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[Malignanttoe]

My computer is dying (I think it's the processor) and I don't have the budget to fix or replace it. Developing a game has always been an interest of mine, but I'm not sure how much processing power I need to MAKE one. I'm sure an old school 2D RPG would be easy enough given my hardware, but what if I want to make something with 3D models and realistic textures?

[Superb Joe]

do you have any experience making games? if not start with a simple 2d thing anyway regardless of your goals and dreams. anyway the answer is it depends

[MSThalamus]

Well, I mean if your processor is actually _dying_ I wouldn't start any project. If you're really worried about your processing power in the short term, you could always develop a game in layers (which would be a good idea anyway, although not all engines lend themselves well to this approach). For example, let's say you want to make a card combat game similar to Hearthstone. So much of that game is logic that requires really next to no compute power. You could develop all that logic in a self-contained module, develop your data store and data access layers, and develop an easily replaceable text-based UI to complement that. Then, when you've got more / more reliable processing power available, you can swap the UI layer out for a GUI layer. The same thing can apply to an RPG, although graphical presentation is more complicated than for a card game.

Hope this helps!

[Bernie]

I made parts of my last game (a 2d pixel platformer) on a cheap and slow Windows 8 tablet in Gamemaker Studio. It took a bit longer to compile and try out, but other than that it wasn't a bad experience.

The version 4 Unity3d editor also seems to run okay on slow hardware (that's the one I tried, no idea how newer versions will perform).

Both options don't cost anything to mess around with so you could just go and see how well they run.

[haanuman]

Well it depends, how potato is your PC?

[ViktorTheBoar]

My computer was considered old-ish in 2014., I'm still making games on it!

[Foxwarrior]

People used to make games on PCs in 1990. 3D games even, technically. Nowadays, those games wouldn't qualify as potatoes. Grains of rice, maybe? Small crumbs?

[Schoq]

Back in my day we had to make do with cassava PCs

[Cobralad]

can your pc run slack

[Bellator]

Depends on a game and a platform you wanna make the game on 
For starters if you are a beginner, you could just play with JS/HTML5 and make an incremental game, post it on kongregate or reddit for reviews and start from here. If you can run notepad, that would be sufficient i guess haha

[Superb Joe]

the official answer is you can, but you won't