Good laptops for 3d work

[Bathyscaph]

Anyone doing much 3d work on a laptop these days? I am looking to get something that will be well-suited to working on the road and was just wondering what experiences people were having with the current crop of laptops. Most seem to come with Vista, and I was also if that was causing any issues with max, maya, ZBrush, etc.

So far, the laptops I've found from Asus seem to have the best all-around specs/price ratio but with ten million models to compare it's hard to say for sure.

Thanks in advance for the input.

[siliconbauhaus]

The hp 9000 is a good one. I have the 8000 model and it does everything I need it to do including most of my renders. If you order one you could probably request XP instead of vista.

[DaForce]

Just ordered a Dell 1520 for my GF, 2ghz core 2 duo 2gb ram, a Nvidia 8600GT 15.4 inch screen (1450x1080 or something) and all the other usual junk... AND vista but was like under 2400 AUD

I was initially after another model the 6400 but they then stopped offering any decent video cards for it and the only option was the onboard intel950 which is utter CRUD. So they said new models would be out in a few weeks... and well they were

So I will get back to you in more detail in a couple of weeks after its been delivery and I have loaded everything on to it.

[jacksc02]

cant go passed a macpro really. Great screens nice n light and they look pretty too. Plus you can get them up to 4gb of ram without too much fuss

[Blitterswitch]

I recently got a Dell Inspiron 9400, it has 2.0ghz c2d, 2 gb ddr2 667 ram, 256mb nVidia 7900gs, 160gb hd and a 17" 1920x1200p screen. I love it, and it is definitely the best laptop I have ever had.
It is rather big though, but it is definitely a 'desktop' in a laptop rather than a slow version of a desktop which is truly amazing.
I got it for £950 about a month and a half ago, although Dell has only just updated it lines so you may not get as great a deal as I did.
Its worth noting that the nVidia 8600 in the macbook pros is slower at general direct 9 stuff that the 'older generation' nVidia 7900gs in my Dell. Don't fall for the DirectX 10 hype.

[DaForce]

Only problem with a macbook is I dont think you can put winxp 64bit on them... AFAIK

[jacksc02]

you sure can

[DaForce]

ahh sweet, thought I had seen someone mention drivers not being available for the hardware on xp64.

[Bathyscaph]

Thanks for all of the great feedback folks!

I am going to look into all of the models you've mentioned.

[jacksc02]

ahh sweet, thought I had seen someone mention drivers not being available for the hardware on xp64.

lots of people have mentioned drivers not being avalible for xp64 but personally I have had no issues in almost 2 years!

[DaForce]

you using a mac book tho?

Thats what I meant.. boot camp gives you a driver cd so you can install the proper drivers, AFAIK they dont offer 64bit drivers for their hardware.
Im sure you could find some drivers on the net but for the exact hardware.. I dont know.
People were saying it works mostly but the trackpad doesnt work and some of the volume buttonts or something.. cant recall 100% it was in another thread.

[Blitterswitch]

Daforce is spot on, the trackpad doesn't work as well as the isight and lots of other stuff in winxp64.

I personally wouldn't bother with xp64 or vista64 on most laptops simply because it is very rare that they support more than 4gb of ram. Just use xp32 with a /3gb switch.

[Dynedain]

I just got a MacBook Pro... and I was the one who made the comments about the missing drivers....

I'll be putting XP 32bit on it because of the driver issues. I use XP 64bit on my Mac Pro (Desktop, not laptop) because then I don't have to worry about the drivers for the trackpad. Usually the keyboard of a laptop also requires special drivers because every manufacture does something different for the function keys (screen brightness, volume, number pad, etc.) Apple is no exception. And the CD/DVD eject key on a mac keyboard doesn't work under XP 64 (again because there is no driver for it) so you have to right-click on the drive and eject. And since there's no drivers for the Apple touchpad for XP 64.... good luck right-clicking (single mouse button).


I supposed if you always use a USB keyboard and mouse, it's not as much of an issue... but you'll still have problems trying to adjust things like screen brightness.


So, because of all the hassles and wierd proprietary hardware, I wouldn't put XP 64bit on any laptop that can't be ordered with it pre-installed. XP 32bit however will work just fine on a MacBook Pro with Bootcamp since part of the BootCamp process is to burn an XP 32bit driver disk.[/img]

[DaForce]

Ahh yeah thats right.. it was you

The Dell laptops can certainly come with 4GB of ram.

[jacksc02]

the macpro im specing for my boss has 4gb of ram too