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Godot on laptop using external GPU? Good idea? Bad idea? (reddthat.com)

submitted 1 year ago by bjfar@reddthat.com to c/gamedev@programming.dev

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So I'm looking for advice on external GPUs. I want to try out Godot, but I don't have a GPU. I don't think I've ever had a GPU in fact. I'm a software developer actually, python mostly, but I've never done GPU stuff in my work, and my PC gaming days were mostly prior to the existence of GPUs. So I'm way out of touch with them.

I do have a reasonable laptop that I've been using for dev stuff, a Dell XPS 9370 (build number from Dell is CNX37014), but it has no GPU, so I guess it won't be great for trying out 3D stuff in Godot. It does have thunderbolt ports though, so I think I can plug an external GPU into those? Anyone tried that kind of thing out? I'd rather fork out for an external GPU if that will work decently rather than try to build a whole new PC or something. I actually have no idea if there is a performance hit for the GPU being external, just heard they were a thing and trying to figure out if they are a viable option.

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[–] teamonkey@lemm.ee 3 points 1 year ago

Godot is MUCH more lightweight than Unreal.

Unreal’s editor needs a beast of a dev PC, it’s basically like running a AAA game all the time, and it assumes by default that you’re making a top-end game with a top-spec PC.

Godot’s editor will run on pretty much anything. That’s not to say an external GPU won’t help, but if you keep the graphics simple you may not even need it.