Hi everyone!
I’ve used unreal for long time and now I want to purchase a new iMac.
I’m looking into the iMac Pro setup and wonders which configurations should I take for fast and stable game development (using UE), including desktop VR games.
Other than that my usages is standard mobile & app dev, including bacend (though this won’t require the intensive computing power obviously).
Do you have any experience with this computer in any specific configurations setup you can share? or recommend on a prefered configurations?
The base config is
3.2GHz 8-core Intel Xeon W processor
Turbo Boost up to 4.2GHz
32GB 2666MHz ECC memory, configurable up to 128GB
1TB SSD storage[SUP]1[/SUP]
Radeon Pro Vega 56 with 8GB HB
In my budget limit, the max I can go is:
3.0GHz 10-core Intel Xeon W processor, Turbo Boost up to 4.5GHz
64GB 2666MHz DDR4 ECC memory
2TB SSD
Radeon Pro Vega 64 with 16GB of HBM2 memory
As it adds lot of money, I wonder if it’s necessary (I can change only some of the configurations to these configs).
If you’re developing for VR then you have to develop on Windows anyway and then it’s more worth your money to build a PC.
For iOS you still need a Mac to be able to use Xcode to deploy to the iOS store, but you can still do development for that and testing with a PC.
Hi! Thanks for your answer!
Up to now, I developed standard desktop and iOS games, now as I’m purchasing a new computer I want to focus on VR for desktop as well.
I understood that the iMac Pro can support desktop VR development, doesn’t it? As far as pricing, the cost is almost identical, then what is the advantage in getting DIY PC?
VR support is not great on Mac, and $5,000 is a really poor value in a computer, you can build a faster Windows PC and have full VR compatibility for at least $1,000 less. The only reason to go with an iMac is if you absolutely have to have a Mac.
With a PC, you can also save a bunch of money by not getting ECC memory, and using a 512GB-1TB SSD for your OS, applications, and projects. And use a larger HDD for backup and storage.
Especially for VR, personally I’d want to be able to upgrade the GPU, since new GPUs will be coming out this year. Every generation of GPU adds more VR focused features. The 1080 Ti is much faster than the Radeon Pro Vega 64 in VR titles.
There is nothing wrong with a mac in other areas, but when it comes to VR development - game or otherwise - you are better off sticking with the PC platform.
The other problem with the Macs is the graphics hardware - they use workstation GPUs that aren’t very well sorted to real time applications, and the CPUs whilst fine for the task are quite expensive compared to what you actually need. A solid Windows development PC should cost less than $2000.