Game design course at College with view to going to local Uni

[Mr Allen]

Topic.

Could I do this course? Baring in mind I'd possibly have to buy a new PC to run Unity for the course and to do assignments and homework.

Part of the course is to eventually do game design at Sheffielf Hallam Uni with a view to getting a job in the Industry, this would be an absolute Fairy tale dream come true for me but at nearly 42 am I too old to be a Uni student?

I am awaiting an email from the guy I spoke to about the course on Tuesday with more details.

 

[pjcnet]

If you can go for it, even if you didn't get a job in the gaming industry it's great to have a coding and maybe graphics related qualification for many things.

I don't know the specs of your chromebook, but remember you might be-able to run Unity on it under Linux (usually Ubuntu), that said the spec of the machine would still be very low and this would also give you a very low polygon budget if you were doing fancy 3D. You wouldn't need a too powerful PC however to use Unity pretty reasonably.

BTW a lot of indie developers have now started using the Unreal Engine instead of Unity, it is a lot better in my opinion and is well worth the small royalty cost which is only payable once there's a certain number of sales. The free version of Unity also doesn't have a full performance monitor which is a nightmare for game makers to optimise their games.

 

[Mr Allen]

If you can go for it, even if you didn't get a job in the gaming industry it's great to have a coding and maybe graphics related qualification for many things.

I don't know the specs of your chromebook, but remember you might be-able to run Unity on it under Linux (usually Ubuntu), that said the spec of the machine would still be very low and this would also give you a very low polygon budget if you were doing fancy 3D. You wouldn't need a too powerful PC however to use Unity pretty reasonably.

BTW a lot of indie developers have now started using the Unreal Engine instead of Unity, it is a lot better in my opinion and is well worth the small royalty cost which is only payable once there's a certain number of sales. The free version of Unity also doesn't have a full performance monitor which is a nightmare for game makers to optimise their games.

How hard is it to run Linux or Ubuntu OS on my Chromebook?

I do have some technical skills but not enough to install an OS. Although in 1999 I did manage to install Windows ME off discs.

 

[Beguiling Orbit]

You're never too old (or young) to learn and pursue your dreams. I went back to college at age 43 and obtained my degree at 45. The students sometimes confused me for the professor. Some of them thought it was weird that I was in their class, as if they owned it or something. But I was friendly and they soon accepted me when they realized that I could make meaningful contributions to classroom discussions.

When I graduated, there was a woman who was 89 years old who graduated at the same time. There was also a 16 year old.

 

[pjcnet]

I've never had a Chromebook, but it doesn't look that difficult, I understand you have to use a Chrome extension called Crouton which allows you to access a Linux shell (like a command line) and then install Ubuntu and it can be dual boot. Apparently all Chromebooks will run Ubuntu, however it's a lot better if you have an Intel processor rather than an ARM processor as it's not compatible with many Linux programs, that said it does mention an ARM processor on the system requirements for Unity3D, please click here, but I've never tested it. If you don't know what your hardware specs are I could probably find out if you let me know your model number, if it's too low spec it's probably not worth attempting in my opinion, obviously some Chromebooks will be better than others and you might also have disk space issues on some, although you could add an external drive or even an SD card.

How to run both Chrome OS and Ubuntu on a Chromebook

There are other guides too.