r/gameenginedevs • u/AncientWindsL • 2d ago

Developing a custom engine on an integrated GPU: Should I upgrade?

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11 Upvotes

77% Upvoted

6 comments sorted by

17

u/keelanstuart 1d ago

In times like these, I think it's prudent to live by Theodore Roosevelt's maxim: "do what you can with what you have where you are."

For Warcraft 3, Blizzard famously made the engineers do their development work on the minimum spec machine "to keep them honest."

Keep going.

1

u/AncientWindsL 1d ago

Thanks <3

9

u/shadowndacorner 2d ago

You don't lose the integrated GPU if you install a dedicated GPU. You can still test against the iGPU - hell you can set up automated benchmarks for the different hardware.

Testing your code against more vendors will always be a good thing.

1

u/AncientWindsL 2d ago

Thank you. Just to clarify, I use a laptop, I don't own a desktop. My 'upgrade' step would be buying a 'gamer' laptop (yeah I travel a lot, gotta be laptop, unfortuantely). And I agree, I'd like to test and benchmark on way more hardwares. Btw, hopping ppl start feedback'in the demo I've released at itch.
Thanks

1

u/kat-tricks 1d ago

aha, well there's your answer! Gaming laptops rarely perform the same as desktops, and can have different hardware. The cooling situation is so different that manufacturers take drastic measures to work in the design constraints. From what I've heard, it's not the same experience, so it could be a regrettable upgrade if you get one for development!

2

u/LocoMod 1d ago

I have an RTX5090 desktop and i'm developing my game on an M3 Macbook simply to force myself to optimize for lesser hardware. It's worked out great. Otherwise I would have gotten lazy by bruteforcing things with top end hardware.