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SW and Laptops
2

SW and Laptops

SW and Laptops

(OP)
Hi there,

Does anyone run SW happily on a laptop - ie similar performance to a mid range workstation??

Anyone have any recomendations for a good manufacturer/brand?

I assume the main bottle neck in a laptop is the graphics card.  

I see some are getting the 1 gig RAM mark with a reasonable CPU.

Dave

RE: SW and Laptops

Check out the Dell M50.

Wanna Tip? FAQ731-376
"Probable impossibilities are to be preferred to improbable possibilities."

RE: SW and Laptops

Agreed, the Dell M50 is just about the only laptop that SW will run smoothly on.  In most cases the user is not exhausting the ram or maxing out the processor on the laptop.  It's my understanding, and personal experience, the video card is one of the major setbacks to running SW on a laptop.  This includes running in the "software open gl" mode.

Jay

RE: SW and Laptops

(OP)
had a look at the M50 - looks real nice,

I think alot of peaople would agree with u jay Re video card power.

IMHO laptop manufactures could sacrifice size/weight savings to accomodate space for video cards and required cooling.  Carrying a laptop around thats an extra 10mm thicker than a standard one wouldn't be an issue for most people wanting performance required.

Anyone else have any views on this?

Dave

RE: SW and Laptops

I remember reading an article a few months back on www.anandtech.com where they reviewed a few Tablet computers. The benifits of the Tablets were longer battery life, more standard internal componets, etc.

I might be getting my articles confused, but I want to say that the article talked about one of them running CAD (either ProE or ACAD) and it was surprisingly "nice".  This might also have been a posting to comp.cad.solidworks.

I guess spending too much time in front of my monitor has affected my short term memory...

Anyways, I just remembered that the tablets only run on a special version of Windows, so you might run into problems trying to run SW on a non-approved OS.  It still might be worth looking into.

Wanna Tip? FAQ731-376
"Probable impossibilities are to be preferred to improbable possibilities."

RE: SW and Laptops

What ever you buy don't go cheap on the laptop. If your wanting realibility with SW on a laptop get the better video card, don't get the ATI's or the Geforce cards. Get the Quadro. You will kick yourself when if you get the cheaper laptop with the low grade video card. You will save a lot of money getting those laptops but you won't save anytime or headache if you buy one.

I have a Dell 8200 with 512 RAM, XP Pro, and a GF 4 440 go video card. The worst card you can get with the dell laptops to run SW on. You can open parts and assmeblies alright, but if you open a part of an assemlby...it's time for a smoke or coffee break which you do . I take a nap . Everything about this computer is fine except for the video card and once you get the laptop (to my knowledge about laptops) the video card cannot be exchanged with another card.

So pay the money and get the M50 if you don't to , , or feel after you purchasing the lower end laptop.

Regards,

Scott Baugh, CSWP
3DVision Technologies
http://www.3dvisiontech.com
http://www.scottjbaugh.com
FAQ731-376
When in doubt, always check the help

RE: SW and Laptops

Hello Dave,

It is important that you do not get a "gaming" video card. You want a video card that can handle Solid Modelling (like the Quadro 2Go). Here are a couple laptops...

IBM ThinkPad A30P with an ATI Mobility FireGL 7800
Dell Precision M40 with a nVidia Quadro 2Go
Dell Precision M50 with a nVidia Quadro 500 GoGL

Cheers,

Joseph

RE: SW and Laptops

I agree with josephv.  I have the dell precision m50 with nvidia quadro 500 GOGL.  It's kickin butt, but as far as gaming's concerned, It runs jedi knight excellently.  Only drawback-Needs  a better carrying case, its heavy.

RE: SW and Laptops

I have a Dell Inspiron 8200
768 DDR Ram
64MB Nvidia GeForce4 440 Go
XP Home
UXGA ultra high definition screen

I have been very happy with this laptop. It runs both my CAM software and SW2003 at the same time with no problems. I mainly do industrial design so i will have alot of intensive features in my part but not alot of assembly type work. Now I would not suggest doing large assemblies on it because of the video card. One trick that i did to increase performance was to change in the bios the setting to max performance. Another thing people forget with a laptop that all intel mobile processors will clock down if on battery power. I use mine on ac power if doing alot of cad work.
 The 8200 has been replaced with the 8500 but it is still quite a bit cheaper than the M50.

RE: SW and Laptops

(OP)
Thanks for the comments guys,

It does seem kind of odd to me that there seem to be very few (I know there must be more than what are menstioned here) options when it comes to a high end 3D CAD/modelling laptop.

Just my thoughts anyway.

Cheerio

Dave

RE: SW and Laptops

FYI
The Dell M60 has the NVIDIA Quadro Go700 128MB card available. Not for free of course .

have fun make money
Paul

RE: SW and Laptops

Hi Joseph V.

Does it really matter if you get a 'gaming' video card or not, so long as your video card RAM is a minimum of 64mB?  The lager the RAM on the video card, the better I expect the program to run.  Besides, if a company is ready to pay the $$$ for Solidworks, I would expect it is ready to pay for the video card as well.  

If you are doing some serious engineering design, I would expect the company not to skip on the cost of the the tools to perform the work.  

I also noticed no one mentioned a docking station with a video card in it.  Just a thought.

RE: SW and Laptops

There is a great difference between gaming cards and CAD cards?  Yes, it matters a lot when it comes to ghosted images, strange blocks appearing on your display and missing/disapearing lines and such.  

You kind of answered your own question, in that the company should be buying you a CAD card over a gamming card, especially if they are willing to buy a solid modeler.

Wanna Tip? FAQ731-376
"Probable impossibilities are to be preferred to improbable possibilities."

RE: SW and Laptops

djw2k3

     I purchased a Toshiba Satellite 1805 a year and a half ago. This is a mid-level laptop with a 1000 mhz Celeron processon / 512 ram / and a built in video card. I think the cost of it was $1,400 to $1600 at that time - I'm not sure because I got it as part of a replacement package for a dead laptop.

     I was running SW2001 at the time on a 350 P3 machine at work – they were dragging their feet about purchasing replacement machines. I did a speed comparison between the two systems and then quickly disconnected my work machine and started using my laptop. A short time later – they offered me an AMD 1500+ (I think) machine (the 2100+ was available) – I did another speed comparison and gave it back to them (It was marginally faster) – They eventually gave me a halfway decent machine but they specified a nVidia GeForce 2 graphics card – Hay - what can I say - Stupid AND Cheap

     I do have to use software OpenGL – but it worked as my desktop for 4 or 5 months – that is good for me

  Lee

You are just jealous because the voices only talk to me.

RE: SW and Laptops

BUT...
If you do get a Game Card...
Get nVidia GeForce 4

my SW copy at home works great with this card...

voodoo cards and SW DO NOT MIX...

and whatever you do... DO NOT BUY the cheapest card you can find...

In 9.99999 cases out of 10... YOU GET WHAT YOU PAY FOR

And get a card with as much memory as you can... SolidWorks DOES Use It...

-------------Botom line-----------
If you can Afford it get a WildCat
If you can't... nVidia GeForce 4

3dlabs 10PK OEM WILDCAT VP 880 PRO 256 MB Video Card  ~$4,017

GeForce4 Ti 4600 GPU,128MB DDR 128-bit,8 X AGP/TV-Out/DVI ~$229

RE: SW and Laptops

I think like all business decisions you must weigh the cost benifit. I really think that unless you are doing extremely large assemblies and lots of aeronatuical, automotive work the video cards that cost $1500 and up are a waste of money. Plus we have all seen those specialty video card companies come and go ie Elsa Gloria Cards ect.. I have found that ATI cards are not SW friendly typically but NVIDIA cards are usually friendly. I think in these economic times it is unrealistic to expect a company to pay more for a video card than they do the whole new workstation decked out.

RE: SW and Laptops

Gentlemen

     Please read the Title for this thread. It is NOT about choosing a video card. It is about using SW on a Laptop. Since most Laptops simply do not have the room or the ability to handle the heat generated by a video cards – your posts are almost inappropriate.

     This does not mean that the video card issue should be ignored. Instead – it should become a primary consideration in the purchase of the laptop. I got lucky when I purchased mine. I had trouble with SW until I set the Software OpenGL check box. Then I compared the built in Video Card to the list of acceptable cards on the SW web site. There was not a direct match – But – most of the cards built by that company had problems and needed OpenGL. – I also found that if I had spent $250 more I would have gotten a much better Laptop that did not have the video card limitations that mine did.

     So if you haven’t purchased the Laptop as yet – print out the complete list – and then use it to make your purchasing decision. Shop in your price range - but eliminate every laptop that has video problems. Decide in advance if you are willing to accept the slower performance of the software OpenGL (time SW on a similar machine with it on and off).

  Lee


You are just jealous because the voices only talk to me.

RE: SW and Laptops

The main bottleneck in a laptop is the hard drive speed as compared to a workstation. The hard drives speeds in a laptop are typically 4000 RPM to 5400 RPM. This slows the retrieve speed from disk considerably when pulling up assemblies of any size or part count. Now, the world has moved forward and Hitachi has recently introduced a new high speed 7200 RPM drive (same as IDE equipped workstations). Dell has a few 7200 RPM equipped drives but the cost is very high($4500+). If you want a great workstation replacement in the form of a laptop, check out the big Sagers (Toshiba in disguise) at www.discountlaptops.com. I have used these machines exclusively and they are just great and much better than half the cost of an equivalent Dell.

RE: SW and Laptops

The bottle neck in most laptops IMO is the video card. Because in the recent years, if you only wanted to pay a decent $$ amount for a laptop you could, but you couldn't get a good video card that would run SW well.

All the HDD has to do with it, is opening the file off the HDD not the refresh speed on the screen. That's the job of the video card.

Regards,

Scott Baugh, CSWP
3DVision Technologies
http://www.3dvisiontech.com
http://www.scottjbaugh.com
FAQ731-376
When in doubt, always check the help

RE: SW and Laptops

Respectfully GPU speed does impact drawing speed and basic graphic functions, but if you open lots of parts and large assemblies continually during a session nothing, not even CPU speed impacts retrieval speed more than hard drive speed and RAM,(swapping). For example I have an old PIII 450 Mhz with 256 meg of ram, a 32 meg Open GL card, running with a 64 bit (long PCI slot) Dual channel SCSI HBA with twin 160 Mb/sec 10K RPM SCSI drives on each channel. I can pull a 4300+ part assembly off disk in about 8+ minutes, the same assembly on a 1.8 Ghz laptop with a 4000 RPM drive and 512 meg of ram with a 64 meg GPU takes close to one hour. Both machines are running Win2K. True the laptop spins images faster and repaints dwgs faster but getting the drawing into memory is painfully slow on the laptop compared to the old PIII. Obviously, rebuild times are slower on the PIII but if you had a similar processor speeds, RAM, GPU's in the workstation and the laptop, the laptop will always get nailed on drive throughput speed (unless you get a 7200 RPM drive)and that you pay for every time you open the files no matter the graphics speed.

Side note: The new Serial ATA (SATA) drives that appearing (as well as SATA equipped MB's) will seriuosly blur the performance line between medium to high end SCSI and IDE. Maxtor has recently a 10K RPM SATA drive that when installed on the new ASUS MB with SATA onboard the sustained reads and writes to the drive are now in the realm of SCSI 3. Speeds 500 Mb's/sec throughput are not far off for this protocol. And the price point makes SCSI less and less attractive as most new workstation motherboards PCI slots are only 32 bit (short slots), not 64 which defeats high end SCSI HBA and precludes getting the top performance out of them.

RE: SW and Laptops

I run s/w 2003 on a dell m50 on fairly large complex assemblies and it runs really well. Highly recommended. The newer models have the go 700 graphics chip which is supposed to be even better.

RE: SW and Laptops

We are successfully using Dell laptops with SW 2003 and previous versions.  We take them off-site and also use them for convenient portability when using projectors in conference rooms in-house.

However, please be aware that the SW 2004 Beta information suggests strongly that you should buy NVIDIA Quadro graphics cards for future compatibility.  They have apparently looked at trade studies and determined that the most popular and "most stable" gaphics for our application were Quadro based.  SW 2004 development is apparently being baselined on this.  We can argue that till the cows come home, but it seems to be a fact and at least they made an attempt. Many chip sets and cards do not appear to be as fully Open GL compatible as the manufacturers claim.

3/4 of all the Spam produced goes to Hawaii - shame that's not true of SPAM also.......

RE: SW and Laptops

(OP)
Reviving an old thread I know,

But getting back to Laptops with the Quadro Go700 card. Has anyone found/or know of a competitive machine to the Dell M60 using this card?

$5500 (NZ) is getting a little rediculous for the M60.  For example; basic compaq (& Dell) consumer laptops are running faster processors, similar RAM & HDD, but minus a good vid card (for 3D modelling) for half the price! Does this mean we are paying a couple of thousand dollars (NZ) for the priviledge of using a decent vid card in a laptop for 3D modelling?

djw

RE: SW and Laptops

DJW2k3 you can purchase an Inspiron 8200 will accept the Quadro card i have even seen step by step instructions with pictures of people doing this and the results are impressive. I have an inspiron 8200 myself and i have kicked the idea around but i have the total replacement policy for another 1.5+ years left on it. I may just get another new laptop. I would advise buying an inspiron 8200 it will save you alot of money and you can then spend approximately $390.00 for the quadro card from dell parts and put it in the machine. The inspiron 8200 is really a M50 architecture but without the video card and same processor. You will save about $1800.00 doing it this way plust the 8200 is a good laptop. Let me know and i may be selling mine.

RE: SW and Laptops

Make sure your comparing apples to apples. Check the speed of the hard drive Dell M60 has a 60 gig 7200rpm drive. I am using this system with and without the system plugged in for the last month, and am very pleased.

have fun make money
Paul

RE: SW and Laptops

(OP)
Hi whippet,

yeah I realise the Dell has the capability for a 7200rpm HDD drive as an option.  But the model I am comparing the costs for was the standard 40GB 5400 etc

Thanks Rocko will look into that

RE: SW and Laptops

I have a Dell Latitude with the Nvidia GF 4 440 go video chip.  (It's not a card, it's a chip.  That's why you can't change it.) This laptop has twice the ram and processor speed as the desktop I was using previously.  I like the portability, but the performance is not nearly as good.  The video chip has only 32 Meg of RAM.  If I have more than 3 or 4 SW windows open, it brings it to its knees.  Often I have to restart SW in the middle of the day to clear the garbage that builds up in RAM.  If I don't, I get to the point where after selecting an icon in sketch mode it takes up to 20 seconds for the thing to respond.  What's frustrating is that there is 1 Gig of RAM a few centimeters away from the video chip.  Too bad there wasn't a way to allocate system RAM to graphics.  Or is there?  

RE: SW and Laptops

actually Scott on the Inspiron series they are cards made specifically for notebooks. They are a much larger laptop than the latitude. Check out the dell website under forumns and you will see numerous people that have changed there video cards on the Inspiron series.

RE: SW and Laptops

wippet,

Couple questions on the M60.  I have been looking at laptops for a while and have looked into the M50 and 60.  My question is that the M60 has 1.7 processor, while the M50 has a 2.5.  I know that the the M60 will perform better and use less battery when not plugged in, but I am always plugged in and initial part loading times mean little to me (negating the faster hard drive.)  Do you know of any reason in these situations that the M60 would be a better performing laptop?  Thanks for any info.

Daniel

RE: SW and Laptops

Daniel the M60 is not using a true mobile pentium. Here is how dell explained it to me:
Pentum M 1.6ghz = Pentium 4-M 2.4 GHZ
I know it can be rather confusing but it seems that once again Intel is changing the number of chips that can fit into certain mobile systems.

RE: SW and Laptops

Rocko, I heard that comparison as well.  So that means that the M60 is going to be slower than the 2.5 ghz M50 that it is replacing in terms of absolute performance?  Or at least not significantly faster?  Seems odd.

Thanks

Daniel

RE: SW and Laptops

I'm not a techno guy. But what I was told is that the two bottle necks are the video card (ram) and HD speed. I am primarily using it (M60) as my desktop system. I run with a combination of assemblies (with under 1000 parts) and parts open in SW, while running 2-3 other programs and it is able to keep up well.

Bottom line is I would make the same purchase today. Tomorrow I’m sure someone will come out with a similar combination for less money and I’ll cry.

have fun make money
Paul

RE: SW and Laptops

Daniel that is correct but you have to look at the overall top end that the processor and video card capability is. The M60 handles a more powerfull video card than the M50.

RE: SW and Laptops

How many times!!!!!

SW has publicly stated that SW 2004 wsa BASELINED on Quadro.

RealView will only work on Quadro.

Geforce cards and others have many issues even with SW 2003 on certain hardware/OS combinations.  Look at past posts on graphics boards, speed, and performance.

Just get a Quadro and cut your risks (and maybe losses).

3/4 of all the Spam produced goes to Hawaii - shame that's not true of SPAM also.......

RE: SW and Laptops

Not sure who that last post was for..the Dell M50 and M60 both have Quadro cards supporting Real View.  

RE: SW and Laptops

Think JNR had to much coffee that day, Daniel is correct about the M50 & M60 and Inspiron 8200 can have Quadro cards in them.

RE: SW and Laptops

Correct, gentlemen.

  ....and yes, I did have too much coffee, plus a VERY frustrating week - damn customers seem think they know more that you do - so why do they think they need to come to you in the first place.... mutter, mumble.....only been doing this for 20 years.....been the only ones doing this for 20years!!!.....

My appologies for being distracted.

I was merely commenting in general that I think is is wise to minmize risks when you can, particularly since we have seen so many issues in the past that turned out to be Windows/Graphics Board/Open GL related in the end.

Had not gotten down as far as your posts on the Dell M series when I replied. I have slapped my wrist accordingly and will remember to read to the bottom before replying in future (and cut back on the caffein).

3/4 of all the Spam produced goes to Hawaii - shame that's not true of SPAM also.......

RE: SW and Laptops

Thank You, Daniel. The article shed a lot of light.

have fun make money
Paul

RE: SW and Laptops

Not to dig up too old of a thread, but just wanted to make a little update:

I just got the M60 after researching the laptop options and could not be happier.  I did some basic comparisions to my old workstation.

Specs on workstation:
Compaq W4000
1.8 pentium 4, 1 gig RAM, nVidia FX 500 card, 40 Gig7200 rpm HD

M60
1.6 pentium M, 1 gig RAM, nVidia FX 700 card, 60 Gig 7200 rpm HD

Open 6500 piece assembly:
compaq: 49 seconds (lightweight)
M60: 17 seconds

Open 500 piece assembly:
compaq: 1 min 5 sec (fully resolved)
M60: 29 seconds

I also did some historically machine intensive operations such as the new automated mold core and cavity creation, the deform feature, and others like that and the trend remains similiar.  The M60 is about 2 times as fast as my Compaq for these tasks.

Also to note, the Compaq was fully optimized in terms of XP setup and minimum services running, while the M60 is stock. (and we all know how much crap is running and not optimized on a stock computer.)

Needless to say I am extremely happy.

Thanks
Daniel

RE: SW and Laptops

Hi Daniel G,

I just want to know what type of RAM in your compaq w4000,

Is it SDRAM (PC133) or DDR.

Thanks

maxb

RE: SW and Laptops

BTW:  For what it's worth.  I just took a Dell laptop to Italy with SW and a complete aircraft cockpit/structure and our avionics assemblies in a single assembly file.  The customer (who uses CATIA) was blown away by the speed.

They though I had a JPEG up until I rotated it real time.  I've never seen 10 sets of eyeballs the size of saucers before....   

3/4 of all the Spam produced goes to Hawaii - shame that's not true of SPAM also.......

RE: SW and Laptops

To answer the question, my Compaq W4000 had DDR PC2100.  So it is slower RAM.

It almost makes me laugh some times how much faster the M60 is sometimes.  Put it this way.  My old machine when I would make a drawing (lightweight) for the 6500 pc assembly(lightweight) I could not add dimensions cause it was so slow...now there is almost no wait for dimensioning and balooning.

Daniel

RE: SW and Laptops

OK, lets look at this a little differently.  I am working on a theory here - feel free to shoot it down if you know better: For about the same price or less than the price of a top of the line SW laptop workstation, you could buy a laptop that runs SW well enough to get by for the time you are in the field AND a top of the line desktop that runs SW VERY well.

Am I way off?  If not, anybody have any recommendations for this midrange (read: affordable) laptop?

MP

RE: SW and Laptops

MattP buy a Dell Inspiron 8200 used with the 64mb Nvidia card. I would advise buying an inspiron 8200 it will save you alot of money and you can then spend approximately $390.00 for the quadro card from dell parts and put it in the machine. The inspiron 8200 is really a M50 architecture but without the video card and same processor. You will save about $1400.00 doing it this way plust the 8200 is a good laptop.

RE: SW and Laptops

Rocko is making a lot of sense.  And you can use the $1400 towards some desktop horsepower.  We are running some pretty heavy duty assemblies on a little less Dell than he is suggesting.

3/4 of all the Spam produced goes to Hawaii - shame that's not true of SPAM also.......

RE: SW and Laptops

(OP)
yet again reviving this old thread I know, but went the way of a Dell M60,

omigosh, i have to agree with Daniel Graham...this thing is like a tubocharged, intercooled, nitrous breathing...mini cooper

RE: SW and Laptops

I just ordered and installed my second GB of ram. I hit a wall, not on the model side, but making drawings and exporting them as E and DWG's.

Like the guys in Monty Python say “Don’t skimp on the pâté"

Also Happy new year to all

have fun make money
Paul

RE: SW and Laptops

Indeed, because of the GF 440 (NV17 core), Inspiron 8200 is not a good choice for SW. However it has been shown that the NV17 and the later NV25, which is the base for the Quadro are just about identical chipsets. If you are stuck with the 8200 or you do not want to spend the $350 for the Quadro 700, there are software tools out there to configure the 440 as a Quadro. See www.guru3d.com for some info, but be aware that it does take a little bit of work.

Worse yet, it seems that Dell wised up: I could not get them to sell me a Quadro without providing a proper M50 service tag.

RE: SW and Laptops

wow, I was right there with you on the TURBOCHARGED, INTERCOOLED, NITROUS BREATHING.... mini cooper?  How disappointing, I was expecting a REAL muscle car

Seriously, you are right, some of the laptops seem to be extremely powerful - particulalry Dell who seem to have it nailed.  I am ready to trade my office desktop for a laptop - as soon as there is some budget for it.....

John Richards Sr. Mech. Engr.
Rockwell Collins Flight Dynamics

A hobbit's lifestyle sounds rather pleasant...... it's the hairy feet that turn me off.

RE: SW and Laptops

(OP)
well more a muscle car squeezed into a mini cooper - but with a bit more finesse ha ha

Obviously u pay more for equivalent power in a laptop cf with a desktop - but really the M60 is a relatively high end desktop replacement.

Better watch it, am beginning to sound like a salesman arggggg

RE: SW and Laptops

Don't do it!!! Unless you have mobile requirements. I ran one of my top assemblies on my customers system, and can't help but wonder how much time I'm loosing. I will make it a priority to purchase a new desktop system for my office this year.

have fun make money
Paul

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