Hi! I’m looking to get into unreal engine 5. I want a laptop, and not a pc. Can you guys recommend me one from experience? It cannot be Lenovo or Asus, as I got a Lenovo Slim i9 2023 one earlier ans it really failed within one month use and had to argue for 3 months straight with support to get a refund. I want high-end specs and a good quality build. I don’t care much about graphics or size, as long as the maths work really well. I’m willing to spend extra for a good laptop that is at least reliable with good storage. 32 ram, i9 or any equivalent, big space, good coolling system if its a gaming one. But I’m open if its a work professional one.
I’m not a gamer and I’m gonna use this for the purpose of building games, that aren’t high quality. But in the case I decide to use blender or big assets and fields in the engine, I need it to be compatible if I’m going to add a bunch of mechanics. For this, it needs to run unreal engine and word docs well.
Fun fact: the lenovo one that was a gaming laptop, bruh, didnt use it for any development yet but just opening word doc had the laptop head up too fast. Within 1 month the laptop began reseting itself and having dark black screens. So just heads up if youre looking to get Lenovo. Just look at the reviews at the customer area in their websites.
I want it to be windows or linux preferable but if you tried mac and it works well, please let me know. Still heard max is bad wkth it though but im willling to give it ago.
I’d look for a Windows laptop with a dedicated graphics card. ( i9 class CPU is probably overkill unless you’re rendering videos / doing heavy multi-threaded workloads)
Any modern laptop in the 800-1300$ range should be enough to get started with development.
If you just want to play around, and don’t need to run all the highest-end demo scenes, anything with a RTX 3060 and up, or a RTX 4060 and up, is likely to be “good enough,” although you should make sure to get at least 32 GB of RAM.
If you’re going to be running the heavier demo scenes (“AAA” type content) then you’ll want at least 64 GB RAM, probably more, as well as a 4090 graphics card (4080 could work in a pinch.) Also, cooling and power delivery becomes a real challenge. (There’s a reason most AAA developers I’ve worked with use workstations rather than laptops …)
This means something like Alienware m16, or Dell XPS 17, which when correctly configured will run you $2500-$3500.
Dropping down to a RTX 4060, you can get something in the $1500 range, though, like the Dell Inspiron 16 with the appropriate configuration.
Thank you so much for your reply It’s great to be here. I’ve done a lot of research in advance and I want this laptop to be super long term in the case I’m going to use it for AAA development. Is it still okay to use i7 with that in mind?
If you have any, what kind of laptops do you have in mind?
Thank you so much for your reply and giving some examples. I don’t mind paying 5,000 either.
Can some small AAA games work in 32GB too? Or it has to be specifically a 64GB?
I was looking into the HP Omen 16 and HP Omen Tracend 16. One of them has two replacable ram sticks. But I’ll look into Dell XPS 15 thank you so much and that Alienware.
Are there heat problems or internal problems I should expect in any of those products? In general how long do gaming laptops last?
As for storage, is 1 terabyte enough? Or must it be 2? Again, as a beginner but if we look to the future 2 is better?
You seemed dead-set on a laptop, so I wasn’t going to try and convince you otherwise, but I’d caution against getting a “super long term” laptop. - The high end ones would use a lot of power → generate a ton of heat → have loud fans spin up. (Also very bulky and heavy) A PC would have many more repair and upgrade options for the long term.
My general conception of a good laptop minimums would be
i5
3060
16(but preferably 32 GB RAM)
2TB SSD would be comfortable
Some other things to take into consideration:
If the laptop has empty RAM slots, you can add more RAM later
External GPUs via Thunderbolt connection are now a thing.
AAA is an area that pushes against every limitation that exists for production. It’s unlikely you can be part of a true AAA development project on only 64 GB of RAM. Those guys typically use whatever the biggest workstation tower is that you can get. (Subcontractors may still use something smaller, but then only for some subset of the game, such as a particular character or whatever.)
A few years ago (so, not even that recently,) I was unable to open a higher-end Unreal demo level in the Unreal editor on a Ryzen Threadripper 1950X machine with 64 GB RAM and a GTX 1080 graphics card.
That being said, if you’re a lone developer, you probably won’t be able to get to attempt AAA level production, because that requires an interlocking set of support services that a single person simply can’t achieve on their own, so 64 GB probably is enough for anything you can develop on your own. (But still, there will exist large levels that aren’t going to work out in the editor.)
Meanwhile, if you’re just learning, in reality, a 32 GB machine with an RTX 4060 is probably quite good enough – it takes a long time to get to the point where the content you develop will really be able to push the limits for real. (Although of course if you choose to just bog down the system needlessly, that’s easy to do, no matter how big the system )
So, if you are really serious about game development, get a workstation.
Another possibility is to rent a Windows instance with GPU from Amazon, and connect to it using remote desktop. It sounds crazy, but it can work reasonably well. Image quality isn’t perfect, but it can have a lot of RAM available, and you only pay when you actually have the instance running. (Of course, it goes away when you shut it off, so make sure everything’s saved!)
Jwatte hey man, thank you so much for those thorough explanations. This was really interesting.
I decided for now ill get a 32 4060. Since its the original I was going for. I’m still learning this means i need a laptop with both really good upgrade options. The hp omen anything and alienware m16 seems to be a good start.
I’ll try out this window instance amazon thing some other time when I actually get a laptop first hahaah but I’ll definitely at least attempt it and give it a go since you mentioned it.
I feel smarter lmaoo Thank you so much for these easy realistic explanations. Cheers!
It’s great to be here. I’ve done a lot of research in advance and I want this laptop to be super long term in the case I’m going to use it for AAA development. Is it still okay to use i7 with that in mind?
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