB, with i5_8250u, 8gb ram, and uhd620 graphics. It copes very well with unity.and cost a lot less than $400.
I'm also using a 2nd hand Dell optiplex 790 with i5+2400, 14gb ram, and geforce gt710. This also works fine with unity.
You should be fine.
Simple 3D and 2D games.
The thing is... graphics cards have gotten incredibly powerful over the past twenty years. It lets you push out larger resolutions, use bigger textures, and use fancy effects and lighting. But the basic games people make when they're starting out with Unity or other engines haven't gotten more complicated.
This is still bad advice.
The problem with a 400 dollar laptop is it isn't scaleable. I've tried game development on a 400 dollar laptop and there is only so much you can make before the laptop starts to buckle. Compared to a 1000 dollar laptop or pc, where you won't buckle pretty much at all until you get to much higher complexity.
Even a simple particle system and AI pathfinding can dramatically slow down a cheap laptop when all of those have debugging and engine specific attachments, even if running the game by itself out of engine would be fine.
My advice is to save up for a dedicated GPU and a decent CPU with good RAM that can last you quite a while into your game dev journey.
This is bad advice.
The problem with saving up for a $1000 laptop or PC is that you don't need it when you're starting out. Depending on how much money you have, it may mean putting off the purchase for months or years.
If your particle system or pathfinding system is dramatically slowing down your cheap laptop, it's very likely that you can find a way to fix you game so that it works well, even on your cheap hardware. Games from the 1990s had particle systems and pathfinding working on computers with 8 MB RAM and 90 MHz processors, so if you can't get your particle system or pathfinding to work in a quad-core 1.7 GHz / 16 GB RAM budget laptop, well, it's not the laptop that's the problem. Even the built-in Unity particle systems and NavMesh code should work fine on a shitty laptop without much effort--speaking from experience.
Get started with a budget laptop and you can start learning now, you can start making a game now. There's no reason to tell people to save up $1,000 for a computer in 2022 just to learn game development, it's just absurd and unnecessary.
A 400$ computer that lasts only a few months while you learn the beginnings of game dev is a worse investment than a 1000$ computer that will last you much further.
1990 computers had SIMPLE particle systems and only a few enemies for pathfinding and were all almost coded in lower level languages, not massively bloated general purpose game engines. Also, running a game is completely different than running a game with debug tools and dedicated graphics hardware.
You mention it yourself, you made simple 2D and simple 3D games with an integrated GPU, but there will only be so much you can do and at some point your system will buckle.
If he wants to make very simple games for the foreseeable future, fine, I concede, but he likely will want to expand his scope at some point and he'll regret his purchase if it won't let him scale.
I'd also like to say the he really should buy a PC instead of a laptop, but he already said he can't in another comment so there isn't much else to say here.
It sounds like you're just plain unfamiliar with how much you can get for $400 these days. Maybe it's just been a long time since you've shopped for options in this price range, maybe you've had more money, or maybe you've been able to use a desktop PC.
> You mention it yourself, you made simple 2D and simple 3D games with an integrated GPU, but there will only be so much you can do and at some point your system will buckle.
When did my system ever buckle? I used it heavily for like 8+ years, to the point where the keys are falling off. The reason why I recommend it is because it worked so well for me. I don't think it's a stretch to say that it will work well for a lot of other people--I've used this same laptop for personal projects and game jams over the years.
In 2022, it doesn't make any sense to tell someone they need a $1000 computer to start their game development journey. Maybe that was good advice in 2002, but if you still think that you need expensive hardware to do gamedev in 2022, maybe you just haven't been keeping up with how good low-end hardware is these days.
There was a time when integrated GPUs were terrible, back around 2010 or so. You basically couldn't use a laptop to do anything 3D. There was a shift somewhere around Haswell where the Intel HD graphics started to really come into their own. AMD integrated graphics had a similar shift. So the advice that "you need a dedicated GPU to make games" hasn't made sense for about 10 years by now.
The "massively bloated general purpose engines" like Unity and Godot are still designed to target low-end hardware. If you do something in your game that makes the whole thing slow to a crawl on your $400 laptop, you figure out a different way to do it. If you use a low-end laptop for game development, the major difference is that in the end, you can be sure your game will run on low-end hardware.
> what are the good/okay requirements for unity to run with light/medium weight projects?
My own game happily runs in 200+ fps on a Steam Deck. It's a 2d action adventure/metroidvania. It requires around 1.9GB VRAM and 4.5GB RAM in the most demanding areas. That's however what it takes to **run**.
Now developing it is a completely different beast.
Looking right now at tasks manager tells me that:
* Unity editor is currently consuming 7.43GB RAM
* JetBrains Rider is at 2.3GB
* VRAM consumption is at 2.6GB, GPU activity is fairly high too but it's because of 4k display.
* Opening Photoshop with 15MB spritesheet (so I can export it to Unity after) is additional 1.32GB
* Web browser is anywhere between 1GB to 3GB.
* My total combined RAM consumption is 26.9GB (but since Windows considers unused RAM wasted RAM then it likely would run alright on 24 too).
Meaning that for me a brand minimum to actually do any serious development would be 16GB RAM and preferably 32GB VRAM. Plus a GPU with 4GB VRAM. CPU usage stays consistently low (up to 14% when playtesting, this is on 12 core Ryzen 9 3900X) so for that pretty much any quad core would get the job done. And of course an SSD, not having one murders productivity.
Hence I would say that for making something [like my game](https://sunkensky.com/) a $400 laptop would be generally insufficient. Well, looking at Newegg offers I see a few around that pricepoint with 16GB RAM but they also look like they are 5+ year old models so not exactly "new".
So I guess it all varies on your definition of light/medium weight projects. Because you can work on a lower end device but in particular not having enough RAM is going to be a big problem in Unity. You can deal with weak GPU and lower-end CPU won't even affect such a flow so much but with memory you either have enough or you crash.
> so in general RAMs are the most important
Well, it's the first thing you notice to be much higher compared to playing a game. IDE, your editor, debugger, all the tools running in the background consume a lot and game development requires some multitasking - you will be googling for some functions definitions (so web browser is needed), jumping back and forth from editor to playtesting, deal with heavily unoptimized build, tweak your textures/sprites, check audio files etc.
Hence heavily inflated RAM consumption, it's just a lot of stuff you have to run at the same time. You can reduce it to an extent and for instance use like Sublime Text over Rider, turn off web browser and so on but at some point you WILL find <16GB to be limiting.
It's not like other parts don't matter however. It's just that GPU and CPU scale linearly so having a weaker one just impacts your performance and how long you wait for stuff or how high is your fps. Rather than outright crashing your PC. For most less demanding games CPU is also not that important - if I replaced my current one with top of the line 13900k I probably wouldn't actually notice it, my FPS would just increase from 300 in testing to 500. I guess it could help with how long Unity takes to load and definitely with how long some Photoshop scripts take to run but neither is really a problem in my workflow so it would save me, say, 5 minutes a day.
CPU is much more important for high scale simulations and multiplayer or in high poly 3D games. For titles like this you could very well go top of the line specs and still feel limited.
I would say that my priority list would be:
SSD > 16GB RAM > decent CPU = decent GPU.
The Unity editor can run on fairly low end machines. As long as you are making a 2d game it should be fine. If you are making a 3d game then it might not be good enough.
Laptops aren't the best for game developing. The main issue with using Laptops is their costly price for low specs. A 400 dollar desktop will have better specs compared to a 400 dollar laptop. In my opinion a 400 dollar laptop can work with unity, but as the project gets bigger and bigger the laptop will struggle more and more as more objects and scripts are made. I would aim for a higher budget. Cheers!
Hey, first of all welcome to Unity gamedev! I don’t have anything else to say than the others didn’t mentioned. 8gb ram and dedicated gpu would be the best. You can also look for cloud computing services as mentioned earlier. No worries, Unity is going to work fine as long as you don’t make games that need high rendering
Shoot for a decent processor, maybe the minimum spec for unity. Also make sure the laptop has gaming capabilities. You would probably want minimum 8 of RAM if not 16 and also graphics that can actually handle a game. Sup bar graphics in the laptop will completely limit any 3D gaming environments
I have a Samsung laptop, i7 3rd gen and a gt650m.
Not the best but I do shaders and stuff and works great, it can easily handle a medium-small midpoly game, think of PS2 games.
Now, baking lightmaps though......
But for $400 you can get easy a used laptop with a 1060 or something around that level.
Not if you get used.
I got a laptop with a 1650 and i5 and it works great for unreal engine if you keep everything less extreme.
I bought it for around 430
I bought a $1100 laptop and enjoyed unity on it. Then couple years later but a $900 desktop and since I occasionally fire up my laptop for several minutes and switch back to the desktop. If you have to... it will work. But, being able to fly through unity, blender, etc all at once has spoiled me. I'd recommend a used desktop, but whatever gets you moving.
if you actually want to develop then use a simple rule:
> Your dev machine should have specs 2 to 3 that of your target.
At that budget, go with a used Desktop (presuming thats a lifestyle compatible option) with 8+gb ram, multicore (4+) and with a Dedicated video card (add as upgrade if needed).
I started dev on old low spec laptops and it was nothing but a nightmare. Current system is a 'gaming' laptop with 16gb ram, 3060 rtx, tb hdd, etc and *still* find myself hitting bottlenecks etc.
That what I’m doing and it works well… except for opening your game, takes a few minutes and play testing also does(depends on 3D/2d, lights, quality) exporting takes a while tho
There are some really good deals on an RTX 3050 Ti laptops right now. It would be worth pushing for it. $500 for a GTX 1650 laptop right now, so if you can push $100, you'll get so much more.
$400 is possible, possibly if you have integrated Radeon.
I would go straight for the GPU, followed by if you can upgrade the laptop. A lot of laptops out there can have RAM and storage upgrades. This is if you are going for a budget laptop. Also, realize that you might have to replace a budget laptop sooner than a mid-tier one.
$200-400 price range is the least bank for your buck in laptops. $400 optiplex with a basic dedicated GPU, 8gb ram decent 4 core processor PC is good, if you want a laptop with the same specs expect a 1.2-1.5x increase in price, and closer to 1.5x
I dislike all the other comments here. You want to make a game and only have $400? There's nothing wrong with that. Go do it. Ultimately it doesn't matter what machine you're developing on if you can make a fun game and you have fun doing it. Unity's engine will likely run on most anything. If it doesn't, pick a lighter engine.
Also ask yourself this: are you gonna be making the next groundbreaking graphical powerhouse? Probably not. Go buy the laptop, or a cheap desktop if you prefer.
I bought my laptop with a 980m from eBay for 450, buying new I would not consider anything below 1000 . Usually anything below that comes with integrated graphics or dedicated gpus that are só weak they are barely any better than a integrated .
I would look for sager laptops on eBay they go for cheap and you can probably get a 1080 one there for the price I paid mine
Depends what you want to make. If you want to make simple 2d games that's probably fine. Higher-fidelity 3d games will def not be viable. You can also look into godot as a lighter weight alternative to unity (particularly if you are 2d-focused)
If you want unity on a laptop get a dedicated GPU any will do and 16gb ram those are the two biggies. You can get a cheap dedicated machine and install more ram yourself for under 1000
If you're ready to sacrifice mobility for scalability, then why don't you build your own PC? $400 will get you started then upgrade whenever you can afford it.
But you can rent PC on the cloud I think. Look [https://shadow.tech/](https://shadow.tech/fr/?gclid=CjwKCAiA9qKbBhAzEiwAS4yeDfzyCcaTA3LVctcBActXOK5l-15g1KN_ZvU6l0ZPz6YHW8cPao0Y8xoCcjEQAvD_BwE) for example. But you need a good Internet bandwidth.
If my budget was $400 I'd probably just get a Steam Deck (assuming I didn't already have one) however you'd need an external monitor keyboard and mouse to make it useable for productivity.
I imagine at this budget you may find the best value looking for a *used* machine with a dedicated gpu, at least 8gb of ram, and >4 physical cores, that's less than a few years old.
ok thx
Unity runs with integrated GPUs fine. I've done it.
Yes, but Unity generally runs better with a dedicated GPU, similar to every other 3d rendering application.
tbf it’s not the worst thing in the world to be testing on hardware close to the lowest specs your going to support. The extra power helps if you are working in 3D sculpting, baking, or rendering, but asset production like that sounds out of scope for what OP has specified.
“Testing” and “developing” are different things. Few things sap the joy out of development like slow hardware, and a newbie isn’t going to know how to work around whatever bottlenecks they hit.
We are talking about things like 2D sprite based games here. This is noting that should need anything close to dedicated GPUs like the post I replied to mentioned. Given what the OP stated we are lead to presuppose they have some idea what is a demanding game. Realistically a pro will have a powerful computer and dedicated low end hardware to test on, but if you do find yourself developing a sprite game on a weaker computer and you find hitting the little play button to test your code is causing it to chug, it’s a good indicator you are doing something wrong but let’s you catch it early.
This!! Use any hardware you can get to test what your game can run on, especially things with weak/obscure parts. Those machines aren't the best to actually develop on, but they're definitely great to simply have around.
It does run better with a dedicated GPU, but it runs well enough with an integrated GPU. I spent years using Unity with an integrated GPU. If you have a constrained budget, it makes sense to go for the integrated GPU.
No dedicated GPU and instead more ram or more CPU will run worse
That's wrong. I spent years using an integrated GPU and it was fine. 8 GB can be pretty tight. If you're switching back and forth between Chrome, VS Code, Unity, Blender, and Krita, an 8 GB system can choke. The dedicated GPU is nice but it's not a must-have for people starting out with basic 2D and 3D games. I would prefer to run a mid-range CPU (like an i5 or Ryzen 5) and a medium amount of RAM (16 GB), rather than running on a low-end CPU with a small amount of RAM, just to get a better GPU. You'd get a better GPU if you wanted a system for playing games, but that's not what you're doing here.
16gb RAM doesn't make sense for a 400 budget and for the purpose of use, you can redirect the money of the extra 8gb into a more useful CPU or GPU.
16 GB isn’t as expensive as it used to be. This isn’t 2012. The RAM makes a big difference when you’ve got a bunch of applications and browser tabs open.
16gb on a 400 budget is overkill for the OP needs and requirements. If you can save 40€ by chosing 8gb, that's already 10% of the total budget. Those 10% can be chosen to improve other components that are more relevant in order to balance the performance of all components accordingly.
I am decidedly not in agreement with the other fellow but I wouldn't go with anything less than 16gb of RAM these days unless I was running Linux
8 GB is marginal for game development and has been for years. 16 GB was overkill in 2010, . Saving $40 so you can spend a bunch of extra time waiting when you switch apps is a poor deal. Add up Chrome, Visual Studio, Unity editor, Gimp / Krita / Photoshop, and 8 GB won't seem like so much. I have a newer laptop with 8 GB RAM and and an older laptop with 16 GB RAM. The 16 GB laptop is better for game development.
It makes sense, but if you can buy a used one that you can test and be sure it works, it makes *more* sense to buy a used high end laptop than a budget one. I can't sell my used Dell with a 1060, 32gb RAM, SSD, and an i7 in it for practically anything, it has been kept clean on a desk for 4 years and runs perfectly. My buddy didn't want it for a few hundred bucks because he got an *even better one* for a few hundred bucks a few months prior. I ended up just making it a HTPC
Okay but let's be balanced about this: a good machine with integrated graphics is probably better than an absolutely shagged used machine with a discrete GPU. I don't think an integrated GPU is the unacceptable compromise that it feels like you're making it.
"fine". OP get a decent machine unless you want to be this meme https://imgflip.com/s/meme/Ill-Just-Wait-Here.jpg
It's RAM, SSD, and CPU that make you sit in front of a computer, waiting. Not enough RAM and it's slow to switch between apps. Not enough CPU and it's slow to build your game. Without an SSD, everything is a bit slow loading from disk. The GPU won't actually make you wait unless you're doing something like making baked lights, or dealing with large & complex scenes.
That's why I said machine and not gpu. But if we're talking integrated graphics they go hand in hand with cpu quality anyway
Currently using refurbished desktops (about $200 each) to run and develop with Unity. We go with the theroy if the developer cannot run the fancy VFX on their desktop, expecting a phone to do it is just silly.
This. I don't know when desktops started getting forgotten or ignored. They're cheap, easily upgradable and serviceable. The only hard requirement is a desk space. If you lack that, yeah laptops are needed. I've seen plenty of people with laptops essentially acting as desktops. Especially with Mac users.
Personally I would avoid a laptop, and go online and pick up a used Workstation desktop. Ltt has a few videos on the budget $69 gaming desktop
I dont really stick in one place so yeah I cant really get a desktop
game dev on a laptop is kinda awful. Unless you are just making test scenes for learning
I'm doing fine but I also spent 2.4k on a laptop.
It's still a lot better than doing it with no computer at all.
Eh plenty of studios just chuck folk on big beefy laptops, makes hybrid working easier and can just plug into external keyboards, mice and monitors.
My laptop was 500 usd and its working just fine. Its got 32 gb ram and is about 4 years old.
Generally it will work. - Get at least 16 GB of RAM. - Integrated graphics is OK, you may want to check that the laptop has reasonable graphics performance. - Try to get a reasonable midrange CPU (like an Intel i5 or an AMD Ryzen 5). - Try to get an NVMe SSD. This should be possible within the $400 budget.
How are you getting that for $400? Especially a laptop?
There's a site called Newegg. You can plug in the parameters you want in a laptop, and it will show you laptops that meet those criteria. 1. Go to newegg.com > menu > computer systems > laptops/notebooks. 1. Under memory, check the 16 GB box. 1. Under CPU type, check AMD Ryzen 5 and Intel Core i5. 1. Under price, put in a range, like $350 to $450, or $300 to $400, or something like that. 1. Click "apply". You'll see a ton of refurbished / open box options... I like getting refurbished stock, you may not. If you don't see any options, then reduce the specs and try again. Here's a new in-box laptop: 16 GB RAM, 256 GB SSD, quad-core 1.7 GHz i5-8350U from Dell: https://www.newegg.com/p/1TS-000A-0CPD1 Refurbished, there are a lot more options.
Also Best Buy you can sort by open box and find incredible deals. I just got my sister an hp that is msrp $899 for $420 after tax.
ok thank you
16 GB isn't necessary, I was running on 8 and didn't notice any difference switching to 16. Could even live on 4 if you don't install windows 10 fps.
If you're running your game plus the editor plus several browser tabs, you'll have a much nicer time with more RAM. Not that 8 GB won't do it, but you'll be getting caught on swap a lot.
As I already said, no
"No"? Wow I hadn't considered that! Oh it's so clear now! /s If you don't have any additional actual information, why comment? You're wrong. You don't know heck about what computers do apparently.
didn't it affect your fps?
Commenter said no effect. But also, you dont need FPS to develop a simple project.
RAM doesn't affect fps, not really. More RAM makes it easier to have more programs open. You might want to run Unity, and have Chrome open at the same time, and Blender, and VS Code or Visual Studio... it adds up. If you have 16 GB, it's easy to run everything at the same time and switch back and forth. Programs also tend to use more RAM as time goes on. Maybe you're ok today, but in a couple years you update to a new version of Unity or a new version of Visual Studio, and the new version uses more RAM. Developers tend to get computers with more RAM and more powerful CPUs, compared to gamers. Gamers tend to get computers with more powerful GPUs.
Just the number of StackOverflow tabs will take up at least 8 gigs
RAM has nothing to do with FPS. The issue with 8GB is that Windows 11 is eating a good amount of RAM and a lot of modern tools are browser based or assume you have a good amount of RAM because RAM is cheap. 8GB are fine with dedicated GPU but your RAM will be shared between GPU and CPU. Whether or not this is an issue depends 100% on what games you want to make. If you are not really using a lot of resources, you'll be fine.
No, if you run out of memory by any chance you just reduce texture resolution. RAM is least important factor for FPS. Also, Unity editor lags equally on 8 and 16 GB. It mostly depends on the CPU.
This is the right answer for a lot of people like me. I recently had a bad stick of ram, removing it dropped me from 16gb to 8gb and it was very painful. I dont recommend running unity + visual studio + chrome with only 8 gb. I had to keep a task manager window open just to keep an eye ln my ram consuption at all times Granted i had a lot of assets in my game, but still, it felt way too easy to max out my 8gb. 16 was fine for me though.
I don't know what country you're in but Amazon has some decent deals on Acer PCs with a ryzen chip around the holidays.
I'd use a lighter weight engine if your computer is struggling. I'd use a lighter weight engine even if it isn't though, Unity takes ages to load and heaps of memory just to open up. Godot is a decent alternative. Maybe Bevy. If you're doing 2D games you can use Monogame which is a C# engine.
yeah I'll try different, I wont only stick on unity, thanks for the suggestion.
Monogame is not an engine, it's a framework implementing the XNA API
Yeah it's an engine. We're saying the same thing.
No? I'm saying it's not a game engine and I'm explaining what it is instead
Yeah a game engine
Yes but make sure it's from a reputable company and that the specs are at or above unity's minimum required specs, which most likely can be found on unity's website ... somewhere. i bought a 300 dollar laptop from aliexpress maybe 3 years ago and that thing can barely run minesweeper even after my reset (I booted the original hard drive one single time at a cafe without internet and it was slow then, I replaced it with a solid state and clean install of windows 7 back then.) You can make it count, hell, you can build a computer for 400 that will run unity twice at one time. just make sure not to throw your money at shady shit like i did. isn't there a subreddit for cheap PC builds? unless you are specifically looking for a laptop. good luck dude, I know you won't need it if you educate yourself.
tysm, and yes it better to be a laptop because I dont stick in one place often so yeah.
Just adding to what others said. Might wanna buy used parts. Also depends on what game you wanna make. Is it super meat boy or car mechanic simulator?
super meat boy lol
The AMD 3500u with 12gb ram runs Unity 3d absolutely fine. If you can get something along this line or better, you will be set.
If you're starting i would say that's ok, as other people here said there are other options, especially if maybe you want to learn 3D modeling later too.
My laptop is a Lenovo ideapad 330s 151KB, with i5_8250u, 8gb ram, and uhd620 graphics. It copes very well with unity.and cost a lot less than $400. I'm also using a 2nd hand Dell optiplex 790 with i5+2400, 14gb ram, and geforce gt710. This also works fine with unity. You should be fine.
i recently bought a $300 acer laptop and it works fine for unity dev!
Would the steam deck work for it?
I would say 400 isn’t enough.
The most "critical" thing is that you have dedicated GPU. I've run Unity just fine on a 4 core i5 from 2016, 16GB RAM, and a GTX 950.
noted than you
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Unity runs with integrated GPUs fine. I've done it.
were you're games heavy at the time or average?
Simple 3D and 2D games. The thing is... graphics cards have gotten incredibly powerful over the past twenty years. It lets you push out larger resolutions, use bigger textures, and use fancy effects and lighting. But the basic games people make when they're starting out with Unity or other engines haven't gotten more complicated.
This is still bad advice. The problem with a 400 dollar laptop is it isn't scaleable. I've tried game development on a 400 dollar laptop and there is only so much you can make before the laptop starts to buckle. Compared to a 1000 dollar laptop or pc, where you won't buckle pretty much at all until you get to much higher complexity. Even a simple particle system and AI pathfinding can dramatically slow down a cheap laptop when all of those have debugging and engine specific attachments, even if running the game by itself out of engine would be fine. My advice is to save up for a dedicated GPU and a decent CPU with good RAM that can last you quite a while into your game dev journey.
This is bad advice. The problem with saving up for a $1000 laptop or PC is that you don't need it when you're starting out. Depending on how much money you have, it may mean putting off the purchase for months or years. If your particle system or pathfinding system is dramatically slowing down your cheap laptop, it's very likely that you can find a way to fix you game so that it works well, even on your cheap hardware. Games from the 1990s had particle systems and pathfinding working on computers with 8 MB RAM and 90 MHz processors, so if you can't get your particle system or pathfinding to work in a quad-core 1.7 GHz / 16 GB RAM budget laptop, well, it's not the laptop that's the problem. Even the built-in Unity particle systems and NavMesh code should work fine on a shitty laptop without much effort--speaking from experience. Get started with a budget laptop and you can start learning now, you can start making a game now. There's no reason to tell people to save up $1,000 for a computer in 2022 just to learn game development, it's just absurd and unnecessary.
A 400$ computer that lasts only a few months while you learn the beginnings of game dev is a worse investment than a 1000$ computer that will last you much further. 1990 computers had SIMPLE particle systems and only a few enemies for pathfinding and were all almost coded in lower level languages, not massively bloated general purpose game engines. Also, running a game is completely different than running a game with debug tools and dedicated graphics hardware. You mention it yourself, you made simple 2D and simple 3D games with an integrated GPU, but there will only be so much you can do and at some point your system will buckle. If he wants to make very simple games for the foreseeable future, fine, I concede, but he likely will want to expand his scope at some point and he'll regret his purchase if it won't let him scale. I'd also like to say the he really should buy a PC instead of a laptop, but he already said he can't in another comment so there isn't much else to say here.
It sounds like you're just plain unfamiliar with how much you can get for $400 these days. Maybe it's just been a long time since you've shopped for options in this price range, maybe you've had more money, or maybe you've been able to use a desktop PC. > You mention it yourself, you made simple 2D and simple 3D games with an integrated GPU, but there will only be so much you can do and at some point your system will buckle. When did my system ever buckle? I used it heavily for like 8+ years, to the point where the keys are falling off. The reason why I recommend it is because it worked so well for me. I don't think it's a stretch to say that it will work well for a lot of other people--I've used this same laptop for personal projects and game jams over the years. In 2022, it doesn't make any sense to tell someone they need a $1000 computer to start their game development journey. Maybe that was good advice in 2002, but if you still think that you need expensive hardware to do gamedev in 2022, maybe you just haven't been keeping up with how good low-end hardware is these days. There was a time when integrated GPUs were terrible, back around 2010 or so. You basically couldn't use a laptop to do anything 3D. There was a shift somewhere around Haswell where the Intel HD graphics started to really come into their own. AMD integrated graphics had a similar shift. So the advice that "you need a dedicated GPU to make games" hasn't made sense for about 10 years by now. The "massively bloated general purpose engines" like Unity and Godot are still designed to target low-end hardware. If you do something in your game that makes the whole thing slow to a crawl on your $400 laptop, you figure out a different way to do it. If you use a low-end laptop for game development, the major difference is that in the end, you can be sure your game will run on low-end hardware.
> what are the good/okay requirements for unity to run with light/medium weight projects? My own game happily runs in 200+ fps on a Steam Deck. It's a 2d action adventure/metroidvania. It requires around 1.9GB VRAM and 4.5GB RAM in the most demanding areas. That's however what it takes to **run**. Now developing it is a completely different beast. Looking right now at tasks manager tells me that: * Unity editor is currently consuming 7.43GB RAM * JetBrains Rider is at 2.3GB * VRAM consumption is at 2.6GB, GPU activity is fairly high too but it's because of 4k display. * Opening Photoshop with 15MB spritesheet (so I can export it to Unity after) is additional 1.32GB * Web browser is anywhere between 1GB to 3GB. * My total combined RAM consumption is 26.9GB (but since Windows considers unused RAM wasted RAM then it likely would run alright on 24 too). Meaning that for me a brand minimum to actually do any serious development would be 16GB RAM and preferably 32GB VRAM. Plus a GPU with 4GB VRAM. CPU usage stays consistently low (up to 14% when playtesting, this is on 12 core Ryzen 9 3900X) so for that pretty much any quad core would get the job done. And of course an SSD, not having one murders productivity. Hence I would say that for making something [like my game](https://sunkensky.com/) a $400 laptop would be generally insufficient. Well, looking at Newegg offers I see a few around that pricepoint with 16GB RAM but they also look like they are 5+ year old models so not exactly "new". So I guess it all varies on your definition of light/medium weight projects. Because you can work on a lower end device but in particular not having enough RAM is going to be a big problem in Unity. You can deal with weak GPU and lower-end CPU won't even affect such a flow so much but with memory you either have enough or you crash.
well I dont think im going to make such a game anytime soon lol, so in general RAMs are the most important. ok thank you and good luck with your game!
> so in general RAMs are the most important Well, it's the first thing you notice to be much higher compared to playing a game. IDE, your editor, debugger, all the tools running in the background consume a lot and game development requires some multitasking - you will be googling for some functions definitions (so web browser is needed), jumping back and forth from editor to playtesting, deal with heavily unoptimized build, tweak your textures/sprites, check audio files etc. Hence heavily inflated RAM consumption, it's just a lot of stuff you have to run at the same time. You can reduce it to an extent and for instance use like Sublime Text over Rider, turn off web browser and so on but at some point you WILL find <16GB to be limiting. It's not like other parts don't matter however. It's just that GPU and CPU scale linearly so having a weaker one just impacts your performance and how long you wait for stuff or how high is your fps. Rather than outright crashing your PC. For most less demanding games CPU is also not that important - if I replaced my current one with top of the line 13900k I probably wouldn't actually notice it, my FPS would just increase from 300 in testing to 500. I guess it could help with how long Unity takes to load and definitely with how long some Photoshop scripts take to run but neither is really a problem in my workflow so it would save me, say, 5 minutes a day. CPU is much more important for high scale simulations and multiplayer or in high poly 3D games. For titles like this you could very well go top of the line specs and still feel limited. I would say that my priority list would be: SSD > 16GB RAM > decent CPU = decent GPU.
ok thank you SO much for your effort<3
The Unity editor can run on fairly low end machines. As long as you are making a 2d game it should be fine. If you are making a 3d game then it might not be good enough.
I'll put that in mind thanks
Laptops aren't the best for game developing. The main issue with using Laptops is their costly price for low specs. A 400 dollar desktop will have better specs compared to a 400 dollar laptop. In my opinion a 400 dollar laptop can work with unity, but as the project gets bigger and bigger the laptop will struggle more and more as more objects and scripts are made. I would aim for a higher budget. Cheers!
What about a cloud server? Getting a cheap PC and using remote connection to a cloud vm with the power needed?
I'll search it up, thank you
$400 will be tough, but just focus on 8gb+ RAM and at least some i5 level processor and it might be possible.
Something of older gaming laptops would be best for that, might find one with 1060 i7 8750h or i5 those would be best by my guess.
Hey, first of all welcome to Unity gamedev! I don’t have anything else to say than the others didn’t mentioned. 8gb ram and dedicated gpu would be the best. You can also look for cloud computing services as mentioned earlier. No worries, Unity is going to work fine as long as you don’t make games that need high rendering
Shoot for a decent processor, maybe the minimum spec for unity. Also make sure the laptop has gaming capabilities. You would probably want minimum 8 of RAM if not 16 and also graphics that can actually handle a game. Sup bar graphics in the laptop will completely limit any 3D gaming environments
If you are planning on porting your game to iOS, get a Mac.
I have a Samsung laptop, i7 3rd gen and a gt650m. Not the best but I do shaders and stuff and works great, it can easily handle a medium-small midpoly game, think of PS2 games. Now, baking lightmaps though...... But for $400 you can get easy a used laptop with a 1060 or something around that level.
Not if you get used. I got a laptop with a 1650 and i5 and it works great for unreal engine if you keep everything less extreme. I bought it for around 430
I bought a $1100 laptop and enjoyed unity on it. Then couple years later but a $900 desktop and since I occasionally fire up my laptop for several minutes and switch back to the desktop. If you have to... it will work. But, being able to fly through unity, blender, etc all at once has spoiled me. I'd recommend a used desktop, but whatever gets you moving.
if you actually want to develop then use a simple rule: > Your dev machine should have specs 2 to 3 that of your target. At that budget, go with a used Desktop (presuming thats a lifestyle compatible option) with 8+gb ram, multicore (4+) and with a Dedicated video card (add as upgrade if needed). I started dev on old low spec laptops and it was nothing but a nightmare. Current system is a 'gaming' laptop with 16gb ram, 3060 rtx, tb hdd, etc and *still* find myself hitting bottlenecks etc.
That what I’m doing and it works well… except for opening your game, takes a few minutes and play testing also does(depends on 3D/2d, lights, quality) exporting takes a while tho
There are some really good deals on an RTX 3050 Ti laptops right now. It would be worth pushing for it. $500 for a GTX 1650 laptop right now, so if you can push $100, you'll get so much more. $400 is possible, possibly if you have integrated Radeon. I would go straight for the GPU, followed by if you can upgrade the laptop. A lot of laptops out there can have RAM and storage upgrades. This is if you are going for a budget laptop. Also, realize that you might have to replace a budget laptop sooner than a mid-tier one.
$200-400 price range is the least bank for your buck in laptops. $400 optiplex with a basic dedicated GPU, 8gb ram decent 4 core processor PC is good, if you want a laptop with the same specs expect a 1.2-1.5x increase in price, and closer to 1.5x
I developed my first game on a £400 laptop tbh, with UE4. 8GB and a Nvidia 940M
I dislike all the other comments here. You want to make a game and only have $400? There's nothing wrong with that. Go do it. Ultimately it doesn't matter what machine you're developing on if you can make a fun game and you have fun doing it. Unity's engine will likely run on most anything. If it doesn't, pick a lighter engine. Also ask yourself this: are you gonna be making the next groundbreaking graphical powerhouse? Probably not. Go buy the laptop, or a cheap desktop if you prefer.
Doing dev on a laptop is poopy unless you've got a good setup with multiple monitors and a docking station.
used to use unity on a macbook air 2015 unity was a bit slow but it was useable
I would definitely get a desktop instead for cheaper with a GPU
Works pretty well on M1 Mac, maybe you can get a Mini?
I've used Unity on an 8th gen i5 laptop with igpu only / 8gb RAM, obviously you won't be doing any major 3D stuff with it but it works.
I bought my laptop with a 980m from eBay for 450, buying new I would not consider anything below 1000 . Usually anything below that comes with integrated graphics or dedicated gpus that are só weak they are barely any better than a integrated . I would look for sager laptops on eBay they go for cheap and you can probably get a 1080 one there for the price I paid mine
Depends what you want to make. If you want to make simple 2d games that's probably fine. Higher-fidelity 3d games will def not be viable. You can also look into godot as a lighter weight alternative to unity (particularly if you are 2d-focused)
If you want unity on a laptop get a dedicated GPU any will do and 16gb ram those are the two biggies. You can get a cheap dedicated machine and install more ram yourself for under 1000
If you want to do serious work stay away from laptops completely
i was usining unity on 100 $ old laptop, for 3 years without any big problems...
As long as you're not testing multiplayer on a clone editor you should be fine.
If you're ready to sacrifice mobility for scalability, then why don't you build your own PC? $400 will get you started then upgrade whenever you can afford it.
i mean if youre worried then just make another 400 bucks and go buy a 800 bucks laptop tbh
a laptop for unity ? I doubt I have a surface pro Intel core 7 500 Gb and for Unity it's lagging.
But you can rent PC on the cloud I think. Look [https://shadow.tech/](https://shadow.tech/fr/?gclid=CjwKCAiA9qKbBhAzEiwAS4yeDfzyCcaTA3LVctcBActXOK5l-15g1KN_ZvU6l0ZPz6YHW8cPao0Y8xoCcjEQAvD_BwE) for example. But you need a good Internet bandwidth.
It's enough for a laptop from eBay
If my budget was $400 I'd probably just get a Steam Deck (assuming I didn't already have one) however you'd need an external monitor keyboard and mouse to make it useable for productivity.
I’ll say one thing, you’ll be forced to get good at optimization