[bodge5000]

How is M1 for game dev? I've been thinking of getting one for my own personal laptop, but have had a few concerns, mostly just due to the issues of building software on a totally different platform to the majority of your target users (which'll be Windows, x86). I used to have some compatibility worries but I'd guess they've gone away now.

[sercand]

If you are using a game engine like Unity you should not worry at all. If you need to access Windows specific APIs, of course it is a different story. A Macbook is a perfect machine for developers: you can build for android and iOS, has a great screen, perfect touchpad, finally fixed keyboard and ports.

[bodge5000]

I use Godot at the moment, but have been experimenting with frameworks like Bevy and the like. I doubt I need immediate access to windows specific api as I currently work on Fedora without any issues, though from what your saying it sounds like you mean more mobile-game dev than desktop.

To be honest the last time I used a mac was I think a decade ago so they're just so unknown to me at the moment, but everyone else seems to love them so I'm quite tempted

[sercand]

I mean Unity in general for desktop and mobile. Mentioned exporting to android and iOS as an extra benefit.

[Dracophoenix]

What are the specs of your machine? If you've tried them, how have have other engines such as Unreal fared? Do you primarily do 2D or 3D development? How long are the build times?

[jayd16]

It depends on the type of game you're shipping. Not every library has caught up to offer a mac arm binary. You still see some Rosetta problems here and there.

You can't dual boot so you can't natively run the game you're working on. The graphics are integrated so you can't test on a PC GPU. VR dev doesn't work at all.

Lots of small things but if you also have a PC its not so bad unless you need some library that just doesn't work.