Laptop/Notebook Performance???

WickedFingers

The right laptop within the professional art world:

I'm not too familiar with the performance of laptops or notebooks when it comes to rendering ungodly amounts of polygons or sub dividing 50 times in Z-brush. I don't trust testimonials from manufacturer bases websites so I thought I'd ask Polycount.

I know desktop computers are capable of higher performance when in comes to rendering scenes or calculating millions of polygons but what about laptops. What I’m trying to get out of this is information from artists already in the industry rather than the Best Buy salesmen that’s only interested in selling a product.

So without anymore rambling from me, what type of laptop would keep up with video game design… Or better yet if you’re a game artist in the industry what kind of laptop do you use and what’s inside it?

BradMyers82

I don't really have any answers for you, but I think your going about this the best way.

I bought a laptop in a electronic store a year ago and now wish I had did my research before hand; as laptops can't be upgraded really in terms of graphic cards and such.

BoilingOil

I'm using a Dell XPS M1730. It has a T7700 (Core 2 Duo 2.4) with 4GB of ram (I'm using XP32 so it's only showing up as 3.18GB). It has dual GeForce 8700M GT's in SLi mode. This laptop's GPU can be upgraded to the 8800M GTX in SLi mode. Cost was around $3000USD one year ago. I guess a computer of the same strength would have been about $900-$1100 less. But I like having a portable machine.

The character i'm creating is Zbrush has about 3 million polys, all subtools on at the same time, and I don't see any slowdown. I regularly have Google Chrome, Photoshop, 3ds Max and Zbrush open at the same time, and I've got about 79 processes active. My cpu usage when i'm working like this is about 11-15%.

MLinderholm

I'm using a Dell XPS M1730 aswell, but with the 8800M GTX SLI cards. GPUs use MXM interface and should be pretty easy to upgrade (probably insanely expensive thou ). I love working on it, it's not something you carry around every day but it is portable.

Performance in Zbrush, Photoshop, Maya etc. is top notch for me, never had a problem.

mikezoo

With laptops it seems like the more power you want, the larger its gotta be, thus transforming it away from a laptop. Trust. Its no fun carting around a 17'' beast of a machine that's super loud whenever on.:poly121:

WickedFingers

Thanks everyone who responded so far. This is really helping me make a better more clearer decision on what I should be looking for. I was looking at Alienware but steered away from that route quickly. Alienware just seems too costly and I heard they are really heavy not to mention loud. Don't care much for my computer to "look cool" in order to complete projects either. Looking to spend around $2,000... somewhere in that ballpark.

Looking to get:

XP instead of Vista (not sure on this yet)???
Core 2 Duo... but what about quad core technology???
At least 4 GB DDR2 SDRAM 800 MHz.
NVIDIA GeForce 8800M GTX SLI or Higher... Thinking ATI Graphics Cards also???

WickedFingers

Dell seems to be a nice route to take... Still thinking though.

Michael Knubben

Get Vista. I don't have it myself, but the thing with people staying with Xp isn't that it's better than Vista, its that Vista isn't lightyears ahead of Xp. If you're getting a new computer, do yourself a favour and make use of all of the ram in your system! XP's limited to 4 gigs (and only 3 gig per program, I believe), Vista can use much more. Check if your favourite software runs on Vista first, but really: it should.

Jonathan

MightyPea wrote: »

Get Vista. I don't have it myself, but the thing with people staying with Xp isn't that it's better than Vista, its that Vista isn't lightyears ahead of Xp. If you're getting a new computer, do yourself a favour and make use of all of the ram in your system! XP's limited to 4 gigs (and only 3 gig per program, I believe), Vista can use much more. Check if your favourite software runs on Vista first, but really: it should.

Vista 32 (what comes on the majority of laptops) is limited to less than 4gb of RAM just like Windows XP. There is a "3gb switch" for both XP and Vista (just Google "3gb switch" and your OS of choice). The limitation is a 32-bit OS, not XPvs.Vista.

Secondly, Vista uses more RAM than XP, so not only does Vista not really offer benefits over XP for maximum accessible RAM, it also uses more for system resources, therefore any "gain" you get from Vista is rendered null and void.

As for me, I use XP64 on my desktop and Vista-32 on my laptop (just because there's no XP support for my laptop).

Flynny

I never quite understood the whole "Vista uses more ram so it must be bad", Seems the opposite so far from my experiance.

Back on topic im using a Dell XPS m1530, runs maya brilliantly for animation and is a decent size and bit an bats.

WickedFingers

Thanks again for the input.

Does or has anyone looked into www.sagernotebook.com or www.xoticpc.com. I'll have to check them out as far as placing orders and sending money. I hate ordering from a new sites over the internet... I could end up giving away money with no order on the way.

I like the NP9262 model (#3) looks nice, customized of course but I don't know about the company.

fr0gg1e

I have a Sager (or should I say Lenovo), one of the previous model, but customized almost like this http://www.notebookreview.com/default.asp?newsID=4222 and it is a quality machine. (oh and read this forum if you want infos on xoticpc, wich seems to be a reliable site from what I gathered)
I love it. Runs everything great altho max is chunkyer than on a desktop, probably due to the graphic card (for some reasons).

frubes

i picked up this acer about a month back and havnt looked back since. Its great. I wont go into all the nifty features and i did quite a lot of research etc but needless to say it was the best laptop i could get for a reasonable price.

http://www.overclockers.co.uk/showproduct.php?prodid=LT-061-AC&groupid=959&catid=1201&subcat=&name=Acer%20Aspire%206920%20Gemstone%20Blue%20Intel%20Core%202%20Duo%20T5750%202.00GHz%2016.0%22%20Laptop%20-%20Vista%20Home%20Premium%20(LX.APT0X.040)

runs all the programs listed with ease and im really chuffed with it.

WickedFingers

fr0gg1e wrote: »

I have a Sager (or should I say Lenovo), one of the previous model, but customized almost like this http://www.notebookreview.com/default.asp?newsID=4222 and it is a quality machine.

Fr0gg1e, where did you order your Sager from? I'm hesitent to order straight from Sager since the BBB (Better Business Bureau) gave them an "F" rating (lowest rating for a business over all areas)...

Jay Evans

im using an dell M90
http://www.dell.com/content/products/productdetails.aspx/precn_m90

If I was to do it all again today, I'd just get a Dell XPS gaming lappy. For all the bother with hot rod vid cards and new drivers, the xps is a best selling laptop with lots of support and it will handle all your 3d stuff. Yes there may be better options but this is simple, click, click, buy, make art. forget about it.

fr0gg1e

WickedFingers wrote: »

Fr0gg1e, where did you order your Sager from? I'm hesitent to order straight from Sager since the BBB (Better Business Bureau) gave them an "F" rating (lowest rating for a business over all areas)...

I went to a B&M shop that was selling it.

PolyHertz

Last laptop I got was AN Asus c90s from GentechPC about a year ago due to many recommendations it got from various other laptop owners, but I've heard good things about Sagers and XoticPC as well.

If I were to get a laptop today it'd be something with 4gb of ram, Core2 duo or quad at 2.4ghz or higher, a Geforce 9600m or 9800m, and screen at 1680x1050. You can get 8gb of ram but it tends to be extremely expensive due to a limited # of dimm sockets forcing use of 2x 4gb sticks. Screens also go 1920x1200 even on 15' but that resolution can make things more difficult to see on such small screens.

WickedFingers

I just purchased my Sager NP9262 a couple minutes ago from Xotic PC. Notebook cooler I had to order from newegg. Can't wait til it gets in my hands...

Thanks again to everyone who sent info and recommendations!