Best computer build for Unreal development

Hi all,

I am currently working on a brand new iMac with a 4GHz i7, 32GB of ram and a AMD Radeon R9 M295X 4096 MB graphics card but it seems to take a very long time to load Shadowrun VR demo for example and building the lighting takes a good 10-15 mins.

Is it best to be working on a Windows Machine and could someone recommend a good machine spec for around £2000 or do i just need to be patient?

Thanks

Jonathan

You could install Windows on your Mac and see if there’s a performance increase, I believe Windows has a slight performance advantage over Mac with UE4.

But–most Macs aren’t designed for game development. If you want really powerful hardware I’d recommend building a system, and for £2000 you could definitely build a great system.

Note as far as lighting build times, it’s normal even with powerful hardware to let it sit overnight to build the lighting for a finished level, 10-15 minutes is nothing. It’s comparable to rendering in a 3D software, except it has to do more since it’s rendering the entire level. It takes that long since it has to calculate the lighting bounces.

Thanks for the advice. I have my machine bootcamped, unfortunately I cant find any up to date drivers for the AMD card they have in the new iMac’s dont know why they replaced the Nvidia GTX card with an AMD. In regards to the Windows build would you suggest going with an SLI approach or just a single card, would you see any performance increase from two card.

Thanks

That machine got plenty of power to run UE4. As said, dual booting windows could be a good idea, but your build times will probably still be long.

It’s best to avoid SLI, it’s a little buggy, but also there’s a lot of programs that can’t use it so you’ll want to get the best single GPU you can afford. UE4 itself does not support SLI

I haven’t heard anything good about macs for UE4, I’d go with PC for UE4 if I were you. You could build an amazing rig for £2000, probably even capable of 4k gaming. I won’t go into the specs as I’ve never had the budget to upgrade to something that high, but you could really build something good.

Here is a handy dandy PC part picker: https://pcpartpicker.com
Put in the parts you want and it will tell you the compatibility between them and the price.

Wow, nice site. For the OP here’s my recommendations: https://pcpartpicker.com/builds/#X=250108,353023&c=266&g=107 :slight_smile: …Of course, a single GTX 980 Ti is sufficient, and no need for water cooling, a high-end Noctua air cooler appears suffice for overclocking the Skylake i7 unlocked.

Thanks for everyones advice. I think i am going to go for a as i need to be mobile. What do people think of this spec. I have checked the graphics card, its not too bad but i value peoples views on this build.

Thanks

Processor (CPU)
Intel® Core™ i7 Quad Core Processor 6820HK (2.7GHz, 3.6GHz Turbo)

Memory (RAM)
32GB KINGSTON HYPER-X IMPACT 2400MHz SODIMM DDR4 (4 x 8GB)

Graphics Card
NVIDIA® GeForce® GTX 980M - 8.0GB DDR5 Video RAM - DirectX® 12

Memory - Hard Disk
480GB KINGSTON HYPERX SAVAGE SSD, SATA 6 Gb/s (upto 560MB/sR | 530MB/sW)

2nd Hard Disk
1TB WD SLIM BLUE WD10SPCX, SATA 6 Gb/s, 16MB CACHE (5400 rpm)

Looks great!

Why would you need it mobile if you have a imac? xD If you had a and said I need it to be mobile then I could understand and M versions are 15-25% slower than normal desktop counterparts, also no need for 2400Mhz ram stick to 2133Mhz there literally 0.000000000% performance increase at all, Also go for a 6core CPU the extra performance would help from there.

Try to avoid a if you can, if mobile isn’t that much of a need then you benefit much more from a desktop. The hardware isn’t as fast on mobile and when you get the really powerful stuff you risk the reliability of the machine because of how much heat it generates.

Sorry. I should have explained the iMac is in my office at work but I was looking for something that I could take with me between the office and when I travel for work.

I knew the performance on the mobile processors wasn’t as good as the desktop equivalent but had no idea about the ram.

I managed to get a sneaky upgrade to the 6 core i7 so fingers crossed it will do everything I need.

Thanks for all the advice

the specs you have listed are good, they’re almost exactly the same as my and it works very well with UE4, although if its only for between the office and travel the ram and cpu seem like overkill slightly.

oh and in my opinion the 980m is a pretty good card, I even had the kite demo running on mine:)

That’s good to hear as I have just placed the order :slight_smile:

My AMD HD Radeon 6800 work fine with UE4, depending on what editor scalability you use. :slight_smile:

Alienware 17

also when looking for monitor to use for gaming, i recommend sharpmodels as they are best

this time go for 1080gtx.