Don’t know if this question is relevant to this group or not, if not accept my aplogies for posting.
I am planning to buy a laptop and would like to take your advise on what kind of hardware and software setup i require. I usually work only in windows platform involving in 3D graphics development.
My Usuage :–
–> Extensive 3D graphics development in areas
of virtual reality and 3DGamming .
–> Latest OpenGL/DirectX support.
–> Ability to load 5 million triangles of data.
–> Stero support for walk-tru realism.
–> Hi-Quality Audio.
–> support Anti-aliazing, Tranparency,alpha
blending,Shaders,Texture Mapping,VOB…
some of the terms i dont know
here… Still learning…
Please let me know the following.
Processor configuration (how abt intel core duo?)
Graphics Card.
Sound Card.
Any specifications for RAM and MotherBoard.
Screen Resolution in inches?
Any specific dealer you suggest for laptop like Dell,HP,IBM…?
which OS, WindowsXP or Vista?? However i have been using XP past 3years before which i have used Windows NT.All my 3D graphics applications are developed using Visual Studio(VC++).
Core2 Duo: - you simply cannot go wrong here. AMD has got some great processors too, but I’ve always been an Intel man.
Graphics: If price is no object, NVIDIA’s 8800GTX. Otherwise, one of the less expensive but still best on the market 8800s.
Sound: You have a lot of choices with sound. Some motherboards come with good audio built in, some don’t. Soundblaster’s X-Fi is rated tops, as is most anything from Creative.
Motherboards: again, many good choices. I like NVIDIA’s nForce 680i. It’s got everything you need right on the board: SLI, audio, network, and RAID ready. My only gripe is that there’s no on-board speaker with the LT version (weird!).
4a. Ram: Good question! Make real sure you ram is rated for the mobo you’re getting. Check the voltage requirements. Many good mobo makers will have a list of approved RAM on their website. Read it! This can avoid some serious problems later on. Try to get 2 sticks of DDR2 800+ (check mobo support) to utilize the “double” in DDR. And with SLI, you want to check that the RAM is SLI ready.
4b. Power Supply: Make sure you have juice-a-plenty for your devices. 700 watts is not uncommon nowadays, especially if you have a GeForce 8800.
4c. Hard Drive: 300Gb+, SATA2. Most new mobos support the SATA2 interface, and it makes plugging in hard drives a snap.
4d. Case: Bigger is better. Full tower with plenty of fan bays (at least 3).
Monitor: CRT or LCD? I’m a LCD man myself. There are several factors that determine the quality of LCD monitors. Here are a few:
Resolution (e.g. 20.1 inch is great with UXGA display and gives a nice native resolution of 1600x1200)
brightness (higher is better),
contrast ratio (higher),
response time (lower),
pixel pitch (lower),
Display colors (16.7 million for true 24 bit, beware of 16.2 million and like ditheredness)
Display type (UXGA/WUXGA if possible)
DVI (most have it)
HDMI (the very latest models have it)
Reseller: Depends on whether you’re a build-it-yourself kind of guy. I like Newegg, but obviously Dell is a good choice too. If you want to experience the immense satisfaction of piecing together your own dream machine, head on over to newegg, browse the merchandise, read the specifications, read the reviews, then grab the goods!
OS: Your XP is fine, but you’ll probably need to buy a new copy unless you’re ditching you old system.
I hope this helps get you started! If you’ve got the time, you might want to Google around a bit for each of these categories and read some articles on what to look for.
Latest Intel CPU’s are great. Core2 Duo is a good choice.
Graphics card - GeForce 7600GT/7900GT. I don’t know if GeForce 8 is available for laptops for reasonable price. If ou can get GeForce 8 then go for it.
I still have 7800GT and I’m not upgrading yet. There aren’t any games making use of new features and I don’t have the time to play with them either. So the only thing I would gain from upgrading would be speed but 7800GT is fast enough for now. When I want to I’ll upgrade to GeForce 8. With a laptop you may not be in such comfortable situation so you should consider GeForce 8.
OS - you’ll probably get Vista with your laptop anyway. Try it. If you feel like XP was better then you can stick with XP.
Memory - 1GB at least. Keep in mind that memory is usually something you want doubled after a year or two.
FSC will release a new workstation laptop with g80 based graphics end of next month. I had the chance to test the prototype and I can say I was very impressed.
Thanks all for you replies,
i think as k_szczech mentioned i will go for GeForce 7600GT/7900GT.
Tin Whisker, you gave me a lots of inputs to explore thanks for it, however i am looking for notebook intead of desktop.
As a Final question, if we take vista utimate 64-bit and multiple processor does it simply help in performance boost or we need to build writing code skills in a manner to utilize the harware capabilites to its maximum extent?
–> Latest OpenGL/DirectX support.
You won’t get “latest” OpenGL and DirectX (DX10!) support if you don’t take a GeForce 8xxx or Quadro based on the G8x architecture.
Laptops should be available soon as Matthias said. http://www.nvidia.com/object/notebooks.html
You want one with “ShaderModel 4.0” which means DX10.
–> Stero support for walk-tru realism.
Native OpenGL stereo requires a workstation board and laptop manufacturers normally don’t offer the required 3-pin stereo sync plug.
If you take a GeForce there is a stereo driver which can convert applications to stereo behind their back, but that doesn’t work for all apps.
Still, stereo is not going to work on laptop screens in general, except for some exotic HW.
Vista sucks up so much memory that 64-bit is a recommended solution if you’re running into memory limitations.
Good luck finding certified 64-bit drivers for your peripherals, these are the only ones which will work.
Multicore CPUs are not faster in applications not written to use multiple CPUs efficiently.
The overall responsiveness of the system should increase because the many processes normally running will get more CPU resources, but if you program yourself, it’s your task to make use of multiple CPU cores.
Still learning…
one with “ShaderModel 4.0” which means DX10.