Hello, I have just begun pursuing game development. As soon as I began my journey my computer decided to fail completely.

I’m completely inexperienced in the realm of computers and what not. but I love games and the only path I wish to pursue is creating them.

my question(s) :

1. as a beginner working on very small scale games and experimenting and learning, what sort of computer/equipment would be helpful or considered a necessity?
(preferably Without shelling out a ridiculous amount of money yet)

2. I have began by working a bit in unity, just curious of others opinions on the best engine to use?

3. I will take any advice your willing to share

Thanks! ??

Does it have to be mobile? I have no place for a tower case nor a stand-alone monitor in my house, so I go with 17" notebook. IDEs and compilers are just so damn power hungry (CPU and RAM). Right now I am coding in VSC. That is JavaScript end less hungry then eclipse or the full visual studio. I think in C# (unity) a lot of code can be manipulated without recompiling the whole app.

You do not need: good sound, fast 3d graphics, large HDD, fast internet

• Processor: Intel Core i7-3770 @ 3.4 GHz or AMDFX-8350 @ 4.0 GHz or better.
• RAM: 8GB.
• Video Card: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 780 or AMDRadeon R9 290X (3 GB VRAM)

^^Those are the minimum system requirements to run Unity, so that's a good place to start but I would up the RAM to 16, 32, or 64GB and it's always good to get the best graphics card that your Processor is compatible with.

@arnero thanks for the response! Super excited to begin ??

@newbieharbs thanks for the input ?

StuberryDev said:
1. as a beginner working on very small scale games and experimenting and learning, what sort of computer/equipment would be helpful or considered a necessity? (preferably Without shelling out a ridiculous amount of money yet)

Just about any computer manufactured in the past five years or so is more than enough. Others mentioned Unity's minimum recommended spec. If your computer can play relatively modern games, it's good enough for personal development.

While it can be tempting to get a computer capable of working on cutting-edge AAA quality graphics, you aren't able to take advantage of it at this point.

StuberryDev said:
2. I have began by working a bit in unity, just curious of others opinions on the best engine to use?

Unity and Unreal are the big engines used for 3D games.

There are many engines used by 2D games, consider looking at Godot Engine, GameMaker:Studio, RPG Studio, Ren'Py, or Unity's 2D features for a comprehensive system if they match your game. Alternatively, look at Cocos2dx, LibGDX, MonooGame, Phaser, Corona, PyGame, or any of many other libraries.

@frob thanks so much.

if you don’t mind answering another question, do you recommend starting in 2D ? or is it more just preference ?

3D is more complicated, you get things like cameras and perspective, and a number of 3D coordinate systems that you compute between using 4D matrices.

2D is much easier to understand, it usually boils down to just plot at (x,y) to display something at that spot. Especially if you are also fighting with the programming language, and the whole idea of how a game works, sticking with 2D at first may give you room to focus on other problems than making something visible in a 3D world.

@StuberryDev depend on what you are planing on making game wise. if you want to do vr you need to spend more. i would spend around a thousand to get something that is going to last and be able to handle making games that are harder on the GPU and CPU. https://www.dell.com/en-us/shop/dell-laptops/dell-g3-15-gaming-laptop/spd/g-series-15-3590-laptop/gnslk5crg305s​ this would be a good setup with a great CPU and is under $1000.