BarryH120 Posted June 17, 2009 Share Posted June 17, 2009 My wife designs gardens and wants to buy VW2009 Now I'm looking for a notebook with XP or Vista that will work flawlessly with VW. Who has good (or bad) experiences with recent notebooks. I'm thinking of spending 500-700 EUR THANKS!!! ps. Yes I already looked at the system req. on the website, but those refer to desktop videocards..... Quote Link to comment
IanH Posted June 18, 2009 Share Posted June 18, 2009 I'm a garden designer and use a laptop occasionally. Some things will always be slow no matter what specification machine you use. But generally no problems although its not quite as fast as my desktop. My laptop is about 3 1/2 years old. Its spec is Sony Vaio FS315S, Windows XP, 1.86 Mobile M processor, 2GB RAM, NVidia GeForce Go 6400. Most laptops bought today will exceed this specification as long as you go with one that has a decent graphics chipset which is the key decision IMHO. My wife has a netbook and I would not recommend going for this style of laptop. They are really designed for apps that are less resource hungry, especially in the graphics department. Screen size/quality, processor speed, min 2GB RAM, decent graphics card are the key features. Don't worry about the likes of dual core as this has little advantage when using Vectorworks. Quote Link to comment
brudgers Posted June 18, 2009 Share Posted June 18, 2009 I recommend a Dell precision, though outside your price range. Vectorworks is highly dependent upon the graphics card drivers. The drivers for most consumer oriented laptops are not updated after the first year if at all. The dell precisions have regular updates. Quote Link to comment
VincentCuclair Posted June 18, 2009 Share Posted June 18, 2009 Don't get Hp, I've only had problems with it mainly the graphics card and very bad/no help or service from Hp. Quote Link to comment
IanH Posted June 18, 2009 Share Posted June 18, 2009 Actually brudgers brings up an important point. Whilst the chipset in my Vaio is still supported by Nvidia, when I last tried to update from the Nvidia website, I was informed that I had to use the official Sony ones due to customised settings. As the correct performance of Vectorworks is so critical of the graphics card, it would be worth inquiring whether the graphics card can be updated from NVidia themselves, or if you have to use the manufactured supplied one. Shame about HP, but I know what you mean. I bought a Compaq laptop for my mother and the build quality is only fair. Having used DEC, which was taken over by Compaq, which was taken over by HP equipment for the last 25 years, all I can say is, they don't build them like they use to. If I was buying a laptop again, it would likely be a Dell, but the costs do start to quickly mount up when you start customising by adding the little options. Quote Link to comment
Thom Posted June 18, 2009 Share Posted June 18, 2009 As I understand, only Renderworks works with the video card, otherwise much of the graphics is processor driven. Quote Link to comment
Pat Stanford Posted June 18, 2009 Share Posted June 18, 2009 Mostly the other way around. The graphics card is used for OpenGL rendering and normal screen draws. Renderworks is primarily run on the CPU. Quote Link to comment
VincentCuclair Posted June 18, 2009 Share Posted June 18, 2009 Just as a side note, I privately have had an Acer Aspire 17"for the last 4 years as a budget alternative and this has worked faultlessly from day one! with VW 11, 12 and 2008,( it's only recently developed problems with the touchpad). Unfortunately it doesn't have the muscles for VW 2009 but Acer gets a big star in my book, (I know that Acer generally doesn't have such a good name but this is definitely not so in my case). Quote Link to comment
IanH Posted June 18, 2009 Share Posted June 18, 2009 As I understand, only Renderworks works with the video card, otherwise much of the graphics is processor driven. VW2009 is heavily dependant on the graphics card performance. The earlier versions of VW are not quite as dependant, but still affect overall performance. Some operations are graphics card limited in their own right (ie if using OpenGL rendering, gradient fills etc), whilst for many other operations, its a case of the more info (ie lines in a complex model, stipples etc) on the screen and the higher the resolution/colour bitdepth the display, the beefier the graphics card you will need to keep the operation of Vectorworks at a reasonable level of interactivity. Quote Link to comment
brudgers Posted June 18, 2009 Share Posted June 18, 2009 (edited) Whilst the chipset in my Vaio is still supported by Nvidia, when I last tried to update from the Nvidia website, I was informed that I had to use the official Sony ones due to customised settings. All mobile graphics processors are unsupported by NVIDIA. The reason is power management. Each laptop maker institutes their own power management scheme. There's no way for the generic driver to support it. Because the Dell precisions sport Quadro FX processors and thus are certified with high end graphics applications, drivers are regularly updated (drivers are the reason for a cost premium associated with the quadro cards). In the US, the Dell outlet offers refurbished, scratch and dent, and new - previously purchased systems. Often these are at a substantial discount depending on the current inventory. I don't know if the Dell europe has something equivalent. My Precision T7400 came from the outlet. I highly recommend it if it's an option. Edited June 18, 2009 by brudgers Quote Link to comment
IanH Posted June 18, 2009 Share Posted June 18, 2009 Whilst the chipset in my Vaio is still supported by Nvidia, when I last tried to update from the Nvidia website, I was informed that I had to use the official Sony ones due to customised settings. All mobile graphics processors are unsupported by NVIDIA. The reason is power management. Each laptop maker institutes their own power management scheme. There's no way for the generic driver to support it. That is not the case. I regularly updates my mothers Compaq laptop with Nvidia mobile graphics chipset from the standard Nvidia website. Quote Link to comment
MattG Posted June 18, 2009 Share Posted June 18, 2009 I have an HP Elite Book 8730w. I think it is wonderful and have had great support via cdw or HP. I'm not sure about other people's rumors with HP, but I think they are the most well build machines out there. I am speaking about the business class series, I don't really could the over the counter ones too much. I have a NVIDIA graphics card with the only bad part of it is that it comes with a huge power supply, but they think of it more as a close desktop replacement. They call it a "Mobile Workstation". Look around on CDW and you can get pricing, they are a little pricey, but worth it if you are on the PC side, and they still cost less then a mac. Quote Link to comment
BarryH120 Posted June 18, 2009 Author Share Posted June 18, 2009 Thanks for all the comments so far. With regard to videocards. Vectorworks remarks on their site: " NVIDIA's Geforce 6 and 7 series We highly recommend this series of cards too. Even though this series of cards target more towards entertainment applications such as games, we tested the most popular Geforce 7 series, and just like its sibling Quadro series cards, it behaves well and provides full support for the new OpenGL rendering features in VectorWorks. However, we DO NOT recommend other Geforce series cards such as Geforce FX series. " Now is this 6 and 7 series a bit outdated. I see a lot of 8 and 8 series. Somebody experience with those (otherwise i will buy a secondhand dell precision...) Quote Link to comment
Ray Libby Posted June 18, 2009 Share Posted June 18, 2009 Geforce 8 series will be fine. Don't by a lesser computer to get a 6 or 7 series card. Quote Link to comment
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