laptop and gr3 smoothing questions

[Laura Duchesne]

Hey everyone,

I am thinking of getting myself a laptop in several months... something somewhat compact, with built in wifi, and the ability to allow gr3 smoothing... preferably under $1000 if I can. I've never owned my own laptop before, so this is a new thing for me.

My question is what would you recommend for this type of laptop, preferably a Toshiba brand?

What is recommended to allow gr3 smoothing?

Thanks for your answers.

 

[Brett Adair]

You should check Best Buy or Circuit City.....my friend caught a deal on a dual core with 1GB of memory and a good graphics card for like 599.00. It runs GR3 and everything else flawlessly. Very fast and a Toshiba Satellite brand as well.

 

[Josh Richardson]

I would post this at the grlevelx owner forums and Im sure he can let you know which graphics cards in the new Toshiba's will support smoothing.

 

[Chris Wilburn]

Yeah I was going to mention I think the smoothing is mostly if you have a good graphics card or not. Like Brett mentioned above it is hard to go wrong with a dual core processor with 1 GB of memory. The price for that Toshiba laptop at Best Buy looks to be a really good deal. I am not sure of exactly how good the graphics card needs to be to smooth on grlevel3, but maybe somebody can chime in in regards to that. I have a 3.06 Ghz processor with 1.5 GB of memory and my computer runs really good with several applications running related to chasing.

 

[J Kinkaid]

check bargain sites like slickdeals.net and fatwallet.com daily and you will find a great deal. Look for a machine that has a dedicated video card and remember that you can upgrade the ram and hard drive later.

 

[Skip Talbot]

I thought I would chime and nudge you towards something with 2GB if you are going with Vista. With only 1GB you are going to be bottoming out your memory by the time you load Grlevel3 with a few shapefiles. For the graphics, shoot for a DirectX 9 capable card with 256MB (such as a Radeon x1300 or x1400 or the equivalent Geforce). I got a Dell with a core 2 duo 2.0Ghz, 256mb Radeon, and 2GB for $1000 last November, so you should be able to get a pretty similar machine for your price range if you hunt around.

 

[Laura Duchesne]

Thanks guys... I looked at the gr3 site and yeah it requires a direct x 9 compatible video card. I guess that would make sense. Here is one system I found that seems good, although it is a bit over my $ limit, plus I am still unsure about using Vista.

Toshiba Satellite U200-PT7F 12.1" Intel Centrino Core Duo T2250 1.73GHz Laptop

At any rate, it's still early in the game for me and will continue to look around.

 

[John Diel]

This was posted by Mike (GRLevelx developerand Gibson Ridge Software Owner) back in January:

based on the Intel Graphics Media Accelerator 9xx series chipset (or higher dedicated video). This means you can buy a $499 notebook and have smoothing. Not only that, the Intel GMA also supports pixel shaders 2.0

So this computer will support the smoothing. There is a bug with the Intel Driver though. You will need to make sure "Force 16 bit Smoothing" is checked in the device configuration.

John Diel

 

[Jay McCoy]

Thats a nice machine Laura but you dont need near that to run GR3. You can find many laptops that will support DirectX9 for under $1000. I think the 2 most important things are your video card and more importantly RAM. You will need at least 1GB (I reccommend 2gb) of RAM to run all of your programs like GR3, Streets, internet, etc.. You can find a good 2.0ghz processor with 2Gb of RAM and a DX9 video card for under $1000. But a dual core will last you for a number of years upgrade wise. depends on if this will be a chase laptop only or will you use it at home for other things.

Look at these 2. Either would work great and is less expensive (still reccomend upgrading to 2GB ram).

http://www.bestbuy.ca/catalog/prodd...=20354&PCName=laptop_toshiba&logon=&langid=EN

http://www.bestbuy.ca/catalog/prodd...=20354&PCName=laptop_toshiba&logon=&langid=EN

I will say I am not sold on Vista and try and avoid it like the plague for now. Give me XP pro anyday.

 

[Laura Duchesne]

Yeah I saw those two as well... the only thing I don't like about these new laptops is that they are all preloaded Windows Vista Premium Home Edition. I don't know if it's any good, I've heard people are avoiding it for now, although my dad who's into computers says I would like it. This will mainly be used for storm chasing, especially when in the alley... my main PC will do all my other things.

Is it true that if a latop is built for a specific OS that you need to have that OS running on it? If that's the case, I may have to go find an XP Pro machine. Who knows... maybe my thoughts on Vista will change when I learn more about it.

 

[Benjamin Smith]

I wouldn't worry too much about Windows Vista designed systems. Even if it comes pre-loaded on there, you can wipe it out and install XP-Pro no problems. I would also avoid Vista for at least another year or two while they get all the bugs out of it.

Most pc's and laptops bought from these huge electronics stores come pre-loaded with all sorts of stuff you will never use. That is why I always start fresh with Windows XP Professional, then install the programs I want to use.

 

[Blake Michaleski]

i just got a very good deal on a laptop from a private company as they were upgrading alot of their computers. It's only a 1gHz processor and 512 memory and it runs GRlevel3, my mapping software, and most other stuff fine. It has an ATI radeon graphics card and smooths the radar data well...

point is , dont overlook slightly used computers if you know how to work with them. I got this one wiped clean, I put XP pro on it and am very happy with it. If it somehow gets destroyed during a chase or an upcoming tropical cyclone intercept, I'm not out much...

if you need warranty, tech support, etc, then you would want to look at new.

 

[Jay McCoy]

You can run any operating system you want Laura. There arent really any systems built specifically for Vista yet. They will run XP Pro quite nicely and without the bugs and headaches that Vista will bring over the next year. the good thing here is you would already have the Vista CD so you can reinstall it once they get it working right.

Mostly you can search around for laptops that still have XP Pro if you choose. I was mostly trying to point out there are many great laptops that have the system requirements you need for well under $1000. I bet you can get one for under $800 that will fit your needs easily. But I would also spend that extra $$ on getting more RAM!! its all about memory otherwise it may take 5 minutes to open a program and it may not update as easily.