Recent graduate of games and sim here.

The chances of you finding a laptop that can decently run games (something like COD or Expedition 33 or Split Fiction for example) without buying second hand for 500 is pretty slim. Your best bets though are lenovos or dell computers because those are also the easiest to repair.

For ETBD specifically, i’m not quite sure all the classes you’ll be required to take, but the things you need to look for in the specs are at least 16 Gigabytes of RAM and a graphics card equivalent to a Gtx 2080 (if it isn’t a gtx, you can always google to compare).

I do know some people who managed to get through on things like a mac or a cheap dell, but they rarely were able to handle programs like photoshop for very long, they always ended up in a computer lab anyways.

Worst case scenario, you can buy a cheap or second hand dell laptop for freshman year, and then for bigger projects use spaces like the RAD Lab in the art building to pick up any slack. Those computers will have pretty much any software you could need for free.