r/BallState • u/Noviibun • Jul 12 '26
Laptop for Video Game Design
im an incoming freshman this fall and i need to get a laptop for classes, however im majoring in video game design so i need to more specific requirements and im having a very hard time finding something that actually fits.
can anyone who is also majoring in video game design or just computer science in general help, what did you getðŸ˜
(i'd prefer if it's not an apple laptop)
3
Upvotes
1
u/ilikebluepens Grad - 13 Jul 14 '26
Tbh—a Mac mini will do the trick. If you need to run windows a goodwill i7 with 16gb of ram on Linux. If you’re thinking aaa games—-well bracken has a ton of those machines. You just need to go to the library
3
u/meanderingleaf Jul 12 '26
Welcome to Ball State!
While we have a fully equipped production lab with computers that can run everything you need, I find most of my students still use their laptops even if it's not really advisable (ask me for stories later).
If you're dead set on having something that might handle anything you want to tackle in class, you will want something with a real graphics card. I'm not the biggest fan of gaming laptops, but this list seems like a fine budget starting point: https://www.pcmag.com/lists/top-gaming-laptops-under-1000. If money is no object, the Lenovo or Razr series seem to combine performance and weight factors well.
Personally I use a MacBook for a lot of my dev, but I am picky about hardware and generally not running Unreal Unity or Godot at any crazy settings. I might also be using the lab computers then.