Recommended Hardware
Contents
Recommended
Desktop
You will need a powerful setup to get started developing with UE4 right now.
Here's what we recommend on the FAQ:
- Desktop PC or Mac
- Windows 7 64-bit or Mac OS X 10.9.2 or later
- Quad-core Intel or AMD processor, 2.5 GHz or faster
- NVIDIA GeForce 470 GTX or AMD Radeon 6870 HD series card or higher
- 8 GB RAM
NOTE: We do not provide any officially recommended specs for laptops. We don't suggest this, but for those of you attempting development with integrated graphics, it would be in your best interest to have more system RAM than the 8GB we recommend for a system with dedicated graphics.
User Tested PC Specs
This section will include PC specs that some of our users are running on and their observations. The user observations do not count as hardware recommendations from Epic.
Laptops
Expand for more info
[This section is currently under construction] Here are some laptop specs that other users have and how well they reportedly work:
JammyJBW
- OS: Windows 7 64bit
- Processor: Intel i7 2.3ghz
- System Memory: 12gb
- Graphics: gtx670m
- Average fps: 20~30
- Settings: Haven't fiddled with the default settings
- Notes: I'm using my ASUS G75VW rog laptop to use the engine. The fps is usually fine (unless there are particle-intense scenes) If I notice any lagspikes I OC my 670m from 620cc to 700cc and it perks right up.
Hellcat=
- OS: Windows 8 ("8.0", not 8.1)
- Processor: Intel i7 @2.5GHz
- System Memory: 16GB
- Graphics: 2x nVidia GT755M
- Average fps: ~30fps with the scaling options all set to "Epic"
- Settings: Everything on default
- Notes: I'm using a laptop, not a desktop PC, UEd usually spread over two externally connected monitors; working with the editor is super smooth, no reasons to complain
fighter5347
- OS: Windows 7
- Processor: intel i7-3610QM
- System Memory: 4 GB
- Graphics: Nvidia Geforce GTX 660 M
- Average fps: around 30
- Settings: no special settings -> Im just running the laptop on the high performance energy setting
- Notes: The UE4 runs pretty bad on laptops, so when somebody want to develope a game with the UE4, he should buy a good PC
Building a Computer for Development
If you are considering building a powerful machine for UE4 development for around $2500, here is a spec we recommend:
- Intel Core i7 4930K processor
- Intel X79 chipset motherboard
- 32GB RAM
- 1TB SSD
- Nvidia GTX 770 video card
The 4930K is a great cost / CPU power trade-off for compiling the engine and running the editor.
We have found SSDs to be the best user experience, and with the advent of the Samsung Evo series even large amounts of SSD storage have become attainable.
Copious amounts of RAM is the single biggest contributor to a smooth user experience. While the editor and engine don't use 32 GByte, having the memory available for the disk cache is a boon, especially as a programmer compiling the full engine. We found going above 32 GByte resulting in diminishing returns.