Need laptop for school. Computer Graphics Technology.

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Raines8416

[H]ard|Gawd
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Hey guys, this fall Im gonna be starting school. Im going for Computer Graphics Technology. The school told me I will be using Maya for the 3D work. Now all I need are some reccomendations for a good laptop that will be able to run Maya well. Im only looking to spend $1750 tops, preferably only around $1500. I was looking at getting a refurbed Inspiron 9200 with a gig of ram and the Pentium Mobile 2.0ghz. Would the mobile CPU be ok for using Maya?
 
it's the graphics card you need to worry about mostly... and you're not likely to get that sort of oomph out of a lappy without it getting hot enough to burn a hole in the floor ;)
 
Well the Inspiron 9200 has a 128mb 9700 Pro. Will that do? Im going to still have my main rig but the school is only 30 mins away so I am going to live at home but I will be going all day. So I want something I can take with me to school most every day and be able to do work on.
 
that's a little weak in the knees... but it'll do, if you don't mind obnoxious rendering times.

the real problem is how the graphics card is designed to process data... most of the ones you see around here are designed for gaming. you need one that's optimized for running stuff that likes OpenGL.

A 3DLabs Wildcat Realizm 800, for instance, is so powerful that it's scary... it's a dual-GPU PCI-E monster that requires a full tower case just to fit. You'd see render times in the close-to-a-minute range (most likely) with that baby... but it gets (get this folks) 3fps in doom3-- i'm not joking (it's an actual figure off their site)
It also costs over $2000 by itself.

Your gfx card *will* work, but it'll have render times in the 2+ hour range (most likely) and the heat thrown off will burn straight through whatever surface it's on (slight exaggeration, but you'll probably see temps go up, if not past, 120 F) and there really ain't much you can do about it... you can't mod a lappy.
 
actually what you most likely want to do is custom-build one with a pair of 120mm fans... you're gonna want that much cooling.

and whatever you do, do NOT get the targus chillmat from best buy... it's $30 and worth maybe $10... it puts out a measly amount of air (somewhere around 4cfm... no joke) that's really not enough to do much of anything.

'course, were it me, i'd use these fans.
 
that'd be perfect! ...if you can actually find a lappy with that... i've never heard of one like that tho.
 
T40p, T41p, T42p from IBM have FireGLs.

in your price range you'd have to look into older versions, in which case the FireGL is probably offset by the weaker card....
 
Yea. Those lappys with the firegl. Most deffinatly not in my price range, hah. The IBM ones were all around $3500.
 
starhawk said:
that's a little weak in the knees... but it'll do, if you don't mind obnoxious rendering times.

the real problem is how the graphics card is designed to process data... most of the ones you see around here are designed for gaming. you need one that's optimized for running stuff that likes OpenGL.

A 3DLabs Wildcat Realizm 800, for instance, is so powerful that it's scary... it's a dual-GPU PCI-E monster that requires a full tower case just to fit. You'd see render times in the close-to-a-minute range (most likely) with that baby... but it gets (get this folks) 3fps in doom3-- i'm not joking (it's an actual figure off their site)
It also costs over $2000 by itself.

Your gfx card *will* work, but it'll have render times in the 2+ hour range (most likely) and the heat thrown off will burn straight through whatever surface it's on (slight exaggeration, but you'll probably see temps go up, if not past, 120 F) and there really ain't much you can do about it... you can't mod a lappy.
Click to expand...


Well... this is partly true, but mainly leaning to not-true.

Except for the hardware rendering mode, as mentioned right above here, video cards have almost nothing to do with rendering. Rendering is almost entierley done by the CPU. (and RAM helps alot).

HOWEVER, what the video card DOES impact is viewports. With a mobile vid card, don't expect to easily scroll about in scenes with hundreds of thousands of polys and verts.
 
Well I think I am just going to go with the Insprion 9200. Its in my pricerange and Im not gonna be using the laptop just for the work. Im going to be doing mostly other stuff, and the majority of my 3d work will probably be done on my desktop. I just figured if the 9200 would work somewhat OK with Maya for little peices off work.
 
yeah... it should render the small, low-poly, low-vert stuff before class ends... by which i mean like a half hour.

don't forget the chill mat!

:cool:
 
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