Hi there, i hope you’re all well and i know you must be tired of reading and answering this question so i’m sorry for bothering but i 'm really into learning UE5, but right now all i have available to me (to start) is my Macbook Pro 2019 13 inches with the following specs:
Thank you so much for your response i’m installing it tomorrow and will update if it runs decently. I’ll be happy if it runs decently enough for me to learn!
@shadowspell - did you install it? How is it working for you? I have installed UE5 on my Macbook Pro 2019 (Intel CPU) and it’s sluggish like hell … Can’t do anything, really …
Yes i managed to install it (took some time because i had to delete some apps and transfer some files to an external drive so i could get enough space), so far so good. My total install size was about 36gb. I’m going to start following a tutorial today and see how it behaves, and i’ll update again on how it’s performing.
Depending on what you try to do, you may run into memory issues. With a medium sized project (8 levels, lots of Blueprints, textures, materials, sound files), my activity monitor shows Unreal Editor at 12.3GB for that project not including a few other discrete processes Epic starts. Opening a blank project with just a cube floor and the UE table and chair shows just under 2GB and again another gig in extraneous processes started when UE kicks off.
I am running a 2019 Pro and when I have XCode, Unreal, plus all the other normal apps I run, I can exhaust 32GB. UE5 tells you when that happens by aborting .
I have occasionally run on a Mini (much older and worse than your MBP) and it did have serious lag, which as mentioned above, I attributed to the GPU, though it was usable for working on a project in a pinch. It had 16GB.
My guess is you could do a lot of development work but would need more memory if your project grows or if you want to run other apps simultaneously. For experimentation, it would probably be fine. When it starts aborting or the system starts swapping, get more RAM. Just watch your Activity Monitor to know when it’s time. Even without increasing RAM, just make sure you close stuff you aren’t using so you don’t get into a swapping situation. Swapping will make it seem hung most of the time and likely abort.
Thank you so much for responding! Your response was the most detailed i found so far For now (since i’m a beginner, and i only used blender in college) is to start small, i’ve round some some youtube tutorials to get me started. I have this Mac since college (I majored in Design) and it worked just fine for using Photoshop, Illustrator etc. So i won’t do anything big at the moment it’s just for me to learn how to use UE5 and how to develop simple projects, so manly experimentation.
I don’t plan on having other apps open (i can just watch the tutorials on my phone, so that way i can only have UE5 and Xcode open) and i plan on maybe using it for 2/3 hours per day (i saw a post on here from someone that “fried” his Mac from using UE for a whole afternoon, i think the fan broke if i’m not mistaken) so i’m a bit concerned about heating issues and i live in a warm country and sometimes even watching youtube my Mac has a tendency to heat up a bit.
I’ll keep my eye on the Activity Monitor as you suggested, and i’ll control the temperature as well. Yesterday when i started UE5 for the first time it didn’t lag but i noticed my fans started spinning immediately, but it didn’t feel very hot to the touch. I’ll do some experimenting today and update everyone! Thanks again for taking the time to help, it was much appreciated
Caveat: The 12.3GB I quoted is after I’d opened several BPs, a MetaSoundSource and tested changes (PIE) several times. If I open it without actually doing anything, then it’s a fairly low memory usage, like 3GB. But, if you start actually working in the editor, it will increase its memory usage.
That’s why when i opened yesterday my mac didn’t make a lot of fuss about it. Thanks for letting me know! I’m prepared to hear my fan go crazy and to see UE5 be a bit laggy, but to be honest i’m a pretty patient person even if it’s laggy i’ll still use it, i’m really excited to learn UE5 so i’ll take what i can get!
I have Mac Pro 2019 16/512 memory and… it was terrible. I couldn’t d anything. fans sound like a flying plane and ‘‘clean my Mac’’ shows 100% of using memory…
I gave up, at first it seemed things were going smoothly, but then it kept crashing, and it’s too slow for me to do anything. I guess i have to wait to buy a new PC, until then i’m going back to Blender and use Quixel Megascans. Thank you to everyone that helped! I appreciated it a lot.
i’m installing it tomorrow and will update if it runs decently. I’ll be happy if it runs decently enough for me to learn! 
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