What are the ideal PC requirements for UE4?

Community Community & Industry Discussion
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Topic^
The unreal wiki seems pretty outdated regarding specs: A new, community-hosted Unreal Engine Wiki - Announcements - Epic Developer Community Forums

What would you recommend to minimize render times and have an overall speedy experience with UE? Super GPU? Super CPU? Both?

I’m just curious :slight_smile:

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Lastest 4 core 8 thread i7
GTX 1070
32gb of ram
5000GB SSD

If you are doing a lot of light map baking, a 6 or 8 core i7.

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Multiple monitors are also definitely a must.

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Depends on a few things.

  • What kind of game/s you’re looking to make?
  • Do you want to use lightmass?
  • Or is ‘ideal’ something that will do everything well?

It’s sort of the ‘how fast would you like to spend’?

You could have a good experience with an RX 580 & a 4 core i7, but it’s not going to be as nice as a 1080ti & i9 or Threadripper CPU.

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Yeah, the post on the wiki is pretty outdated and should be updated.
(Obviously) what hardware is “optimal” depends on what you’re working on to some extent. A lot of indies work on stylized, low-poly or even 2D games. For such games you wouldn’t call a GTX 1070 or higher “optimal”, but “colossal waste of money”. The idea that it doesn’t hurt to buy a stronger graphics card is also not entirely correct. That only applies if you’re rich, because if you’re not, it means that those couple of hundreds of dollars you spent on a graphics card (that won’t make any difference) are dollars you can’t spend on something that would actually benefit you in a tangible way.
In general there are some differences between a good PC for gaming and a good PC for game development. Take monitors for example. As cool as those technologies are in their own right, ultrawide, 4K and especially high refresh rate monitors aren’t money well spent. [HR][/HR]
Unless you’re rich, high refresh rate monitors are a no go. Running the editor or Visual Studio at 120FPS won’t make you a better developer in any way, shape or form, period. Cool for playing, doesn’t help you whatsoever while developing.
You can make a case for 4K, because a higher resolution means more space and that’s definitively useful. The problem with 4K is that the resolution is so high that, unless you have some ridiculously big screen (which comes with its own problems) you’ll have to turn on DPI scaling to make everything bigger. Otherwise you won’t be able to read any text. And that defeats the aforementioned benefit of getting a higher resolution monitor. Sure, the image will be sharper, more detailed and you can set up the scaling so that you still have more space than on a 1080p screen, but you still paid a lot of money on pixels that don’t translate to usable space. There are resolutions between 1080p and 4K.
Ultrawides are cool and all that, but two 16:9 monitors still give you a lot more space.
Here is a list of things I would look for when buying a monitor primarily for developing:

  • 25" - 30" (obviously depends on how much space you have)
  • 2560x1440 resolution (about twice the pixels of 1920x1080, can be used without scaling, therefore tons of extra space with no waste)
  • Matte (non-glare) finish (better under difficult light conditions, won’t show you distracting reflections)
  • IPS panel (excellent viewing angles and colors, bright so they won’t be a pain in if the sun shines into your workplace during summer)
  • 60 Hz (because more won’t help)
  • Get 2 or 3 of those

Those things actually matter. Everything above that is a luxury you can invest in, if you have the money. [HR][/HR]
RAM? The more the better. The only problem is that RAM pricing is absolutely bonkers right now. While you can work with 8GB, I would strongly recommend to go with 16GB or more. Make sure your mainboard has 4 slots and buy sticks with at least 8GB of capacity. That way you can go up to 32GB. 2x8 are a nice start, but in a pinch 1x8 would work, too. 2x4 would be a bad idea, because then you’d max out at 16GB.
Summary:

  • Don’t go below 8 GB
  • 4 DIMM slots on your mainboard
  • 8 GB/stick or more

[HR][/HR]
Graphics card? You want to be able to run the editor at stable 60 FPS at reasonable settings before optimizing your game. Ideally your graphics card should be strong enough to run the game at max settings all the time, but, truth be told, you don’t have to. If you run the editor at high settings with 60 fps, that is good enough. If the maximum settings cause framerate drops that’s not a problem, because all you really need to do is check if there are graphics glitches anyway. Then you can go back to high. It’s worth noting that 4K monitors will make that substantially more difficult. I can’t speak for 2D games, but if you’re working on 3D ones at a high resolution (e.g. multiple 1440p monitors), don’t go below a RX580 8GB/GTX 1060 6GB. I have two 2560x1440 monitors and a 1280x1024 one. From the experiences I made, you wouldn’t want a card that’s slower than the GTX 970 that I have.
Summary:

  • RX 580 8GB or GTX 1060 6GB or better (for 3D, depends on your game, faster cards like a Vega 56 or GTX 1070 may be a good investment for higher end games)

[HR][/HR]
SSD? Yes, get one. I have two. 1. My old 250 GB SATA SSD for Windows. I use it for all the development related tools (Blender, Substance, Visual Studio, etc.) and the FASTBuild cache (I use a customized engine that I need to compile myself and FASTBuild greatly reduces the time it takes to recompile the engine after making changes). 2. A brand new 256 GB M.2 NVMe SSD that is entirely dedicated to Unreal. The only things on there are the engine, the plugins and my game’s project files. Space-wise I’m fine.
Getting one large, good hard disk is still recommended. You can keep other applications, games and the source files for your assets (i.e. textures, models, sounds, etc.) on there.
Summary:

  • SSD absolutely worth it
  • M.2 NVMe SSD with 256GB is enough for Unreal and your game, even if you build from source
  • 500 GB, if you want Windows and other tools to be on fast storage, too
  • Big (2 TB or more) HDD very much recommended

[HR][/HR]
CPU? Here is where I think some peopleSUP[/SUP] will disagree. If your plan is to build a system primarily for game development, which would mean that you optimize it for that purpose, and if we assume that those ridiculously expensive CPUs and motherboards on the highest end are out of the question (as they are for most people), then I don’t think Intel is at all competitive with AMD right now. Where Intel shines, where they handily beat AMD, is in single-threaded performance and you don’t really need much of that in Unreal as I found out. Single-threaded performance is important in two scenarios: 1. Applications that don’t use more than one core. 2. Running games at really high framerates. As I already pointed out earlier, running the editor at crazy framerates won’t help you at all. As for the first point, all I can say is that Epic did a great job optimizing the editor/engine. I can’t name one thing in my day to day development process where the single-threaded performance advantage of Intel would matter. What I can name you are two where AMD’s multi-threaded advantage does, and in a big way: compiling and building lightmaps.
When I switched from my Intel Xeon E3-1231v3 (4 cores/8 threads) to the Ryzen 7 1700X (8 cores/16 threads) I have now, that switch alone cut the compile times down from 46 to 31 minutes. As it turned out, a substantial amount of that time was my hard disk choking on all the data, so moving the engine (partially) onto my old SATA SSD, cut it down to 25 minutes. That’s a big deal. AMD’s current lineup of CPUs isn’t as fast in single-threaded applications as Intel’s, but they aren’t bad in single-threaded workloads by any stretch of the imagination.
Let me put it this way: If you get a Ryzen 7 2700X over a Core i7 8700K and run into a CPU bottleneck, chances are that this is E N T I R E L Y on your incompetence as a developer. People can play modern AAA games at more than 60 FPS with CPUs that are slower than that. So what’s your excuse?
Summary:

  • As long as the single-threaded performance doesn’t outright suck, more cores and threads are the better investment (accelerate the engine where you waste the most time)
  • Ryzen 7 2700 (and overclock it)
  • Alternatively Ryzen 7 2700X (will overclock itself, if it is decently cooled)
  • On a budget, the Ryzen 5 2600/X are your best bet

Hope this helps.

2 Likes
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Does Unreal Engine work well with the integrated vega 8 graphics?

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No, you would not have a good experience working with UE4 and an integrated GPU.

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In addition I’m using 16gb and am having real difficulties, ram usage shoots up to 83% and you really feel it, it can take a minute to add a trigger in a bp, so perhaps 32 gb might be a minimum?

btw I’m running an i7k 4.2ghz, gtx 1080, 16gb ram (3000 MHz) and am still unimpressed

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If you’re using C++ a SSD is a must. Drastically cuts build and load times.

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Which one should I buy? RX 580 8gb or RTX 2060

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I think RTX 2060 will be more expensive than RX 580/590, so all depends on what you will be working for in development. Strategically, for testing game optimizations, having a lower end card will have you able to make sure your tweaks will have expected performance for them, but RTX 2060 will have some raytracing capabilities that you would want to have in order to be able to test your stuff with that technology when it is present in the engine (currently still not).

RX 590 was built to have performance compared with GTX 1060-1070, but has more memory, RTX 2060 has the performance of a GTX 1070TI (more or less same as low GTX 1080), but has less memory compared to those.

If you can afford RTX 2060, go for it, but whatever is your current card, keep it for testing your work with less capable hardware.

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Agreed. One of the things to bear in mind is, if you create games on a more widely used set of specs, you will have a much better grasp on what is working for potential players of your game. It does, however, mean that you’re not going to be able to test cutting edge features such as realtime raytracing. The demographics, of course, are incredibly disparate however, and the vast majority of players for any game will not be using a card that has raytracing capabilities.

I’m running on a fairly beefy setup, and very often switch over to my old setup to test optimizations. Take that for what it’s worth, but I wholeheartedly agree with the sentiment that you don’t NEED an overly ridiculous setup to develop on UE4. Developing on fairly standard specs will, in a sense, force you to optimize and keep lower end hardware in mind.

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And what about screen? How many? How arrange them? Horizontally or vertically?
Thanks

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It all depends on what you are going to work. For all that matters, if you got space, you can have a 27-29 inch display and a 19-22 inch Wacom/Huion tablet along (if you use one). Even with some space, artists use to have the tablet in front of them, with the keyboard in a tray below the table and with a display raised in height at left or right their eyesight. As for resolution this usually means higher prices. You can be good with just Full HD (1080p) if you are just going to code and blueprint, but if you are an artist you might want at least a QHD (1440p) for drawing and sculpting.

At my country QHD is more expensive than 4K and image quality for low priced 4K just is not recommended if you want to keep your eyesight sharp…

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Thank you everyone for your participation in this post, it is really interesting to me.

I am planning to buy a computer and my main porpuse is using Unreal Studio to develope** Architectural Visualization **proyects (still images, **videos **and **walking-trough **scenes for the clients)
I was wondering if hardware requiriments should be similar to game developments or you can save some money in any component.

After reading this post, my choice it is:

Processor: **AMD Ryzen 7 2700X 4.3Ghz **SURE
Motherboard: Asus Prime X470 PRO (depending on RAM speed needings)
RAM: Corsair Vengeance LPX DDR4 3000 PC4-24000 2x16GB C15 (is someway Kingstone RAM more suitable?)
Fan: **Nfortec Hysrus 240 Kit Red Liquid Cooling (is this necesary?)
Disk 1: Sandisk Ultra 3D SSD 1TB SATA 3 **(500 GB would be ok for my porpose?)
Disk 2: **Seagate Barracuda 3.5" 2TB SATA 3 **(why not?)
Power Supply: **Corsair RM750X V2 750W 80 Plus Gold Modular **(is this necesary?)
Graphic Card: Asus Turbo GeForce RTX 2060 Auto-Extreme 6GB GDDR6 (shall a GTX1050 be enough to have the best results? or the RTX issue really make a difference)

This config costs to me **1700$ **

Any help would be amazing, guys!

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RAM: if you are not gaming and need all juice possible, take the cheaper speeds brands, instead of 3000 a 2666 would be cheaper if you can find. Use the cash for something else
Fan: Ryzen 2700x already comes with a nice cooler if you are using stock configuration. If you intend to overclock it or you live in a place with temps around 30 degrees Celsius, then you will need this watercooler.
Disk1: 480GB is enough for just the OS and few tools
Disk2: I would use this SSD for programs
Disk3: another SSD just for the projects you are currently working on
Disk4: to be that Barracuda 3.5", for the projects you are not currently working on (partly backup), could be an external HD or NAS solution
Graphics Card: RTX 2070 would be a better choice, but in this area people are going for at least RTX 2080

Things to note:

  • Wait for AMD announcements and reviews of their Navi 10 line of cards. It seems it will have Real time Ray Tracing aswel and cheaper than RTX 2060 and more powerful than RTX 2080.
  • More powerful graphics card would require better power supply, so maybe you can find a 850W about same price, but remember 80 Plus is a must.
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Thank you for your detailed response, Nilson :smiley:

RTXs 2070 and 2080 are out of my budget right now, and also, after what you said about the Navi 10 launch, I think I am going to buy a cheaper graphic card, just to start my** learning** curve of the program and workflow (I already worked on still images with 3dsMax with Vray), and start to save the money I am gonna earn with the first projects to buy a better GC once Navi 10 is launched.

Would a GTX 1050 be enough to start learning the program and do some decent ArchViz still image works?

Thank you again!

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@YuriLevich The main problem you will face soon enough is the amount of VRAM. 1050 got only 4GB, 1060 got models with 3GB-6GB, 2060 got only 6GB. If really going into a budget I would then buy a cheaper AMD card with 8GB like the RX570 (around US$130) unless you need NVidia because you have any application which works only with CUDA, which I don’t think so.

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Thank you again, @NilsonLima , your help is truly welcome

So, according to this conversation, my initial config would be:

Processor: **AMD Ryzen 7 2700X 4.3Ghz **SURE (but no BOX version)
Motherboard: Asus Prime X470 PRO SURE
RAM: **Corsair Vengeance LPX DDR4 3000 PC4-24000 2x16GB C15 SURE **(because I also will be enjoying games)
Fan: **Nfortec Hysrus 240 Kit Red Liquid Cooling SURE (we reach to 50ºC along summer here in Seville, Spain)
Disk 1: Crucial P1 SSD 1TB 3D NAND NVMe PCIe M.2 SURE **(so I’ll have space enough for OS, programs and active projects)
Disk 2: **Seagate Barracuda 3.5" 2TB SATA 3 SURE **(background storage)
Power Supply: Corsair RM850X V2 850W 80 Plus Gold Modular SURE (according to the future evolution of the equipment)
Graphic Card: MSI Radeon RX 570 Armor 8GB OC GDDR5 PROVISIONAL (until NAvi 10 is launched and I earn money enough with my Arch-Viz projects)

It has been so usefull to me this post!!!

PD: This is 1500$ prized

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@YuriLevich That seems great! So, in the end resulted in an economy of $200 which surely will help in the future as savings for a better graphics card.

PS: 50C for God!!!