Ah, the humble personal computer. Other than being used for posting photos of food and watching videos of screaming goats, computers are literally capable of creating brand new worlds. They serve as the power station for the rest of your game development tools.

Whether you’re looking to eventually build 2D, 3D, mobile or web-based games, be sure your base software and hardware meets these requirements:

Operating System: Windows: 7 SP1 , 8, 10, 64-bit versions only; macOS: 10.12

CPU: Supports SSE2 instruction sets

GPU: Supports DX10 and above

That’s it. If your OS, processor and graphics cards meet those specs, you’re in the right ballpark for your computing needs. Almost all modern home computers have those specs, and most of them have much more than that. If you’re willing to spend less than a month’s rent on a PC or Mac, you’ll have what you need to start creating games.