New Vectorworks Spotlight and New Laptop

[gafftaper]

Hi,

I'm a college tech director and we just built a new theater. Along with all that I'm getting a new laptop, Vectorworks Spotlight, and Lightwright. It's easy to find out what the minimum system installation requirements are. But what is the optimal configuration? Is there any specific hardware/OS configuration I should avoid? Is my best bet just going with good old XP and a 32 bit CPU? I don't want to waste money on features I don't need for the laptop but at the same time I don't want to go cheap and under power the system. I've got the money available to do this right. Please help me to not screw it up!

Any advice will be appreciated.

[Christiaan]

Personally I wouldn't throw money away on a computer that can only run Windows and Linux when you could get a Mac that can run Mac OS X as well. In any case you'll probably find a Mac cheaper. Any of the current Apple laptops run VectorWorks very well (especially if you're not going to be using RenderWorks). It's more an issue of how big a screen you want.

[gafftaper]

Sorry, due to other software I need for work it's got to be PC.

[mike m oz]

You can run PC software on Macs via Bootcamp or Parallels

[Christiaan]

Sorry, due to other software I need for work it's got to be PC.

But that's my point. As Mike points out, you can run Windows. You can run it in emulation mode (at native speed) within Mac OS X:

http://www.parallels.com/

Or you can run it booting into Windows independently of Mac OS X:

http://www.apple.com/macosx/leopard/features/bootcamp.html

http://www.apple.com/macosx/bootcamp/

(it's a separate download at the moment but it will be integrated into Mac OS X come October when they release the next major upgrade to Mac OS X)