Hardware update

Development Platform & Builds Debugging, Optimization, & Profiling
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Hello I want to learn to use unreal engine, but I have - an I believe - hardware issue, my computer cannot really run the UE4Editor with a good performance, I mean it can run very small projects like templates, but I would like to do more than that. (I think I may be writing in the wrong section if so, then I am terribly sorry)

My computer consist of:

  • an ASUS-H87-PLUS motherboard,
  • an Intel Core i5-4440 processor,
  • an 8GB Kingston memory (DDR3 1600MHz HyperX)
  • an Asus GTX650-E-1GD5 (it is in fact “powered by NVIDIA GeForce GTX 650”)
  • a Hitachi 500Gb 7200rpm SATA-300 16MB
  • OS: Linux Mint 17.2 Cinnamon 64bit

It may or may not be important but my power supply (is it the right word?) is a Chieftec 500W GPS500A8

I thought that I would buy an another RAM like the one I have and I would buy an SSD (Kingston 120GB 2,5" SATA3 V300 SV300S37A/120G) and use that instead of my current HDD. So in the end I have two questions:

  • Would it fit without any problems?
  • Would it be enough to create and work with more complicated projects?
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Hello nthngstr.

Would it fit? I don’t know because I cannot see your pc.
Will it be enough? depends, there is not a real number to say this is what you need.
If you just started learning UE4 then I think it will be enough but would advise to get more than 120GB SSD if you want to install UE4 on there with the projects.
When you get better with UE4 over time you would probably want to upgade your system again, but for now you will be good I think.
The graphics card is important in the game world so I would advise you to get a new one next with atleast 4GB.

This is an hard topic because every one’s opinion is diffrent but this is what I think I hope it will help you :slight_smile:

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AS far as your cpu, you are ok for now, until you project increases in complexity, trust me I know I have a similar cpu roadblock with my Phenom II x4 3.2ghz machine

You gpu is fine, as I think they recommend GTX 4xx and you have reccommended ram though depending on what you want to do, you may need 4 times more. I’ve seen articles by epic staff as I recall saying you you get the ‘best’ performance with 32gb and given I’m having perf. issues myself my hardware notwithstanding, and I don’t even have a complete scene yet, I think they are close to reality there :wink: Game dev isn’t cheap depending on what kind of world you are creating.

What are you doing, that gives you the impression your peformance is ‘bad’ , I think we need more details because there are things you can do to speed up the editor.

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Thank you, by the way by the “would it fit” I meant if my power supply would be enough and if the fact that the ssd is sata3 and my current hdd is sata2 would be a problem? Sorry for the previous poor explanation.

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Your motherboard supports Sata3 so you will be fine.
And your power supply is also fine because RAM and an SSD do not take that much power.

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1, Well, when I placed more than 80 objects on a map it started having a performance issue, the reason of why I was doing that is because I was making a kind of a hill (from objects, yeah, don’t ask why), and I thought that, maybe if I would join the meshes together in blender, then it would most likely improve the performance in UE4Editor, but I was not able to do so, because the blender was having issues as well (most likely, because I subdivided the meshes and made too complex meshes for my computer to work with)
2, When I save or compile any kind of blueprint, the process is very slow (even when I made a very basic material, and by that I mean, I gave it a colour, and the Metalic, Specular and the roughness of it, it was like 8 seconds to save)
3, Importing fbx files is even slower, when I import an fbx file (something like 40kb), it takes like a half minute to import it

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Thank you, very much.

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Hi,

How many triangles are in each object ?

As I recall, current gpu’s prefer objects in one call but given a sscenes complexity and the computer its running it , you can start to see severe performance issues .

I"m just staring to have to address similar issues myself so I"m prob. not THe best person to ask, but in general, if you have a lot of onscreen objs’ and as noted are seeing perf. issues, the engine culls the objects when not in view so that should help alot I’d think, but again someone that knows HOW culling works in all sitations its better able to assist you on this particular request.

ONE thing to note about blender, you may not be aware of, and its meant in the best possible way as I admire blender:

Blender ‘edit’ mode has severe lag sometimes for a lot of us , and its not because blender is a poor 3d app, but atm its ‘edit’ mode is in need of a new api given the OPengl code it uses is from very old code. I"m having the same nightmare editing anything on my current mesh because of that, and I"m only using 1.3 mil triangles atm, which is nothing really. Blender edit mode is terrible atm, so its NOT you, just be aware of that. I even have slowdowns on a 66k tri mesh so its not you necessarily.

As long as you have the very latest version of blender, you have the best it can offer , at least UNTIL they fix edit mode and I have no idea when that is coming as likely its a huge overhaul.

For now, can you reduce your mesh triangle count and try again , which would make it a tad easier to work with blender , with the stated caveats.

Also, I"m using a 3d app called ‘Meshmixer’, which has been incredibly invaluable given blenders edit mode problems.

Its free , my autodesk, and I’m positive you would most likely not expeirence the issues you have with blender currently.

Just bing/google for meshmixer and give it a try.

I"ve used it extensively, so if you have any questions just ask here OR PM me or if need be we can ‘skype’ if that would assist you even more , I could take the time no problem.

I have similar slownesss compiling, maybe they fixed it in 4.12 ? I"ve not upgraded yet as my ssd space is limited but I need to. That could fix it, not sure someone using 4.12 would need to adivse.

Something seems very wrong to me. A 40kb fbx file should import fairly instantly on your system.

Your system is faster than mine, and I have little trouble with that small of a file though I"ve never checked my watch against it. My curernt mesh takes awhile to update in ue4, BUT its 1.4mil tri so I expect that :slight_smile:

Hope some of this helps, gl friend

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P.s.- There are a few things you can do to speed up the editor, one easy one is:

Menu at top > Settings > Engien Scalability Settings > auto, see what that does, and if it sets you to LOW, try something a tad higher see if thats suitable and gives you slightly better visuals for a worse perf. trade off.

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Well, you are right, importing is indeed much faster in 4.12. (by the way it was about 256 triangles if I am counting well), so I will buy that RAM and SSD and hope that it will be enough and thank you very much for the tips and informations.