Hi there,
I’m a new unreal user and I’m trying to buy a performant laptop to be able to work with software like zbrush (with heavy files), Maya, Photoshop, marmoset, Mari and a lot of other ones.
Unreal 4, in particular, it is the one I really need to be able to work with.
I would avoid having a desktop but, is it possible to run all these programs on a laptop?
I have found the specifics for a desktop on the website, but nothing regarding laptops.
Is there someone who is able to give me an idea about the specifics for a good one, and if it is a good idea or it’s better to avoid laptops for any reason, please?
(Disclaimer: Just chiming in with some info about my laptop experience with UE4, can’t really comment on the best setup to use, so feel free to ignore).
I tried installing UE4 on a totally budget laptop and it sure did run (after 3 and a half hours of building the source… never… never again). The FPS was pretty bad, but to be honest, it was almost use-able which really surprised me.
Go for a really higher-end laptop with much better specs than the one above, and I’m sure you’ll be able to run it decently, but you’ll need to spend quite a bit to get one that will run it as well as (or better than) a desktop.
UE4 is more hardware tolerant then people think it is, as long as you meet minimum requirements you ok to go (ofcorse with lower FPS).
I got even lower specs on my tower PC my GPU is even lower then documented minimum requirement on memory (>1GB), yet it works fine and thats enoth to me to enjoy coding on UE4
I’m able to run UE4 on my 2012 Macbook Pro(both in Mac OS and bootcamped Windows 8.1) without any issues. The only time I notice a slowdown and wish I was on my desktop is when I’m baking the lights for production.
mmhh so it seems that it does works on laptops, but not at his best performances.
First of all thank you so much for your suggestions.
I know it would be better to have a desktop, but unfortunately In this period I’m moving from one flat to another really often, and last time my desktop has arrived half destroyed after a fly through airplane.
I would avoid to repeat this experience, if possible, unless you have some suggestion to keep a desktop, not insanely heavy (speaking of weight) and easy to move.
In any case, because I’m an asset builder, and I don’t need to load insanely heavy scenes I suppose I could accept the compromise with a laptop…
About the prize, I was oriented to a 1200/1600 £ one. (I would like to spend less but it’s a laptop, I don’t think it’s possible to spend less AND grant me a good stability with these programs)
creating some first configuration I was thinking about taking a SSD primary hardisk to make it run faster, but because in this way I exceed the prize I had in mind, do you think it is necessary to have a solid state disk to have decent performances OR I can go with a single Samsung 7200 rpm?
Also, I would like to know from Ambershee, if possible, what kind of performance limit do you find with your machine?
It seems you have a good CPU and GPU. What is the problem?
[QUOTE=Astaron;4580]
Hi there,
I’m a new unreal user and I’m trying to buy a performant laptop to be able to work with software like zbrush (with heavy files), Maya, Photoshop, marmoset, Mari and a lot of other ones.
Unreal 4, in particular, it is the one I really need to be able to work with.
I would avoid having a desktop but, is it possible to run all these programs on a laptop?
I have found the specifics for a desktop on the website, but nothing regarding laptops.
Is there someone who is able to give me an idea about the specifics for a good one, and if it is a good idea or it’s better to avoid laptops for any reason, please?
thank you for any help.
Cheers!!
It runs perfectly on “beast” laptops, but your average run of the mill laptop will struggle. “Beasts” being a minimum of 8 gig of RAM and a decent graphics card.
If you’d bothered to read the specifications, it tells you in plain English what’s supported and what’s not.
[QUOTE=Astaron;4994]
Also, I would like to know from Ambershee, if possible, what kind of performance limit do you find with your machine?
It seems you have a good CPU and GPU. What is the problem?
My machine is what I’d consider top-end and it cost less than £1000. Quite frankly UE4 isn’t optimised for mobile hardware, so I don’t think it’s easy to fare much better. The heaviest demos are massively GPU bound and I only get 10fps or less.
I’m running it on my laptop and it’s great! Okay I’m not getting 60fps, or even a constant 30fps in some heavy scenes, but it still looks great and is fine for dev work.
Hi Unreal Team. Will this run on the latest Macbook Pro Retina which has 16GB RAM and a 750M GT 2GB nVidia card ? Since I am developing for iOS I need a solid Mac development machine and I dont want to buy a big Mac Desktop. This Macbook version is the only one with a Graphics card so not much choice for iOS dev ! Please advice.
But I was able to get more than acceptable framerate even in Elemental Demo - the framerate varied from 30 to 40 on Ultra at 1080p. In Subway Reflections I usually get about 50 fps, and in simple scenes - 120, so it suprises me that some posters here said that they had very poor performance with similar specs.
There is one thing that I noticed, though - when the laptop runs on a battery, throttling makes the system stutter hence I can’t even get 30 fps - so running in a true “mobile” mode is not an option.
[QUOTE=;4644]
The UE4 runs on laptops, but as Sonshi said, you wont get a good fps rate:
My setup:
nvidia gtx 660 M
Intel i7 (I dont know the exact version)
4GB RAM
windows 7
With that setup I get around 30-40 fps in one of the template maps
well your machine is well above the one im using except for your memory is your downfall get 8 gigs and id love to know if the graphic and i7 chip do the business…
[QUOTE=;108668]
well your machine is well above the one im using except for your memory is your downfall get 8 gigs and id love to know if the graphic and i7 chip do the business…
Not so well ^^ -> but when I set the scalability settings to medium I can work with it
[QUOTE=;4736]
I’m able to run UE4 on my 2012 Macbook Pro(both in Mac OS and bootcamped Windows 8.1) without any issues. The only time I notice a slowdown and wish I was on my desktop is when I’m baking the lights for production.
Unreal 4.2
HP laptop
Intel 3000 HD graphics (DirectX10)
Core i3
Can run games like Spore or Batman Arkham City fine or Unity3D. But struggles with Unreal Editor. Has a low FPS even at minimum graphics settings.
Haven’t tried Unreal 4.3 but I was watching a video on youtube may have been this one? ?v=BWXBkV_C8Zs
Which the people at Unreal said they were trying to make it run faster on laptops and that they themselves sometimes use laptops.
Personally I’m waiting until Unreal 4.4 when hopefully there will be more of an improvement.
As they are targeting mobile platforms too, they might learn some more optimisation tricks which they might transfer to the editor.
I’m guessing for now you’d probably need a dedicated gaming laptop with it’s own separate graphics card.
