Video games developers

[dave_c]

Question from a slight technophobe, what sort of hardware and operating system would a typical game developer use? I've heard the term "development kit" is this just a software tool to work under a common operating system like Mac or Windows or is it an operation system and/or hardware in itself?

[Kinetic]

Hi Dave,
We are a small newly established development studio in Swansea, South Wales called FTS Studios. We are a 4 man team currently developing 2 games for release via Steam over the next few months and although we work from an office, our equipment and software doesn't differ hugely from anything you'd find in the keen home gamers machine: all running XP Pro, 2-4 gig of ram, fast but not cutting edge dual core and dx 9 graphics. We are using Cinema 4D for animation and modelling, Cubase Studio 4 for sound development, Photoshop for textures and touching up and our lone programmer is using Visual C++. All easily obtainable software and hardware and everything you will need to get started. The only other thing you may want to consider is getting dual-screens set up as the more destktop space abailabe for development the better. Hope this helps! Chris

[dave_c]

Thanks Chris, will that more or less be the same for 360/PS3 developers like Rockstar and Capcom for example? Do Macs ever enter the equation?

[TheEclipse]

Most professional companies will use a mix of both Mac and PC. Im studying games development. And we currently use both. As for hardware the only 'special' tools that I use is a tablet board which i find extremely useful for texturing on Photoshop. Other than that we just use a high powered computer with a generally good spec. (Nothing that most gamers wont have to play the latest games)

Software we use is things such as 3D studio max and Autodesk Mudbox