Hi Everyone.
So i am coming to UE4 from Unity, and this is my first post. And i have found on the forum that many people complained that UE4 has performance issues on Macbook Pros. I plan to buy a high end Macbook Pro with the following spec
Intel i7 Quad - Core
16 GB RAM
Nvidia GT750
and 512 flash disk.
Anyone using UE4 4.7 can let me know if the performance have improved?. I mainly make games for IOS only.
Best Regards.
I don’t have a MacBook Pro, but i do have MacBook Air(i5, Intel HD5000).
My MacBook Air works perfectly fine with Unreal Engine 4(Low-End game).
My Advice is: For $2499, you can buy Powerful Workstation PC.
I have a MacBook Pro (8GB RAM, Intel Iris, i5) - really lower-end than the one you’re planning to buy, but I have this to my web development work and apps to iPhone. Oh, I get around 25-32 FPS on editor and around 40-60FPS in a not complicated scene, you can play or keep a lower resources project (like TappyChicken).
I would really recommend you to buy with this money a really powerful PC Windows, since the editor consumes a lot of memory and resources - I have big problems managing the assets (materials and others), compile the editor myself takes ages…
Good luck!
The MacBook is not great for GPUs, and for the price, you can buy a top-of-the-range desktop PC and still have money left over for lots of software licenses. Even a windows laptop would get you an Nividia 980M.
If you are buying a computer for games development, I would NOT get a MacBook. However, if you also have other reasons, then go for it. I use one for work, and it’s a lovely piece of kit. (But I’m not impressed with the decision to get them in the first place, as my workplace develops for people who primarily use PCs).
awss:
I’m typing this post from the same exact machine you’re thinking of buying. There’s good news and bad news for you.
The good news is, the current versions of Unreal actually work pretty decently on it. MacBook Airs and lower-end MacBook Pros without a discrete GPU are a completely different experience, so disregard some of the comments above referring to MacBook Airs, because it’s not a comparable situation.
But, the bad news is that there is some truth in what people are saying. The Nvidia GT750, though it’s a good mobile GPU, is still a mobile GPU that prioritizes power consumption over processing power. Your machine will run hot, with the fan on most of the time you’re using UE4 unless you turn off most of the Viewport visuals (lighting, particles, etc.). You can also expect some fairly long build times. You will absolutely need to turn off GPU switching or make sure you only use it when plugged in, because the integrated GPU will just not cut it at all and, by default, it will kick you over to the discrete GPU when you’re running on battery.
Not knowing your situation, or knowing why you want a Mac, it’s hard to make a recommendation. I write Mac and iPhone software in addition to my work with UE4, which is why my principle laptop and desktop machines are Macs. If I hadn’t already had a fairly new, fairly maxed out Mac Pro when I started working with Unreal, I can’t say that I would have bough it for working with Unreal. If you’re going to be spending most of your time in Unreal, you can get a lot more processing power for your money right now by custom building a gaming PC than you can going with a Mac. If you need a Mac, you might even be better off buying an Air and using the difference in price between the Air and the MBP to build a gaming rig. Even a $1000 or $1500 gaming PC should be able to handle UE4 if designed right.
Another other issue is that UE4 really works best on a two monitor setup, and when you start driving a second monitor off that machine, your available GPU power is going to drop off substantially.
So, tl;dr version is, yes you can use it and it will function adequately if you turn off GPU switching or make sure you’re plugged in when using UE4, but expect fairly long build times. If you post why you selected a Mac and that particular Mac, we might be able to offer some additional guidance.
Thanks and everyone for the comments, really appriciate it.
I have always been a windows user, but i started to hate it ever since i switched to Apple laptops, I use XCODE most of the time as well and the last time i used Visual Studio was in 2008. And i have invested in many Apple products from Apple tv to iphone ipads etc. I mainly need UE4 to make mobile games, nothing too fancy but just simple games, some i just do it for fun for experimenting and stuff, others i might end up releasing.
@. So if i keep my mac plugged in to power, then i should be fine using the editor?. As long as the editor does not lag i am happy. I can live with long build times, but my main concern is the Editor usability.
Thanks.
Awss
The editor should not lag generally speaking. I can’t guarantee you’ll never see any lag, but as long as your project is on the SSD and not an external USB drive, there shouldn’t be noticeable lag when it’s using the discrete GPU, unless you’ve got a lot of GPU-heavy stuff going on. The Elemental demo, for example, which uses a ton of particle , might be a little laggy for you. But for most projects, it should be fine, just not as good as a desktop machine with a “real” GPU.
Thanks for the info , based on what i have read so far i think i will go with the macbook pro.