mac or windows for coding

[Bastola]

i decided to use unity to code I have a MacBook air that I use to code for fun I decided that I need to upgrade my com[puter and make a serious inde game should I buy a new windows pc or mac it 

[Mira Yurizaki]

If you're going to target macOS for your applications, then you need a macOS machine. You can still use Bootcamp to test on Windows. Otherwise whatever OS fits your taste and whatever hardware fits your requirements.

 

Before anyone suggests "Hackintosh", I'd advise against that because Hackintoshes will likely not represent the target environment of a given macOS user, and it's extremely important to be able to test on an actual target system.

[phoenixflower]

if you want to develop video games and you"re worried about catering to various operating systems  then you should use a KVM solution.  Using UnRAID or Proxmox as your base operating system then virtualizing the target operating systems.  You can limit the core count and impact how much RAM/CPU compute units will be readily available to the VM.  You can even go about simulating the various storage solutions for each VM.  If you want to simulate the iGPU that most macbook pros have then just get an underpowered AMD GPU.  If you put your motherboard in UEFI boot mode (csm compatibility off) then you can have 3 GPUs.  One GPU for your base operating system.  One GPU for "high performance" and one GPU for "low-mid tier performance".  If you do go this route I suggest using Team Red's platform as it will be less confusing because of the maturity of the 64 bit stack.  If you forgo having some peripheral PCI-E device then you have 4 GPUs.  1 GPU for high performance, 1 GPU for mid tier performance, 1 GPU for low end performance and 1 GPU to get your system to POST.  You'll need a pci-e x1 graphics card to make this feasible (https://www.amazon.com/ZOTAC-GeForce-Profile-Graphic-ZT-71304-20L/dp/B01E9Z2D60/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=pci-e+x1+gpu&qid=1564784905&s=gateway&sr=8-1).  As a side effect this will also empower you to develop for the various distributions of linux with minimal effort.

 

I've found that this works relatively well for application deployment.  Mira does have a point though, if you want to make sure your system work on an Apple platform, you will need an Apple platform (although I've yet to run into this problem).

[Fourthdwarf]

Apple have basically abandoned industry standard graphics APIs and gone with their own thing. Unless you specifically want to target macOS, you'll likely find more and better tools on other machines.

 

This isn't going to be that important with basic unity stuff, but if you end up going into deep graphics magic, you may find vulkan/dx12 better supported at the bleeding edge than metal, and if developing for an indie game, the first two will let you develop for a wider audience.

 

But unless you're doing some really experimental stuff, that shouldn't matter too much, and you could just go with an older version of openGL. Going with macOS, since you're familiar with it, may serve you better in that case.

[DevBlox]

You're going to make the game from scratch?

[elryry]

21 hours ago, Fourthdwarf said:

Unless you specifically want to target macOS

 

or much more importantly, iOS.