Many different areas are involved in game creation, which means there are numerous software programs. In addition to 3D design programs like 3ds Max, Blender, and ZBrush, there are game engines themselves, like Unreal Engine and Unity, and much more! For these different applications, most software developers keep lists of system requirements; however, those lists usually contain only the bare minimum of what hardware is required to execute the software, rather than which hardware will provide the optimum performance. These lists may occasionally be out-of-date or may only include suggestions that aren't the best.

One of the most essential elements of a game-development PC is the processor, sometimes known as the CPU. All of the laborious development processes, like 3D modeling, light baking, and building shaders and code, are handled by the CPU. Although the GPU is starting to handle more of these tasks—a topic we will cover in more detail in the following section—the CPU still plays a major role in many areas of performance.

It truly depends on the aspect of the game creation process you want to concentrate on. For example, AMD's Threadripper 7000 Series CPUs are now the best overall for game creation in Unreal Engine. The majority of Unreal Engine development tasks are multi-threaded and perform exceptionally well on CPUs with many cores. Not only that, but this class of workstations' quad-channel RAM will be helpful to users who are compiling source code.

But, given how much CPUs cost, many users might not notice a significant speed increase from such a CPU for their specific workflow. Individual users that are more focused on creating assets, or studios working on smaller games or using a dedicated build server, can choose to go with a less costly alternative like the Intel Core i7 14700K or i9 14900K. These CPUs have a good number of cores and high clock speeds for the single core, which can help with the performance of 3D modeling applications.

The specific amount of RAM required varies based on the size of the project, the number of open programs, and the tasks you work on. Making sure the system has enough RAM is essential to keeping everything operating smoothly because memory utilization in development tools like Unreal Engine may quickly soar, and having multiple heavy programs running at the same time is quite usual in this industry.

The particular workflow and software applications you employ will determine how much memory you need. For example, if the projects are small, Unreal Engine itself can run on a PC with 16GB of RAM; larger projects, however, will demand 32GB. However, a lot of game developers may run many high-end programs at the same time, so they'll want 64GB or even 128GB of RAM.

The chip on a video card that is in charge of rendering each frame that is supplied to your monitors is called the graphics processing unit, or GPU. The number of models, textures, and effects that can be displayed on the screen, together with the number of frames per second that can be presented, are determined by the performance of this chip. A new feature in Unreal Engine allows the GPU to bake lighting, and other responsibilities like ray tracing for realistic lighting and reflections can also be delegated to the GPU by some engines and editors.

The NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4090 is currently the fastest GPU for game developers. The RTX 4080 or 4070 SUPER, for example, are more reasonably priced GPUs that many users may be able to use, depending on the target platform and particular workflow. The amount of VRAM needed will depend on the target platform and the desired quality setting in the engine. Generally speaking, 8GB is plenty for the majority of users.

Primary Drive: OS/Software (SSD/NVMe): Includes your operating system and the base game development installation. An SSD is highly recommended as it will greatly improve how fast the OS and programs startup, but you can also upgrade to a faster NVMe drive for a small performance benefit. The recommended storage for the installation of software is not more than 20 GB.

Since the primary drive will primarily be used to store Windows and software, including all software (except large Game), it doesn't need to be that large for the majority of users; a 500GB SSD will be enough for Drive C.

Secondary Drive: Project Files (Platter/SSD/NVMe) Having a second storage (either SSD or HHD) for storing assets and effects is a wonderful alternative if you have additional money to spend or keep a lot of them around for use on different projects. Of course, an internal or external hard drive is a more cost-effective option than a high-capacity SSD if you need more mass storage and preservation.