SO how important is a gpu to a game developer? I want to know because i am currently thinking about buying a laptop. Please enlighten me with whatever knowledge or experience you might have referring to this subject. Of course, i know it depends on what you are developing but tell me anything and everything up and down the spectrum from 2D to 3D to whatever. Is it a big deal to get a dedicated gpu over a lets say Intel HD Graphics 4400?

I know it's not what the post was about but while were at it what about cpu's, are they required to be better than something like an i5 4210U?

(my examples of cpu/gpu were from laptops i've looked at that satisfy in all criteria except for cpu/gpu due my questions)

If you want to develop a 3d game, go for a (additional) dedicated GPU. When developing you have often some kind of debug build, using additional debug rendering output and unoptimized code/shaders, anayling tools etc, all which are not really funny on some (IMHO: crappy) integrated video card. The same is valid for the CPU, go for a quad-core, because a game running in debug mode + a dozen other applications/tools is often really slow.

An integrated GPU works just fine, if you get a machine with a good one. The higher end AMD APU laptops have good GPUs and the highest-end Intel GPUs are quite capable. Aim for a machine with an Intel Iris Pro GPU if you can.

Of the resources to worry about, I find RAM to be the biggest bottleneck followed by disk speed.

SO how important is a gpu to a game developer? I want to know because i am currently thinking about buying a laptop. Please enlighten me with whatever knowledge or experience you might have referring to this subject. Of course, i know it depends on what you are developing but tell me anything and everything up and down the spectrum from 2D to 3D to whatever. Is it a big deal to get a dedicated gpu over a lets say Intel HD Graphics 4400?

As you wrote, it depends on what you are developing.

Chances are high that if you ask this question, any off-the-shelf computer today is more than enough for your actual needs.

I know it's not what the post was about but while were at it what about cpu's, are they required to be better than something like an i5 4210U?

You can compile and execute your code on a 386 from 1985, which are still great 32-bit processors. You probably are thinking about something more modern that can run Windows 8.1 and all your favorite games.

I've got a collection of machines with various configurations. I routinely build and run on hardware that is 12 years old. Any reasonably modern machine can handle modern development tools.

The i5 4210u was released this spring. Such a laptop is more than enough for modern development purposes. Sure we can all want more, like the thread from yesterday where an 8-core 15-processor e7 rig was described, effectively a 120-node supercomputer in a box, but the described laptop is more than sufficient for any game a lone developer can build with today's tools.

Thank you my dear frob, and everyone else. I guess i wont worry too much bout cpu/gpu for now. Not like im building anything crazy.

Some advantages over a dedicated GPU which are not to do with needing high end performance:

* Being able to switch between (say) Intel and NVIDIA, meaning you can easily test across two makes of GPUs. This is useful if there are bugs which only show up on one manufacturer. Also useful to more easily test performance on both a slower integrated GPU, and a faster dedicated GPU.
* Traditionally Intel's OpenGL drivers haven't been that great. They may have improved with Intel HD though(?), and obviously not an issue if you're only interested in DirectX.

If you get a laptop, I would probably recommend integrated. From experience, dedicated laptop GPUs destroy battery life when in use.