Edit: I went through some of links and it appears GT 9600M is not supported. topic switched to a different GPU and OS so it was hard to draw an exact conclustion. it would be nice if someone from Unreal could verify following:
What following mac notebooks currently in Apple Store can run Unreal Engine on Mac OS AND on Windows Bootcamp. I am differentiating between two because drivers for respective OS’ are different.
I apologize if this a duplicate post but other link does not specify a Mobile GPU for a Mac Notebook. My problem
occurs with following specs
Mac Notebook
CPU: Intel Core Duo 2.66 GHz
Memory: 8 GB RAM
Graphics: GT 9600M (Note M)
Please correctly specify minimum requirements for a Mac Notebook using appropriate notation for MOBILE VERSION .
I need to know what mobile graphics cards you will support?
Firstly, what OS are you running since some people have found upgrading to Mavericks fixes graphical issues with UE4 (that’s why Epic officially states they require 10.9.2 to run UE4). If you’re not running Mavericks, it is a free upgrade, so give that a go first.
With regards to what is supported… I started off using UE4 on my MacBook Air (mid-2012 model with 8GB of ram). While it definitely ran and worked fine, it was very slow and experience was down-right terrible as a result. I ended up upgrading to a Retina (late 2013 model with 16GB RAM and dedicated 750M).
While it runs okay and is definitely usable, it does run with quite low performance… if you bump down graphical settings you can run more advanced demos in editor (with a smaller viewport) at good speeds, but you definitely have to compromise on graphical quality to get there. My understanding is that this will improve since OpenGL renderer/Mac port is still quite new. I will try it on Windows eventually to see how speeds compare on my 750M.
So short answer to your question would be: no MacBook currently exists that can run engine at high speeds with full detail in Mac OS X. Having said that, it definitely works and is usable on 750M. Since it ran on my Air, I would imagine it would run on any Iris/Iris Pro graphics as well, but I think it might be too slow to be usable. Perhaps someone else can comment on that.
My recommendation would be to consider your options, and once you’ve decided, buy directly from Apple since they have a 14 day satisfaction policy… which means, you can get system, try it out, and if you find UE4 too slow for you, you can return it within 14 days.
I upgraded to 10.9.3 Mavericks on my Mac book 2009 midyear with gt 9600M. In fact I had to upgrade from 10.8.X because unreal launcher would not work. Based on what I have found on some of threads my GT 9600M just can’t do it.
Based on your comments above it looks like you had some success with GT 750M running on Mac OS.
I am curious if your performance would increase if you ran UE4 on Windows OS instead of MacOS on your Mac notebook using Windows Bootcamp. driver might be better on Windows OS and you may see a boost in performance.
Are your benchmarks based on running UE4 on Mac OS or on Windows 8 (via virtualization) on your Mac notebook. only reason I am is that you mention “just virtualizing it” …. (e.g,. via parallels or VMware)
Can you please re-confirm how you are actually running UE4 on your Mac notebook with GT 750M …
I’ll give it a go some time, but suspect it will be a while since I also have to install Windows in bootcamp (currently just virtualising it). Just thought I’d let you know what my experience has been trying to use UE4 on a MacBook.
It’s definitely usable, but if you’re thinking of upgrading, I would still suggest buying from Apple so you have 14 day option if you’re not happy.
minimum requirements listed on signup page are an Nvidia 470 GTX or an AMD 6870. Your 9600M is beneath minimum spec. and lacks an OpenGL feature that UE4 relies upon. We’ve made some changes to 4.2 release so it should work but performance may be very poor as we aren’t actively supporting or testing against that generation of GPU.
Apple started using Nvidia 650M in 2012 Macbook Pros & then switched to Nvidia 750M as a BTO option in 2013, both of those are supported and should work reasonably. Intel HD4000 & Iris GPUs should render correctly, but they will be noticeably slower.
You must also remember that these are mobile GPUs and are slower than their desktop counterparts.
Thanks for your response pitbull…
You have made reference to 4.2 release. When is that available. I downloaded 4.1.1. as that was only thing available yesterday. Today I see a 4.0.2.
I appreciate that Unreal team has done some bench marking on recent Mac Notebooks. That is definitely a step in right direction. In addition think on your system requirements you need to explicitly communicate requirements for a mobile platforms for Mac OS AND PC Notebooks. There are several people who have been using game engines on mobile platforms (Unreal 3 and Unity).
Your technical team has knowledge about what features are needed to take advantage of all functionality. I know its a sticky topic because you don’t want to endorse a product but only give a recommendation.
Can you also make some recommendations on PC notebooks that you have tested in lab. What GPU on a PC notebook allowed for all functionality.
I am also considering
Lenovo y410p with GT 755M
ASUS G750JM with GT 860M
Lenovo w540 with k2000M
Again, please share your testing for pc notebooks as well.
I just wanted to follow up on this answerhub question and say that performance on Mac has improved a lot since these posts. editor actually runs quite well on with dedicated 750m graphics now.
Not 60fps type good, but 30fps is achievable. Even advanced demos like Elemental run at around 20fps+ within editor. size of editor viewport is still important though, and working on a larger external monitor with higher resolutions can make it slow down quite a lot.
Of course, option to use a percentage of viewport’s resolution when running in-editor helps a lot, so even if you have a larger external screen, it is quite usable once you lower this. When using my full HD external monitor I generally set this to 50-75% resolution depending on what I’m working on and that gets things running smoothly while testing in editor.
